Seven years ago today, things took a turn for the worst for Mom. The day before, we had no reason to anticipate what would happen today because on the surface, everything looked good or at least not terrible. Mom was supposed to have been getting better, getting healthier, albeit on a fairly slow and deliberate pace. She was on the mend regardless, or so we thought. At the very least, she wasn't getting any worse, and that in and of itself, was something positive and something for which we could be hopeful.
I went to work that day and had no reason to think that my routine that would be interrupted in any way, at least not from anything related to Mom. Mom was already in a hospital and she was supposed to be getting better. There wasn't anything that I or anyone else outside of the medical community could do for her anyway. We couldn't just snap our fingers and suddenly, she would be healed. We had to let the medical professionals do their thing.
Sometime after 11am, my sister reached out to me by text message and said that the doctors, with whom she had been in contact for much of the morning, told her that Mom's condition had seemingly worsened to where they were now thinking that Mom may not make it past today. I had told her to let me know if perhaps, Mom's prognosis had changed and that she had regained some stability. My sister was not optimistic.
Now just after 12pm, my sister sends me another text message. This time, she says that I should probably leave work and get to the hospital as soon as possible because Mom's condition continued to worsen and she was no longer responding to the medication. Things had apparently gone downhill and now, she was not responding to treatment. Mom was also in and out of consciousness and when she was awake, she was not very talkative nor attentive. Doctors had told my sister that Mom may not have that much time. It looked like I would have a road trip ahead of me.
I let management know that I had a family emergency to attend to and that I'd be gone for the rest of the day. I told them that if I was able, I'd be back tomorrow. Before I packed up my things and hit the road, I let Morie know that I'd be leaving for the rest of the day as well. I also revealed to her why I was leaving. At the time, Morie was not yet my supervisor and instead, she was one of my peers. She and I were close enough to where she would be the second of only two people I told that day about Mom's current situation and its dire nature.
Traffic on the freeway wasn't too bad for that hour. I arrived at the hospital just after 3:30pm. Because parking at that hospital is typically awful, I had to park much further than I had intended. I was willing to walk, which is exactly what I did. I was much heavier at the time, so suffice it to say that I benefited from having to take all those extra steps. I didn't necessarily walk any faster than I should have and I had no reason to think that she was going to get worse in the time it took me to go from the curb where I parked to the Intensive Care Unit. I got to the Intensive Care Unit just before 4pm.
Mom was lying there in her hospital bed, unconscious and otherwise oblivious to us and the world around her. She had all kinds of machines and tubes connected to her, which at least for me, gave the impression that she was actually in not as bad a shape as I was initially led to believe. Family was already there, being that they're much more local than I was. I was the only one with the commute.
Once there, my sister briefed me and provided me with the latest information as to Mom's condition. Needless to say, it wasn't good and even all the optimism that I carried with me would not be enough to ward off reality. Mom was stable, but only in the sense that her condition was not improving and she had gotten any worse. She was pretty much just there, being kept alive by those machines and those tubes going from those machines to Mom. Mom was on all kinds of medication, none of which I can recall, that is, except one. For much of the day, Mom had been on a steady morphine drip. I've been on morphine before. It is excellent stuff. Of course, I also know that morphine is commonly used in situations of end-of-life care, with the intent of managing severe pain and providing some measure of comfort in a person's final days. In Mom's case, she was down to her final hours.
At about 5:30pm, one of the ICU doctors told us that they would be disconnecting Mom from everything to which she had been connected. It seemed that they were preparing for her to die and had determined that there was no longer any need for all that machinery to be plugged into her. Doctors had reached the point where there was no longer anything they could do for her. For much of the day, Mom had been showing signs of organ failure. She was also found to have had an infection in her blood. Her heart also looked like it was gradually weakening and she may have shown some signs of kidney failure. There were plans, had her condition improved, to have undergo dialysis the following day. Indeed, Mom was a mess and now in the midst of multiple organ failure, there was nothing that anyone could do.
At just after 5:40pm, Mom was effectively removed from all of the machinery that had been used to "check" on her and keep her alive. The only thing she was still attached to her was a heart monitor. With everything having been removed from her, Mom looked clean as in nothing was connected to her body and to those who may not have known the situation, Mom looked like she was just asleep and could wake up at any time as if nothing was ever wrong with her. Of course, we knew the reality. Mom was dying. One of the doctors told us that "it" would only be a short time , maybe an hour or two, before everything would happen and Mom would be gone.
I don't know what time he came in, but I want to say that just after nightfall, the chaplain came in and did his thing. He effectively led us in a short group prayer, offered us his condolences, and made his way out of the room. We wouldn't see him again.
There wasn't a whole lot of sadness or crying going on. I think that I probably shed a few tears as the chaplain led us in prayer and that was it. I tend to think that the emotions were there, but they weren't deep enough for them to be on full display. This could have been due to conflicting feelings of sadness and relief that we all felt. No one wanted to see Mom as she lie there, unconscious and dying, but we also knew that she was in a lot of pain, even leading up to this point and dating back to when she was first hospitalized in August 2018. The variety of bed sores she had were pretty intense. Maybe, in some way, we were looking forward to Mom finally leaving her pain behind as she may her way out of this world onto the next one?
Slowly but surely, the hours moved on as they do. I don't remember eating anything for the rest of that day. I don't even recall having any semblance of an appetite either. That means that the last thing I ate that day was a Krispy Kreme donut and I ate that well before I left work. Food wasn't anything that any of us had on our minds anyway.
So, 8pm came. Then 9pm, 10pm, 11pm all came and went. Then we went into midnight, with the date changing to October 18. Mom was still with us. We couldn't tell the difference, as far as making any kind of determination as to whether she was actually getting worse. On the outside, she still looked the same. She still looked like she was going to wake up and engage with everyone who was there, like nothing was wrong with her. Of course, all the damage to which Mom was being subjected was taking place on the inside, where none of could see. This was probably for the best.
So, well after doctors thought that she would be gone, Mom was still around. We had now gone into the next day. We thought the end was near and that was just over six hours ago.
This little marathon continued. I was not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel.
Might we have been in line for a miracle?
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