Dreadful Day

Today has been the day that I have been dreading… Today is the day that I got a call to come home.  I knew it was coming.  I had a feeling yesterday when I talked to Dad and he said that Mom was doing “bad” that I would be getting this call.  Dad even said that she was the worst she has ever been.  My Dad would never say those things if he wasn’t really worried because he has always tried to downplay declines in Mom’s health.  Even last weekend when we noticed some slight changes, Dad said it was just Mom’s allergies.  

So what are the changes that caused my sister to call me?  Well, Mom is refusing to eat and drink so she is not getting her medicine.   Mom will allow you to pour water into her mouth and then she holds it in there for a bit before she opens and lets it all run out. With the applesauce, she won’t swallow that much either.  Sometimes she will clench her teeth so you can’t even get the applesauce into her mouth.  She seems to be more restless then whether from pain or what we have no idea.  Mom has also lost a lot of weight from last weekend too.  All of these things are nothing new, it’s just that now everything is just more pronounced.  Beth also said that Mom really looks “sick” today with dark circles under her eyes and she has discharge from the left eye that has the lymphoma in it. Again nothing new, she has had days with dark circles here and there but again now it is more pronounced.  Oh and she has increased mucus in her throat/sinuses.  Dad has been putting Vick’s on her non stop to help her breathe but he says she sounds really bad now.  In fact I could hear her breathing in the background when I called Dad and he didn’t even have to put the phone near her for me to hear it.

Now to be fair the hospice nurse hasn’t been out since Tuesday and even then it was a fill in nurse as the usual nurse was off so again my family is just going by their gut feelings.  We have not had anyone say okay your 72 hour countdown begins now.  Maybe we have weeks left yet but then again maybe we don’t.  One of these days is going to be “THE DAY” and we have no way of knowing when that will be so we have to take everything seriously each and every time.  Hence why in the past I have rushed to the ER room as much as 3 times in one week.  Now it’s just rushing home when changes develop because treatment is done and this stage is about comfort and quality of life.  

What are we worried about?  Well, Dad is worried that the nurse will change the medicine and put Mom on morphine which will hasten her death.  I think I talked about this in a previous post so I won’t go into detail on this now.  We are all worried that Mom is in pain and we don’t know it.  Dad feels certain that if she was in a lot of pain he would be able to tell but I’m not 100% certain on that.  I guess we’ll just have to wait to see what happens tomorrow when the nurse comes out.

So how am I taking this?  Well I can tell you that I have been taking this pretty hard.  Last night I finally started to pack my suitcase for the final days (“FD’s”).  I have been thinking about this for awhile now and trying to prepare myself.  I have made lists and asked people what I should be sure to pack because I don’t really know what the FD’s are going to entail.  However I could not make myself actually start the process of packing that suitcase.  One time I did lay out some clothes but then I let them sit there for 2 weeks before I just put them away again.  Yeah packing that suitcase was a goddamn nightmare.  I felt like I was in a daze.  I have no idea if I packed the right stuff.  I couldn’t even find the lists I had made.  I just grabbed this and that and put it in… and I cried the whole time. Then when I was about 80% packed I stopped and decided I would finish packing when I did get “the call”.  So I decided I had better get to sleep… but I couldn’t.  I tossed and turned for about an hour, fell asleep for maybe 2 hours and was back up at 1:30 wide awake.  I gave up trying to sleep so I cleaned a bit and then watched a chick flick.  This is the worst that I have had stress affecting my sleep.  I will say that for the past few months my sleep pattern has been way off.  I will sleep little one night (about 4 1/2 hours) and then I’ll be exhausted so I’ll sleep well the next night and so on and so on in that pattern.  I even take Melatonin to help me sleep but I don’t think it’s working very well!    

This brings us to tomorrow which could go either way on the scale of shittiness but one thing I know is that it will certainly be exhausting.  I am not looking forward to the nurse’s visit and everything that it entails.  The end grows near and it scares the shit out of me.