What a roller coaster.
While I'd like to pretend life is all Polly Anna and stuff, the truth is, I'm a wee bit at my whits end. After my blog about my mother coming to live with me things got a bit nuts around here. What was expected to be a reasonably simple "Moms just getting older" turned into a two week stay in the hospital and a hell of a soul searching decision.
Thursday November 7th, I woke up and took my mom to a doctors appt. The week before it was a blur. I had moved her in to our home with the intention of packing her stuff and all that jazz, but with the expectation that she was healthy just needing a bit more support. Deep down in my gut I knew I was fooling myself. She was sick and in denial. Cardiology appointment went OK, but following that prompting that "something isn't right", I asked them to pull some labs. I took her home a few hours later and went to co-op. I couldn't actually teach my classes at all because I was so distracted with worry. by 4 pm, I got a call that her labs were critical and she needed to get to a hospital immediately. In fact, the lovely nurse offered to send an ambulance.
I carried her. I didn't want her to be scared of an ambulance but indeed, even since I had seen her 2 hours before, she had rapidly decompensated and couldn't walk much. I did what anyone would do - I carried her. I spent the night in the ER as I watched her be unable to tell us her name, she couldn't say where she was, she was nearly in a coma.
Was this my Mom? What the hell did I miss that morning that I didn't take her in to the ER instead of taking her to a cardiology appointment? Guilt overcame me.
I signed form after form for her care. Basically they told me not to hold my breathe, she might not make it through the night..... Two weeks in the hospital, constant medications and ICU care, we faced a cross roads. Countless doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists, you name it, we saw them. Test after test confirmed that not a lot was changing. We had to "face the facts".
I waited diligently by her side. I answered questions about her health as best I could. I became known as "the tenacious daughter of 42". Well, damnit, I need to know what the heck was going on. I didn't appreciate floor 6, I am glad we moved to ICU when we did, I might have punched a nurse or two...
Once in ICU it became clear, her poor body just wasn't going to get better. We needed to make a choice - do we keep probing, prodding, or do we focus on bringing her home and surrounding her with a great family and good memories.
One of the hardest parts of this process is my Mama doesn't realize she's dying. She is adamant that she is fine. Over the two weeks in the hospital, countless doctors tried to talk to her about her condition and each time she didn't seem to get it or go into a deep denial. I don't know which, but as a daughter watching her decline and see test after test, there isn't a lot I can do to describe this kind of anguish.
It should be noted, my despair is a different kind of a despair you might see in a normal mother-daughter situation. In my case, I have deep rooted fears about being an orphan again. It is such an intensity that I cannot even describe it. It is impossible to describe that kind of fear, trauma.
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Written November 23rd. I forgot to publish this.
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