Tag Archives: Death

Are We There Yet?

08 Saturday Aug 2009

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

We call something science when the reactive outcome is predictable between types of matter; like when two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen react to form water; and when water, yeast and flour react to form bread dough;d'oh and when…“D’oh!”…a child reacts to a long road trip to form that predictable whiny line:  “Are we there yet?”

This children’s query popped out of my own mouth unexpectedly this week while speaking with the director of nursing at ‘Dad’s’ rehab center.  But in the crazy way that life works out, this question from my past frames so precisely the most nagging question of my present; for in fact, these last two weeks of my father’s life feel a lot like one of  those long and whiny road trip’s of my childhood.

Same as then, Dad is in the driver’s seat, a little blind to all the nuances of the medical calamities he’s running over, to all the danger signs he’s ignoring, to all the exit ramps he’s missing; just like then, Daddy is lost, and I think he’d like one of us kids to take over at the wheel.  My sister and I have the power if not the desire; it’s our hope that Daddy will make his own health decisions as long as he’s able and willing.  But then and now, Daddy shies away from decision making; and so different from then, Dad no longer has Mom to play navigator. 

DSC01674aWhat seems clear to all is that Dad has suffered a major setback.  He’s passed through dehydration, where we found the state of pneumonia and then through dysphagia toward the current state of feeding tubes.  Dad has taken in sights that he hoped to never see.  Daddy is worn out; he sleeps most of the time and when he’s awake he seems far away.  But whether or not he sleeps, Daddy’s sad.  And this makes me sad too.     

So I’m lost.  I confess to not knowing Dad’s current medical state.  Nor do I know in which direction Dad’s heading; is Daddy becoming better, becoming worse, or lost somewhere in between?  I’ve no map, no landmarks, no navigator, not even a hunch.  And while my sister and I talk all around it, the only thing we can scavenge up for sure is that there is something very different about Daddy. 

Looking for that elusive reality check is what took me to the director of nursing.  And not one to beat around the bush, I came right out with my questions:  “Was it time for us to call in hospice?”  “Are we there yet?”

I know these questions are difficult to answer, even for someone who practices in the medical field.  Medical science is not as predictable as the other branches of science since the human element makes all reactions unique.  And even if it were, the nurse doesn’t know Daddy and we who do have no medical background.  So overall, it’s the blind leading the blind. 

For who but God can put together the pieces, to know where Daddy is right now and in which direction Dad is heading.  But it’s the nurse’s sense that we are not yet ready for hospice because we are not there yet.  And so we wait.  We wait to see where Daddy will take us next.  As we wait for the gift of hindsight to inform us later of where we are now.  And for now… I simply pray for travel mercies. 

Slumber Smiles

04 Tuesday Aug 2009

Posted by in Far Away Places, Life at Home, Soul Care

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

From the moment I walked out of my father’s nursing home room late this afternoon, I’ve been wondering about death.  Like…when it will come for Daddy?  And what will the nearness of death look like on my father’s face?  And most of all:  Is Daddy’s end near?

But it wasn’t until my husband and I were on the way home from a quick supper that I finally gave birth to my question.

“What does the end of life look like?”  

Asking questions is my way of searching for facets of truth when answers are unapparent.  And as is my wont to do, before my husband could think through his own answer, I began shaping one of my own:      

“I’m wondering if the end of life looks like the beginning of life.  When I think back on those days of new babies and then compare those memories to Daddy’s life now, I see that both ends are consumed with the business of sleep.  Most comes from short little cat naps.  Easily disturbed; yet so easy to drift back to sleep.  And as our “endsters” are busy with their slumbers, the world carries on without them, though they care not about our doings; they are faithful souls who live below the radar of managing the daily ins and outs of their own welfare; it is left to us to make the best decisions we can on their behalf.  Even as they sleep away their life, we cock one ear to catch their next breath and instead find ourselves listening to those sweet and sometimes odd little sleeping noises that come unwittingly out of their mouths.  And before we can wonder whether everything is okay, they’ve unknowingly answered our question by settling back to normal sleep.”

What do baby’s smile at in their sleep?  I love Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s take on this:

“I, writing thus, am still what men call young;
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling…”

I haven’t yet noticed Daddy smiling while he sleeps.  But maybe that will come, as Daddy crawls toward “that murmur of the outer Infinite.”    

Voices Barely Heard

02 Sunday Aug 2009

Posted by in Life at Home

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Daddy has no voice but what other’s give him.  And in the fertile ground of nursing home life, Daddy’s need of voice has grown big.  What will this need deliver?  

For better and for worse, my sister and I give Daddy a voice.  So after a string of better weeks, the worst showed up early last week, leaving my sister and I with no ability to make heads or tails of Daddy’s jumbled whispery sounds.  To be sure, it’s a little easier in person.  Then Daddy and I can resort to using our home-grown sign language, where I ask questions and then give Daddy a multiple choice quiz.  If Daddy holds up one finger, I know he wants the first alternative; two fingers the second and I try not to cloud the issue with three or four choices.   Better to keep the choices etched in black and white, otherwise Daddy finds it hard to make a choice at all.

I’m no better at making decisions than my father.  In Myer’s Brigg talk, I’m an INFP, which (in part) means I dislike being hemmed in by predestination, even if at my own free-will hand.  What sounds good now may not a few hours later.  Reading between the lines, I’ve sort of picked up that this indecisive tendency of mine drives the decisive- J-types in my life just a wee bit crazy.   

If I lived  by my lonesome, I’d simply bask all day long on the sands of indecision and perennial lateness.  Maybe I was born to be an island girl, where the sands of time slip through the fingers of curled water and drift slowly back to the ocean floor, to be pulled back at some future great wave.  I love going to the beach, where I can listen to the gulls and smell the salt on my tongue, then forget my cares and get lost in time as I gaze off the shore to find that fuzzy point where sea meets sky.  There’s no urge to rush; I know real life will wait.  

But wait!  Isn’t this the kind of stinkin’ thinkin’ that caught the nursing staff off-guard on Tuesday, when I arrived to find Daddy with cracked lips and fuzzy mouth, dehydrated before blind eyes?  It is because of Tuesday that I now know actions do not always speak louder than words, especially for elder care, when those  in charge fail to take charge.  When signs of disturbance go unseen, undercurrents lurk just below the surface of everyday routines to pull down the Daddy’s of this world.  It takes a watchful life guard to help someone like Daddy speak volumes; to hear a cry for help from a soundless parched mouth.   

I’m no life guard.  But even for an indecisive girl like me, it was easy to see Daddy was beyond thirsty.  So I set about to make the nursing staff aware of  Dad’s symptoms, expecting someone to jump in and offer my father a life-line.  Instead, the nursing staff shrugged and went on its merry way, sometimes offering me a little song and dance for my trouble.  I heard something eerily akin to that whistling island talk ditty:  Don’t worry.  Be happy.  Then for an encore, I listened to some stanzas of false optimism, in words that called to mind that special Broadway musical… 

“The sun will come up tomorrow, bet your
 bottom dollar, tomorrow, there’ll be sun.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.  And the thoughts singing and dancing between my ears were just as incredible.  

Yes.  There will be sun tomorrow.  But what about daddy?  Will Daddy still be around to see the sun come up tomorrow?  Hey.  Just so you know.  I’m worried.  And I’m not happy.  Can anyone hear me?  Or have I washed up on La-La Island?  Are there any decisive-J’s working at this center?  If so, please report to Mr. Pappas’ room.  Now!  Mr. Pappas is in desperate need of a nurse who can connect dots and connect Jack to an IV. 

Time didn’t stop, though it seemed to.  Nothing productive happened for six crazy hours.  The nursing staff went around its routine business, but meanwhile in my father’s room, all was far from routine.  My brother and I got  little liquid into Dad by mouth, while worse, the nursing staff could get no liquid out, even by catheter.  So four hours into our visit, with my brother’s J-support, I drew a line in the sand.  I asked for Dad to receive fluids by IV. 

Can you believe the doctor said no?  He said, let’s wait and see how Mr. Pappas is doing tomorrow.  The doctor refused to issue an order to permit nursing staff to give Dad an IV and then refused to issue an order to send Daddy to the ER.   It took two hours for the ER call to be made.  And it came with my stubborn refusal to leave the nursing home premises until Dad recieved an IV.

All this came after my meltdown.  After the 911 dispatch attendant told me I had no power to call on Daddy’s behalf, in spite of having a medical power of attorney, as Daddy was under a doctor’s and nursing home center’s care.  Ha!  If they only knew.   And it came after I glared and spoke a few curt words at the poor girl–in the wrong place at the wrong time–who was sitting behind the nurse’s station desk.  And I glared until she made the decision to give me her voice.        

The gift of voice has nothing to do with songs and dances and everything to do with the quality and quantity of everyday life.  We live impoverished until someone takes time to forget the sands of time and listen to our stories.  And if we have no one to helps us listen to our lives, we might as well live life on the sands of some deserted island.

But I wonder:  What happens to those elderly voices, that are feeble and past their energetic prime–like those of Daddy, and Miss Alpha and Marie–that take time to birth, and that even after a hard labor, come out barely there and hard to recognize as words?  To be heard at all will require the listener to be willing to operate on island time.  In the scary world of nursing home life, for these barely heard voices, it’s a matter of life and death.