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Mum is dying. The other morning it was wholly apparent she'd experienced another stroke, of a far greater magnitude than those prior. At first she was at least aware of us in the room and her eyes would follow us, but she couldn't talk. At the hospital she was given a blood transfusion and she became slightly more interactive, we left her that night in the ICU. We got a call around midnight saying her heartbeat had become erratic and her breathing labored. Her pacemaker sorted her heart out, and she's on oxygen, but since Mum is DNR that's all being done, no ventilator, no feeding tube, just oxygen and morphine. I completely support this decision. Even if Mum were to "bounce back" as a few Pollyana's suggested as a possibility, she's got nothing to bounce back to, she certainly couldn't come home, and my mothers greatest dread was that she would end up in a home like her mother.
To my mind, my mother is gone, she hasn't responded to anyone around her in over a day now, her eyes are open but her gaze is fixed, she isn't seeing anything we're just waiting for her body to catch up with her. She doesn't even look like my mother any more, she's aged about 20 years in 2 days, I can barely look at her.
I feel impossibly crass talking about her this way but I feel like I've lost my mother, but I can't mourn yet, I can't fall apart. I need to keep it together so Dad doesn't have to. Watching my Dad go through this may actually be the worst part of it, Dad is English, Dad is stoic, Dad is not a "i need a hug" kinda guy. Seeing my father break down in tears because he's slowly and excruciatingly losing his wife of over 40 years is possibly the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen in my life and I don't know how to help. we don't hug, we don't hold hands, all I can do is make tea, feed him, and bring him whiskey. I don't know what else to do.
I hope when I am old and hanging on by a thread like this that it will be legal to just put me to sleep. Am I the devil for saying that? I know my Mother wouldn't want to be like this, she wouldn't want people to see her like this, she wouldn't want Dad and I to go through this.
I've been tremendously moved by the outpouring of support that's come my way via twitter and facebook. If I didn't have my internet community, I don't know how I would cope. I have Marianne here, and Bob. Sluggo is definitely still in the picture but we're early days yet, I don't want to draw him in to something like this...but my virtual community has been amazing. I visited Baltimore last weekend and Molly Goatwax and I were talking about the phenomenon of social networking, and how it's like people are right there, as she departed the Mt. Royal Tavern the night before I left she said "remember, I'm just in the next room", and I really feel like she is, like you all are, and really I don't know how I'd cope if you weren't. So thank you.
