Where's the Silver Lining?

Preparations

All the bombardment in the news about whether a poor woman should be allowed to die or not (never mind the other argument about whether she brought all this on herself with her actions) is really becoming too much to indure considering the situation we're in.

However, Robert and I have prepared our Advanced Directives, did over eight years ago. We don't want our family members placed into the position I was after my mother had her stroke.

Mother told me after my father died that she didn't want heroic measures taken if she ever became incapacitated, no machines or tubes UNLESS there were a good chance of recovery, just to keep her comfortable and not in pain. She told her doctor that, too. However, she never wrote her wishes.

Then the night came when her phone was busy, always busy. She and a couple of her friends did get on the phone with each other and visit for hours sometime. But the next day when I arrived home from school, the phone was still busy. I called to have the phone checked and was told someone was on the line. (The problem was the noise heard wasn't conversation, but I wasn't told that bit of information.) I tried off and on for hours - still busy. I called her neighbor across the street once she was home, already night. Marilyn said the bedroom light and living room light were on in my mother's house, but no one would answer the door. By pressing her ear to the door, she could hear someone snoring inside. Mother was extremely hard of hearing in one ear, and if she were lying on her "good" ear, she couldn't hear. Marilyn finally agreed to call the police to break in the next morning if there were no change. The time was about eleven at night.

Robert and I packed a bag, ready to leave. We knew that something was wrong. Since we were so tired, we decided to get a few hours rest before going to Mother's. At five the next morning, the phone rang. Marilyn told me that she couldn't sleep and went back to try to get in again, still no answer: same lights were on, no answer to her pounding.

I told her, "Break in, call the police. As soon as we can dress, we're on our way."

We had finsished dressing when the phone rang again. Marilyn told me they found my mother crumpled on the living room floor, her face against the phone, the receiver knocked off. She was being rushed to the hospital.

We went straight to the Ponca City hospital, the closest to where my mother lived, and to the emergency room. Everyone knew Mother because she had been a nurse there for years. The doctor showed me the CAT scan results: a massive stroke with so much damage on the left side {left side, yet her left side was paralyzed) of her brain that recovery was impossible. I stood there, my mother's hand clamped in mine (actually hers clamped around mine), as the doctor spoke. Mother's eyes never left my face. She was awake. Dear God, she lay there all that time awake and knowing she didn't have any help, probably praying that someone would find her. She wasn't able to speak at all.

When the orderly and nurse wheeled the gurney to the room on the medical floor assigned to my mother, she would not turn my hand loose. Everyone just moved out of the way. When we arrived in the room, and the nurse told Mother they had to move her to the bed, my wedding ring had been inbeded into the sides of the fingers on each side. I would have bruises for weeks after, but they were nothing compared to the bruises on my heart.

Then the battle began. The intern under my mother's doctor didn't want fluid IVs to be used. I told my mother I'd be back and asked the doctor to go to the hall with me. There I informed her, the intern, that my mother would be kept comfortable, and since dehydration was extremely painful, she would have IVs for fluids.

I sat beside my mother for nearly three weeks. We all knew she wouldn't recover, but I fought to see she was as comfortable as possible. I finally had her moved to the hospital in my town.

She couldn't speak, but she could squeeze her right hand and blink her eyes. She was aware the whole time except for one day, the Saturday before she died on Sunday. Sunday she was conscious and aware again until she closed her eyes and went to sleep permanently, at least here on earth.

Robert and I made our Advance Directives.