This week has been all about mothers, which is fitting since Sunday was Mother’s Day.
My daughters completely spoiled me on Sunday: breakfast in bed, presents, a bike ride to the lake, a Johnny English movie. It was perfect. It was UP.
Now, here comes the down.
I travelled to my mom’s home that evening to be with her and my dad before Mom’s surgery to have part of her colon removed. She had a bad colonoscopy.
While Mom drank the two gallons of pre-surgery colon cleaner, which kept her in the bathroom, Dad spent the night talking about buying my brothers rifles for Christmas. One of my brothers had coyotes in his yard, and he wanted something to scare them away. I would have gone with a BB gun, but that’s just me. So, I tell Dad he has to get me a rifle as well. After all, if my brothers are getting one, I want one too. You see, that is how I am hardwired. For my entire life, if my brothers got something, I got one too. I had a baseball card collection. I had a slingshot. I had an army hat and a toy machine gun. I learned how to play football, basketball, ride a motorcycle. That is not to say I was good at any of it, but I did it all while wearing my patent leather shoes and my hat with a bow. At 47, I still have to have whatever they have. I don’t think that will ever change.
“You’re gonna have to get a license for it,” my Dad said trying to scare me off. “Well, so will they,” I fired back at him.
Now look, I don’t want a rifle, but I have always wanted the same size piece of birthday cake that they were cut, and that will never change.
The rifle conversation drifted off at the thought of our 4am wake-up call.
Mom’s surgery was a success, and I marveled at the strange things she said when she came off the anesthesia.
I had to stay in the room with her most of the time. The nurses there were worthless. One of Mom’s nurses even received a plaque for nurse of the year at the foot of my Mom’s bed. She was not honored to be a part of the ceremony, and I was not the least bit impressed by his skills. At one point, while changing out the tubing of Mom’s IV, he forgot to clamp the tube, and blood started squirting all over the place. It was like an SNL episode of Julia Childs. Of course, the stuffed animal that my squeamish sister bought for Mom was blood soaked. I had to tell the nurse to clamp the tube. He was dumbfounded. I was the clean-up crew.
I left one of my sisters with my Mom to take my Dad to dinner. We were gone for 20 minutes. We come back and Mom’s stomach tube had been pulled by said nurse of the year. Really? Really? Oh come on! She was having an anxiety attack, so he thought it best to pull her stomach tube. Boy was that stupid. The stomach tube wasn’t causing the anxiety. It was 3 days off her anxiety medication and being in a hospital that was causing the anxiety.
I spent most of the time texting my friend and my brothers only to find out I was texting one of my brother’s old cellphone numbers. Some poor stranger began texting me back saying he (I think it was a he) was praying for my Mom.
I spent a lot of time staring at my Mom while I was there, and staring at the shadows under the door. If you have ever spent a lengthy time by someone’s hospital bedside, you learn to read who will come in the room next by watching the shadows move across the shiny hospital floor. I have spent a lot of time in hospitals by my daughter’s bedside – too much time. You can actually tell by the movement of the shadows whether it is a doctor, nurse, or visitor. Visitors’ shadows are the most chaotic because they are full of nerves before they enter the room.
I took one of my Mom’s sleeping pills at night, one of those that they always advertise on TV, and I will tell you what, I have no idea why college kids aren’t popping those before parties instead of the potentially nastier drugs they take. I began to hallucinate in the hospital room. Those balloons taped to the wall became very happy people, and I got a great night’s sleep. No wonder those pills are so popular!
Mom’s pulse/ox would sound an alarm when she would lie on her hand. “Mom, it’s your pulse/ox,” I would tell her trying to calm her down as an alarm would sound as if a nuclear disaster was eminent. She would immediately raise her hand and straighten her one finger that the pulse/ox was on and glare at me. Of course it was on her middle finger. Of course.
I had to leave Mom before she got out of the hospital, and that was difficult. My husband’s mom was scheduled to have a mass on her ovary removed the next day, and I had to get home.
Insane, isn’t it? Major surgeries on both mothers in the same week…just insane!
Today, the surgeon sadly finished my mother-in-law’s surgery very quickly. She is peppered with cancer. There are too many to even count. She will start chemo tomorrow.
Life can be like a roller coaster ride.
We are now looking over at the 200-foot drop of the ride, toes dangling over the edge, waiting for the fall.
With arms held up to the heavens, I pray that my mother-in-law will enjoy the ride.
