Reality, Resignation...Rejoicing

I've not blogged or posted notes this week because it's been a rather busy, if short, week.  We were up at 4:00 a.m. to head to the hospital Tuesday for mom's mastectomy surgery.  It was so different being on the "caregiver" side of the room.  No one wants someone they love to be nervous, frightened or hurt.  That's not what love is about.  As I watched mom that morning, lying so defenseless on that hospital gurney, I bowed my head next to her and asked God to give me her pain and fear.  It was gut-wrenching to watch her have the IV inserted...to watch her answer the same questions over and over again.  We had to be there at 5:30 a.m. and the doctor didn't even show up till after 7:30 a.m.  By then mom was growing frustrated.  If I've heard her say once, I've heard her say two dozen times since this started, "I just want this all to be over with!"  It was such a relief when the nurse gave her the "I-Don't-Care" shot that prepared her for her trip down the hall.  And then it was time to sit and wait...and wait...and wait.  I was blessed because Bro. Tuck and Mrs. Barbara, Mom and Dad's best friends for 32 years, came to sit with me.  And I was double blessed because Shawna Pate, a dear sister/friend came down from El Dorado to be with me.  Mom's pastor, Mike Holloway also showed up to wait with us.  So the waiting passed rather easily, if not quickly.  At 11:30 they came to get me to confer with the doctor.  I love Dr. Stephenie Long.  She explained that she'd moved the large mass from the breast, but that the lymph nodes were not only full of cancer, but surrounded by a large mass.  She had to do some extensive work to get them out.  She also explained that in removing them she saw and felt something suspicious in the muscles of mom's back and removed a sample for biopsy...another place the cancer has invaded.  She said that everything had gone well and mom had handled the surgery like a trooper.  We exchanged hugs and then I went back to the waiting room (with Tuck and Barbara who had come with me in case I needed them and so that they could hear the prognosis).  About 45 minutes later I was handed a room number, and Shawna and I headed for room 5023.  Mom was brought in shortly and she looked wonderful.  Her color was back and she was awake and, I thought, alert.  Shawna stayed with her so I could hurry to the car and retrieve our luggage and my computer.  When I returned, Shawna was  preparing to leave when mom said, “You don’t have to leave so quickly.  You just got here!”  I explained that Shawna had been with me all morning and mom asked, “What time is it?”  When I told her it was 1:30 her eyes shot wide open.  She thought she’d only been asleep a few minutes (smile).  She rested on and off for the afternoon, received visitors that evening...and then got up to go for a walk.  She looked better and seemed to be feeling better than since I’d returned home.  I felt like I was looking at a miracle.  She got up the next morning, sat up in the chair to eat her breakfast, went for another walk and then came back to sit a while do puzzles.  And about 10:00 I think her body decided to protest that she had already done way too much.  She crawled back in bed and allowed the aide to give her a sponge bath.  And then she tried to sleep.  When the nurse came to told us we were released, Mom whimpered, “I don’t want to go.  I’m so tired.”  It was the saddest little cry.  We got permission to stay a little longer...and mom never could sleep.  She said she had “too much on my mind”.  Imagine that?  She did get to eat her hospital lunch though.  She was also petulant and whiny about having to go for a radiation treatment.  I called to see if she could get out of it, but they really wanted her to have it, so we left the hospital and went to the center for her treatment...and finally came back home...so glad to be here.

Shortly after we got her Hospice showed up.  Meagan, who did our intake info, is such a sweetie.  She brought Nurse Sharon Drumwright with her.  Turns out Sharen’s daddy was R.C. Smith, a pastor friend (he actually pastored one of the church’s Dad pastored, before Dad was there).  We had a nice visit with them.  Aunt Edna came.  Then some of Mom’s SS class members came with a delicious dinner of chicken n’ dumplings, potatoes salad, beans, congealed salad and chocolate cake.  It was a very nice welcome home.

Thursday was a “miserable” day for Mom – weak smile.  She had to take her “miserable pill” and then go for her “miserable radiation”.  But I had to laugh out loud when she asked me later that afternoon to put her “miserable pen” on the table, out of her way.  I think reality was slapping her in the face that day.  She’d finished the one treatment she was willing to accept and now it was time for preparing for whatever was to come.  Mom is not a person who expresses feelings easily...it’s like pulling teeth to get anything “feely” out of her.  Mom deals best with what’s right in front of her...things you can touch...things you can control.  She doesn’t like to deal with anything painful, or evil, or rotten, or negative...she likes to just ignore them and pretend they don’t really happen or exist.  But she’s run out of options now.  She is going to have to deal with the pain and hurt and negativity that she’s always been so repulsed by.  That’s not to say that Mom has not ministered to others in their pain.  She has often sat at the bedside of someone who was ailing...she and Dad there to offer any comfort they could.  But that was always someone else’s illness...someone else’s pain...something she could control because she could walk away from it.  Now she deals with “the end” on her own...without her life partner to walk with her.  Truth is...he’s down the path waiting for her.  And she just wants to skip the path and move to the destination. 

There was a mix-up in understanding and when Home Health came to the house and we told them that Hospice was involved, they left without changing Mom’s wound dressing.  I emptied her drains and put in a call to Hospice and sweet Nurse Sharen was at the house a little while later to change the wound.  I asked Sharen to talk to mom again about a hospital bed because mom had slept for five nights in Dad’s chair...because her bed was now “too flat”.  Mom acquiesced, but with some hesitation.

Yesterday the bed arrived...and the bedside table...and the oxygen...and the inhaler machine...and a suction machine!  I think mom was in shock.  We watched a delightfully sweet young man assemble everything.  I say we watched...I think mom glared.  It was like an enemy had entered the room.  I made the bed up with sheets and then had to leave the house for a while to get my hair cut...the heat had won the battle and the hair had to go.  I left the salon and hurried to WalMart to find a mattress pad and coverlet for the bed.  I got home and made it up and mom still glared at the intruder in the room.  I wondered if she would even use it.  I watched her, at 10:00, relunctantly move to the bed.  I think resignation set in when she climbed into the bed... she seemed resigned finally that this was really happening.  I think she was genuinely surprised when she didn’t wake up till 8:15 this morning!  The bed did make a difference in her comfort and ability to sleep.

Mom talked with Sharen when she was here.  We were talking about an upcoming visit with Dr. Weinberger, her oncologist, and Sharen asked why we were seeing him.  As they talked, Sharen shared the option with mom that she really did not have to accept any more treatments...that she could deny services that would draw out the process of moving home.  Mom made the decision to cancel all upcoming visits except to see Dr. Long to have the staples removed from her chest.  Mom is eating very little...most of her calories are coming from the Boost she’s drinking.  I think she’s trying to help the situation along.
With no treatments and no doctor’s visits to make the calendar move along, we now settle in and prepare for her homegoing.  I try not to talk too much (imagine) when I’m alone with her and just give her as much quiet as she likes.  The computer becomes my outlet for expressing what I’m feeling.  Family and friends drop by and for the most part are a blessing.  But mom tires so easily and I’m trying to learn to watch her and gauge when she needs a break.

In the midst of reality...in the midst of resignation...there is cause to rejoice.  So many have come by to love mom...to tell her what she means to them...to reminisce about Dad.  I’ve heard some wonderful stories from mom this week.  My favorite came yesterday.  As we were returning from radiation treatment, the shuttle was preparing to launch for the very last time.  We were listening to the play-by-play on the radio and mom started sharing about when she and Dad and David got to go to NASA and see the friend’s son, astronaut Jim Halsell, take off.  She described two memorable events from that trip.  The first made me laugh so hard...maybe because of the way she presented it.

Someone on the radio was mentioning how you see the shuttle fire up and lift off and then a little bit later you hear the sound of the roar of the engines.  Mom said, “That reminds me of the most memorable thing about that trip...well, after the bird that pooped on my hat.”  I started laughing.  I’ve never heard a memorable event start off like that.  She was amazed that in a crowd of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, the bird managed to poop and hit HER hat!  She went on to tell how one of the tour guides (they were part of the astronaut’s family and friends bunch that got all kinds of special treatment that day) said, “If you can keep from looking up and following the shuttle, and will instead look down at the water between the shuttle and you, you will see something pretty amazing.”  Mom said it was the hardest thing not to look up.  But she watched as the sound wave from the launch created an actual “wake” on the water...just as if a boat had passed by.  She said you could see the wake come across the water and as it hit the land the sound of the launch finally got to them.  She is such a good storyteller and you could see she was back in that seat, on that special day, reliving that event.  I love that she’s willing to share stories like this...stories I’ve not heard.  She talked about how Dad was about to burst with pride that day he enjoyed it so much.  I’m so grateful they have memories like this.

So I rejoice in the friends...in the memories...and in the time we have to love each other up until she moves into the next chapter of her life...the chapter where I believe she and Dad will fall in love again with each other...in their perfect, whole, renewed bodies...in the Presence of the One Who is love and taught them how to love each other.  I’m so grateful that I’m getting this time with her...grateful for a husband who understands the importance...grateful for children who are sacrificing to help him and who are missing my presence in their lives and the lives of their children...grateful for friends who are filling the gap...and grateful for the hundreds and hundreds who are praying us through this journey.