While outwardly I seem to be doing okay in the wake of my mother’s death on Sunday, inwardly I feel incredibly brittle. Last evening when I got home I discovered that the new litter box I bought a week ago isn’t going to work. There was a puddle of urine on the floor just past the edge of the box, mirroring one I found on Monday when I got home from Illinois. In cleaning up the mess I managed to spill several pounds of litter on the floor. Fortunately it had already been scooped but I was pissed (sorry) nonetheless.
As in the weeks immediately following Michele’s death last October, I am discovering that it is the little things that set me off. The distance between calm and collected and gibbering maniac is almost non existent. My rampaging emotions are starting to effect my cats; both are skittishness and poor Nekko has taken to throwing up her food. I think the time for intervention is here. I can no longer put off the need for one-on-one counseling.
The suicide survivors group is good and I feel that I am getting something important out of it. However, it only meets once a month, and I don’t always get to expose my stuff there. (Particularly the last two times as there has been a very self-centered and verbally energetic woman who has monopolized the time for herself.) Paying someone to focus on me for an hour or two each month maybe the way to proceed.
After this coming weekend, time will be under my control again. I won’t (for a little while anyway) feel like I need to travel to Illinois every couple of weeks. I realize that I have been tense for most of the last seven months; and further that this unending tension has made me brittle and prone to breakdowns and outbursts (Sounds like the name of a new country album.). I just need to find a constructive outlet for my anger, depression, anxiety, fear, sorrow, madness, apathy, loneliness, and ennui.
Yesterday, after returning from Illinois, I spent the afternoon and evening talking to friends on the telephone. All were some what amazed that I plan on trying to have a normal week this week. In explaining my reasons for wanting some normalcy right now I realized that the full impact of my mother’s death isn’t going to hit me for several days. Most likely the impact will come Saturday during and after the memorial service.
I think we have a “relationship inertia” that keeps us moving forward for some time after the relationship itself is severed for any reason. A couple breaks up and it is a few weeks of months, maybe longer, before the two individuals are free from the orbit they had around the other. When a loved one dies there is a similar lag while the momentum of life carries the living past the point of death. It takes a bit of time to slow down, stop and circle back around to reality of having lost some one forever.
I have known for months that my mother was dying. I knew several years ago when we moved to Washington that I was only going to have a limited number of visits with her again. Every visit with her this spring had the potential to be the last. The first weekend of May, when I was there for my birthday, I talked to her for the last time, and we said goodbye to each other. This past weekend, while she did look at me one time, was really about being with my dad. The spirit and personality that made up my mom was already dying or gone by the time of my arrival.
Humans are creatures of ceremony, and we add importance to major events in our life through ceremony. High school graduations, weddings, birthdays - these are all occasions marked by ceremony. The event will still occur without a ceremony, but marking it through a public display makes it real and tangible. Next weekend my family and I will make the occasion of my mother’s death, and celebrate her life through two ceremonies; a private graveside service and public memorial service. The full impact of my loss won’t strike me until those events occur.
My mom died Sunday morning about 11:30. It was as peaceful as you could imagine. She simply stopped breathing, and died in her sleep.
Thursday evening my dad brought in a hospital bed and they set it, and her, up in the family room. The windows there look out on trees and birds and is quite lovely. He said that she was still talking a little bit then. I arrived on Friday and she opened her eyes and recognized me but didn’t speak. She was still talking a few droppers full of water every so often then. Saturday the hospice nurse came and, after she recorded my mom’s vitals, took Dad and I aside to tell us that she expected Mom would die within 24 - 48 hours. She proved to be prophetic as Mom died almost exactly 24 hours later.
Chris and Lisa came down for several hours in the afternoon. Throughout the day and into the night we were giving my mom liquid morphine, and placing cool compresses on her head and wrists to cool her off. She never exhibited any signs of pain or discomfort so I believe she was comfortable. I stayed up with her so my Dad could get some much needed sleep. During the night her breathing became labored and very raspy. Early Sunday morning it was very labored but around 9 o’clock it seemed to calm down. She was breathing very shallowly and softly then. We (my dad and I) were in the living room talking and I came into give her the next dosage of morphine at 11:30 only to discover she’d stopped breathing. She wanted to die at home and she got her wish. One time several weeks ago she told me that she thought dying in one’s sleep sounded like a peaceful way to go, and it was.
Having known this was coming for some time now has helped me to prepare somewhat for the aftermath. Although I am sure it will be several days before the full impact hits me. We are planning a memorial service and a private family graveside service for next weekend.
It is only going to be a matter of hours now before my mom dies. She has been unresponsive since later Thursday or early Friday. Calling her name or talking to her no longer even causes her eyes to open. The hospice nurse assures us that we are doing all that can be done, and I personally believe that she isn’t aware any more about her physical state.
Originally I was going to return to Kansas today, but I’ve decided that my place is here, supporting my father and helping him to care for Mom. I can’t imagine that she will last through the day, and secretly I hope she doesn’t as I don’t want her to suffer at all any more.
My brother and sister-on-law came by yesterday, as did a neighbor who has been friends with my mom for over 39 years. One of the home health care nurses, who is no longer seeing my mom as hospice is now in charge, came on her day off to visit with her. We’ve surrounded her with love and are basically waiting for her to let go.
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March 13, 1928 - May 28, 2006
The last few days have seen a sharp decline in my mother’s health. She is now sleeping nearly all the time, and has stopped eating. Her disorientation in terms of where she is, and even sometimes when she is, is increasing in frequency. She is so weak now that she is no longer able to walk or even stand on her own. Assisting her is becoming an impossible physical burden for my father. Yesterday they were forced to call upon the fire department to return her to bed after she was unable to help my father move her.
The hospice nurse indicates that a decline in her vital signs (blood pressure and the oxygenation of her blood) will be the signal that she has entered the final week of her life. So far her vitals have been consistently good; as one visiting nurse put it, “she’s a tough old lady.” Until she reaches that final week moving her to the hospice facility is not an option. Admitting her to the hospital is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which was her express desire to not die in the hospital. Hospitals view their purpose as doing everything they can to keep you alive, to prolong your existence. In my mother’s case there is nothing that can be done to cure her, so any measures taken in a hospital setting would only prolong the inevitable. The remaining options, then, are: hiring round the clock caregivers to be at the house with my mom or to admit her to a nursing home.
A catheter has been employed in a delaying action against making the decision about the next stage of her care. I am honored that my father has called me and talked to me about the choices, and their associated impacts. I cannot imagine the stress he must be feeling at having to make these calls, especially without the counsel of his wife of 45 years.
Sometimes, being an adult really sucks.
In my career as a martial artist I have had many different injuries. I have jammed toes and fingers, broken knuckles, broken my nose, dislocated my elbow, and torn the medial collateral ligament in my right knee. Not to mention countless contusions and bruises. However, last evening I added a new “injury” to my list of martial arts related boo-boos: sunburn. Sort of adds a whole new meaning to the term sun block.
The kendo club I’ve joined is an aozora (blue sky) dojo, meaning they practice out-of-doors. At the start of practice last night we were fully in the evening sun, with temperatures hovering around the 90 - 95 degree mark. Warming up was quick given the air temps. I didn’t get a bad burn, but I did notice some color on my forehead and ears that wasn’t there before. Also my arms and legs (which were uncovered as I don’t have my keikogi and hakama yet) are sporting a little tan today.
Practice itself was good; in addition to the usual cutting exercises we learned a simple wrap technique to move the opponents shinia out of position. Using a circular motion with the right hand it was easy to parry aside the other’s shinai. Following that we added a riposte (quick return thrust following a parry). All in all it was a good class and I enjoyed myself. This morning I am less sore than I was following Saturday’s workout; I’ve taking the first steps towards regaining some physical conditioning.
I started out to write a posting about needing a vacation. I was going to talk about the types of vacations I’ve had in the past, and how I find time by myself without structure difficult right now. As I re-read what I had writing it sounded like just so much bullshit to me.
I don’t need a vacation. I need a week or so without any stress. I need time without the weight of my grief bearing me down. I need time without the fear of my cellphone ringing only to bring me the news of my mother’s impending death. I need time without the stress of work and a completely irrational deadline. I need time without world events, bills to pay, or other people.
In short I need a week of suspended animation. I just want to go somewhere quiet and peaceful, where I can’t be bothered or stressed, and just be for a while. No thoughts, no emotions, no physical pain or discomfort. Just floating on a calm sea with no worries or intrusions. When I was a kid I saw a play called “Stop the World! I Want to Get Off!” I have no idea what it was about anymore, but I can empathize with the title. Stop the world, just for a bit, I want to get off.
Unfortunately I’m not likely to get a break from any of the aggravations in my life for some time to come.
Sigh.
Fargo is a masterpiece. Darkly funny, wickedly insightful in to the minds of midwesterners, and richly deserving of the nominations and awards it received.
Rating: Should be in every DVD collection.
My father called me this evening. He is now faced with some brutally difficult decisions regarding my mom. She is weak enough now that she is no longer able to stand or walk. Getting from her bed to the bathroom is extremely difficult, and my father is afraid that it is rapidly becoming more than he can handle. He called so that he could voice what he thought were the options out loud, before asking the hospice nurse tomorrow what options they could provide.
I agreed with his assessment of the situation and tried to bolster his morale as much as I could. The last eighteen months have taken their toll on him, and the last six weeks have really worn him down. I know that he only wants to do what is right for her, and that he would (and will) do anything for her. The reality is that she is fast approaching the point in time where he can’t help her safely anymore. And it maybe that this Rubicon has already been reached. Several weeks ago, as her decline really started she made him promise that she would die at home. As he put it that was a promise made to be broken.
Her periods of disorientation are increasing, and some of the things she says now are barbed so he is dealing with conflicted emotions. Intellectually he knows what is going on, but emotionally this is proving to be very trying. As I said in a earlier posting, I can see now why the survivor often doesn’t last very long; caring for the first to die wears them out and leaves them dangerously vulnerable.
I don’t know if she will be placed in hospice for the final days of her life, or if he’ll admit her to the hospital for a couple of days to give himself a chance to recover a bit. Or maybe hospice will have a way to ease his burden of caring for her at home. Unimaginably tough decisions to have to make.
Over the Memorial Day weekend I will be traveling to Illinois once again. Already the anticipation of what I will find there is leaving a knot of anxiety in my stomach. I don’t want to go; I don’t want to see my mom suffering or delusional. But my sense of integrity and character demands that I go, for it is the right thing to do.