From Yesterday

A year ago today, right now, I was either on my way to the hospital or was getting ready to go up.  My mom had stopped opening her eyes spontaneously; she only responded when spoken to or tapped on the shoulder or arm.  That was the start of her rather rapid decline; well, I guess the start really was when she went into respiratory failure. I knew when that happened that she would never come off of the respirator.  My sister, unfortunately, kept holding out hope – even when the doctor told us there was nothing they could do, she was still tugging at every straw she could to find a way to save my mom.  She had me call the Cancer Centers of America to see if they would do a case review, in hopes that they could treat her while still on a respirator.  She was too far gone at that point and I knew that.  My dad didn’t want to let her go, no matter what I or any doctor said.  Sometimes my realistic nature makes me seem like I’m a cold-hearted bitch but I look at things the way that they are.  My mom was sick and I knew she was terminal the day she walked into her doctor’s office; I had hoped for longer time with her but that didn’t happen.  And when she went onto the respirator, I knew that either she would go quickly on her own or we would have to do it.  I prayed she would go on her own; it may sound heartless but again, it was realistically the best case scenario.  But that didn’t happen.  It’s horrible to admit it but I would go to bed praying to get a phone call that she had gone into cardiac arrest and couldn’t be revived.  It would have been so much easier on my Dad if that’s how it had played out, and that was my main concern.  But instead, he sat next to her day after day praying for a miracle that never came.

I can remember being so mad on the 6^th, which was a Monday, after speaking to her nurse because she told me that my mom was unresponsive.  It didn’t take long to go from limited responses to none at all.  I thought her morphine was too high, or the sedative they had her on was too high so I was ready to go into that ICU and rip someone a new one over the obvious mistake of over-medicating her.  But later that day I found out that wasn’t the case.  They really couldn’t pin point what caused her to shut down like that, but a nurse told me that it happens often with people that are terminal.  Their bodies start to shut down anything that isn’t necessary in order to keep functioning, so she may not have been able to hear us, she may not have understood anything that she heard if she heard anything at all.  Her body was too busy trying to stay alive to support her opening her eyes, moving her hands, her arms, etc.

This is all very surreal to me. I can remember those days as if I am reliving them frame-by-frame in my head.  I sat here at this same desk, in this same chair, taking phone calls and making phone calls and sending and receiving texts; I remember the drive to the hospital, the calls and texts I would have to return once I got there.  The calls I made from the waiting room, or even from outside of her room – I knew she couldn’t hear me even when she was responding.  Yesterday, I thought to myself – why didn’t we ask to have her hearing aids put in.  If there was any chance of her hearing us, it would have been with those in.  I feel kind of stupid for thinking of it now, a year later.  I don’t know if it would have made any difference for her, probably not, but for me it would have. I would feel a little more confident that she heard us, she heard my Dad talk to her and say whatever it was that he said when he left the night we turned off the machines.  I feel badly that she may have been able to hear us, but couldn’t because we forgot.   I feel pretty stupid about it, actually.  I should have thought of it and I didn’t and for some unknown reason, I feel solely responsible for missing it.  Just adds to the long list of things that suck about this whole experience, this whole year, this week.  I hate that the holidays will always have a cloud over them; I am hopeful that the cloud will fade a bit as time goes on, but I know that I will never forget and I will never feel the same again now that she’s gone and because she went the way that she did.  I swear if I ever get that sick, just put a pillow over my head.