verushka70 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
verushka70) wrote2009-06-29 05:09 am
verushka70) wrote2009-06-29 05:09 am
bereft. so many deaths lately, but only one that mattered.
My mother died. Suddenly. Not unexpectedly. Given that she had cancer. But we were having gelato at 10pm Friday night with my sister. My mom wasn't using her portable oxygen or anything -- she was walking, talking, laughing, everything normal. She'd just seen her oncologist Tuesday & gotten a clean bill of health. At 10:27pm my sister dropped us off & I went to the drug store. At 11:10ish I came home to find 2 ambulances and a cop car in front of our house, and my mom inside, still conscious, but unable to speak, struggling to breathe, using her oxygen, and blue in the lips and gray in the face. I said something inane to her -- like, "omg, what happened?" and she rather impatiently and dismissively waved me away, in her typical "don't make a fuss about me" kind of way. But obviously she had called 911. As the paramedics took her out & began CPR, I hunted for the DNR I knew she had in her file cabinet -- all the while knowing from my job (ER nurse) that, the way she looked, if she was not intubated, she would not live. I found the DNR & the very nice police officer ran it out to the paramedics.
Yet still the paramedics felt it necessary to ask me again, while I stood on our front lawn wringing my hands, if I wanted to abide by it. Way to put me in a horrible place. And then again, at the ER, the MD asked if I wanted to abide by the DNR. I'm just looking at him, like, do you not have the paper? is it not clear? does it not fucking say DNR? why are you even asking me this?. I just kept trying to remember what the very kind -- and wise -- police officer told me when we were on my lawn and the paramedic came out of the rig and asked me if I wanted to abide by my mom's DNR, which was "This isn't your decision, it was her decision; you're just carrying it out." (This was after I asked the paramedics, "Well, can I ask her?" thinking, she just looked me in the eye and waved away my hysterics, so surely she can nod or shake her head whether or not she wants to be intubated. Which was when they told me she wasn't responding anymore.
So ultimately I respected her DNR. And so at 11:48pm in the local ER she was pronounced dead.
I wish I'd not seen her the way she was right before she died. I just can't stop seeing it. But then if I hadn't gotten home when I did, they wouldn't have had the DNR, and they would've intubated her & put her on a ventilator (breathing machine), which I know she definitely did not want, and she would have hated it, and it would have forced her to linger, I guess, in a way I know she wouldn't have wanted. But we always imagined this DNR scenario in the context of dying, suffering, in pain, on hospice or something -- not less than an hour after sitting around eating gelato and talking and laughing like everything was fine, because -- at the time -- everything was fine. I know the DNR is what she wanted, but I don't think she imagined it in the context that it happened either: Do Not Resuscitate me less than an hour after I was walking and talking and eating gelato under my own power and making plans for the future and for tomorrow and talking about past occasions and laughing and chuckling. Somehow I'm pretty sure that is not what was going through my mom's mind when she thought, I really don't want them to resuscitate me. And if that's the case, I really hope she can forgive me for sticking to her DNR.
I almost didn't go with them for gelato. I was feeling crabby and antisocial. I'm glad I went.
Based on how she looked and how fast it went, I think she had a pulmonary embolism. Which could happen any time in the course of anyone's cancer. It's just ...after all she'd been through, removal of one right lung lobe and part of another, two harsh chemo regimens, a couple dozen radiation treatments, and for the last year, a very stable oral chemo pill on which she's lived basically as a cancer free person... it seems so weird and arbitrary that this is the way she died. Well, at least she may meet up with my stepdad in the hereafter. She loved him a lot and missed him terribly.
Now our entire 3 flat feels like a ghost town. One I still live in. I had to stay at my bf's the last 2 nights. I just... couldn't take staying at home.
Yet still the paramedics felt it necessary to ask me again, while I stood on our front lawn wringing my hands, if I wanted to abide by it. Way to put me in a horrible place. And then again, at the ER, the MD asked if I wanted to abide by the DNR. I'm just looking at him, like, do you not have the paper? is it not clear? does it not fucking say DNR? why are you even asking me this?. I just kept trying to remember what the very kind -- and wise -- police officer told me when we were on my lawn and the paramedic came out of the rig and asked me if I wanted to abide by my mom's DNR, which was "This isn't your decision, it was her decision; you're just carrying it out." (This was after I asked the paramedics, "Well, can I ask her?" thinking, she just looked me in the eye and waved away my hysterics, so surely she can nod or shake her head whether or not she wants to be intubated. Which was when they told me she wasn't responding anymore.
So ultimately I respected her DNR. And so at 11:48pm in the local ER she was pronounced dead.
I wish I'd not seen her the way she was right before she died. I just can't stop seeing it. But then if I hadn't gotten home when I did, they wouldn't have had the DNR, and they would've intubated her & put her on a ventilator (breathing machine), which I know she definitely did not want, and she would have hated it, and it would have forced her to linger, I guess, in a way I know she wouldn't have wanted. But we always imagined this DNR scenario in the context of dying, suffering, in pain, on hospice or something -- not less than an hour after sitting around eating gelato and talking and laughing like everything was fine, because -- at the time -- everything was fine. I know the DNR is what she wanted, but I don't think she imagined it in the context that it happened either: Do Not Resuscitate me less than an hour after I was walking and talking and eating gelato under my own power and making plans for the future and for tomorrow and talking about past occasions and laughing and chuckling. Somehow I'm pretty sure that is not what was going through my mom's mind when she thought, I really don't want them to resuscitate me. And if that's the case, I really hope she can forgive me for sticking to her DNR.
I almost didn't go with them for gelato. I was feeling crabby and antisocial. I'm glad I went.
Based on how she looked and how fast it went, I think she had a pulmonary embolism. Which could happen any time in the course of anyone's cancer. It's just ...after all she'd been through, removal of one right lung lobe and part of another, two harsh chemo regimens, a couple dozen radiation treatments, and for the last year, a very stable oral chemo pill on which she's lived basically as a cancer free person... it seems so weird and arbitrary that this is the way she died. Well, at least she may meet up with my stepdad in the hereafter. She loved him a lot and missed him terribly.
Now our entire 3 flat feels like a ghost town. One I still live in. I had to stay at my bf's the last 2 nights. I just... couldn't take staying at home.
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