103 days

103 days....a lot can happen in 103 days. For me, that is how long my mom was in the hospital and rehab. 

May 12-Aug 21 2014.

It shifted into high speed the day after mothers day 2014. Its a day I will never forget and I will forever experience some level of anxiety as that day approaches.

She was 71 years old when this started and just celebrated her 72 birthday only a few days ago. She retired a few years ago and married her 3rd husband. My stepdad had already established himself as a snow bird so she signed on to be in Minnesota during the summer and go to Mission, Texas in the winter.

When my mom returned from Texas this year-she had a horrible cough (one that would put a heavy smoker to shame) which was so bad that I considered driving her directly to urgent care after our Easter (April 20, 2014) festivities, but I didn't. 

My mom managed for a few more weeks of not feeling well and even went to urgent care Thursday, May 8th for her cough and loose stools. They felt she was dehydrated-so they told her to drink lots of fluids and gave her some anti-nausea medication. They informed her she should have a clear liquid diet, chix noodle soup but stay away from dairy products.

I spoke with my mom on Mothers day and I didn't think much of it - she wasn't feeling well-which had been status quo for a couple of weeks now. Well, her youngest, my brother spoke with her and he detected something was off with her...something was wrong. He called me so I stopped over to see our mom because I only live about a mile away. My husband and I stopped by the house and you could tell she wasn't feeling well. In fact, she had complained about abdominal pain since the 6th of May, now that I am reliving that time. But nothing that stuck out for me.

She wasn't feeling well. She thought it might be the flu. You could see she was in discomfort but I never detected anything was looming. She still had that cough, so if it was the flu, we didn't want to stick around-who wants to wait around to get the flu? After assessing her food and beverage needs or lack thereof, my husband and I left for home where I reported back to my brother-she looked very uncomfortable, had the cough/bark but was coherent.

It wasn't until the next day I found out the seriousness of my mothers health status. My stepdad called 911 and my mom was taken to the hospital via ambulance.  He called me on my cell phone and told me she was at the hospital. By the end of the day my mom had not yet been admitted so I didn't feel any sense of urgency on my part to run and be by her side. Instead of going to the emergency room I went home.

Later my stepdad called with her room number, which I shared with my brothers. Approximately, 8:30pm Monday May 12th the name of the city hospital appeared on my tv screen and I looked over at my husband as I answered the phone. This is when I learned I was her first contact incase of an emergency.

The Dr told me that my mom was just intubated (placed on a machine to breath for you) and sedated and is in the Intensive Care Unit, then gave me her room number. Which happened to be the same room number my stepdad had given me only a short time earlier. Had I known my mom was in ICU - I would not have thought twice about it-I would have been there in a nano-second. I don't fault my stepdad too much because he wears hearing aids that work poorly and he hears only a portion of what is said-did you catch the 'too much' part? I am a little irritated that he didn't provide me all the details when I first talked with him. But nobody knew how sick my mom was, not even her husband. 

And, that is day 1. More to come.
rbr