A quick scan of our house’s
heavy-laden doorknobs hints that last Wednesday and Thursday still haunt my mind and
challenge my energy level. Two emotionally and physically draining back-to-back
12-hour days reverberate into this week. Today, four days later, sheer
determination to move on, to have a life (what is it I do, again?) will hang my
clothes properly in closets or toss them in the dirty clothes basket.
Deciding what to do with the contents of the two tote bags will be more
difficult.
In one, a skinny note pad contains notes I
scribbled in my mother’s internist’s office, where we went last Wednesday so
that he could clear her for knee replacement surgery in two weeks. There my
mother reported to him that she’d had heart-attack-type symptoms that very
morning. With that game changer, suddenly we were on our way to the hospital. But not
before the doctor had patiently explained cardiac vs. coronary, leg swelling,
and unstable angina. The doctor’s and my mother’s pronunciation of the
cardiologist’s name left me wondering how to spell it, so I got that and his
phone number and wrote that down, too—just in case.
Now
what do I do with these notes? I’m thinking I need to organize and update the
file folder I began several years ago with contact names and numbers for my
parents—and since "medical events" happen more frequently now, it may be time to keep this folder in my car, not in my desk at
home. The medical explanations I’ll compose into an e-mail to my siblings, file
it in my Mom and Dad folder online, and pitch the little scrap of paper. Okay,
on to the next tote bag and note pad …
A little wider note pad has my note
to self to go to my mother’s house and bring back a medication the hospital’s
pharmacy does not carry, her shawl, and her dental floss; the cardiologist’s
case for searching for a blockage and time of Thursday morning’s angiogram; and
Mom’s questions for the nursing home staff at Dad’s care plan meeting Thursday
afternoon. In this tote bag I also find an extra photocopy the nurse took of my
mother’s list of medications. [Somewhere I jotted the nurses' compliments of my mother, but I can't find that note now. I remember two compliments, though: perfect patient and so organized.]
Same
basic decision on these notes: Share the cardiologist’s info with sibs and keep
the meds list with me for future hospital visits when my dear, brave mother
might not be able to give this information herself. I hope that day never
comes, but with recurring heart attack symptoms now in the picture …
A full-sized sheet of paper holds
Mom’s and my questions for the nursing home staff—and their answers about Dad’s
condition. The back holds the hospital nurse’s detailed discharge instructions
for my mother. When she can shower next, how often to vary positions, when to
start doubling one medication, what time of day to take another … and if a
hard, black bruise shows up, call the cardiologist, but if she feels pain in
her calf, call the internist. It’s too much—even now, this list overwhelms me.
My mother is mentally sharp; I hope she remembers all this advice, and from our
phone conversations since Thursday’s homecoming, she seems to have. She
probably conscientiously read all the papers in the thick yellow discharge
folder, just as she had read all the knee-replacement-prep papers.
What’s the best destiny for this
paper? In today’s phone call to Mom, I’ll review the discharge advice, just in
case. And although I relayed the report on Dad to my out-of-state siblings when
I called them Thursday to report on Mom’s angiogram, I think I’ll put it down
in an e-mail, too, and pitch the paper.
Last
but not least, I fish the hospital’s Visitor Guide from my tote bag. Wait, two Visitor Guides, one from Mom’s
hospital stay last month. (Sigh.)
These definitely go in the wastebasket. With all the eldercare health scares of
recent years, I’ve memorized that hospital’s map and cafeteria hours.
After an intense event such as
hospitalization, the processes of re-entry into normal life and assimilation of
new information and new circumstances remind me of corporate experiences like
coming back from a marketing conference with 3-inch 3-ring binders heavy with
workshop notes or like leaving a management meeting with new directives. You
have to figure out changes, new routines, new approaches, and often you don’t
have energy left for such thought. For me, eldercare has been part-time care with hours increasing as my parents hobble toward their mid-90s. Those of you
whose parents live with you have a full-time job (perhaps in addition to a
paying full-time job.) Whether part- or full-time, the job entails figuring out
what to do with the stuff tossed onto the nearest doorknob.
I haven’t even talked about emotional stresses hanging on my heart’s
doorknobs after last Wednesday and Thursday. Just a few examples …
- · Seeing my mother’s cheek muscles pulse and eyes tear when her internist told her he wouldn’t clear her for the knee replacement she had so hoped would improve her quality of life
- · And Thursday morning before the angiogram, seeing her holding her forehead due to severe pain caused by a medication
- · Hearing my normally unbelievably courageous mother wonder aloud why she couldn’t just fall asleep and not wake up
- · Sobbing with my mother Wednesday night over Alzheimer’s robbing her of having her husband at her side in her times of need over the past 9 years; instead her needs have had to take a back seat so she could be at his side for all his dementia-induced crises
- · Choking on the thought that perhaps the most loving thing to say to Dad now might be, “We’ll take care of Mom,” and to Mom, “We’ll take care of Dad” to free them from holding on. Yet their very holding on is such a transcendent testimony to love. Are we even ready to take full responsibility for one of them without the other? Only by God’s grace will we be ready for the inevitable.
Amid disappointment, helplessness,
and grief last week were also moments of joy and laughter. My one local
sister’s presence Thursday was an absolute godsend. Strong emotions and physical fatigue linger, but
without my sister to share my load and the encouragement and prayers of God’s people,
and beautiful dinners prepared by my husband, my doorknobs would still be burdened with last week’s detritus. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some doorknobs to free up.
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