To say good-bye...
Apr 02 '02
The Bottom Line THINK OF YOUR PARENTS NEEDS AND NOT YOUR OWN
Two years ago, my father passed from our world to the next. I stood by his bedside at The VA medical center and watched him go. I held his hand, I felt the angels as they came to get him. I felt the relief as his struggle to breath ended. I saw his face as the strain of trying to hold on to life left and his tension and worries were gone.
And I cried.
My father was sick with muscular dystrophy for many years. The last two years of his life were terrible for him. He had many surgeries and too much suffering. We placed him in the VA nursing home the day my third child was born. It was a very hard decision for us to place him in a nursing home. But I knew I could not care for him 24 hours, while caring for a new baby and two other small children. I knew my mother was not able to care for him.
He was concerned about expense, the the VA was his benefit from being a WWII Veteran. And so we placed him there.
Each day, we went to visit him. I took my three children and we strolled the halls of the VA. We took gifts to him and all the Veterans we met. My father would sit in his wheelchair with his "buddies" and talk over wartimes, and he thrived there with all the men. As time went on, he seemed to actually enjoy being there with all the men. He had someone to talk to and he was more lively there than he was when we would bring him home.
While caring for my father, my mother struggled to go to the VA every single day. She was battling emphasema herself and it was a lot of work for her. She was getting very tired. Her home was 2 hours away from the VA. Fortunately I lived only 10 minutes from it and so my mother would stay with me and I could take her to and from the nursing home.
We began to see that my father was going to be in the nursing home for a very long time. His health was stable and my mother could not continue driving the 2 hours. So, after a lot of planning, it was decided that we would sell my mother's home, and put an addition onto my home so that she could live with us and have her own "in law" apartment.
The plans underway, my house went under construction. My mother's house went on the market. My family continued to live in my house while the construction went on. We took off the roof, and began to add a whole second story. In April of 2000 the roof came off. The second story was framed and the walls went up. The new boards for the roof were put in place, along with the plumbing for the second floor bathroom. The contractor tar papered the roof, promising us that the new shingles would be done by roofers the following day.
The following day was April 10th. The roofers did not come. Instead, high winds and rain began to pelt our vulnerable roof. The winds tore the tar paper from the boards, the open holes for the plumbers beckoned to the rain and the rain came in. The rain poured throughout our home. Filling our basement with water. As my husband and I struggled to save our home, the phone rang to tell me to come to the nursing home. My father was very sick.
I left my poor husband, and a neighbor with my three children and went to the VA to sit with my Dad, and my mother and my sister. My father died on April 11.
The construction on my home was started. The plans for my mother to move had begun. The reason for the move was no longer but we decided we would still do as we planned.
We sold my mother's home, and my construction completed, my mother moved into my home.
When my mother moved in with us, we had a handicap van and a little scooter for her so that we could take her places and she was able to get around well in the mall. Her emphasema was advancing quickly.
I took her to the doctors here in the area to establish her as a patient. The doctors suggested that visiting nurses come and keep an eye on her and make sure her oxygen levels were doing ok. The nurses came twice a week.
About 7 months after she moved in, the doctor suggested to us that it might be time for her to have hospice care in our home, rather than the regular nurses. So we gladly accepted hospice and understood that the doctors thought my mother only had 6 months or so left of her struggle with emphasema.
While my mother lived with us, we tried to give her all of the comforts that we could. She kept her own bed, the one she had shared with my father for so many years, for as long as she could. We did not move her to a hospital bed until about three months before the end. She had a computer room of her own, with all of her favorite crafts around her. She kept very busy reading Epinions, playing games on the computer, doing crossword puzzles, reading, and knitting beaded bags.
The children ran in and out of her room, she laughed with them and would sneak candy to them first thing in the morning. If I was out of the house, she would talk my daughter into making ice cream sundaes instead of eating a meal. She was a partner in crime with my children. I would hear them giggling in her room and I knew I was in trouble.
Her little dog stayed with her all the time. He followed her from room to room, never leaving her side. If he went outside for a moment of privacy, she would call him back very quickly and he was always with her.
As her disease grew worse, she needed more and more help. I began to sleep on the couch to be closer to her, with a baby monitor by my head so that I could hear her. She would call to me if she needed to get up and I would run in and help her.
The last few weeks, at night she was out of her head. She would wake and not know where she was. She always knew me and she would tell me far out crazy things and I had all I could do to keep from laughing.
We had a commode next to her bed, and she hated it! She used it but not happily. The bathroom was less than 10 feet from her bed, but she was unable to get to it the last couple of weeks.
Some nights she would be very lucid, and then she and I would talk. She would say to me, "I feel weepity" and then we would cry and laugh together. Just the two of us, alone. We would share how much we knew we would miss each other when her time came. My mother was dying, she knew it, I knew it, and together we handled it. We remembered all the laughs we had shared over our lives together. Talked of all the times we plotted and planned and schemed together. All of the crazy things she and I used to undertake. And I would tell her I was weepity too.
Weepity, is the last word we coined together. We used to make up lots of words my mother and I. We had lots of secrets codes between us. But Weepity is a word that has meaning like no other. My mother and I spent many hours being weepity together when she was dying.
As the end got closer, my mother began to have horrific hallucinations. Her lucid nights were no more. She would talk of murders taking place in her bedroom, children being killed and men with knives. It was scarey to watch her.
My husband brought out his CD player, and put it in her room. We put classical music on as background noise, and her frightening images seemed to disappear. She seemed to relax with the music.
One night, with the music playing, she woke and asked me if I was ready to let her go. I told her that I was ready. She relaxed and began her journey to the end.
My mother (fjbpab) died on March 11. She passed away in my home around 3 am. I was on the couch nearby, the soft music was playing in her bedroom, her little dog was laying at the foot of her bed.
We cared for my parents the best that we knew how, trying to give each of them what they needed. My father needed the stimulation of the nursing home and the men and the 24 hour care. My mother needed to be with her family and her little dog.
When choosing how to care for your parents, you need to look at THEIR needs and not your own.
I wrote this epinion, in my mother's account. Because I know how many of you will read it. I wanted to let you know where my mother is now, and how important you all have been to her. She loved Epinions. She yelled and screamed at the changes, laughed at the silly fights, talked about Ptieman like she knows him, and loved being here. She loved to write and she loved being a part of the crowd. She moved over to Bright Ideas during the crazy months of that place and thought it was fun to earn money for nothing. The computer and Epinions was a wonderful gift for her during her final years and months. She loved the reading swaps and took them so seriously.
For my mother, I say GOOD BYE EPINIONS It has been fun and I thank you all for the joys. GOD BLESS YOU ALL.
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Epinions.com ID:
fjbpab
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Location: New Hampshire
Reviews written: 100
Trusted by: 73 members
About Me:
I am keeping my mother's account active.
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