Is anybody listening?

My brother was there by seven. I had spent the night with my mom in the ER saying she could not handle the pain for another 24 hours, moaning, sighing, and me not knowing what the hell to do...and doctors coming in very sporadically. They gave her morphine though she told them morphine has never affected the pain for her. Finally they gave her something that made her sleep but it was impossible for me to leave her alone. It was like a jail cell that you have permission to leave yet you just cannot leave. When doctors did come in they asked the exact same questions all over again. Finally they said that there was a problem with circulation and no pulse in her leg and they were going to admit her to cardiovascular floor. Of course, what you need to know about hospitals and the ER is saying they are going to admit you and actually getting you on the floor can sometimes take up to five hours. It sounds crazy but in the next three months I was going to experience this phenomenon over and over again. In the meantime, I remember another doctor came in who was from a different country and I was tired and scared and by the way STARVING. Small aside_(Why is it they dont have anyone in a hospital who can help you when you have entered alone in the ER and cant really leave the person you are with? You may be thinking that I could have left her and that I was just being protective. For you own good in case anyone you love ever ends up in the hospital let me tell you...you cant leave because without fail the minute you do the doctor will come in and you will miss all the information. Especially when you are with someone on pain killers and in extreme pain you have to be there to be the one to get the information. There is no leaving and don't fool yourself into believing there is. ) So, in comes this guy who I can hardly understand and he is asking all the questions over again and just staring at her. He says he is the ER doctor and his job to interview us. It was all I could do to contain myself that I was explaining the same thing for at least the fifth time. I am sure there is a reason for it and I dont fault the doctors...but it was too much...too much...and somebody should have recognized that I was on the edge. But, as I am my mother's daughter my pride prevented me from blowing up...in the next three months I was going to learn that sometimes the only way to get things done is to blow up. The squeaky wheel gets the grease is definitely true in hospitals.

So, we begin the wait at seven. She is on the cardiovascular floor with an incredible angel nurse named Mary. Mary takes my mom's vitals every thirty minutes and my brother and I drink coffee, take turns on our cell phones and wait for a doctor. We wait...and we wait...and we wait...I exaggerate not when I say that no doctor came between 7 and 3. However, sometime between 5:45 and 7:00 when I was out using the phone or getting food or coffee a doctor had come by...but I knew nothing about what he/she thought or said. At one point I called my mother's doctors office to ask them how we should proceed. They said they would talk to doctor and get back to me. Approx 2 hours later the doctors office calls me and says the blood test she had taken in their office the day before came back positive and she needs to come in right away. I say, "Are you kidding me? I just spoke with someone in that office 2 hours ago and she is in the hospital." Then they tell me that they dont really get that information from the hospitals and could I please keep them updated!!!! Are you effing with me? So then she tells me I need to tell the hospital doctor the results of that test because it will help them diagnose. Let me repeat...THEY WANTED ME TO TELL THE DOCTOR THE RESULTS OF THE TEST! When I got back to my brother he had a place to put his annoyance that no doctor had come yet. He called that office and asked if it was regular practice to ask the patient to update their progress from the hospital and to give hospital doctors test results. Of course, their response was that because of computers that information will move slowly and will come much faster from us. Now we are angry and annoyed. Meanwhile, my mother is starting to talk gibberish and shake and not act like herself. She is telling me now she knows how her dad died and I am getting scared and thinking this might be what death looks like. Mary (favorite nurse) assures me that it is the painkillers but meanwhile my mothers blood pressure is steadily dropping each time and Mary is calling doctors and we are asking for doctors names and making calls as well. 3:00 rolls around and no doctor has come and it is time for Mary to leave and the blood pressure is extremely low and my mother is making no sense at all and Mary (God Bless Her) has had it and she calls the doctor and says he needs to come it is emergency situation. They come in within 2 minutes and talk to my mom like she cant hear and scare me to death and there is a team of them. Small aside- (Doctors in the hospital travel in teams. This is a teaching hospital and so while the patient lies in pain, the team stares and asks the doctor questions. It seems insane when you are going through it even though realistically you know why it happens.) The next thing I know they say she is in critical condition and they are taking her to ICU. They say they think it is a pulmonary embolism which is a blood clot and they think it is in her lung. All of a sudden after a sleepless night and hours of waiting, they are moving so fast I cant even breathe...and I LOSE IT....and Mary (God Bless Her) who is ready to go home to her family...stops, gets me a soda and brings me into waiting area where she holds me while I cry and cry and cry and say I just cant lose my mother. Mary explains that the Critical Care unit is the best place for patients because it is one nurse one patient and always doctors there. As we follow my mother's bed to the ICU, my brother says to the doctor that we have a sister in Chicago and that we need to know if we should make a call to get her here. The doctor thinks about it and says that the next six hours are critical but he would wait to make the call to have her come. Meanwhile, we had already called my sister but now we wondered if she should come. The doctor told us to wait and so we would wait.

The first 24 hours

My mom and I had bought a house together in April and on the last weekend of September she went back to Vermont to visit with her friends. I daresay that weekend made her the happiest she had been since moving in with me. She was homesick for Vermont where she had lived for most of her 69 years. She came back happy and exhausted on a Sunday. On Monday she called and told me to come right home after work because she could not meet my daughter off the bus. I called her to see if she was alright. She had received a pretty bad cut the week before and was planning to have it checked. She told me that now something new was bothering her and it had been for weeks but now it was at the point that she had to see the doctor. It was a pain in her leg and on the phone the nurse had worried it may be a blood clot and my mom should come in immediately. When I told my boyfriend that he immediately asked if I should be driving my mom to the doctor? I look back on that day as so interesting that it didnt hit me to be worried. My mom was invincible to me. I did call and ask her but in her prideful way she told me that was silly and she was fine. When she came home about 4:30 she was limping and worried. The doctor had taken a blood test and told her that if it got worse or hot she should go to ER. My mom refused dinner with us and asked instead for take out. Take out is what we called it when she didnt eat with us but my seven year old daughter brought a plate up to her. Because she was in no mood for company, I brought up the plate on that day and found her on the computer where she told me that she was trying to diagnose herself. She was looking at deep vein thrombosis as the most probable suspect and it didnt make either of us happy. By nine that night the pain was so bad she could not stand on the leg. I asked her while my boyfriend was there if she wanted to go to the hospital. Her pride spoke again and she said no. I understand the pride and I didnt push. I watched tv with her and she moaned and groaned. By ten I knew this couldnt go on all night and she did too so she decided to try to walk to bed and get some sleep. I text messaged my friend and coworker Kristin and asked her to put plans down for a sub for me in the morning. I knew something wasnt right and I had that pit in my stomach when you just know you cant handle what is coming next. My mom's struggle to her bed did not help the pain and when I asked if I should call the doctor she said, "No, just lie down with me." Oh how I wish I had stayed on the bed longer, touched her back, her shoulders, not been so scared in her time of need but just there for her. Instead I stayed there maybe a minute before I jumped up and said that it was time to call the doctor. They told me to call an ambulance and when I told my mom that she thought I was lying. We were laughing and she kept asking if I was just saying that because I didnt want to drive her. I called my friends who came to get my daughter for the night and I calmed her down that Grammy just needed to see a doctor because she wasnt feeling well. My mom spoke with her too and that helped. We were both scared poopless and yet strangely calm. We were together. We were okay. The emts were absolutely wonderful as they guided my mother to the ambulance. I rode with them and debated calling my brother and sister...the problem...they were both far away and I didnt want them worried when there was nothing they could do. I was afraid my brother would try to drive to us and be too tired and worried and it would be dangerous. I was afraid I would wake my sister's young family and she would be a wreck. Looking back I know that it all doesn't become real until you tell somebody. My mom finally got a room in the hospital at five that morning where they would keep her under observation. I called my brother at 5:45. Finally, I had somebody to share the burden with other than the person going through the hardship. I finally broke down. He said he was on his way. Although I felt he shouldn't have to come, it was a major relief to know I wouldnt be waiting for the word alone.

I miss my mom

Well, this is my first post on my first ever blog. I am a teacher who has decided not to work this summer. I am a mother who has put her daughter in camp four days a week so as not to be too disturbed. I am a daughter who is in the six month of grieving for a mom who left me just at the beginning of a new adventure for us. I am writing this blog because I need to write about it to make it all real. My mom and I loved each other and drove each other crazy. One of her favorite things to say was "for every problem under the sun, there be a solution or there none, if there be one then try to find it and if there be none then never mind it." So, in thinking about her death, there is no solution I can be happy with short of bringing her back to me and so I have decided to never mind it and just deal with this pain that is in my heart. In the next few weeks of my blog I will share with you some of the history of my relationship with my family and my mother. I will talk about how we came to buy a house together so that she could help me with my adopted daughter and I could help her with aging. You will read about the night she came home with a pain in her leg and all she wanted was for me to lie down with her. I will share that I did, in fact, lie down with her but quickly shot up and got her to the hospital...and I will talk about the three months that led up to her death when I had hope she would come home from the hospital and she never did. It is a sad story, to be sure, but it is also an incredibly unbelievable story because I watched her die and in watching her die (and I do not just mean the last breath, I mean the preparation for death that lasted weeks) I watched her cross over. Nobody will ever be able to convince me otherwise and nobody will ever have to argue with me about it. It is not something I care if anybody believes. It is the truth of what I believe and it has strengthened my faith and made me a more optimistic person than I could ever believe even in my pain, sadness, and incredible grief. You will also learn more about my incredible daughter who brought pink into my life. I hope that you will read this blog because it is well written, it speaks to your heart, and along the way gives you faith when faith feels impossible. It doesnt matter what the faith is in, I believe faith is the idea that all is unfolding as it should even when that sucks! I invite you to share your own stories about faith, death, relationships between moms and daughters and all that feels necessary for you to post. Thank you in advance for sharing this journey with me. It is something I have thought of doing for months and tonight as I sat watching Dr. Phil and drinking a beer another of my mom's favorite sayings came to my mind, "poop or get off the pot." And so here I am and I hope you enjoy!