She awoke before I left and I told her I was leaving. I gave her a kiss and hesitated. She said, "Go Danielle, I'll be okay." I left and got in the car and left her apartment. I hated to leave her. I'd compare it to the same feeling I had leaving my girls and going back to work the first day after maternity leave. That feeling that what you are leaving is so much greater and more important than where you are going, but you must go. You must leave your child in someone else's hands and trust them to care for them as you would. Andy texted me a Bible verse as I was driving that I found extremely comforting. Again, how I wish I would've kept my texts.
I arrived to the first nursing home and got my work done there and headed to the second nursing home. Shelli texted me that a home health aide had been there to help her wash up and some work friends of hers had dropped by to see her. My Mom knew the home health aide. My Mom knew everyone. She was still very nauseous. I stopped to call the hospice nurse and tell her Mom needed something better for nausea. The compazine and phenergan were not working. She called the oncologist who ordered my Mom some Zofran. I know now that the steroid, the dexamethasone, my Mom took since May and that had just been tapered off before her decline was what kept her from having nausea and vomiting through her cancer treatment. I have an enormous amount of guilt I didn't know that it could be used to treat nausea.
I went on to the next facility, I don't think I did too much there. A nurse told me to go home, go take care of my mother. I left and stopped at Zaxby's to get something to eat and decompress a moment. The food was not good to me. I could not enjoy eating knowing my Mom couldn't, that she had not eaten anything in almost 5 days. I headed back to Muncie, stopping at Ball Hospital to pick up the Zofran.
I arrived back at her apartment and another one of her friends was with her. Mom was sitting in her recliner. Her friend offered to get us dinner. I had her get a fish sandwich meal from McDonald's and a carmel frappe. The fish sandwich was the ONLY food Mom liked at McDonald's. Her friend left and I cut the sandwich in half and then her half in a quarter. I put it on a paper plate with some fries. I sat down and she said she wanted a napkin. I sat back down and then she wanted ketchup. I got a couple more things and finally she said "SIT" and so I did. She looked around and asked where her friend went. I told her she had left awhile ago and she looked confused. She said she swore she just saw her. We went on eating quietly, her in her recliner and me in the glider. She was able to eat a little bit of it slowly. She looked up again and looked around and then said to me, "Did you put a muzzle on Amelia?" I laughed. I told her Amelia was not here, she was at home with Spencer. She again looked confused. I finished eating and so did she. She had eaten one quarter of the sandwich and a few fries. She instructed me to save the other quarter sandwich for her and put the frappe in the freezer. I did as she wished. That was her last meal. If she had a grave to roll over in, she would knowing her last meal was McDonald's.
I put everything from dinner away and she started to take off her shirt. I asked her what she was doing and she said she thought I'd told her to take off her shirt. I had not. My mind flashed to the hospice book the nurse had given us with the section titled, "As Your Loved One Nears Death What You Need To Know." It had said it was very common for them to try to disrobe.
I sat at the table and worked on something, I don't remember what. She sat in her recliner and was asleep but talking to herself every so often and making hand motions.
I decided to move her from the recliner to the couch for bed. As I had done the night before, I helped her from the recliner to the wheelchair, from the wheelchair to the commode, from the commode to the couch. She did not urinate at all, another sign of dying.
My Mom had changed since I had left for work that morning. Her memory was worse, she was more confused and trying to disrobe, she was seeing things and was restless, she was not urinating. These were all signs of impending death. I knew I couldn't go back to work the next day. I knew the time was drawing near. Looking back, I know it was that day, while I was at work that my Mom and who she was, was gone. Her body was still there, but her mind was far, far away.
I pulled the glider by the couch and held her hand for awhile, until she pulled it away from me.
After a bit, I got ready for bed too and laid in the recliner. She became restless again. She said, "Hello? Who's there? Come in!" As if she heard someone knocking...
3 days left
Every entry I read just leaves me breathless. I haven't always had a good relationship with my parents, but your and your mom's story makes me realize how quickly everything can change and gives me pause to stop and appreciate them as the people they are. In this journal you've given your mom the gift of a beautiful legacy, yourself the gift of peace and understanding, and everyone else, or at least for me, the gift of appreciation and perspective. <3
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