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The sad end of my daughterly dutiesMay 26 '02 (Updated May 28 '02) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Do it willingly and lovingly as each day could be their last and you will have no regrets.
Back in March of 2000 I wrote my first review of this topic called "My daughterly duties and then some". In this review I explained how my Dad had suddenly become ill after being very healthy and independent and what I had to do for both my parents to care for them. I then had to put my Dad into a nursing home and that was a very traumatic experience for all of us. I wrote several reviews on how I coped with all of that. It was quite an experience and very frustrating to me as I had put my Dad in the nursing home due to several falls he had at home and I thought it would be safer for him. Guess not, he fell three days before Christmas that year and broke his hip! Christmas eve I sat in the hospital's surgical waiting room with my elderly Mom while Dad had surgery to repair the hip so he could hopefully walk again (and fall again??). Dad went home in time to spend New Years eve back in the nursing home, but he really never regained his strength and in March and April he was hospitalized three times with pneumonia. They finally advised a feeding tube be inserted directly into his stomach and he would no longer be getting anything by mouth. Dad kept getting weaker, sicker, and more confused by the day and sadly he died quietly and peacefully at the nursing home on April 25th, 2001, four months after breaking the hip. Mom and I and several other family members were at his bedside when he went peacefully into the arms of the Lord. I wish I could say it ended here and all is well, but I was about to begin a whole new phase of "daughterly duties" just five weeks later. My Mom ,who had been so well and so strong all during Dad's illness and death, collapsed at her home June 9th, 200l. By the time the paramedics got her to the hospital she needed an emergency pace- maker put in IMMEDIATELY. They tried to do it right in the emergency room but had some complications and rushed her up two floors to finish in the OR. It was scary, but after the pacemaker was in place and working she recovered very quickly and seemed to be on the road back to health. Short lived for sure! Mom decided to go to Virginia to visit my brother and recuperate there for a month. While I was on a very much deserved and very needed vacation with my husband I got a cell phone call that my Mom was in a Virginia hospital with severe abdominal pain. My first thought was end the vacation and immediately go to her, that is what I have been doing for Dad and then Mom for a year now so I felt its my "duty" to be there for her. My brother said, no, he will keep me informed and everything would be ok. I wish I could say it was Ok but it wasn't, some tests, including a colonoscopy, found her problem to be a mass in her colon and they wanted to operate immediately. Mom said no way, she wanted to go back home for the surgery, she did not want it in a strange hospital by doctors she did not know anything about. She insisted she was going home and I am glad she did. I wanted to be there and take care of her afterward like I did for my Dad. BUT, that didn't work out the way we had hoped either. When she got back I took her immediately to her primary care doctor with all the paperwork from the Virginia hospital. The papers explained what they found and what they suggested be done. Her doctor didn't agree! He thought it might just be something simple like diverticulitis so he said he wanted her to see a gastroenterologist first instead of sending her to a surgeon. This was August 5th and they called and told Mom she had an appointment with the gastro doctor in OCTOBER!! Can you believe this!!!!! I argued and they said that was the best they could do and she would be put on a waiting list for a cancelled appointment. A week later Mom was in serious abdominal pain again so I took her to the emergency room and the next morning at 10 am they wheeled her into surgery. The surgeon came to talk to me about 3 hours later and told me he removed a grapefruit size malignant tumor from Mom's colon and part of her stomach. I was all alone there in the hospital waiting room as the surgery happened so fast there was no time to get anyone else there to be with me, and I just shook and shuddered and cried with that devastating news. I just lost my Dad four months before and now I was hit with this horrible news about my Mom. After helping to nurse Mom back on her feet after the surgery, we had to begin Chemotherapy four weeks later. Prognosis was pretty good at first, but as time went by and more tests were run things were going downhill,and fast. I was strong and there for my Mom every step of the way, but day by day I could see that there wasn't much hope of curing this horrible cancer. Mom was losing weight rapidly, had no energy or appetite, and new aches and pains would constantly be causing her to be uncomfortable, Finally they admitted her to the hospital to do some radiation treatments for pain control, they said two weeks of radiation would hopefully get her back on her feet and more comfortable. I spent every single day with her during those two weeks and took tender loving care of her. Three days after the last radiation treatment instead of taking her back home again, I stood by her bedside as she breathed her last breath, and held her hand as she joined my Dad among the angels in heaven. November 26th, 2001, only seven months after she said goodbye to her loving husband of 59 years, they were together again. I write this today, on the 6 month anniversary of Mom's passing, to let you know the past two years of caring for my elderly parents is something I will never regret and because of it I have very loving memories along with the sadness of losing both my parents in such a short period of time. There is such an emptiness now but I am thinking about volunteering at a local nursing home to fill that void in my life. May they both rest in peace.  |
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