happening.”
“Thank you,” were the only words I could think of. I dropped the phone, looked at my husband and willed myself to move. Dazed and on the verge of panic, my husband and I hurriedly dressed and headed in opposite directions. I raced to my parents' home to my mother, who was alone and surely frightened, while my husband intercepted Dad at the emergency room.
Rushing through the door, I entered my parents' normally orderly living room and noticed the way the couch and chairs had been pushed aside to clear a path for the gurney. A million thoughts streaked through my mind about what those moments must have been like for my dad. I found Mom, still wearing her nightgown, sitting on the bed, staring at the door.
Anxiously I said, “Mom, let’s get you dressed.”
“Where did they take him? He was so scared…” she said weakly, as tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
“They took Dad to the emergency room so the doctor could help him. What clothes would you like to wear?”
“I don’t know… I don’t know. Do you think he will be okay?” she asked with growing desperation.
“Mom, the only way I will know that, is if we get to the ER. Let me help you put your clothes on so we can leave,” I said, my tone of voice becoming stronger.
“Ok.”
Mom felt like a rag doll as I maneuvered her arms and legs into her clothing. It was as if she had no control over her limbs and didn’t completely understand what we were doing. After what seemed like an eternity, Mom was ready and I guided her toward their car.
When I arrived at the hospital with Mom, we discovered that Dad was already undergoing tests. Knowing that he had survived a heart attack and cardiac bypass surgery many years before and that his heart had been slowly failing for some time, my ability to remain calm was nearly impossible. After several hours of waiting and diagnostic tests, Dad was admitted to the hospital for further observation. He appeared to be resting with plenty of people to care for him, so I turned my focus back to my mother.
After encouraging my husband to go home, I took my mother to her house to eat and rest. Understandably, she had been quite shaken by the arrival of an ambulance in her driveway and strange people taking her husband away. Mom's behavior seemed odd to me, yet I couldn't put my finger on what I was sensing. I watched her eat a few bites and uncharacteristically push the food away, saying that her stomach was upset. She seemed overtaken by weariness, so I guided her away from the table and tucked her into her bed for a nap. Even in her somewhat confused state, Mom insisted that I go home.
Driving across town, I found my husband waiting for me at home.
He greeted me at the door and asked, “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing. I just have to wait and see what happens,” I responded. “Something about Mom is really strange. I know she was terribly upset by everything that happened with Dad, but she just isn’t herself at all.”
After a moment he said softly, “I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
“I know,” I said.
Pulling me into his chest with his strong arms, I knew that together we could handle whatever might happen.
Only an hour after I left Mom, she called. When I answered my phone, I heard an almost inaudible voice say, “I think you’d better come back here right away.”
“Mom? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I feel… I feel sick.”
I found Mom sitting at the kitchen table staring into space with an assortment of my dad’s belongings in her lap; her abnormal demeanor puzzled me. We packed the odd things that Mom wanted to take to my dad and climbed back into the car. En route to the hospital, I told Mom that I thought we should stop by the emergency room before visiting my dad. I knew that an elderly person, once dehydrated, could quickly become disoriented. Mom was so frail that I was afraid even a minor bout of nausea could be the cause of her problem. I hoped that some fluids and medical attention might resolve the issue. She was mildly resistant, but cooperative as I explained my concern. After arriving at the hospital and getting Mom settled with someone to care for her in the ER, I was given a stack of papers for the second time in only a few hours. As quickly as my shaky hand would write, I entered Mom’s information in the familiar blanks. Turning to a nurse I said, “I’ll be back. I need to check on my dad.”
As I arrived on the floor where I left him, I was intercepted by a nurse.
“Your father has been moved to another unit for closer observation,” she stated.
Fighting the urge to be sick, I managed to ask the nurse, “Where is he?”
“MICU, third floor, ma’am,” the nurse said pointing toward the elevator.
My heart skipped a beat as I heard an explosion of words in my head. “Oh God, what is going on?”
I spent the remainder of that twilight-zone day traveling on an elevator from Dad on the third floor to Mom in the emergency room, trying to comfort them, each fraught with concern for the other. I didn’t know whom to worry about the most as I felt myself stretching thinner and thinner. Dad’s condition worsened and he was not responding to the chosen medications. At the same time, no definitive diagnosis seemed obvious for my mother and she was not improving. In every opportunity with nurses and doctors, I pleaded that Mom be admitted for additional evaluation. Trying to be on two different floors was difficult, but having one of them in the hospital and the other at home was impossible.
I was approaching a breaking point with none of my sisters in sight. With Dad’s medical history and knowing that the emergency monitoring service had also phoned Exhausted Teresa early that morning, I was sure that my sisters were en route to the hospital and would be arriving at any moment.
Instead, in the late afternoon, their phone calls began.
My sisters wanted answers from me. I was supposed to tell each of them whether or not to come home. Their questions circled my head like a swarm of bees. “How serious is Dad?” “What is wrong with Mother?” “How long will they be in the hospital?” “Do you really think we need to be there?”
How could I know what to tell my sisters? It was too soon to have much information about anything. Navigating the emergency room twice in one day, dealing with more nurses and doctors than I could count and trying to be in multiple locations at once left me completely dazed. My physical stamina disappeared, and in its place remained only spinning thoughts. “Could Dad possibly survive this? What am I going to tell Mom? What is wrong with her? What if something terrible is wrong with both of them? How long could this possibly last? What do I do next? Where is my family? Why aren’t they here? How could they leave me alone to make all these decisions?” On and on the questions spun…
Saturday ended with Mom, given a generic diagnosis of complications from diabetes, staying on one floor while Dad rested in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. I went home, seeking reserves for the unknown journey looming ahead, hoping that my husband was keeping a place called normal, somewhere.
…
Reflection
