It's been a roller coaster week. Last Wednesday my 88 year-old mom ended back up in the hospital with pneumonia for the third time in 3 months. One lung was full of fluid. They drained the fluid and when we saw her Saturday she was doing much better. She has a keen wit and it was out in force. The doctor came in and let us know what he knew. They still had test results to come back so he couldn't say what was causing this. (They sure are making doctors younger and younger!) When the doctor left my mom looked knowingly over at Zoe, wiggled her eyebrows up and down, and said "He sure is cute!" Definitely feeling better. After seeing my mom, in Auburn, we continued south to Tacoma and visited Zoe's mom at Western State Hospital. I couldn't see a change but Zoe thinks her Alzheimer's is continuing to get worse. Physically she was doing worse. Her knees were bothering her and she was having a very painful time walking. We had a good visit. Sunday my brother Terry called and said they found out what was causing my mom's pneumonia and that she would be going back to the nursing home on Monday. Later my other brother Roger called. He had seen Mom and she was doing worse. They had moved her to another room and made Roger and family wear masks because what Mom had was contagious. He couldn't remember what it was. Since Zoe and I had kissed Mom on leaving her and then went to see Gerry and kissed her we were concerned. I called the hospital and they were reluctant to tell me anything but when they found out that we were exposed and that Gerry was exposed they told me it was respiratory MRSA. Nasty stuff. At least they seem to think they have the tools to deal with it. We warned Western State Hospital. It turns out they are used to dealing with various forms of MRSA. Mom went back to here nursing home on Monday as scheduled. The moms aren't doing well.