We Need To Go Over a Few Things

A year ago I was in California when my mother went to the ER after feeling weak for several days. I was down there taking care of my parents while my sister was away and I often refer to that as the week I broke my mother. But my sardonic joke became far less funny a year later when my mother was taken to the ER, almost exactly a year tod the day, for similar symptoms. That would be bad itself, but it was her sixth hospitalization in a year.

I knew my mom had gone to the ER but the drill had been that she'd go  in for a few days, get stable and then go home. The doctors had been talking about giving her a colonoscopy for a few months so when I got a text from my sister saying  that she "needed to go over a few things" with me I figured they were about to finally do it and that my sister, Elisa, was going to tell me the risks.

For some reason I always associate bad news with the weather. It was a gorgeous late winter/almost spring day. I take a ferry to get home and I always feel like my day is finally coming to an end when I get off the ferry and take the 10 mile drive to my house. I'm usually in a good mood and this was how I felt that day. 

The sun was out, it was warm and I was ready to head home and unwind, when my sister finally called.  There was something in the tone of her voice. She'd been dealing with my parents for a long time and she was usually good at sounding detached or even calm. But not today. She started the call by saying, she had really bad news. It was still sunny, but in my memory I now see dark clouds. I don't remember everything but I remember random bit and phrases. "Too sick, frail, colonoscopy would kill her. Nothing more the doctors can do. Six months to live. Hospice"

HOSPICE. I was very familiar with the idea of Hospice because, ironically, my mom used to volunteer for Hospice. I knew it was about dying people. There was a lot of information but the takeaway was that there would be no more medical treatment of any kind. It would now be what is called Palliative Care; essentially keeping the patience comfortable. Apparently it involved getting a hospital bed delivered to the house and lots of morphine. 

I don't really remember the rest of the call or even my drive home. It remains in one of those strange clouds that my brain reserves for bad news.  I just remember hanging up with my sister and spending the rest of my drive with my brain swimming with thoughts of death and planning

(To be continued)