Saturday, March 27, 2010
The "Life Panel" Part 2 Rough Draft
It was in the morning hours when they had finally moved her to a room. I looked at my Dad, it seemed as though he aged 20 years in front of my eyes that night. Talking to him I realized what I already knew in my heart but would not allow my thoughts to believe.....her disease had progressed....but with her disease was something else.....something the doctors were looking for....answers to our questions...."What happened?" What had caused her to go into this severe of an attack.....there were so many blood tests being ran on her that her arms looked like she had been beaten. Still no answers......they moved her to intensive care where there were monitors everywhere, tv's to the nurses station......rooms filled with death....the intense feeling of sadness and loss.........where was the hope?
My sister and I decided to stay and let my Dad go and get some rest...my brothers and him would come back the next day.....we weren't leaving her. At the time our fear was she would awake without us there and be scared....later our reasons for staying became sureal. Not knowing what was ahead, my little sister with her scared doe eyes sat and looked at me and for the first time in a long time we were closer than we thought we would ever be. We were facing losing her....with three or four triple latte's in our exhausted, adreniline, caffeine powered bodies we sat in chairs next to her bed. God gave us a break in the stress with a case of the giggles....here we were two grown women, laughing because we picked our underwear in front of the nurse tv....we laughed so hard because we knew we couldnt cry......we were not accepting anything and that was just how it was. Yes ....she was sick....but in our Pollyanna minds....she was MOM....she was invincible and she was one of God's greatest servants....we knew it would be ok....we would nor allow our faith to waiver...at least most of the time....As I sat staring at my little mama watching the rythmic pace and sound of the machine pumping life into her and I remembered a late night conversation only just a month before.
We sat at her breakfast bar.....oh the conversations around that! I asked her a question that was weighing heavily on my heart "Ma.....how do I know what unconditional faith is?" I asked. She knew I had been through the last 5 years of hell with my health and my marriage....she knew she had raised me to have a close relationship with God.....so she gave me the only answer she had. With her big beautiful brown eyes she looked at me, put her hand on mine and said "You will know." Of course I asked the question I had drove her crazy with my whole life..."How?"...."You will just know in your heart....just be quiet and just listen to God"
At that time during her sickness and after I had that unconditional faith.....not because I thought about it or tried....just because that is the way it was. As I type this story I realize that from the day I learned about having faith in God, I had unconditional faith.....a gift that a beautiful mother had given her daughter. As my own daughter grows into a beautiful young woman I see that she too has learned the power of faith. An incredible legacy that she will need to get her through the life she is about to embarq on.....very scary....It is like watching my life start over through her only she is wise and grounded and I have faith she will not make the same mistakes I made.
Unconditional faith is a no brainer when it comes to life....You have to give it to God....it is in his hands no matter how you beg or plead or bargain with him, ultimately it will be His choice. So have faith and trust that He will do what is best for you, even if you dont think so at the time!
My sister and I decided to stay and let my Dad go and get some rest...my brothers and him would come back the next day.....we weren't leaving her. At the time our fear was she would awake without us there and be scared....later our reasons for staying became sureal. Not knowing what was ahead, my little sister with her scared doe eyes sat and looked at me and for the first time in a long time we were closer than we thought we would ever be. We were facing losing her....with three or four triple latte's in our exhausted, adreniline, caffeine powered bodies we sat in chairs next to her bed. God gave us a break in the stress with a case of the giggles....here we were two grown women, laughing because we picked our underwear in front of the nurse tv....we laughed so hard because we knew we couldnt cry......we were not accepting anything and that was just how it was. Yes ....she was sick....but in our Pollyanna minds....she was MOM....she was invincible and she was one of God's greatest servants....we knew it would be ok....we would nor allow our faith to waiver...at least most of the time....As I sat staring at my little mama watching the rythmic pace and sound of the machine pumping life into her and I remembered a late night conversation only just a month before.
We sat at her breakfast bar.....oh the conversations around that! I asked her a question that was weighing heavily on my heart "Ma.....how do I know what unconditional faith is?" I asked. She knew I had been through the last 5 years of hell with my health and my marriage....she knew she had raised me to have a close relationship with God.....so she gave me the only answer she had. With her big beautiful brown eyes she looked at me, put her hand on mine and said "You will know." Of course I asked the question I had drove her crazy with my whole life..."How?"...."You will just know in your heart....just be quiet and just listen to God"
At that time during her sickness and after I had that unconditional faith.....not because I thought about it or tried....just because that is the way it was. As I type this story I realize that from the day I learned about having faith in God, I had unconditional faith.....a gift that a beautiful mother had given her daughter. As my own daughter grows into a beautiful young woman I see that she too has learned the power of faith. An incredible legacy that she will need to get her through the life she is about to embarq on.....very scary....It is like watching my life start over through her only she is wise and grounded and I have faith she will not make the same mistakes I made.
Unconditional faith is a no brainer when it comes to life....You have to give it to God....it is in his hands no matter how you beg or plead or bargain with him, ultimately it will be His choice. So have faith and trust that He will do what is best for you, even if you dont think so at the time!
Friday, March 5, 2010
The "Life Panel"
I sat sobbing while I watched a video stream of Keith Obberman. He was speaking of his private six month hell he had been living and watching his beloved father struggle through. The hell of healthcare.....the hell of being sick and not knowing why.....the hell of watching your loved one suffer and feeling helpless. I sobbed for him, I sobbed for his family and I sobbed for his father. They were tears of understanding, tears of my pain, tears for the pain of my family and tears because I was reliving the hell of my mother's pain....the hell of my father's pain.............then I prayed. Like Mr Obberman, I had had this talk, the one we all avoid having with our aging parents. Never did I ever think that I would have to be faced with the results from those talks until my mother, God rest her soul, became deathly ill in the year 2000. She had been diagnosed 2 years before with COPD.....one of the most horrible diseases to have.....you literally die by inches and there is nothing to reverse it.
We had just had a great family picnic in the park for Easter and although she was feeling bad she came. That is how she was, always sacrificing for her family. It wasn't long after she steadily became worse. I will never forget the day when I got the call from my Dad. He told me to come as soon as I picked up the kids from school....I was going to stop and get them a happy meal but I felt this sense of urgency and went straight to their house. We were so naive to sickness when it came to my Mom...she was never ill....it was always my Dad...I walked in to find her slumped over in the chair, my Dad panic stricken trying to give her a breathing treatment. Her eyes were glazed, she was struggling to catch her breath and she was delirious which at the time we didnt know was due to the high levels of carbon dioxide in her body....that is what happens when you are unable to push the old air our of your lungs....it builds up and begins to shut your body down..it is poison.
If we had known we would have called 911 but instead we loaded her into the car and rushed her to the hospital right down the street, all the while I was on the phone to the emergency room telling them we were bringing her in....was I crazy? Yes....I was....I still had both of my kids....driving like crazy...calling the rest of my family and my Mom's doctor.......I was crazy with fear....fear like I had never known....or so I thought.
It had been what seemed like hours and we were all pacing the floor in the waiting room....they wouldn't let us go back. My Dad finally came out and told us we could go in one at a time........My brother went first and when he came out I saw the look on his face....I felt my stomach turn into a knot....He was being strong for everyone but I could see the fear in his eyes. All of our kids were there and we were all praying and struggling to keep it together in front of them. My Moms best friend was there and she looked at me ant told me "Kathy....be ready...she doesn't look like herself"..........WHAT?
Was this a nightmare....she wasn't in an accident....what did that mean? She had been put on a respirator....there was a machine keeping my beautiful Mom alive......there were tubes and monitors and her face was all swollen with tape wrapped around her tiny little head so tight and across her lips....What the hell was this? They said she was put into a coma on purpose....WHAT? COMA? ON PURPOSE? This is a hospital....aren't they suppose to "fix it"? I didnt know at the time....they were doing the best that they knew...what they were trained for...what we obviously were so oblivious to......I felt as though I had been thrown into the twilight zone....and that was just the first 3 hours of a long 3 months to come.....3 months of HELL.
We had just had a great family picnic in the park for Easter and although she was feeling bad she came. That is how she was, always sacrificing for her family. It wasn't long after she steadily became worse. I will never forget the day when I got the call from my Dad. He told me to come as soon as I picked up the kids from school....I was going to stop and get them a happy meal but I felt this sense of urgency and went straight to their house. We were so naive to sickness when it came to my Mom...she was never ill....it was always my Dad...I walked in to find her slumped over in the chair, my Dad panic stricken trying to give her a breathing treatment. Her eyes were glazed, she was struggling to catch her breath and she was delirious which at the time we didnt know was due to the high levels of carbon dioxide in her body....that is what happens when you are unable to push the old air our of your lungs....it builds up and begins to shut your body down..it is poison.
If we had known we would have called 911 but instead we loaded her into the car and rushed her to the hospital right down the street, all the while I was on the phone to the emergency room telling them we were bringing her in....was I crazy? Yes....I was....I still had both of my kids....driving like crazy...calling the rest of my family and my Mom's doctor.......I was crazy with fear....fear like I had never known....or so I thought.
It had been what seemed like hours and we were all pacing the floor in the waiting room....they wouldn't let us go back. My Dad finally came out and told us we could go in one at a time........My brother went first and when he came out I saw the look on his face....I felt my stomach turn into a knot....He was being strong for everyone but I could see the fear in his eyes. All of our kids were there and we were all praying and struggling to keep it together in front of them. My Moms best friend was there and she looked at me ant told me "Kathy....be ready...she doesn't look like herself"..........WHAT?
Was this a nightmare....she wasn't in an accident....what did that mean? She had been put on a respirator....there was a machine keeping my beautiful Mom alive......there were tubes and monitors and her face was all swollen with tape wrapped around her tiny little head so tight and across her lips....What the hell was this? They said she was put into a coma on purpose....WHAT? COMA? ON PURPOSE? This is a hospital....aren't they suppose to "fix it"? I didnt know at the time....they were doing the best that they knew...what they were trained for...what we obviously were so oblivious to......I felt as though I had been thrown into the twilight zone....and that was just the first 3 hours of a long 3 months to come.....3 months of HELL.
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