Happy 200th Post!!
As I realized that this was my 200th post, I was about to just write a general update but felt that such a milestone should be something a bit more uh, substantial. Well as a bit of an update as well as an opportunity for me to process the details of the event, I decided to write about my mom's hospitalization and the details of that period of time. I will never ever forget this hospital stay for many reasons. The gravity of my mom's situation, her ability to come through this virtually unscathed, the strength of my relationship with my brother and sister because of this, among other things, will remain with me and I will forever be grateful.
Mom is home, she came home from the rehab center on New Years Eve. This entire situation has been completely and totally surreal. I just realized that I hadn't mentioned exactly what happened to my mom. As those of you who have read last month, my dad passed away. My brother and I returned from his service out of town to find out that my mom had been taken to the hospital via ambulance. Not a tremendous shock since her diabetes does tend to mess her up periodically and mom landing in the hospital is a fairly regular occurrence. We arrived home on Thursday and Friday evening I received a call at midnight from the ICU nurse telling me that mom had gone into cardiac arrest and was now unresponsive and on a ventilator. I had been sleeping so once I got the cobwebs out of my brain my immediate response was, "Is this some sick joke?" I just attended my father's funeral service, my father who had struggled on and off a ventilator for the past 2+ months...this had to be a mistake. He assured me that it wasn't a joke and strongly suggested I make the hour+ trip to the hospital where my mom was. I called my brother and asked him to call the hospital. I was confused and sure that I had just misheard the conversation, my brother used to be in the medical field so I felt confident that he'd get the real story. I got a call from my brother about 10 minutes later, he was in the car and on his way to pick up both of his daughters before he made the trip down to the hospital. He told me that I needed to meet him there. I quickly called Mamacita and asked her to watch Bug until JD could get here. She came down and crashed on the couch while Bug slept. I threw on some clothes, stopped for gas and made the trip. Spent the hour + drive preparing myself to watch my mother die. Figuring out how I would possibly tell Bug that his grandmother, the one person that he loves more than anything else in the world had passed, just after his grandfather had. I cried, I got angry, I was scared, I was numb. It's amazing the variety of thoughts that can go through your mind at 1am when you're driving an hour and 20 minutes alone. Just as I pulled into the hospital my sister called to tell me that she was packing and leaving her house to make the 4 hour trip up to meet us. I made my way through the ER and was quickly escorted up to the ICU. I was not even remotely prepared for what I saw. Keep in mind, I had witnessed my father on a vent, I had been there and watched him with the vent...this wasn't the first time I was seeing one of my parents in that position. Didn't help me prepare for what I saw, though. My mom was bloated, swollen, she looked positively horrible...it didn't even look like her. It looked very much like she had suffered some level of a stroke as well since her mouth was drooping and she appeared to have no control over her tongue. My brother and nieces greeted me, we hugged, we cried, we yelled at mom to wake up, to cut this crap out that we weren't ready to let her go. No response. We were terrified. We spent the rest of the night/morning talking, worrying, waiting. At about 5 am my oldest niece was staying in my mom's room, my brother managed to take a quick nap in the waiting room and I was able to sleep for about 45 minutes. My sister arrived at about 7am and we met with the pulmonary specialist. I need to preface this by saying that my mom has ALWAYS had a DNR order in place. For the past 20 or so years anyone that would listen KNEW that my mom NEVER wanted to be on life support, if she stopped breathing she did not want to be brought back...under no circumstances, ever. But due to some inept nurse who felt *uncomfortable* talking about it, the questions were never asked upon admission for this particular hospital stay which put us in this very awkward and painful position. Mom did NOT want to be on a vent, she had seen photos of my dad on a vent and always insisted to me, "Don't EVER let them do anything like that to me!!". It was crystal clear what mom wanted and didn't want. So here we are with our mom who stopped breathing and was brought back and was now on a ventilator. I knew in my heart and mind, despite the fact that it would potentially mean losing my mom, we HAD TO take her off the vent. Keeping her on it went against everything she ever wanted. The doctors couldn't give us any idea as to whether or not she'd regain brain function, if she'd definitely be able to live/breathe on her own, if she'd even recover at all...as my brother so eloquently put it, "All of the possibilities are variable, the only constant we have is Mom's wishes." That was exactly how I felt. My sister wasn't completely on board so we held off. Finally the next morning she had done more thinking and finally agreed that we needed to remove her from the vent. I called the doctor and told him our decision...he didn't fight us. He knew that we needed to do it. Called family, close friends, and prepared for them to extubate my mom that evening. Doctor arrived and we all gathered around her bed after he removed the ventilator - my brother, sister, nieces, nephew, uncles, aunts, family friends, etc. He brought her out of sedation and told us to begin talking to her. In the meantime he pulled me and my siblings into a separate room to discuss the possibilities and things. He fully did not expect my mom to make it, or if she did, he didn't expect brain function to be anything meaningful. So we began to discuss our next option and in the midst of this conversation my youngest nephew breaks into the room and announces that she's awake and TALKING. We finish up and cautiously walk back to her room. She's talking, she recognizes some of us but not everyone. Her memory appears to be stronger in the distant past (she recognizes her siblings but not my eldest niece or me.) however, she did recognize a photo of Bug naturally. LOL Her doctor was amazed, he shook his head and as he walked out of the room said to me, "I will never attempt to predict anything medically again." Heehee We were cautiously optimistic, except for my brother. He saw the deficiencies (her inability to remember everyone, her limited mobility as she couldn't move her right arm, etc.) as problems and he was not able to get past them at all. My sister and I saw them too but were hopeful. Monday morning my brother got the hospital early in the morning to meet with mom's doctor and to see her. He sent me a text message that simply said, "Here at the hospital. I am simply amazed. Wait til you see, all good stuff". Later he called me and I actually talked to my mom for a minute!! She was coherent, knew who I was, and was as close to back to normal as I've ever seen!! The next 3 days were a roller coaster. She went from doing really well to being completely incoherent and we were convinced that the brain damage we feared from the cardiac arrest was coming to the surface. We were defeated and scared, angry and upset. On Wednesday, the roughest day for my mom, her doctor came in to tell us that she was medically sound but mentally/emotionally unstable and he couldn't keep her due to anything medical but he also couldn't in good conscience send her home. We discussed options and decided to place her in a rehabilitation center (nursing home) for a short period to see if she would improve and to also buy us a bit of time to figure out the best services needed. She was NOT happy, she was angry, sad, frustrated, confused...it was horrible. She was admitted to the rehab center on Wednesday and the next 3 days were filled with phone call after phone call from her calling begging me to come get her. By Friday she seemed to be a bit better. She was more coherent and honestly seemed like herself. She was going to the dining room for meals instead of staying in her room, she met some other women, she was participating in physical therapy, everything was looking up. We were all amazed and shocked that she had managed to cheat death and with little to no residual damage or issues. She remained in the rehab center through Christmas with a pass to come home for 6 hours on Christmas Day. I picked her up in the morning and brought her to my brother's. She took a shower at my brothers, washed a load of her own clothes, and even insisted on making the potatoes for dinner! She was doing fabulously. Later that week her doctor agreed that she was doing very well and he didn't see any reason for her tor emain in the rehab center. He agreed to release her as of New Years Eve providing they set her up with some home health care services. I picked her up on New Years Eve morning and brought her to stay with my cousin for a couple days (Her idea!!). She is now home, has a nurse that comes in twice a week and a physical therapist who comes in once a week. My mom has managed to get a second chance at life and we're all so amazed and grateful.
On a rather interesting note, we did not tell my mom what she had been through or why she was where she was until she was stronger and we felt better capable of handling the news. On the first day after the vent had been removed she recounted a dream she had the night before (the night she coded) where my father (who had passed away just over a week earlier) was standing on the other side of a fence and kept trying to convince my mom to come through the gate of the fence to the other side to go with him. She said that she was trying to figure out where he wanted her to go and since he wouldn't tell her where, she refused to go with him!!! She told us this without any knowledge of what she had gone through and quite honestly it was a bit of a shock to my brother, sister, and me!!
Mom is home, she came home from the rehab center on New Years Eve. This entire situation has been completely and totally surreal. I just realized that I hadn't mentioned exactly what happened to my mom. As those of you who have read last month, my dad passed away. My brother and I returned from his service out of town to find out that my mom had been taken to the hospital via ambulance. Not a tremendous shock since her diabetes does tend to mess her up periodically and mom landing in the hospital is a fairly regular occurrence. We arrived home on Thursday and Friday evening I received a call at midnight from the ICU nurse telling me that mom had gone into cardiac arrest and was now unresponsive and on a ventilator. I had been sleeping so once I got the cobwebs out of my brain my immediate response was, "Is this some sick joke?" I just attended my father's funeral service, my father who had struggled on and off a ventilator for the past 2+ months...this had to be a mistake. He assured me that it wasn't a joke and strongly suggested I make the hour+ trip to the hospital where my mom was. I called my brother and asked him to call the hospital. I was confused and sure that I had just misheard the conversation, my brother used to be in the medical field so I felt confident that he'd get the real story. I got a call from my brother about 10 minutes later, he was in the car and on his way to pick up both of his daughters before he made the trip down to the hospital. He told me that I needed to meet him there. I quickly called Mamacita and asked her to watch Bug until JD could get here. She came down and crashed on the couch while Bug slept. I threw on some clothes, stopped for gas and made the trip. Spent the hour + drive preparing myself to watch my mother die. Figuring out how I would possibly tell Bug that his grandmother, the one person that he loves more than anything else in the world had passed, just after his grandfather had. I cried, I got angry, I was scared, I was numb. It's amazing the variety of thoughts that can go through your mind at 1am when you're driving an hour and 20 minutes alone. Just as I pulled into the hospital my sister called to tell me that she was packing and leaving her house to make the 4 hour trip up to meet us. I made my way through the ER and was quickly escorted up to the ICU. I was not even remotely prepared for what I saw. Keep in mind, I had witnessed my father on a vent, I had been there and watched him with the vent...this wasn't the first time I was seeing one of my parents in that position. Didn't help me prepare for what I saw, though. My mom was bloated, swollen, she looked positively horrible...it didn't even look like her. It looked very much like she had suffered some level of a stroke as well since her mouth was drooping and she appeared to have no control over her tongue. My brother and nieces greeted me, we hugged, we cried, we yelled at mom to wake up, to cut this crap out that we weren't ready to let her go. No response. We were terrified. We spent the rest of the night/morning talking, worrying, waiting. At about 5 am my oldest niece was staying in my mom's room, my brother managed to take a quick nap in the waiting room and I was able to sleep for about 45 minutes. My sister arrived at about 7am and we met with the pulmonary specialist. I need to preface this by saying that my mom has ALWAYS had a DNR order in place. For the past 20 or so years anyone that would listen KNEW that my mom NEVER wanted to be on life support, if she stopped breathing she did not want to be brought back...under no circumstances, ever. But due to some inept nurse who felt *uncomfortable* talking about it, the questions were never asked upon admission for this particular hospital stay which put us in this very awkward and painful position. Mom did NOT want to be on a vent, she had seen photos of my dad on a vent and always insisted to me, "Don't EVER let them do anything like that to me!!". It was crystal clear what mom wanted and didn't want. So here we are with our mom who stopped breathing and was brought back and was now on a ventilator. I knew in my heart and mind, despite the fact that it would potentially mean losing my mom, we HAD TO take her off the vent. Keeping her on it went against everything she ever wanted. The doctors couldn't give us any idea as to whether or not she'd regain brain function, if she'd definitely be able to live/breathe on her own, if she'd even recover at all...as my brother so eloquently put it, "All of the possibilities are variable, the only constant we have is Mom's wishes." That was exactly how I felt. My sister wasn't completely on board so we held off. Finally the next morning she had done more thinking and finally agreed that we needed to remove her from the vent. I called the doctor and told him our decision...he didn't fight us. He knew that we needed to do it. Called family, close friends, and prepared for them to extubate my mom that evening. Doctor arrived and we all gathered around her bed after he removed the ventilator - my brother, sister, nieces, nephew, uncles, aunts, family friends, etc. He brought her out of sedation and told us to begin talking to her. In the meantime he pulled me and my siblings into a separate room to discuss the possibilities and things. He fully did not expect my mom to make it, or if she did, he didn't expect brain function to be anything meaningful. So we began to discuss our next option and in the midst of this conversation my youngest nephew breaks into the room and announces that she's awake and TALKING. We finish up and cautiously walk back to her room. She's talking, she recognizes some of us but not everyone. Her memory appears to be stronger in the distant past (she recognizes her siblings but not my eldest niece or me.) however, she did recognize a photo of Bug naturally. LOL Her doctor was amazed, he shook his head and as he walked out of the room said to me, "I will never attempt to predict anything medically again." Heehee We were cautiously optimistic, except for my brother. He saw the deficiencies (her inability to remember everyone, her limited mobility as she couldn't move her right arm, etc.) as problems and he was not able to get past them at all. My sister and I saw them too but were hopeful. Monday morning my brother got the hospital early in the morning to meet with mom's doctor and to see her. He sent me a text message that simply said, "Here at the hospital. I am simply amazed. Wait til you see, all good stuff". Later he called me and I actually talked to my mom for a minute!! She was coherent, knew who I was, and was as close to back to normal as I've ever seen!! The next 3 days were a roller coaster. She went from doing really well to being completely incoherent and we were convinced that the brain damage we feared from the cardiac arrest was coming to the surface. We were defeated and scared, angry and upset. On Wednesday, the roughest day for my mom, her doctor came in to tell us that she was medically sound but mentally/emotionally unstable and he couldn't keep her due to anything medical but he also couldn't in good conscience send her home. We discussed options and decided to place her in a rehabilitation center (nursing home) for a short period to see if she would improve and to also buy us a bit of time to figure out the best services needed. She was NOT happy, she was angry, sad, frustrated, confused...it was horrible. She was admitted to the rehab center on Wednesday and the next 3 days were filled with phone call after phone call from her calling begging me to come get her. By Friday she seemed to be a bit better. She was more coherent and honestly seemed like herself. She was going to the dining room for meals instead of staying in her room, she met some other women, she was participating in physical therapy, everything was looking up. We were all amazed and shocked that she had managed to cheat death and with little to no residual damage or issues. She remained in the rehab center through Christmas with a pass to come home for 6 hours on Christmas Day. I picked her up in the morning and brought her to my brother's. She took a shower at my brothers, washed a load of her own clothes, and even insisted on making the potatoes for dinner! She was doing fabulously. Later that week her doctor agreed that she was doing very well and he didn't see any reason for her tor emain in the rehab center. He agreed to release her as of New Years Eve providing they set her up with some home health care services. I picked her up on New Years Eve morning and brought her to stay with my cousin for a couple days (Her idea!!). She is now home, has a nurse that comes in twice a week and a physical therapist who comes in once a week. My mom has managed to get a second chance at life and we're all so amazed and grateful.
On a rather interesting note, we did not tell my mom what she had been through or why she was where she was until she was stronger and we felt better capable of handling the news. On the first day after the vent had been removed she recounted a dream she had the night before (the night she coded) where my father (who had passed away just over a week earlier) was standing on the other side of a fence and kept trying to convince my mom to come through the gate of the fence to the other side to go with him. She said that she was trying to figure out where he wanted her to go and since he wouldn't tell her where, she refused to go with him!!! She told us this without any knowledge of what she had gone through and quite honestly it was a bit of a shock to my brother, sister, and me!!
No comments:
Post a Comment