Nothing can prepare you for this...Part 3

After googling until my eyes hurt, I came to the conclusion that I probably wouldn't be able to find all of the answers I was looking for. Heck, I even came across a message board filled with posts from people who have been resusitated following a heart attack and lived to tell about it. Some of them described seeing the infamous white light, others described seeing angels and even Jesus. Some even mentioned that they had talked to relatives who had passed on before them. And almost all of them spoke about someone or something telling them that it wasn't their time yet and that they had to go back.

A few of the stories seemed credible. Others sounded downright bizarre, but I remember reading one account that really struck me. It was a young woman who went into cardiac arrest prior to undergoing an emergency operation. She rememberd being in excruiating pain in the moments prior to the surgery, and went on to describe how contented and relaxed she felt as she began to fall unconscious. At one point, she remembered the doctor's voices fading away followed by a pleasant silence. Her pain had disappeared and her only feelings were those of relief and contentedness. She remembered nothing after that until she awoke following the operation. She also had no clue that her heart had stopped. She saw no angels, no white light, nothing. From what she could remember the world went dark and that was it.

Reading that gave me hope. Hope that mom may have gone through something similar. She was at best semi-concious while we were at her bedside during those last few moments. On occasion she would react to our voices and something tells me she heard every word we said. She relaxed completely after that last shot of morphine and if her experience was anything like that woman's post, then all I can assume is she went peacefully. The voices faded away and her pain disappeared.

Not long after reading that woman's post, I had yet another near-sleepless night. I hadn't had any trouble falling asleep since I was completely exhausted, but it never lasted for more than 2-3 hours before I woke up and stayed awake for hours afterward thanks to my over-active brain. Although I had slept for a few hours, it really felt like I had been asleep for only a few minutes. I had no recollection of any dreams, which is weird since I had been having rather vivid dreams during the times that I did sleep. That night I actually started to get mad at myself for taking so long to fall back asleep. I just wanted to get back to that peaceful dreamless-ness. It was the only time that my mind fell completely silent and I was able to have a temporary reprieve from the grieving process. I wanted to get back to my happy, comfy, nothing-can-bother-me-now sleep-state.

And then it hit me. Surely, this must be what death feels like. A sense of calmness and tranquility that surrounds you as you slowly slip into a life-long slumber. There are no dreams and the world as you know it fades to black, but hopefully there is relief and freedom from everything that caused you pain. And if you were in pain, surely this is a state you might welcome with open arms. To be free of it all - forever. In a way, I hope that's how my mom experienced it because it certainly sounds like something to look forward to when your time comes.

In some small recess of my brain I wonder if it was she who woke me up and clued me in to those subtle details. She must have known that once I had the clues, I could probably solve the mystery all by myself. Thanks mom.

Nothing can prepare you for this...Part 2

In the moments following my mom's death, my mind (and my heart if I recall correctly) were racing. I couldn't process what had just happened. Was she really gone? How could this be? She was supposed to be in here to get fluid removed, not die! This can't be happening. I suppose I was going through the denial portion of the grieving process. But on top of that, I remember looking at my dad and asking, "What the hell do we do now?" Seriously. In my 32 years of life, I had been to countless funerals for friends and family members and visited during more than my fair share of calling hours, but I had never gone through the whole funeral organization process.

Someone really should put a class together on this stuff, cause that's what we needed in the hours following my mom's death. I desperately tried to remember what my mom did when her parent's passed away years ago, but the exercise was futile. They were in Canada while we were/are in the US. My mom's sisters who still live in Canada actually took care of most of the details. Not to mention the fact that she probably tried to shield me from as much of the funeral preparations as possible. So I had nothing to go on based on her past experiences. Thankfully, a few nurses stepped in and offered us some advice. From there, the rest of the morning was pretty much a blur of errand-running.

We left the hospital around 8am that morning and my dad and I decided to tackle the chore of funeral preparations right away. So on about 2 hours of sleep and running on complete adrenaline for most of the day, my dad and I drove around and visited the church, the funeral home, a florist, the cemetary, and a monument company. We ordered things, made decisions on stuff I never imagined I'd have to make a decision on (like picking out a casket, vault and what the prayer cards would look like.) We designed a headstone, upgraded the cemetary plot (to one with a standing headstone instead of a flush one), wrote up her obituary, picked out her final outfit and made more phone calls than I can count.

Within 8 hours, we had pretty much put together the entire thing. You really can't compare it to anything else in life, but now that I've been through it, I can equate it to planning a small wedding, only on steroids. You need the venue, the attire, the officiant, the food, flowers, even a limo. And somehow we managed to get it all done in one day. In a way I was kind of glad we did it that way. It gave me some time to rest up for a few days before the family descended from Canada for the calling hours and funeral. Besides, the past few days had been so hectic. Between hurriedly visiting mom at the hospital at all hours of the night, we were also in the process of laying the footings for our new back deck. It's weird in a way. Catastrophe strikes, but you still have all the other "normal" stuff that needs to get done on a daily basis. Kids still need to be fed, laundry still needs to get done, and projects that were started before all this happened, still had to move forward. The clash of the planned and the unplanned made my head spin and it put me in a funky "limbo-ish" state. I would space out, constantly. I walked into a room and spent more time trying to figure out why I had walked into that room than I did doing what I had stepped in there to do. I felt like a zombie.

So I was definitely looking forward to resting for a few days. The only problem was, I couldn't sleep. Actually that's not completely true. I could fall asleep, I just couldn't stay asleep. After an hour or two I'd wake up and that's when it would hit me again. Some twisted corner of my mind had to remind me over and over again that I was not living the nightmare that I thought I was. She really was gone. My stomach would sink everytime I woke up. As if that wasn't bad enough, my mind would shift into overdrive and it ended up keeping me awake for the next few hours. During that time I would relive her final moments in my head. This would happen every time I woke up. Over and over. It got to the point that I hated waking up. I just wanted to stay asleept (whether dreaming or not) because it was so much better than dealing with the reality of the situation. The whole cycle was draining and frankly I'm really surprised I haven't come down with a cold (knock on wood!)

After a few days of that, my mind switched gears and instead of reliving her last few moments, it started on a quest to find out what death was really like. Morbid? You bet. But I'm a researcher at heart, so I started doing a little digging. In my mind I figured, if I had a better understanding of the whole thing, some information that might clue me in to what she may have experienced at the end, it would somehow make dealing with it a lot easier. It would answer my questions and might make me feel a little closer to her. I was grasping for closure. I spent a lot of time searching the Interwebs and reading about the experiences of others. What I found was enlightening and quite interesting.

to be continued...

Nothing can prepare you for this...

As some of you may or may not know, my mom succumbed to her lengthy battle with heart and lung disease on Tuesday, Sept 8th. She had been sick on and off for the past 10 years but we had no idea that she would pass away so soon. She was admitted to the hospital on Monday Aug 31st to have fluid removed from around her lungs. Over the past few years, this had become a yearly tradition for her. Usually by the end of summer, due to the heat and humidity, she would become short of breath primarily due to the accumulation of fluid. She underwent the procedure to have this fluid extracted on an almost yearly basis, so we had no reason to suspect that this hospitalization would be any different than the previous ones.

After a few days on a regular floor, she was sent upstairs to ICU where they performed the fluid draining procedure and not long afterwards, things were looking up. Her oxygen levels were better, her blood pressure wasn't bad. We figured a few more days to ensure that she had stabilized and she'd probably be back home. This did not turn out to be the case. I went to visit her on Friday Sept 4th and she was in pain from the chest tube they installed to drain the fluid. The doctors pulled us aside and discussed possible heart surgery - something to do with an atrial valve replacement, I believe. Although her oxygen levels were ok, her lungs were not looking good. One was partially collapsed, the other looked as though it had the beginnings of emphysema. They would need to perform additional tests to determine if that was the case. Their primary concern though was her one and only kidney which was starting to fail. The heart and lung issues worried me, but the kidney issue didn't seem to bother me too much. She would need dialysis, but she'd gone through this once before when she was battline pnuemonia. It was only temporary that time, though so I was hoping this would be the same. That is where things took a turn for the worse.

During the operation on Monday Sept 7th to install her dialysis catheter, she went into cardiac arrest. They resusitated her, but her vitals were not good. They attempted to hook her up to dialysis later that afternoon but her body rejected it. Her blood pressure plummeted and while her one kidney appeared to still be working, the doctors were worried that things would become dire if she didn't undergo dialysis soon. Dad called me around 9:30 that night - the doctor wanted to speak to us again. By the time I arrived, she was stable and we were able to see her for a short time. She had agreed to be intubated and sedated for the surgery so she was not coherent while we visited. Her blood pressure was back up and her heart rate was ok. If she continued to remain stable, they would attempt dialysis again the next day. We left the hospital around midnight and I planned on getting up at 5am Tuesday to call the nurse and get a status. We didn't make it to 5am. At 4am, I got a call from Dad. Her heart had stopped again at 3:30am and things had turned dire. Her vitals were not good after having been resusitated a second time. It wasn't until this point, that it finally sunk in. I was losing her.

We had gotten used to the up and down roller coaster of mom's many health issues. She'd go into the hospital to get something looked at and she'd end up coming home with two new problems. Fixing one thing often times caused other things to go wrong. It was a vicious cycle. Even still, I was so focused that things would get better this time around, just like they always had in the past. It wasn't until the first heart attack that I started to think otherwise. She had never had one of those before and deep down, I believe it was the most likely cause of her demise.

By the time I arrived at the hospital at 4:30am on Tuesday Sept 8th, I quickly came to the realization that I was visiting my mom for the last time. My Dad gave the order to the doctor to not resusitate her if her heart stopped again. It was probably one of the hardest things he's ever had to say. We stayed by her side the entire time and after a few minutes we were joined by B, my husband and my husband's mom. At that point, mom was still intubated and on a respirator. She was only semi-coherent but would open her eyes at times. She didn't move much, but I'm pretty sure she could hear us as I remember her squeezing my hand when I told her that J and B were on their way to see her. Those precious few hours were a blur to me. Maybe because I was running on only a few hours of sleep, but I remember spending the entire time going back and forth between looking at the monitor that displayed her vitals and looking at her. It was like an up and down tennis match. I should have just ignored the monitor, but I was shocked by what I saw on that screen. I watched as her oxygen levels steadily declined. I had never seen mom's oxygen level lower than 80 before, but at that point it displayed 60, then 50-something, then down to 30, etc. The nurse came in and gave her half a dose of morphine which slowed her respirations to yet another level I had never seen before. Her heart rate had been through the roof, but that too decreased steadily after the medication. It all happened so fast. Sometime around 6am, I glanced up at the monitor again. Her oxygen level fell to zero, her respirations were controlled almost entirely by the machine and the heart blips went from short, steady peaks to a flat line. It was like I was living in a movie. Even after all my years as a nursing assistant, I have never witnessed anything like that before. The nurse came in to say that her heart had just stopped and I fell apart into what seemed like a million pieces.

to be continued...

Now I know I really hate cold tea!

What's worse than being stuck on a boring teleconference call at lunchtime with nothing but a cup of cold tea?

Attempting to sip said tea but instead managing to spill it down your chin and onto your neck. Does it stop there? Oh no. It then made its way down the INSIDE of my shirt. Yup, cold tea on the skin, that'll wake you up in no time! I was going to blame it on the fact that I was holding the phone between my ear and my shoulder in order to multi-task, which made for a crooked drinking experience anyway, but I really have no excuse. Sitting right next to my phone is a wireless headset. It probably could have prevented the whole thing. Instead I'm stuck mopping up tea off my chest. Lovely.

19 and counting...

Are you freaking kidding me? As if 18 isn't enough, THIS world-famous family has done "it" yet again. Yes, pun intended. Seriously, are they trying for a world record or something? Maybe they're waiting for a nice even 20 before stopping. But golly gee, how has her uterus not completely given out by now?? Do they know nothing about birth control?

But wait, they're having a grandchild too who'll be a few months older than their child. Really? I've got nothing wrong with large(r) families but if you're old enough that your kids start having kids, maybe it's about time to call it quits. Ya think?