“Breathe for me”

We stayed up late this night because Angie was going to come by.  It was after 9:00 p.m. before she got there.  Mom had been resting on the couch for a couple of hours.  She had already decided to get a catheter, so that was the first thing we addressed when Angie got there.  We got her settled and in bed for the night.  Meanwhile, Jackie called and asked how Mom was doing.  I filled her in on all the details, and I told her I would ask Angie how long she thought she had left to live.  When I asked Angie, she of course did not have a definite answer.  The answer I remember receiving was a few weeks to a couple of months.  Jackie wanted to know because she was getting ready to go out of town. 

That night, Dad and I decided to give Mom some Morphine so she could rest better.  This night is very foggy so I can’t remember all the details.  I remember calling Angie at 2:00 a.m. asking about the Morphine.  She told me I could call her anytime, that this was part of her job.  She even told me she would come over for a couple of hours to watch Mom when she was struggling to breathe so she could better assess her.  She told me to call back four hours later regardless of how she was doing.  I set my alarm and called her back at 6:00 a.m.  The Morphine helped a lot and she only woke up a few times during the night.

U  Are you asking your health care provider for current assessments of your loved one to make sure they are not suffering and to make the best decisions for them if they can no longer make them for themselves?  U

U  Can you ask the doctors, nurses, hospital staff to be honest with you if they know the loved one is about to die? (A lady told me a friend was in the hospital, and the doctors knew the man was going to die because of his injuries, but they never told his wife.  She was very angry at the doctors because there were so many things she would have said to him.)  U

I told Mom to say “Judy” when she needed me so I knew she was talking to me.  Several times she did so with a loud enough voice to wake me up.  Sometimes, I would just wake up on my own and look up to check on her; she would also talk in her sleep and wake me up.  I would pop my head up and look at her waiting to see if she would say anything.  Usually she did not say anything, so I knew she was talking in her sleep.  I think one time she called my name, and I waited to see if she would say anything else and she did not.

There was one time Mom woke me up and said a comment to me that I will always remember for the rest of my life.  She was struggling to breathe and said, “Breathe for me.”  I said, “Mom I can’t do that.”  I remember several times asking Mom what I could do to make it better.  She always had something for me to try.  A couple of times she answered, “I don’t know.”