August 17, 2017
4:34 p.m.
Today is my parent's 60th wedding anniversary. Yes, indeed. They made it.
It feels like a long time in coming, after the past few weeks. For a while, it seemed like it might not. The past month has been a bit of a roller coaster.
June 28th through about July 16th was a fun, busy, active time with family. Comic-Con in Denver with the grandchildren, followed by paternal family reunion in Colorado, followed by maternal family reunion in Idaho. You know all about it. I posted pictures. It was a good time.
The afternoon and evening of July 16th, things started to take a downhill sweep and it was like the toboggan ride from hell from there.
Mom got sick. We thought at first it might be the flu. Stomach cramping, slight fever, vomiting. We put her to bed in Idaho Sunday evening. Her out-of-town siblings said their farewells because everyone was heading out to their respective homes in the morning. We stayed through our visit at Mom's sister's beautiful home; everyone else was at a local hotel, and they took their leave of us to go back to their rooms for the night and leave from there in the morning.
My sister and her husband had stayed with his brother and sister-in-law, and we traveled back to Wyoming together. Mom continued to feel unwell, once to the point where we had to pull over so she could vomit on the side of the road.
She was miserable.
We were scared.
We arrived home Monday evening and put her to bed.
Tuesday, July 18th-- By morning Dad was very nervous and I insisted that if she wouldn't agree to the Emergency Room, she was at least going to the clinic. She tried to argue.
No way. We took her to the clinic.
Once there she was given blood tests and urinalysis, and an abdominal x-ray was done that showed a lot of retained stool. They recommended bland foods, lots of liquids and a Fleet enema, and gave her a prescription for an antibiotic since her test results showed a high white blood cell count, which indicates infection.
She took her first dose of antibiotic, and used the Fleet and for a while seemed to feel better. We'd gotten her to bed. Dad and I were discussing a before-bed light snack and an early night when all hell broke loose.
We could hear her in the hallway, struggling to get to the bathroom: "Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God."
We ran down the hall, helped her into the bathroom. I looked at Dad and he looked back. I looked at Mom and said, "Call an ambulance."
Dad was already halfway to the phone.
Mom was still determined that she wasn't going to the hospital. "I already went there," she said, referencing a recent stay. "I just paid the bill!"
"Not for this," I said.
"I don't want to go!"
"The ambulance is already on the way," I told her. Firmly, although Dad was still on the phone, carefully reciting the address. "You're going. No arguments."
The ambulance arrived quickly, and the attendants sent us on to the hospital ahead of them. By this time we'd been joined by my sister and brother-in-law. She drove us there; a good thing, because I don't think Dad could have done it. He was very worried.
We all were.
We arrived at the hospital and waited.
And waited some more.
Finally the ambulance arrived with her, and she was soon seen by a doctor, who order a CAT scan, EKG, blood work and etc.
During the next two hours, Mom had to drink a couple of bottles of contrast material in order to complete the CT with contrast. She was able to get most of it down and kept it down, and an orderly came in and took her away for the test.
We soon learned that Mom was suffering an obstruction of the small intestinal tract. The Fleet had helped clean out the large intestine--aka the colon--but could do nothing in the upper region where the problem reigned.
Oh, boy. Oh, dear. Oh, God.
We were also told that her blood work showed signs of infection, and troponin levels that were, as yet, indeterminate. For those who don't know what that means, troponin levels are a determining factor in detecting a heart attack. Apparently the pain and stress of what Mom was going through had put great strain on her heart as well as her digestive system.
On top of that, her potassium and magnesium levels were dangerously low. Antibiotics, potassium and magnesium dosage bags were added to the pole with the IV feed of fluids.
My fear level went up several degrees. It hardly seemed possible that I could get more scared than I'd already been. But potassium depletion is something else that can lead to a heart attack, and so--one more thing to worry about.
Naturally, she was admitted. Her care was transferred from the ER doctor to a general surgeon who is absolutely the most wonderful doctor I've ever had the pleasure to meet. (FYI--I know a LOT of doctors, many of them quite fantastic, so this is saying a LOT.) He would be available to meet with her--and us--in the morning.
In the meantime, once she was moved to her own room, she was able to get a dose of some good pain medication. Thank God for morphine. I mean it. Great stuff. She settled down enough to drift off to sleep.
Wednesday, July 19th-- We'd been at the hospital all night. Mom was sleeping restlessly, and we all decided we'd have to go get some sleep ourselves if we were going to be able to get through the day. We couldn't do anything else until time to meet with the doctor, so we headed home and crashed for awhile.
When we arrived at the hospital later that morning--still early, but the doctor had beaten us there--an initial treatment plan was being developed and implemented. A nasogastric tube was fed through a nostril, down the throat and through the stomach to the entrance of the small intestine, and attached to a pump to begin cleaning out the digestive tract. This procedure is not fun. Poor Mom.
After this was initiated. we spoke at length with the doctor about what he hoped to achieve, which was to ease the pressure on the stomach and small bowel enough for the obstruction to work loose and pass through. Certainly nothing was passing by this time; the constant pressure, nausea and vomiting indicated that what was there had nowhere else to go but back where it came in.
If this course of action was unsuccessful, the next thing would be to take her to surgery and try to find and relieve or remove the blockage.
Over the course of the day a great deal of matter was pumped out of Mom's digestive tract. The process did seem to be easing the pressure, but there were other matters that had us concerned. They had managed to bring her magnesium levels up to acceptable levels, but her potassium was still low. Her troponin levels were still too high. She was in pain.
It was a long, long day. I fielded phone calls and texted information to family members and generally kept busy maintaining an open line of communication.
Three of the siblings, myself included, are in town. A sister and a brother live away, and they were going crazy. My sister was sick and feeling guilty about not being there, but I told her if she was running a fever then no one would let her in to see Mom and she needed to stay home and take care of herself. My brother was working, and stressing out, but I told him there was no need to rush home at that time, since we didn't know what was going to happen next.
By the time we all went home that evening, we were exhausted. We were hopeful that the treatment plan was working, that the issue might resolve overnight and Mom could come home.
Before going to bed, I posted a message to our prayer warriors, asking for prayers without giving any details about what was happening. It seemed to me then that God's will might be better requested when no one was bombarding Him with prayers for what each of us thought would be best.
Thursday, July 20th-- Before leaving for the hospital that morning, I called and spoke to the nurse who was attending Mom. She told me Mom had had a good night, slept well and hadn't experienced much pain. Encouraged, Dad and I decided to run an couple of errands before heading out.
When we arrived at the hospital we found my mother writhing in pain and moaning loudly. I did my Shirley McLain impression, running to the nurses station to ask about pain medication. Okay, I didn't dance around yelling at them--I could have! I would have!-- because it wasn't necessary; they were already on the job.
Nurses attended her; the doctor arrived; my phone started ringing off the hook. Out-of-town brother going nuts. I didn't really know what to tell him. Then my sister--same thing. I was trying to stay out of the way while also trying to explain to the cell phone that I didn't know anything yet because the phone kept interrupting. I was out of the room and down the hall, wandering back and forth between calls.
The doctor came back and informed us that Mom had been in even worse pain just shortly after the phone call with nurse who had told me what a good night she'd had. Dad and I agreed that what we'd walked in on that morning was plenty bad enough and we were glad we hadn't witnessed the first occurrence. Apparently it was a very sudden onset both times. He told us that he'd added her to his surgery schedule for the next day, and we'd wait and see if things might resolve before the end of the day before making the final decision for surgery.
He went off to do whatever else he needed to do, and I took yet another phone call. Out of the room, down the hall. Heaven only knows who I was talking with that time.
As I came back into the room, I overheard my mother telling my father that she couldn't take it--she just wanted to be taken to surgery to get it over with. My phone rang again and I dashed back down the hall, hoping to get off and back to the room before the doctor returned.
I seriously considered dropping the damn thing down the elevator shaft or something. We love our phones, don't we? Until we hate them.
The doctor came to me that time, in a waiting area down the hall from my mother's room. I told him what I'd overheard, and he informed me that he'd added Mom to the schedule later that day. There was no point in prolonging a treatment that was clearly not working.
Now it was just a matter of waiting for her turn.
It was a long day. Not because we really had to wait
that long--she was scheduled at the end of his surgical duties, roughly 5:00 p.m.--but because waiting is hard, even when there is no pain involved. And this time, there was
more than plenty of pain involved.
Now, this doctor is awesome. He just is. He checked on Mom periodically throughout the day, in between cases. Blood work was done, pain medication was administered, and the nurses were in and out frequently to check on us all.
My sister and brother arrived with their spouses and Mom was wheeled off to surgery prep. My sister and I made a run to Arby's for dinner and took it back to the hospital, where we all settled into the surgery waiting area to eat for the first time since early morning.
At some point a nurse came in to let us know that surgery was starting, and my sister dragged out one of the many puzzles in the waiting room for us to all work on while we waited.
We'd been given the details of the planned operation. which would begin as an exploratory abdominal surgery. Depending on what was found, it could be as simple as untwisting a loop of intestine to as complicated as removing a large section of intestine. We were told it would last anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half.
You can understand, then, why my sister felt we'd have time to complete a puzzle.
We didn't.
As it turned out, the surgery--a small bowel resection--lasted only about half an hour. The problem was easily located, and a section of intestine less than three inches long was removed. The obstruction was due to scar tissue adhesions that had systematically flattened and crimped that section of the intestine until nothing could pass through.
Picture this: a one way highway, two or three lanes wide, with regular traffic flowing 24-7. There are hills on each side of the road, and they have suffered a great deal of erosion over the years. Finally, the debris of the erosion begins to pile up on the highway, blocking all but one lane. Traffic has slowed down significantly over time, and it's more and more difficult to get to the end of the line. Cars start fighting to get into the single lane. More erosion debris flows into the lane.
Finally, some pesky little Volkswagon darts into traffic, wedges its way into the lane next to a semi and gets stuck between it and the side of the hill that's slid into the road. Traffic comes to a complete standstill.
But the cars keep coming, and piling up behind the semi and the Volkswagon stuck in the landslides. Soon enough, traffic starts to back up, needed to find some way out of the road.
So it was with my mother's digestive tract. This was the reason behind the vomiting and the pain. What goes down must continue to go down, and if it can't, it must go up.
Poor Mom!
But the problem had been removed by the master traffic control construction crew, and now Mom was on the road to recovery. As the doctor explained, there would still be pain, but now it would be a healing pain.
We were allowed to see Mom in recovery a couple of family members at a time. It was cold in there; Dad began to shiver violently, and the nurses wrapped him up in heated blankets. I feared that he might be going into shock, he was shaking so badly. Luckily, he wasn't; he was just cold.
Even in the semi-conscious state of post surgery, you could see that Mom's coloring was better and the worst of her pain was relieved. We visited only a short time, and as soon as she was transported back to her room, we made plans to go home.
By the time we were ready to leave, it was getting dark, and my nephew offered to drive us home in Dad's car. Dad has had trouble with night driving since he had some bad glaucoma complications during and after cataract surgery last year, so we were grateful for the offer. We were even more grateful when we were hit, halfway home, with a violent wind-and-rain storm, complete with booming thunder and lightning. People were pulling off to the side of the road to wait it out!
Once home, we made phone calls to make sure everyone else arrived safely and called it a night.
Like I said, it was a long,
long,
long day.
That was July 20th. Over the next few days Mom greatly improved, and we finally got her home on July 25th.
(Oh, and did I mention that, while Mom was recovering, my sister and other family members made the trek down to the surgery waiting area and finished the puzzle? I didn't? Well...)
Since then Mom's made great strides. We've all gotten together for a celebration of a 60-year-old marriage and a family that has grown to be quite large since they first got started. In three more days, she will be 80 years old.
We are so, so grateful to have her here with us!
It's amazing to me that it has taken me nearly a month to tell this story, and it's still hell to even think about, let alone write. Do I know how very blessed I am to still have my parents? YES! I absolutely know it and appreciate it every day.
I also know how blessed I am to have been able to be here through all of this. How blessed I am to have been able to do anything at all to help, and to spend the time with them that I've been given.
Honor your parents. Spend as much time as possible with them. Cherish every moment. Because you just never know.
Next time, some shout outs to the hospital, because they deserve it.
Ta!
