LOSING MOM (Part 3)
By the time I got to the ER, mom was already in an examining room and the EMT’s were at the desk filling out their paperwork. One of them came up to me and asked if my mom was often ‘confused’.
“How do you mean?” I asked nervously.
‘Well, she was talking to us on the ride over, but her words weren’t making any sense.’’
I immediately flashed back to 6 years before when we were sitting around my mother-in-law’s beautifully set dining room table for my husband’s birthday dinner. Mom was with us, visiting from Ohio, and was sitting across from me, next to one of my sons.
Suddenly I heard him say, 'Grandmom, are you alright?" Unable to see them through the candelabra and centerpiece, I stood up to check what was going on.
Mom seemed to be in deep conversation, but wasn't actually talking to anyone. And the words coming out of her mouth were complete gibberish.
I have to say that watching my mother have a stroke that night was one of the scariest moments of my life.
Up until now.
Rushing into the examining room, I leaned down to give Mom a kiss. She was clearly relieved to see me, and tried to say something, but her words, once again, made no sense at all.
The nurse seemed to be taking it all in stride (probably not the first patient in the ER muttering gibberish), but when I explained mom's history she didn't waste any time in taking her off for a CT scan.
Relieved to have a few minutes to myself to catch my breath, I rummaged through my stuffed-to-the-brim-with-anything-I-could-think-of-as-I-raced-out-the-door bag to find my phone. But just as I started to call my sisters to fill them in, the nurse suddenly reappeared in the door. Clipboard in hand, she began to fire questions at me, trying to get me to pinpoint exactly when mom's symptoms had begun.
The thing about strokes, which I had forgotten, is that there is a very limited 3 hour window in which medication can be given to minimize the stroke's effects. To slow it down. So the doctors and nurses can be very single-minded (i.e. totally intimidating) when they are trying to determine if that window is still open.
Finally satisfied with my answers, the nurse disappeared out the door just as an aide wheeled mom back in. I pulled a stool up next to the gurney and, bending my head down so she could see me, tried to reassure her that everything was alright. She was going to be OK.
Suddenly, though, Mom's eyes widened with panic, and the oxygen mask began to fog up.
She began to make a horrible grunting sound and, thinking that she might be having a heart attack, I cried out for help. A nurse ran into the room and quickly checked the mask, then calmly unplugged the tubing from the portable tank beneath the gurney and connected it into the wall unit.
Watching in stunned disbelief, I realized that the aide, when she brought Mom back from the CT scan, had neglected to make the switch, and the portable tank she had been hooked up to had run out of oxygen.
Oh my god...my mother had almost suffocated right in front of my eyes!
Completely shaken up, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Should I make a scene? Should I demand some sort of apology? Should I get the aide’s name and report her?
Should. Should. Should.
But because I have a tendency to avoid conflict at any cost, and because mom seemed no worse off for the wear, I decided to let it go.
Of course, looking back now, I wish I had made more of a scene, if only to make sure that the aide responsible didn't do the same thing to someone else. To someone else who might not have their daughter sitting right next to them when they started to suffocate.
But hindsight is always 20/20, right?
The ER doctor eventually came by to report that mom had not, thankfully, had another stroke, but she had lost a great deal more blood than they’d realized earlier. Between that and the fact that she was unable to maintain adequate oxygen levels without a full mask, they’d be admitting her overnight.
Then he took me aside and asked, “Did this hospital send your mother home looking like that?" referring to the blood in her hair. His dismay was clearly genuine when I told him that yes, yes they had.
“I am beyond sorry about this,’ he said. ‘We are going to get her cleaned up right now.’
The compassion and remorse in his voice sent relief flooding through me like a warm salve. Finally, someone in that hospital was on our side.
On my mom’s side.
And true to his word, a few minutes later a nurse walked into our cubicle with a plastic basin of warm water, shampoo and a comb. She proceeded to ever-so-gently wash mom’s hair, combing through it again and again and again to remove the blood clots without disturbing the stitches.
It was painstaking work, but she never rushed, she never complained.
Mr. Rogers, the famed children’s television host, used to say that when something scary is happening around you, to ‘look for the helpers’. It had been a long, grueling, scary day with 'helpers' in seemingly short supply, until this nurse, this gentle, caring soul, showed up to help my mom.
And though I can’t now recall her name, and her face is a blur in my memory, she is someone I will never forget.
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. Here are the links to the rest so far, if you're interested in following along: