These type of communication challenges always seem to occur on the days I had the day shift. The doctors always seemed to come by when Dad was taking a rare break golfing, and I was there to figure out how to proceed with handling the care of my dying mother.
I remember losing control in my fourth attempt to convince her doctor that something was definitely wrong ~ that something had completely changed since she took her fall.
"You think her falling was like a walk in the park?!?" I shouted at him in Room 2511 one morning.
He immediately ordered an MRI.
Oh, how I wished I had not shouted that day.
The whole MRI experience turned out to more of a nightmare than her falling.
Poor Mom was in such pain that just being on the gurney to get there was almost too much. I remember they had to delay her pain medication due to this test, and so her pain was already starting to get out of whack. The morphine drip had to be disconnected for the procedure. We waited and waited in the lobby for the MRI to begin, and the sight of my mother so uncomfortable on the gurney was almost too much too bear.
Alone in my thoughts, I waited restlessly for the test to be completed and was shocked by the heartbreaking sight of what nearly looked like a different woman being wheeled out of the room. Her pain was even more excruciating. Lying completely flat during the test had taken its toll on her. She was wincing and wanting desperately to get back to her room to receive the overdue dosage of morphine.
The MRI Center was about 50 yards from the main hospital, and patients had to be transported outdoors on a gurney to get to and from the appointment. Rain had arrived during Mom's procedure.
The assistants handling the gurney were trying to rush my mother out of the rain instead of just covering her up face, wheeling her gurney way too fast across the dividers of each square of the cement sidewalk. Mom's gurney dipped into each beveled divider, and with each dip, Mom cried out in pain.
During all of this, I kept thinking about the childhood superstition:
"Step on a crack, break your mother's back."
I was mortified about her escalating pain and tried to speak up about the situation after the gurney dipped too hard between a few squares of the sidewalk. The assistants said they just wanted to hurry and get her back to the room where she would be more comfortable.
We finally got back to the room and got her back to bed. Hooked up the morphine drip. And then I lost it all over again. I buried my head and started sobbing.
And Mom softly said in a voice that was growing weaker by the day, "You have to be strong for me."
I looked up to the woman who had been so strong for me her whole life, and gently asked, "Does that mean I cannot cry?"
She assured me that my tears were okay just as she did when I was a child or a heartbroken teenager.
I did not know then how strong I really was ~ how much my strength helped her get through the last 9 months of her life ~ I had always been strong for her my whole life ~ sometimes even being an adult as a child ~
My tears were for her pain and the pain of losing her ~ a loss that was felt every day of Her Cancer Year ~ a grief that began even before her death on Christmas Day ~
Raindrops and tears ~ I could not tell the difference that day ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief
...and unspeakable love.”
~ Washington Irving ~
No comments:
Post a Comment