Sometimes, life has a way of kicking the wind out of your sails.
On Feb 23rd, my mother stopped breathing. One minute, she’s laughing with Daddy over America’s Funniest Home Videos and the next, she’s slumped over her chair, her body still as if hovering between this world and the next.
Thank God, Daddy was there. It took him a few minutes(his words, not mine) to get her to breath again, but even then, she struggled to catch her breath. My sister called 911, and they bundled her up and hurried her to the hospital, my dad right behind them.
I didn’t know anything had happened until I opened my email the next morning and found all these lab results on my mom. At first, I’d thought someone had made a mistake–Mom had been scheduled for surgery that was canceled due to a postive Covid test–but that didn’t stop me from looking at the results. Glucose through the roof. Potassuim low. CBC way off. The arterial Co2 and oxygen levels reverses. This person, whoever they are, was very sick.
Then my dad called, and I realized this person was my mom. Having someone you love in the hospital is terrible, but it’s different when you’re a nurse or in my case, a former nurse. I knew enough to know there was a storng possiblity we would lose her. My mother has had vascular dementia for the last five years so we understand loss but it’s been slow with glimpses of the person she used to be. We weren’t ready to lose her.
Over the next few days, we found the culprit to her breathing problems–a pulmonary embolism caused by a combination of Covid and inactivity due to a broken leg. Mom’s home on blood thinners and oxygen now, and seems to be on the road to recovery.
One thing I’ve got to say. My daddy. He refused to leave her side. I don’t think he got more than three hours of sleep the entire time Mom was in the hospital. I’d send him home in the mornings but he didn’t rest. He couldn’t, he was so worried about her. Daddy’s always taken care of Mom, but moreso since Mom fell last September and broke her leg. He washes and dresses her every morning, then picks her up and helps her into the living room. He’s taken over the housework and the cooking, and is patient with her when she gets badly confused. I could go on for pages and pages about everything he does for her, but I’ll just say how blessed we are to have him. There’s so few good men in the world, but I have three in my life–my husband, my son-in-law and my dad.
