Mom - the last days

(PG-13: adult themes, mild profanity)

The phone rang. I quickly reached for it and whispered so as not to wake anyone up, “Hello?”

The hospital. “Sir, you need to come here right now, your mother is out of control! She streaked naked through pediatrics screaming she needs someone to ‘fuck’ her. You need to do something.”

“I did. I brought her to you. What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. Just see if you can get her to settle down.”

“On my way.” It was 11:30 pm.

When I made my way to the room, the nurse on duty updated me. “We gave her some meds to calm her down, including haldol. She should be dooling and staring at the wall, but she’s still very agitated.”

The scene was pitiful. She was in restraints, writhing, trying to break loose, like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. The nurse observed, “She’s been masturbating non-stop. She thinks the pain will go away if she climaxes.”

Ovarian cancer. “That’s likely,” I offered. “She’s very sick and on a lot of meds.” I didn’t offer the relatively recent diagnosis of schizophrenia or other potential factors. “So who’s brilliant idea was it to put her in pediatrics?”

“This was the only room available.”

“Oh, I think another room will be available very quickly now,” I snarked.

I knew the rest of the story. We, mother and I, had spent 6 hrs earlier in the ER waiting to be seen. Trying to corral a 5’ - 2”, 350 lbs, terminally ill, heavily medicated schizophrenic, who tended to be disagreeable on a good day, was an experience I would never forget. Neither would the other 50-60 people in the ER that day. That wasn’t my idea. Her oncologist told me to take her to the ER and not to leave because they had to admit her even though they wouldn’t want to. And he was right, they didn’t, I just didn’t realize just how much. My mother was in a gap. She was terminally ill but hadn’t yet “qualified” for SS disability and Medicaid wasn’t going to pay for it. She would be dead by the time she qualified for SSD. No beds in any hospice care facilities either. We had hospice care coming to our home, but it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t taking her meds. Sometimes she would hide them under her pillow or throw them on the floor. “If you don’t want to take your meds, give them back to me, but if you throw them on the floor the kids might get them and they look like candy to kids.” No matter. We were constantly looking for where she might have hidden her meds. At night she wandered the downstairs, as she was able, like a disinterred spirit. One night I heard her trying the door. I ran downstairs to find her standing at the door, twisting the knob frantically, a diaper under one arm and a roll of toilet paper in her hand.

“Where are you going?” I asked, as I descended the stairs.

“Cuba.”

“Oh. Really? Do you think you can make it all the way to Cuba with a diaper and a roll of toilet paper?” She looked down at the toilet paper.

“I guess not.”

I put her back to bed. Within minutes she was wandering around the house again. Her lifelong obsessions had always been communism and her bowels. In her youth, she had been a member of the American Communist Party. “Power for the people!” or some such. She had marched in a few May Day parades, but the demands of the lifestyle of a radical were little beyond her commitment to a few Marxist platitudes. I guess some things are recalled even in late stage ovarian cancer. The final straw was today. She hit my wife over the head with an umbrella and then, with a walker and dragging an oxygen bottle, made it all the way, some 350’, to the road just in time to meet my son’s school bus’ afternoon delivery.

And there she stood, in front of the bus, screaming, “For the love of God, somebody help me! They're trying to kill me!” before getting in a car with a complete stranger and driving away. Fortunately, the driver was the wife of the Baptist minister who lived up the road. The lady managed to calm her down and drop her off at a neighbor’s we were friends with. And there I found her, sitting in the yard with them. I took a seat in this bizarre conclave.

“What happened, mom?”

No answer. She wouldn’t even look at me.

Our neighbor offered, “She won’t talk to anyone. The only person she’ll talk to is my grandson.” He was 4 yrs old.

“Well maybe she’ll talk to her grandkids,” I offered.

“No, she’ll only talk to him.” Apparently, my kids were part of the conspiracy. Mom still wouldn’t look at me.

Finally, a nurse from the hospital arrived to assess the situation and my mother. She began her evaluation by asking my mother a few questions, but she refused to respond or even acknowledge her. So the nurse turned to me and began asking a few questions. While refusing to look at us, mother did seem to be attentive.

I tried to engage mom: “Do you remember the other night, when you were going to Cuba?”

She wheeled around toward me, “I didn’t want to go to Cuba, that was your idea!”

Diagnosis confirmed. I felt like Pontius Pilate when he washed his hands after speaking with the crowd demanding Jesus’ death: the blood was not on his hands. The nurse wanted to help, but her hands were tied by the fact that my mother’s SSD hadn’t been approved yet. Her oncologist called. I updated him and shared the situation. He advised me to take the emergency room route. At this point there were no other options as her SSD was pending and there was no hospice facility with an opening for her.

I think back to this time and don’t know how I did it, with a family, serving as an elder in my congregation, and part owner of a small business. Placing her in the hospital only provided some relief. I received another late night call, this time from the wife of a fellow elder in the congregation. A painfully sweet, kind and sincere woman, she asked, “Your mother keeps calling here for Tommy, she wants him to come vist her but she’s saying, well, I know she’s very sick. Should he go?”

“Absolutely not. She’s out of her mind and I’m sorry she has worried you. She thinks, well she thinks Tommy can ‘fix’ her cancer.” Knowing my mother’s intentions, I relayed that as gently and kindly as possible.

“Poor dear. Is there anything we can do?”

“You can visit during normal hours, but be prepared for anything if you do. And pray.”

Eventually, the hospital found her a spot at a hospice facility a little over an hour from the house. For some unknown reason, the red tape and lack of availability suddenly disappeared. It was a rude awakening that I continued to get the same-type calls. She stripped naked and sat in the tub. Three orderlies couldn’t get her up and back in bed.

My wife wouldn’t go visit or let our younger daughters go either. One Saturday, what would be the last, I arranged to pick her up and take her to lunch. We went to Lonestar, a steakhouse common to the region. I privately spoke to the waitress and the bartender and explained the situation, asking that they give her special attention. She ordered drinks and anything else she wanted. She was in heaven, talking up the wait staff and other customers. A temporary renaissance. I even got caught up in the moment. But reality eventually intruded on the mirage. I got the bill, paid, and we left. She begged me not to take her back to the hospice facility.

It wasn’t long before I got another call, this one from her nurse. “I don’t think she’ll make it to lunch. You should head this way if you want to say goodbye.” It was 9:30 am.

I begged off work and got in my truck. The entire drive was filled with memories, pain, resentment, confusion, and anger.

I parked and went inside. There she was, my mother, such a dominant force in my life for so long, on a ventilator while another machine pumped her lungs out. Black mucus from her lungs filled a container at her bedside.

The nurse said that the pump could no longer keep up with the fluid in her lungs and it was just a matter of time. “I see. Thank you,” I said.

I took the seat next to the bed, the container of drained fluid at my feet. I took her hand in mine. Quiet. The only sound was the pump, like Darth Vader’s mechanical breathing. Her eyes were wide open, but she was completely unresponsive. And I sat. I talked. Finally, I said a prayer. Then I told her it was ok to let go. To not be afraid, that at death her sins would be cancelled and forgotten. Well . . . cancelled for sure. The pump and her breathing slowed and then stopped. I said another prayer. I sat in silence with her for a few moments and then I stood up and walked out.

A few months later, well after her cremation, I made my way to the mailbox. A 350’ slog in the Mississippi heat. Among all the important missives and bolts of lightning delivered by the US Postal Service was an envelope from the Social Security Administration. I was about to ball it up in my hand when I decided to open it. A simple notice to my dead mother: Your SSD has been approved. If you have any questions, call….