I've meant to sit down and write a few times since my last entry, but I've just been too tired, too run-ragged or just not had enough time. There are actually two different main things I want to say, so just think of this as being two separate entries...
I believe that I can honestly say I've never really felt completely overwhelmed before. I mean, that sense that events have run so fast and so far ahead of you that you don't know if you'll ever catch up.
I've been feeling that way lately with my mother. The situation has been so fluid and dynamic and, unfortunately, not in a good way. Now, let me say that I know, intellectually and emotionally, that I've been doing everything I possibly could, and I've been doing it as absolutely fast as possible.
Having said that, though, let me make it absolutely clear: Doing the best possible doesn't mean that you don't feel frustrated and helpless! Because that's exactly how I do feel. I know that I couldn't have done anything differently or faster or anything else. But I also know that I've consistently been behind the curve. Events have always been changing around me and I need to keep changing the world (to the best extent I can) to suit.
A perfect example was the previous weekend and last week (not this past week, but 7+ days ago). The doctor decided to switch Mom from the Percoset that she'd been taking to something called a Duragesic patch. The patch is a narcotic patch that stays on for 3 days and is designed to flatten out the level of drug in her system so she doesn't get on-set and off-set effects from taking the Percoset orally.
However, the doctor thought that she was taking a lot of Percoset, so he started her on the 50 micro-gram per hour patches. There's a lower dosage 25 mcg/hr patch but he didn't think that would be good enough. Unfortunately, as I found out from talking with a Pharmacist I work with, heavy narcotics dosages for people who are narcotic-naive can have some dramatic side-effects.
In my mom's case, those side effects were a fairly intense loss of ability to be mobile and almost complete incoherency / confusion. My mom was largely unable to stay focused on a single thought for more than about 2-3 seconds and couldn't even really get out of the chair she's been sleeping in.
This required us to switch from the non-certified aide that we'd been using to a certified one. In retrospect, again, not much I could have done differently, but it was a complete nightmarish disaster. The new aide was, as I've said to other people, "dumber than a box of rocks". Truly! Not only that, but she copped a real attitude with my mom. She stayed for less than 3 days.
Towards the end of last week, the doctor finally realized he might have been overly aggressive on the narcotics dosage and backed her down to the 25 mcg/hr patch. Mom was still a little fuzzy, but definitely much better. In the meantime, I had to find yet another aide (and we wound up going back to the first place since we'd crossed back over to an uncertified need) and also start the paperwork on moving her into an assisted living residence.
We / I decided that there wasn't really enough time to wait and try to find the "best" place. "Good enough" would just have to do and the place that's about 1000 feet from us is definitely good enough. Speaking of which, my mom is going to be moving in there tomorrow (another long story that I probably won't go into).
So I finally feel like I'm getting a little caught up. But I know, sadly, that it's really just until the next crisis throws me for a loop.
When my grandmother died and we were arranging with the rabbi for the funeral service, he asked me if I would say a few words during the service. I said I would and then spent the next couple of days agonizing over what to say. I don't know if I wound up with the "right" words, but they were right for me and, I think, started the healing process for myself and my Mom.
The day after I learned that my Mom had cancer (and before she had been told), I found myself starting, unintentionally, to think of what I would say at her funeral. This has happened occasionally in the intervening time as well.
So, as of yesterday, it's official.
My mom is dying.
The oncologist believes that her disease is terminal. "Once it's metastasized this far, it could be treated, but there's really no hope of a cure."
Her primary doctor had pretty much indicated this from the beginning as well. He didn't believe that there would be anything substantive to come from the oncologist, but knew that he had to be consulted.
When my mom and I talked about this, she finally realized just why it is that I've been moving so fast to get everything arranged. It's because I know that I won't have her much longer. I don't know for sure how time is left, although her time is now going to be measured in months and weeks, not years.
I'm still mostly holding myself together about this. Sometimes, though, I'll be driving along and I'll hear a song on the radio that makes me sad and I'll tear up for a little bit.
Or I'll be sitting in the car and start to think about the funeral that I know is coming and wish I could stave off. And I'll think about what I'm going to say when I get up in front of whoever's there.
I haven't come up with anything yet that I think is going to be perfect. But, then again, it's not going to be about being perfect. It's going to be about her. Just like I've been telling myself since this whole horrible thing began - this still isn't about me. It's all about her.
And every time I think about what I'm going to say, I invariably start to cry. Not a lot, but just enough. Maybe if I do that enough times along the way, the loss won't seem quite so bad when it happens.
But, somehow, I doubt that...
So, my mom is dying... And the only thing I can do about it is anything to keep her comfortable in the meantime. I just hope that's enough.
Author: ben@tmk.com