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.