I wish I knew more about dangerous health situations. Tuesday at noon, I came upstairs to discover my mom lying on the living room floor. She said she had finished her breakfast and was walking to her chair in the living room and felt so weak, she had to lay down on the floor.

I took her blood pressure and it was very low: 86/43. I learned that's really not good in someone who usually has high blood pressure. She takes meds for that, but hadn't had it that day.

A short time later, it was 84/50. After about an hour, she crawled to the couch. She lay there for about three hours.

I didn't know how dangerous her low pressure was and waited until later in the day to call her doctor. His assistant said I should get her to E.R. right away, even though her numbers were up to 93 over 60.

I know that if you go in an ambulance, you get seen fast so I called 911. She had all kinds of tests while at the hospital and they couldn't figure it out.

She's home and her blood pressure has been normal but I can't get her into her regular doc to follow up for 10 days. Figures.

This is the third time in a year she's gotten so weak that I've called 911. I wish I knew more about how to help her when this happens. I did get her to drink some orange juice, but I keep thinking there must be something else.

Of course, it didn't help that our air conditioning was out for two days and the temp was 99 both days. Ugh! It's fixed now though.