One day at a time.............

It's been a hell of a couple of weeks.  Mom's pneumonia has been a frightful villain.  Mom hasn't been responding to the ventilator too well since my last communication.  We had a family meeting yesterday morning...my two surviving sisters, two doctors, a nurse, a patient advocate, and me.  The options coming out of that meeting were either inserting a tracheostomy and feeding tube, or making her comfortable. Mom opted to go for the trach and feeding tube.  The procedures to put those in and get her off the monster machine will be today.  No guarantees, but if it is not successful and they think there is nothing else they can do, she can decide to be made comfortable at any point.  The feeding tube needs to stay in for three months but she'll be able to eat again and not use the tube if she goes in that direction.  Time will tell.  The outcome may be the same, but I'm stunned and proud of her for being with it enough to make this decision on her own, especially since Stephanie and Lisa and I made sure she knew we would support her 100 % with either decision.  The hospital staff reiterated this to her.  She's one tough cookie.  We'll see what the next couple weeks bring.  I've learned to be optimistic and realistic these past few years. Either way, it will be good to get all those tubes out of her mouth and face.  We're taking one day at a time.

Last night, after everyone had left the hospital, and I was about to leave, I told Mom I was getting ready to go home and she began trying to communicate something.  First she moved her thumb back and forth.  I grabbed it and rubbed it, and with her eyes she said that this wasn't what she wanted.  She began to move her hand back and forth.  I rubbed it, and once again with her eyes, she looked frustrated.  I proceeded to find a paper given to us with lots of visual commands that she could point to....hot or cold, pain, television, everything you can imagine.  No success.  There's even an alphabet on the paper and I asked her to put her finger on the first letter of what she was trying to say.  No dice, just a pitiful look of frustration on her face. I said, "Mom, I know you're trying to tell me something, I'll keep trying to figure it out."  The next thing I knew, she was moving her hand back and forth and swaying her shoulders, dancin' in that bed!  I said, "Do you want your position changed?"  She nodded.  To be sure I was correct in my assumption, I asked if she wanted me to summon the nurse to change her position.  Another nod.  Two nurses came in and changed the pillows propping her swollen hands and got her head into a comfortable position and left.  I said, "Mom, are you more comfortable now?"  She nodded, and I said I was going to go home now, but that I would be back tomorrow.  I got a wink from her, and proceeded on my way.

With every story of suffering, there are those laughable moments, and this hospital stay is no exception.  One afternoon when I got to the hospital, a soap opera was on.  I was tooling with my Netbook computer, and would look up at the television periodically.  Then a scene came on with a nun and a pretty blonde exchanging some crazy dialogue about the trouble they were in and how they felt about each other. The nun was a man!  My coworkers understand soaps better than I do and talk about them constantly, so if I really want to know what's going on with that one, I'll have to ask one of them.  Better yet, I'll just pretend I never saw it!  The next day, a physical therapist came in to massage Mom's swollen arms and to get her to do some leg exercises.  While he was there, I was telling my sister Lisa of the crazy scenes I had seen the day before. She laughed and said, "Yea, Mom likes to watch The View, so the TV was probably left on." The physical therapist said to Mom, "You like the show filled with man haters!"  Mom, who will never quite lose her sense of humor nodded proudly.  Everyone in the room laughed out loud.  She's still got it!

Just one month ago, we had her marching through Philadelphia for my daughter Karen's graduation from Temple University.  She's one hell of an 86 year old!!

One day at a time............