We really don’t want to go all the way to the very beginning, we would be here forever! I am just going to start where my life took a major downturn and rapid slide into pain and despair.
It was January 2018; my mother had come to Georgia from Michigan to get out of the worst of the winter weather. She arrived New Year’s Eve, she wasn’t even here one day when she said wasn’t feeling well. And did this surprise me? No. Some would blame that on the Parkinson’s she had for 30 years or her advanced age, but my whole life there was always something wrong with her. This was nothing new for me.
So, on New Year’s Day we were on the hunt for an open walk-in clinic, she didn’t want to go to the emergency room. Well, she was going anyway, the clinic found that she had pneumonia and needed to go to the emergency room. After waiting at the clinic for a few hours, now we had another long wait at the emergency room, where from there, she needed to be admitted to the hospital. It was an exhausting and stressful day. This experience I normally could have overcome without a problem, it was the events that followed that turned my world upside down.
The following day I did have to go back to work; but I work from home, making it more bearable. I didn’t have to worry about getting ready, driving though Atlanta traffic, and spending the day in an office and pretend that all was fine, and I wasn’t exhausted from the day before. That morning my brother had called to see how Mom was since I had let him know the night she went into the hospital what was going on with her. I told him that she was fine, and I was going to go visit later that day and let him know if anything changed. He indicated that he was going ice fishing with my mother’s neighbor, and he would be home in the afternoon. It was a couple of hours later, I got a call from his girlfriend, hysterical and saying that Mike was dead! I didn’t believe it…he was my younger brother; he wasn’t supposed to die before me. I thought she was playing a prank on me, I don’t know why, maybe just wishful thinking, I knew I needed to call his phone. He didn’t pick up, and my heart sank while I left a message. A second or two later, he called back, and I thought I was right, it was a prank. But it was his friend confirming that Mike has a massive heart attack on the ice, and he was gone.
Not only was that devastating for me, but I also had to be the one to tell my mother. He was her favorite child, and I knew she would lose her mind. I called my husband, Ron, to come home from work to go with me for support and I made sure there was a nurse in the room with us in case my mother tried to do something to herself or needed sedation. Luckily, that didn’t happen, but watching her go through that pain and knowing there was nothing I could do to make it better, upset me almost beyond what I could handle. I do not wish that task on anyone, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do.
And now the fun really begins (and yes, I am being sarcastic).
The Great Escape (Part 1)
We had to figure out how to get her back up to Michigan to see him one last time before the cremation. A plane wouldn’t work since she had pneumonia and would need oxygen. Luckily, one of my cousins offered to come down half-way from Michigan to Kentucky if we would meet him there. Ron and I left the hospital with plans to come get my mother at 9:00 am the next morning to start the journey. I went home to re-pack what she just unpacked and get items for myself. I wasn’t going to let her go by herself; I took bereavement and vacation time to be able to spend a couple of weeks up in Michigan (not my favorite place in the winter) for emotional support, help handle his affairs or with whatever else was needed.
We arrived before 9:00 am that morning, as planned, but the hospital would not release her since she didn’t have any oxygen. She did have an oxygen machine at her home in Michigan that we would have access to in less than 24 hours, but that wasn’t good enough for them. They said she needed oxygen for the ride, or they couldn’t release her. We asked if we could get a portable tank to take with us. The doctor said they didn’t think they had any but, let them look. What hospital doesn’t have portable oxygen tanks??? We tried to find an outside company to rent or even buy a tank, but they wouldn’t have one available for a day or two. That did us no good, we had to leave today. Round and round we went with the hospital for six hours – they wouldn’t let her leave without oxygen, but they couldn’t find any to give us.
Finally, we decided to just leave against medical advice – we just packed my mother up and walked out. This trip was not going to be easy for any of us. Ron would drive us up to Kentucky only to turn around to make the drive back home. My cousin had to drive down to Kentucky and all the way back to Michigan. He asked if I could drive some of the way and I felt extremely bad when I told him I couldn’t. He was already doing more than necessary for us; but it had been almost 30 years since I had driven in snow and wasn’t confident enough to do it. Plus, I was already exhausted from the events of the last two days and not being able to sleep the night before consumed with worry and grief. I owe a big debt of gratitude to my wonderful cousin!
We did eventually get her back home and I helped any way I could.
In May we held his memorial since he was cremated, and we wanted the weather to be nicer for a gathering. I once again took my vacation time to go up and help any way I could.
Things got quiet for the summer, but then I got the call. Mom needed a new hip in October, and I need to go up and take care of her for three weeks. I had already used most of my vacation time getting her back to Michigan and for the Memorial. Oh no! I was going to have to work during this ordeal.
My Own Personal Nightmare…
…that I couldn’t wake up from because I wasn’t actually sleeping.
My mother had her surgery and I thought that she would take her medication and sleep. That is what I do when I am sick or after surgery. Wishful thinking! She wanted me to sleep with her because the bedroom I normally stayed in when I visited was across the house and she wanted me to hear her if she needed me.
The first problem was that she keeps her TV on very loud all night long and would not let me turn it off. It took me awhile to block it out and start falling asleep; next thing I knew, she was having some kind of a hallucination and trying to climb and stand on the bed. Was she going to do something to the new hip or rip out her stitches? It was all I could do to try to get her to lay back down; in fact, I had to call in my cousin’s wife to help since my mother wasn’t listening to me at all. She finally did settle down and after all the excitement, I tried to go back to sleep, but it wasn’t easy. Suddenly she was waking me up again telling me that she peed her clothes and I needed to get up and clean her up; or she wanted something to drink or eat; or she needed more medication, on and on the whole night. I got maybe a total of a couple of hours here and there the whole night.
And it wasn’t like I could sleep in or relax during the day; I had to get up to work a ten-hour day. And what did she do during this time? She slept the whole day! This nightmare went on for seven days – I was exhausted, and I got very sick. I finally told her that I needed to sleep in my own bed and for the rest of my stay it did quiet down, I got some rest and slowly got better.
I thought to myself, “Never again would I go through that misery”. I didn’t realize how wrong I was.
The Cruise from Hell
I love cruises and I love quilting, so when I found a cruise where you can learn to make quilts, I wanted to go. I got to thinking that while I was in class, Ron might like someone to hang out with and we considered inviting his brother and wife. All three of them like to go, go, go, whereas I like to take my time, move slowly, relax and enjoy my surroundings. But, to fit in with the group majority I did my best to keep up. That was my first mistake, I wore myself down and within a day on the cruise I got sick. Plus, this was a new cruise line for us and it one of the most horrible experiences on any vacation I have ever taken.
We always took Carnival Cruise Lines and had a wonderful time. The rooms and beds are comfortable, the food and drink are fantastic, you can walk into any show or venue without reservations, and the atmosphere was fun and relaxing. This latest cruise however was on Royal Caribbean and a totally different experience. The bed was harder than a slab of concrete, the food was either under or over cooked, too bland or too salty, there was no consistency from night to night. My sister-in-law ordered the French onion soup every night for dinner and not one of the nights was it the same. And out of all those soups she tried, only one was satisfactory. To top it off, we couldn’t get into any of the shows because they were over-booked prior to the cruise. There were just a ton of people everywhere and it was utter chaos!
On the upside, I did learn some great quilt patterns, but only got to work on them once due to the events that occurred over the next three years and haven’t touched them since.
These Shingles Won’t Fix Your Roof
We had just gotten back from our cruise, and I was working on one of the quilts I was taught, when it felt like someone hit me across the back with a baseball bat. I thought it was just muscle strain from sitting at the sewing machine most of the afternoon. I took some muscle relaxers, but that did not do anything for the pain. I got a sinking feeling when I looked at my back in the mirror when it started to itch and burn and saw the rash…Oh NO, Shingles!
I remember as a kid my grandmother having shingles (twice) and that was all the family could talk about; how painful it was for her.
By the time I got in to see the doctor, the rash had spread all the way from the middle of my back, under my armpit, to up around my right breast. And the pain was much, much worse. The nurse practitioner said that it was the worst case of Shingles she had ever seen. It took a couple of doctor visits, rounds of medication to make the pain manageable, and many sleepless nights over the coming weeks.
Finally, the rash went away, but unfortunately, I was one of the few that had lasting nerve damage. I had continual tingling and pain by my right shoulder blade for over the next two years. I still get some of that off and on currently, but it isn’t constant like it had been.
After the rash cleared up, I did get the necessary vaccines and hopefully won’t have to go through that again, like my grandmother. I wouldn’t wish that experience on even my worst enemy.
Whew, I am exhausted after that account, and we haven’t even started getting into the most significant and traumatic events of my story. For now, I think I am going to go relax and color.