Yesterday, I logged in to work from home. I needed a distraction from the chaos that has been my life this week, ever since our own "Black Saturday." But at 10:20 AM, Daddy called, "Hey, the doctor wants to meet with us, how soon can you get here?" An hour later, I was at the hospital.
The news was not good -- labwork showed that Mom's small upswings were not indicative of recovery. In fact, the numbers were getting worse, especially for the kidneys. She was approaching, if not already in, renal failure. In addition, her liver was beginning to lose function. The lungs still had fluid in and around them, so much so that she doesn't even have one fully functional lung. All of this is putting extra pressure on an already overtaxed heart. What did we want to do? How did we want to proceed?
We had already begun the discussion of this on that Saturday. What would we do if it came to this? Well, now it is here; what do we do? We knew we only had one choice -- Hospice. We went back to the hospital, found Dr. Jay, and gave him our decision, through a veil of tears. Dad and Richard went home and I stayed with Mom a while longer.
Today, we met with the Hospice nurse and they accepted Mom as a patient. They moved her within the hour, and she's been there the rest of the day. The feeding tube is gone; oxygen remains. A pain med patch is on her to assist with the discomfort.
I hated to leave her, but I had to...... We had to. We are absolutely exhausted. Hours on end at the hospital have completely drained us. We come home utterly limp, and we stare into space and fall asleep......
Hospice care workers are angels. Absolute angels.
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