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LOSING MOM (Part 2)

Peggy2Feb 24, 2018, 6:54:10 PM
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Over the past few years, my sisters and I had found, through trial and error, that there were certain steps we could take to make Mom's hospital stays safer and more comfortable.

Here are a few things we learned:

~ One of us always had to be there with her. Having an advocate is really, really important, especially if you are an elderly, white-haired, sometimes-a-little-impatient-with-doctors, mother of 3.

~ As the advocate, it is highly advisable that you get to the hospital very early in order to speak directly with the doctor(s) when they are on their rounds.

~ If you want a private room, or the bed by the window in a semi-private, you have to ask for it, either in the ER or Recovery. Otherwise, you will probably get stuck in the bed by the door, in a shared room, which pretty much sucks.

~ If you should end up in the bed by the door, find out which nurse is in charge of assigning beds, and be really, really nice to them. If they like you, chances are they will try to move you to a better room/bed.

~ If you can avoid being in the hospital over the weekend, then do. Weekends suck even more than beds by the door.

There are times, of course, when you just have to play with the hand you’re dealt, which was, alas, the situation I found myself in when I got to the hospital early the next morning.

Because it was Saturday (groan), the doctor who had admitted mom ‘for observation’ was off (double groan), and the nurse wasn’t exactly sure when the doctor who was  there would be by on rounds.

Groan. Groan. Groan.

But she also offered that since Mom had, thankfully, had an uneventful night, she would probably be going home that afternoon. They just needed the OK from the physical therapist to get the discharge papers finalized.

Mom was sitting up in bed when I got to her room, and the physical therapist, miraculously already there, was explaining how they were going to go for a little walk down the hall, just to make sure she could get around without too much help.

"Alright," Mom agreed. "I think I can do that."

My heart melted as I watched her make her way down the brightly lit corridor.  What a sight she was; tiny and frail, clad in a way-too-big hospital gown and ugly beige non-slip socks, her blood-matted hair sticking up through the gauze wrapping her head.

Not a shred of vanity, though. Not a word of complaint. Just her fiery spirit doing what she'd been asked to do, despite her failing body.

God, how I miss her!

Watching as she tentatively turned to walk back, I felt the first teeny, tiny prickle of fear at the thought of taking her home all by myself.

But getting Mom out of the hospital and away from the risk of infection was, as my sisters and I had all agreed, my top priority.

Especially since it was the middle of flu-season. And a weekend to boot.

Anyway, back in her (semi-private) room, and settled in her bed (by the door),  Mom complained a couple more times about the mysterious pain in her legs. Whatever it was seemed to pass quickly, though, so, again, no one seemed too concerned. Not even me.

I guess I've already mentioned that I wish I’d paid more attention.

The aide came in to help mom get dressed and we talked a little bit about getting the blood out of her hair. Could the stitches get wet? Was there a trick to it? To be honest, I was really just hoping the aide would offer to do it, but she didn't take the hint.

“Well, it will take some effort to get it all out," she conceded, but before I could ask any more questions, disappeared out the door in search of a wheelchair.

Shrugging off my growing irritation with the (lack of) care my mother was receiving, I decided to focus on just getting her out of there as fast as I could.   Bundling her into her coat, I wrapped a scarf around her head in a futile attempt to hide the blood-tinted hair.

‘Oh, Peg,’ she chuckled, ‘I don’t care how I look!’

'Well, actually, Mom,' I replied, 'it's more for everyone else than for you! It’s pretty gruesome!’

It was slow going getting her into the car, and I worried on the short drive home how in the world we would get up to her third floor apartment without help. Pulling up to the front entrance of her building, I paused for a moment to think through my strategy.

‘OK, Mom, so this is the plan. First I’m going to see if there’s a wheelchair we can borrow. If there’s not, then I’ll go up to the apartment and get your walker. So sit tight here. I’ll be back in a minute.’

I left the car running as it was a raw, February afternoon and went into the lobby, stopping at the front desk to ask about a wheelchair.

‘Oh no. We wouldn’t have one here,’ the receptionist told me. ‘This is independent living. They might have one over in the health center that you could borrow.’

Not wanting to risk the time it would take me to get all the way over to the health center and back, with no guarantee they would even have one, I thanked her (kind of) and headed toward the elevators.

Lost in thought, fretting about mom having to walk so far, even with me and a walker to help, I passed by the big glass window of the computer center. It took my brain a minute to register what it was seeing, but there, all folded up and tucked neatly into a corner, was a wheelchair!

Giddy with relief, I quickly wheeled it out to the car, silently thanking whatever force in the universe that was responsible for this incredible miracle.

Unfortunately, getting mom into said miracle was quite a different matter. She seemed to have lost strength even in the short time since we left the hospital, and so I clumsily lifted her out of the car, and then even more clumsily maneuvered her body around to get it into the chair.

To make matters worse, the oxygen tubing from her portable concentrator had somehow wrapped itself around her legs, pulling the nasal cannula right out of her nose.

Now my mom and I were definitely no strangers to stressful, chaotic situations like this one - she'd been on oxygen for over a year, and it had been quite a learning experience for all of us.

But it was freezing, the wind was blowing my hair all over my face, and my normally gung-ho mother was not so gung-ho.

In fact, she seemed to be getting paler and paler by the minute, and I felt another twinge of fear that maybe we were in a little over our heads.

But somehow, despite my growing sense of unease, we managed to find our way up to her apartment, and get her safely out of the wheelchair and into her recliner.

Where she immediately, blessedly, fell asleep.

When I peeked in on her a little later, something in the angle of her head and the pallor of her skin made me actually go over and check that she was still breathing. Beyond relieved to find that she was, but worried she had taken a turn for the worse, I took a picture of her and sent it to my sisters for some moral support.

The next thing I knew, Mom was wide awake and writhing in pain.

Now you have to understand that this woman had the absolute highest threshold of pain of anyone I’ve ever known. In fact, earlier that week we’d found out that she’d been living with a completely torn rotator cuff for months, and had only agreed to go have an MRI because we made her.

So to see her clutching her legs and crying out in pain was simply unnerving.

But the thought of calling 911 and taking her back to the hospital, after what we'd just been through to get her home, seemed unthinkable.

Needing to do something, but not sure what, I picked up the phone and called my older sister, Sallie.

"Sal, I don't know what to do! Mom's in so much pain! But I just can't bear the thought of taking her back to the hospital!"

Tears welled up in my eyes. I was so scared.

'Peg, I think you have to. That picture you sent...she looks really bad. Something's not right. Call 911. I'm making my reservation now...I'll be there tomorrow."

Hanging up, I dialed 911 with trembling fingers, rubbing Mom’s legs and telling her over and over how sorry I was to put her through this, but I didn’t know what else to do.

It seemed like forever, but finally the paramedics arrived. Enormous men who seemed to fill up every nook and cranny of mom’s small bedroom, they immediately hooked her up to the heart monitor and took her vitals. I tried to describe the pain she was in as best as I could, but because her heart seemed to be doing ok, neither of them seemed terribly impressed or concerned.

They packed up to go.

“But, wait!' I pleaded, 'You can’t leave! She’s in so much pain!”

“Her heart's doing fine, her vitals are good...there’s not much we can do for her here," the head guy replied. 'Do you want an ambulance?"

"I guess so,' I replied, a bit confused by the question. Hadn't they come in an ambulance?

"No, it's a separate service," he explained. 'I can call for one, but it will take a while to get here. It would definitely be faster if you took her yourself."

The idea of making mom wait for an ambulance when she was in so much pain seemed cruel, but there was simply no way I could take her myself.

Not after what we'd just been through to get her home.

So despite the paramedic's obvious reluctance, I asked him to go ahead and call for an ambulance.

And then we waited.

And waited.

Finally, a knock came on the door, and two more enormous EMT's maneuvered their way into the apartment. In no time at all, and ever-so-gently, they lifted mom onto the stretcher and strapped her in.

Gathering up my things for what I anticipated would be a long evening, I followed them out, and back we went to the hospital.


(Note to Reader: This is a story in progress, so I am sharing it as I write it, as a way to spur me on. If you're interested in following along, here are the links to the others I've written so far. Thanks!)

Losing Mom Part 1

Losing Mom Part 3

Losing Mom Part 4

Losing Mom Part 5

Losing Mom Part 6

Losing Mom Part 7