If you read my previous blog, then you know my Mom was coughing up blood and was in the ER as I left a tournament in Dallas. I raced down there on Saturday morning and it was a long drive by myself. On the way down, I didn't cry at first, but then the water faucet started again. I didn't know what was going on... but when my Dad called and told me my Mom was "bad," I knew it wasn't good and then really started crying. She was gasping for air and had asked for morphine. My heart just sank, for the hundredth time in 3 weeks.
I arrived directly to the hospital and everyone cried when I walked in the room - me, my Dad and my Mom. I didn't stay long... I had to wash some clothes for my Dad - he had been there all night and couldn't find clean clothes before he climbed into the ambulance with my Mom the previous day. My Mom looked okay, but scared. The morphine was making her feel better, but her anxiety was very high.
Again the unknowns were unbearable. When was she getting out of the hospital? Was she going to be able to leave alive this time? Would my Dad be able to handle this hospital visit? Would I? Would my work be okay without me for more time? I didn't know.
We finally found out on Monday or Tuesday that she was going to be in the hospital to the end of the week. Another week in San Antonio. I would stay with her every night again (except one night - and I wouldn't let that happen again, no matter how much my Dad begged to stay). I enjoyed the nights with her again, but the chair was uncomfortable - not like the last chair I was in the last hospital stay two weeks ago. Every morning I had pains in my tummy from the bad position my body was in from the chair. Then I would go pick up my Dad and bring him to the hospital, and get his wheel chair and wheel him into her room. I would then take off and run errands and get some things done at their house for them. Examples included doing their taxes, writing to the financial department at the hospital, going through their bills, working with their social worker to see if they qualified for home health care (if so, they would get paid through the selling of the house after both my parent's passed), etc.
Then, I would go back to the hospital in the early evenings and eat dinner with my parents and then take my Dad back to their house and then I'd drive back to the hospital to stay with my Mom overnight. My Mom was usually asleep when I got back - so we wouldn't talk until she would wake up from 4-6am to go pee. She was more awake at those times and a couple of times I again climbed into bed with her and I held her. We had some great talks. However, at night when she was sleeping when I would walk in from taking my Dad, I'd sit by her and look at her and just cry and cry. One night I read her obituary she had wrote, and I cried. One night, I told her she had my blessing to be with God. It's all so surreal.
Death and life hits you right in the face during times like this, and it's a very hard time right now.
My Mom was bleeding in her lungs from the blood thinner she was on. They stopped that medication when she arrived at the ER, even though the blood in her lungs had damaged her already unhealthy lungs, something she definitely didn't need. She was gasping because her lungs had blood in them, but she was in that condition for hours. I mean hours!... before the doc's prescribed her morphine to help her breathe. Gasping was described to me by my boss (who's Dad died of emphysema) as the feeling you'd get if someone held your head under water. So, my Mom is scared that without morphine to help her breathe calm (that was the only thing that helped her breathe with a sense of normalcy), she will start gasping again and die. It's a very psychological situation. I tried to explain to her the blood was causing the gasping, but she doesn't believe me and doesn't want to leave the hospital because she's afraid she was gasp again... and she doesn't want to die that way (again - it feels like drowning). Her anxiety is high and she had several panic attacks in the hospital.
To make a long story short, she was finally discharged 8 days later, but none of the doctor's wrote a narcotic-type med for her. To say the least, she is EXTREMELY upset. She feels like she is going to die at home. I held her in her room when she was discharged because she didn't want to leave... and she cried and cried and cried. She cried so much and was so scared, I started to cry. I don't think I've ever seen her so scared. We finally got her in the car and when she got home, she just lay in bed and was so upset. Not knowing when the gasping would come, even though I told her if I thought she was going to die without the morphine, I wouldn't take her home, she still didn't believe me.
I picked up her pain medicine the doc prescribed and she took it along with an anxiety pill and actually feel asleep for a few hours. My Mom honestly looked better this time than when we left the hospital two weeks ago, but although she may physically be better, mentally she is worse - scared, anxious, depressed, and worried more than I've ever seen her.
I'm again exhausted, mentally and physically. I leave tomorrow (Sunday night). Although I don't want to leave my Mom (again, nor ever).
But, if my Mom can get over this anxiety, she will be okay for a little while. I dread the day she gasps again (I hear it will come again). I am so scared for her. I love her SO much.
I don't know how long she will live, but I don't want her to suffer.
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