She’s Nursing Again

(A pretty impressive claim for somebody who just celebrated her eighty-first birthday and has been on Hospice for a year!)

February 10, 2023 – Post #66

Sorry if that is inappropriate; but considering the somewhat solemn circumstances we’re in, it’s too funny not to share…

This morning my mom’s pulse oxygen dropped to 78…

I finally said out loud what I have been wondering for several days:  “Is all that cracking the start of a death rattle?”…

We started making plans for her to be bed fast…

I said to someone I didn’t think she had much longer to live…

After being away from the house for most of the day, working on my computer, I prepared to change gears and re-enter caregiving mode.  

Walking up to the house, I was surprised to see my mom through the window, sitting up in her chair.  I expected she would be in her hospital bed.

Tapping on the window to get her attention, it kind of took my breath away to see her look up slowly then smile with recognition.  It made me wonder how many more times I will get to witness that sight…

Coming in the door, I was ready to hear the now familiar crackle from her breath; but it had dissipated.  

I asked her how she was.

She looked down, pulled back the covers and bathrobe that were piled on her chest and announced glibly, “Well, I’m nursing.”

I had no idea what she was talking about; but then she nodded to the place on her shirt where the contents of her cup must have landed.



She doesn’t have the energy to laugh hard anymore; but she hasn’t lost that smile she gets when she says something ironic.  I guess you could say she hasn’t dried up completely.

Among her other quotable quotes:

Yesterday she told me she thought she’d stay home from school, because she didn’t want to give anybody her cough.  I decided to stay home too, so we could both play hooky.  

Right now she’s eating gooey butter cake and wondering if it’s corn on the cob… To a girl from Indiana, I’m not sure which of the two is the greater treat.

She may be a Hoosier at heart; but she’s been in Kirkwood for well over forty years – find out what a shock it was to her to wake up and think she’d somehow wound up in Webster Groves.

*To read more on my mom’s cancer journey from the beginning, or share it, please click below:

It’s Cancer

Jody

I'm not sure what to say here: I once got second place in a dog-look-alike-contest? I know how to fold a fitted sheet? I'm pretty much a poster child for social backwardness - at least as far as social media is concerned; but I have some stories I think I'm supposed to share and am attempting to do that here, in this space.

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