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Jun. 16th, 2010 12:33 pmLast Monday I had a migraine. In the afternoon I got a call from my sister, telling me that our mom, who had been in the hospital for a while fighting what was thought to be an e. Coli infection (I think this was later decided against and AFAIK the original cause of all this has still not been definitively identified), had been moved to an ICU in Jacksonville, Florida, and was going into surgery, and did I want her to call me with the results? Weary and not entirely over the headache, I said, well, text me if things are more or less okay, call me if not.
One AM, my phone rings. My sister, exhausted and on the verge of tears, said the surgeons believe our mom has a 10% chance to live and that she and dad had been told to say goodbye. She was in severe septic shock and it was believed that her intestines and pancreas were so damaged they would have to be removed.
Tuesday I woke early, and faced the reality that I was not at all prepared to fly right away. I thought it would be as easy as booking a ticket, throwing some clothes in a suitcase, and rushing to the airport. And while on the face of it that doesn't sound like a complex course of action, it becomes pretty daunted when you're emotionally stunned, have a lingering migraine, and are not used to traveling. If there's one thing I've learned in the last week it's that I have to have more contingency plans. I didn't make it out that day, though my sister said, as she put it, that the doctors "didn't expect anything to happen that night" (by which among other things they meant another surgery).
I sent an email to my ex, who called me to say she was not far away and would meet me in Jacksonville.
Off the plane in Florida, I was met by my visibly-drained sister and dad at the airport. We went to the hospital were I saw my mom hooked up to more IV lines and machines than I thought it was possible to be hooked up to. It was difficult to stand by the bed without bumping into things. She had a respirator, two IV delivery machines, continual dialysis, and another box blowing warm air into a soft air cushion keeping her from getting too cold. She was sedated into unconsciousness, though as the nurse explained, her body was still reacting to pain even though she was not aware of it.
From that point on though, over the course of the week the news was all good.
The first bit of good news was that mom would not have to have any organs removed. A length of intestine was removed, but not the whole thing; the colon and pancreas were viable after all. Her heart was checked and was fine.
The second day I was there they stopped keeping her under continual sedation, though mostly she slept. They also removed the tube puffing air into her lungs and made her cough, which she struggled with. Her color was starting to come back. She struggled to talk, though she was not able to say much more beyond asking for water (which we couldn't give her) and to say she was in pain. The next day she seemed to plateau a bit, staying largely asleep and not being able to interact with us much; this day was I think the hardest, since we went from watching her improve by leaps and bounds to staying the same. In the days after that, though, she was lucid. My ex, encouraged by mom's progress, had to return home at that point.
I never knew how exhausting it could be just being in a hospital. I wasn't even doing much of anything. The routine was, we could be with mom for half an hour every two hours. We had the chaplain come pray with us a couple of times. My cell phone got more usage in a week than it had in the entire previous time I owned it. We spent long stretches of time catnapping in the waiting room, and even still we'd leave the hospital utterly drained. I got a motel room just down the road from the hospital, though my dad and sister were hoping I'd stay closer to their house about two hours away. The problem was that the ride back and forth (in an un-air-conditioned car during a record heat wave) was an additional drain I just didn't want to have to endure every day.
As I made preparations to fly home they were talking about the prospect of moving her from ICU. When I stepped off the plane in Boston I saw a text from my sister saying that they had moved mom out of ICU. I suspect that folks in health care learn not to use certain words lightly, so when they use a word like "miracle" I suppose they mean it.
ETA: Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and wishes. :)
One AM, my phone rings. My sister, exhausted and on the verge of tears, said the surgeons believe our mom has a 10% chance to live and that she and dad had been told to say goodbye. She was in severe septic shock and it was believed that her intestines and pancreas were so damaged they would have to be removed.
Tuesday I woke early, and faced the reality that I was not at all prepared to fly right away. I thought it would be as easy as booking a ticket, throwing some clothes in a suitcase, and rushing to the airport. And while on the face of it that doesn't sound like a complex course of action, it becomes pretty daunted when you're emotionally stunned, have a lingering migraine, and are not used to traveling. If there's one thing I've learned in the last week it's that I have to have more contingency plans. I didn't make it out that day, though my sister said, as she put it, that the doctors "didn't expect anything to happen that night" (by which among other things they meant another surgery).
I sent an email to my ex, who called me to say she was not far away and would meet me in Jacksonville.
Off the plane in Florida, I was met by my visibly-drained sister and dad at the airport. We went to the hospital were I saw my mom hooked up to more IV lines and machines than I thought it was possible to be hooked up to. It was difficult to stand by the bed without bumping into things. She had a respirator, two IV delivery machines, continual dialysis, and another box blowing warm air into a soft air cushion keeping her from getting too cold. She was sedated into unconsciousness, though as the nurse explained, her body was still reacting to pain even though she was not aware of it.
From that point on though, over the course of the week the news was all good.
The first bit of good news was that mom would not have to have any organs removed. A length of intestine was removed, but not the whole thing; the colon and pancreas were viable after all. Her heart was checked and was fine.
The second day I was there they stopped keeping her under continual sedation, though mostly she slept. They also removed the tube puffing air into her lungs and made her cough, which she struggled with. Her color was starting to come back. She struggled to talk, though she was not able to say much more beyond asking for water (which we couldn't give her) and to say she was in pain. The next day she seemed to plateau a bit, staying largely asleep and not being able to interact with us much; this day was I think the hardest, since we went from watching her improve by leaps and bounds to staying the same. In the days after that, though, she was lucid. My ex, encouraged by mom's progress, had to return home at that point.
I never knew how exhausting it could be just being in a hospital. I wasn't even doing much of anything. The routine was, we could be with mom for half an hour every two hours. We had the chaplain come pray with us a couple of times. My cell phone got more usage in a week than it had in the entire previous time I owned it. We spent long stretches of time catnapping in the waiting room, and even still we'd leave the hospital utterly drained. I got a motel room just down the road from the hospital, though my dad and sister were hoping I'd stay closer to their house about two hours away. The problem was that the ride back and forth (in an un-air-conditioned car during a record heat wave) was an additional drain I just didn't want to have to endure every day.
As I made preparations to fly home they were talking about the prospect of moving her from ICU. When I stepped off the plane in Boston I saw a text from my sister saying that they had moved mom out of ICU. I suspect that folks in health care learn not to use certain words lightly, so when they use a word like "miracle" I suppose they mean it.
ETA: Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and wishes. :)
