Tilt-a-whirl

Monday

I visited this morning and got the message that mom has stopped eating. The nurse tells me to TELL her to eat. Ummm, well, she has no idea who I am, for one. Yeah, says Kim...same here. Oh. She says that if mom does not eat, her intestinal thing won't heal. Well...yeah. Kim thinks that she is giving up. One could only hope because this existence is awful.

I went into the room with the curtains wide open for light and something resembling a view. This is good. Mom could turn her head to where I was and nod when I asked her if she wanted some juice. Ok, juice through a straw. More? Nothing. Gibberish. I could just pet her hair, kiss her on the forehead and tell her that I love her. I love you Mom. It's Lisa.

I did it. I told her that I love her and that when she is ready, she can go. I told her that I appreciate all that she has done for me and that we are going to be ok. I told her to watch for grandma and Lenny and that if she lets go to join them, it will be ok with me. I held her hand and her breathing got more labored. Maybe it was the juice.

I took the paperwork for Chapel of the Chimes to the lady in charge of that sort of thing. She started to chirp about having relatives there and how the family would go to visit the relatives and then go have Ice Cream at Fenton's. Fentons. Chapel of the Chimes is a beautiful place. Mom will be the last to go into the niche and then it will be done. She will join grandma and grandpa, baby brother and Lenny, my step-father. It was very emotional to give the orders for That Time and Kim knew that it was going to be rough. You just have to do it.

My job, when this is all over, is to get things lined up for Rod and me so that our kids won't have to fret over The Big Pickup when it is our time. It seems that this is the drill...you bury/niche your last parent and gitterdone for yourself. How very adult. Adult. It doesn't seem like it is time but well...I am not a kid anymore and this prooves it.

Thank you all, once again. The stress is mounting and there are twinges of nerves that are really pissed off at this stress. I have to leave to go to Stitches. This just seems to happen every time that I go to a show...some emergency that has to be handled. This time there will be no more trips to the hospital. We need peace for mom because her fight has been a tenacious one. I appreciate every bit of prayer and good wishes because they are helping me face this milestone with courage.

The Schnickle comes back tonight and Grammy had better buck up. :o)

Sunday

So, they put mom back into isolation yesterday. She has been on so many antibiotics that the gut bug is back and so, she can't be near anyone. She was lonesome the last time that she was in that big room but this time someone put the Country Music station on the TV and so I think that she is soothed and Just Being. She thinks that I am her mama and that is ok. I still couldn't bring myself to say the words It's Ok To Let Go, out loud, but I told her in the mind meld. She called me Mama and I petted her head until she fell asleep. No distress, no pain, no suffering. She is peaceful and just hovering.

I got a note this morning that made me cry that was from someone who was one of her voice students. She has visited mom and saw her before the change and saw her yesterday, after the change...not really knowing what had happened until she got my note, which spelled it all out. When she told me that she thought of mom  when she heard the Met performing Adriana Lecouvre and upon hearing the Women's Chorus begin a beautiful passage, wondering if she had ever performed that opera, I could remember when we were both young. I admit that I lost it. Mom sang with the SF Opera chorus for 25 years and was one of the first Merola award winners. She had perfect pitch and I had to tell that to the neurologist after mom told him that she heard a "buzzing" when he put the tuning fork to her ears. I wanted him to know who she used to be.

I think that we are over the worst of it and now we wait. The morphine will allow her to die without fear and I will know that I did all that I could. She is clean and well cared for and that is what is important.

A thousand thanks

I want to give an update, as minimal as it is and to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. I could actually feel the lead weighted coat begin lift off of my body within an hour of pushing Publish on the blog yesterday. You guys are remarkable and now I got to feel the serious lift from this Collective Thought Power that I have participated in so many times for others. Now I get that it really really works. I was sitting here, responding to comments, feeling like someone was peeling away layers of the mud or whatever had been weighing me down since I was in the emergency room. When Rod drove up after picking up The Schnickle from school and I saw the eyebrows of this little guy touch his hairline because they brought home a half flat of STRAWBERRIES from the gal who sets up a stand once in awhile, I knew that I was getting better. We ate STRAWBERRIES with "Whipping Gas" and Trader Joe's Vanilla Cake until we could eat no more. It was a Party, as the little guy likes to say. He is, after all, a Sag and Sag's like a little party now and again. :o) Grammy needed such a party.

I did not receive the Phone Call in the middle of the night and so I called the hospital this morning to see how mom was doing. Her nurse told me that she had eaten a little and was able to drink without choking. I told several people this morning that I was going to start calling mom Mickey Rourke because well, there you go. The Neurologist said that things could get worse but things could just stabilize and I guess that with your help, I am able to face it all and eat some strawberries. I thank you (tearing up) for your caring. I really really really appreciate it. Now I just need to wipe my eyes and go turn on the full spectrum lights over the dye counter and get to work. It is good for me to feel this way, after the past two days. I will get those orders out before we leave for Stitches. God, Angels, Dead Relatives, doctors and Mickey Rourke Willing. 

THANK YOU.

Another update: the attending physician just told me that they are releasing mom back to her bed at the Nursing Home. She is essentially going to be there for hospice because she will not be returning to the hospital, no matter what. He told me that she lost 40% of her brain and that there is nothing more to be done and was glad that I agreed that we are on to Comfort Care. I am grateful for his candor and for the strength to let it happen.

I'm beginning to dislike February

I just don't get it. February is just a short month with Stitches West attached. Somehow it has become the hardest month of the year, for a couple of years running, at least. I love it up here, don't get me wrong. Some people might just chuckle about the whiners with 6 inches of snow but for US, 6 inches of snow can mean Not Getting Out. On Friday the 13th, this happened.

This is the top half of a Ponderosa Pine that simply decided to commit suicide across our driveway. I never heard it happen but trees all over were popping and cracking and falling down. Whole vistas have changed down near Webber Creek with the major changes in trees not built to carry that much snow. We cut this long thing up (it had broken into three pieces) and hauled it to the side of the drive and then Rod uttered the fateful words...we had better shovel this out so that we do not have any surprises to pop a tire. Mmm hmmm...400 yards or so of tarmac, not to mention the concrete pad up here. We shoveled and shoveled and shoveled for 4 hours and then finished after lunch. Little did we know that the power had been out and oh yes, the phone. I guess that there had been many more suicidal trees in the neighborhood and so the next day, when the lineman came up the drive to check on us, I called him Santa Claus. Crab crab crab. The snow is almost melted and I found out the the gal who cuts my hair, who lives further Up The Hill in Pollock Pines got 3 to 4 feet. SHE has a snow blower...

So we got through that and things got going again, here in the workshop. The carder was back making batts.

(Chocolate Fancies, Tropical fruit and some top in Mardi Gras) Life was returning to normal.

Then, yesterday morning I got a call that changed everything. The Kaiser physician's Assistant that sees mom on a regular basis called to tell me that the nurses were worried about her and that they were asking if I would give permission for her to go to the hospital. Permission??? Duh! I have been through this a lot lately, not boring you over and over with another hospital visit. Yesterday was different. I decided to finish up the pot of wool and eat a sandwich before heading down to Marshall hospital because one never knows how long things take. Smart. I waited to talk to the doctor and finally got in to see mom and she looked like death. It scared the snot out of me and I immediatly teared up and told her that I loved her...you just never know, eh? The doctor finally came in, after reading the cat scan and told me that mom had a stroke. Yikes! Her left arm was "flaccid" but her left foot was responsive. Ok, maybe she will snap out of this. We waited to hear that Kaiser was contacted and I went home to wait for the call about where she would go. Somehow, I turned into a big weenie when hearing mom's throat being suctioned out. My fight or flight kicked in, I guess. I signed the papers and got in the car. After dinner I got the call that she was on her way to Roseville and so that was that.

I got a call from a VERY kind doctor who talked to me for over 45 minutes (!), asking lots of questions about my observances of any changes in mom lately. I had to begin the Advance Directive mantra that would be coming out of my mouth for the next 12 hours or more. I felt better because the doctor said that mom said my name. Sweet, maybe it WAS just the bad lighting in the room, as the first doctor had quipped, when I said that mom looked REALLY pale.

I stayed up and watched tv until 10 and then went to pass out in bed. The first call came at Midnight. The night doctor wanted to hear the Advance Directive Mantra for himself. I croaked it out  and heard something about mom being non responsive, not knowing her name or my name. Oh oh. 2 am. That is the beginning of the Witching Hours when no call is good. He told me that he had read the new cat scan and that mom had begun a big bleed and that her brain was swelling. He just made me think that this was it. I prayed to god, to my dead relatives, to the angels, to everyone to come down there while I wrapped a white light cocoon around mom and at 4 am, I finally fell asleep. The Call never came and I thought that at least daylight could save me.

We promised to get to the hospital in the morning and so off we went. She was awake and being man handled by the Physical therapist who was doing an evaluation. We waited and I did The Mantra again, emphasizing mom's aversion to a feeding tube, at which point I lost it.

The last piece of the puzzle was the visit from the Neurologist, who, after examining mom, told me that she has had a massive stroke, which has taken all of the feeling from her left side. (her left foot was responsive in the first hospital). He said that the prognosis is not good but the fact that her brain has shrunk (!) gave the swelling some space in her skull.  I recited The Mantra again.

So now we wait. They may just release her in a couple of days and take her back to the Convalescent Hospital for Comfort Care.

See why I don't like February? Awww, nuts...there is a little frog croaking outside my office window...all is not lost.

We will see you at Stitches. I may have a big box of Kleenex but I will be there. I can't do one thing other than be by a phone and so there I will be. She does not know me at this point. Rod and I were Mother & Daddy and I guess that is who we are...