At the Crossroads

I've spent the past two days in the ICU with my mother. I got called alone, since I was the only one there, into the "Family Counsel" room to be told, my mother is dying. I'm absolutely broken. My eyes are almost swollen shut from crying. I'm not ready for this. I've been home from the hospital about three hours, I've had a few drinks, I've had a few cries, my eyes still burn but my mind is in a million different places. I'm the one that has to handle things, but I feel so fucking lost, in an unfamiliar, uncharted world and I don't know what to do.

My mother has been hospitalized three times since November...twice for pneumonia, and this time because she was holding too much fluid, she was beginning to swell, she has gained 20 pounds in water weight since she was released from the hospital in January. My sister (who actually lives with her) and I have been trying to encourage her to get up and move around since she got released from her January hospital visit, but she would say it hurts too bad to move...and I would say, "but Mom, the more you lay there, the more you are gonna hurt when you try to move". I took her March the 21'st to get a cataract removed from her eye, that morning, I again tried to encourage her, I ended up making her cry and she ended up telling me I was "picking on her". I said "No, mom, I love you, and I just want you to get better". At that point I decided if I was only going to make her cry, I wouldn't "pick on her" anymore. If you love your mother and you've ever made her cry, you can understand how it made me feel to have my mother in tears. The following Wednesday she ended up in the hospital with a pulmonary edema and even more water weight gain. Which in turn became congestive heart failure, heart pumping at only 20% but not enough to sustain kidney and liver function. Dialysis apparently would be too traumatic with her heart/blood pressure problems.

They immediately started her on lasix (which one doctor had already prescribed but in too small a dose to work) and they pulled off alot of water rather quickly. I'm thinking "good, good, they have the water moving". But then her stats started dropping, and the water quit moving. Her potassium was out of whack and she refused to take the medicine that would fix it, and apparently that can't be given through IV. I begged her to take the medicine. I begged her to move before she ended up in the hospital. I begged her to eat for the past two days but she chews it up and spits it out. I can't even call it vomiting because you actually have to swallow it for it to be vomiting, she just doesn't swallow it. They have her on drugs for her pain that makes her doze, then it makes her jerk, then it makes her snap herself awake with her eyes wide open like she's terrified. I was so alone and fearful today, but I think I had an angel there in disguise, a disheveled old Vietnam Vet, his name was William Clark, but I could call him Bill.

I had met him yesterday, while I was looking for the cafeteria. He said "where you headed?" when I stepped into the elevator, "snackbar" I said, he said "oh follow me, I know this place like the back of my hand". So he lead me to the snackbar/cafeteria and I thanked him and we both went our separate ways. Today, I'm in tears 10 mins after I get to the hospital because the nurse tells me my mother has once again refused the medicine to get her potassium down...I beg my mother, she still refuses...so I step outside for a smoke and a defeated "I don't know what else to do" cry. And there stood the snackbar guide...I was on the phone and he watched me with such sympathetic eyes...and he waited until I was done, and he said "Are you ok?". I said "I'm up here with my mother and she's not doing so well". He asked what was wrong and I told him, he said his mother had the same thing, and he was currently up there with a lady friend that was suffering from heart problems as well. He talked so kindly to me when I needed it so much, and he had this rough hewn appearance that some people would typically avoid, hell, honestly I would typically avoid it, but, I asked Bill if I could give him a hug, and he graciously accepted. And I'm grateful for kind strangers. He gave me an apple and picture of himself on my way out of the hospital tonight. I told him I didn't need a picture, that I'd remember him for the rest of my life.

I know that people lose loved ones all the time, it's the natural circle of life...the prognosis they gave me on my mother today was several days, to a possible couple of weeks. That's not enough time, it's never enough time. I talked today about her transferring to a Palliative care unit in order for them to get her medications straight, and get her comfortable and from there, if possible to transfer home under the care of hospice. I'm going to spend every minute with her that I can.

Then I have to figure out how to keep their power on with a 1200 dollar power bill, make sure the mortgage gets paid and everybody gets fed and taken care of, and has a place to stay when worse comes to worse, and watch breath by breath as my mother fades away. God, give me strength. And if you pray, I still believe miracles, please include a word or two for my mom.