All the kings horses and all the kings men....
I am broken beyond repair.
Have you ever been so upset, hurt and broken all at the same time to the point where your body and mind completely shut down? I know I am forcing myself not to think because if I DO, I will not only begin to cry uncontrollably but I am afraid I will completely fall apart to the point that all the kings horses and all the kings men will be unable to put me back together again.
My Mum is the heart of our family- she keeps us all together. And though I think I am our family's strength, she is definitely the strong one who keeps everyone in line. As I have gotten older she has gone from being my mother into being my best friend. I do have a few other close friends but life is busy and hectic so most friends that are close to my age are always busy with their own family circles and problems which brings me back to my mum- whom I speak to every other day (at the very least).
Usually when my mum has something on her mind (or is upset about something my dad did or didn't do) she will call me; I have become her sounding board. There are times she tells me things I don't want to hear -like when she is depressed and hates her life or when she misses the rest of her family - (who have all passed away in the past few years) and there have been times where she has mentioned that she wishes she were with them in death rather than living the life she has....so when I heard an ambulance was called to her house this morning because they couldn't wake her up, I began to wonder 'had I been missing red flags she had been waving along the way recently?'
Earlier in the week my daughter called me. She was going to spend the night at my mums house but when she called to say she was on her way there, she said "grandma doesn't sound right. There is something wrong; you can hear it in her voice, she sounds depressed" so I did as I always do- I offered to play "Stealth"(start a conversation and lead her down the path of admitting what is wrong without ever asking) When it comes to HEALTH matters ,my mum has been known to hide things from me but when it comes to DEPRESSION, she has never withheld information. Raven was right-my mum did sound depressed but no matter how I poked and prodded this time around, I was getting nothing out of her- so I was left to deduce it was either bill collectors, my dad, or missing her family. most likely the later as the weekend held a 'family' gathering (to bring together the cousins we had left.)
WHAT IS KNOWN: My grand baby, 3 year old Ruxin, was in for one of his favorite weekends- time spent watching his favorite show (the "great race") with his great Grandparents. He would be eating popcorn in bed and falling asleep safely snuggled between the two of them.
My family and I are epic snorers. When we snore walls will shake. Ruxin gets very irritated at my parents snoring but never enough to want to sleep in his own bed. "Nana, Stop it- stop snor-ging" he is known to shout while shoving her in the back. When this doesn't work, my dad does the same thing my husband does, he gives her a good enough shove with instructions to "Roll over." Which we normally do without fully waking... This time my mum didn't "roll", nor did she the other 4-5 times he tried to move her so he proceeded to get out of the bed and go to her side and shove from the front... nothing. Panic starts to set in.
He went for a wet face cloth and when that didn't do the trick, he used all his strength to bring her to the upright sitting position and peeling her eye lids open. Nothing was working and he noticed the noise she continued to make wasn't snoring after all, it was gurgling. The grandbaby began to cry.
In all situations that can not be easily handled, I am phoned... but this time I didn't have my phone by the bed so he ended up calling my daughter who thought quickly and called for an ambulance.
It was my husband, 4 hours later, grabbing me by the arm and sitting me up in our bed that would animate me. I had no idea what was occurring but I could see he was on my phone and trying to rush me into the bathroom while proding me to "get dressed- hurry." He filled me in while pouring me coffee and sending me out the door. He would join me soon but first he needed to open the "rink"
When it rains, it of course must pour, and several lanes on the freeway were blocked & pushing everyone into a single lane. Once I hit the main road that passes in front of the hospital, it too was blocked off for a city downtown "Block party"- I would have to back track and find another way in.
I expected to find my mum sitting up in the hospital bed looking groggy, confused but awake. Sadly I have seen my mum in one too many hospital beds and passing through the ER- this should be nothing new...
I come around the curtain to stand face to face with a wall of machines beeping, numbers charting body functions as they rise and fall and the loud hiss of a breathing machine pumping air into her lungs. She is not awake, infact she hasn't been awake since the night prior. This can't be my mother, I don't WANT it to be my mother. I have seen people on these machines before but never my mum. She is the woman who is always laughing, who must be in the middle of everyones conversation. This woman looks nothing like her with the swollen eyelids and a wide neck wrapped in tubing. There is blood on the pillow and about 7 bags of dripping liquids feeding into her neck. They can't find a vein to do blood work as they keep collapsing.
So what happened? No one seems to know and it isn't like they can ASK her. Though she has yet to awaken from her sleep, they have now sedated her do place in the breathing tube. It is left up to the doctors to run test and tell us what they think occurred.
Troponins are high... she has had a heart attack and she has also choked on her own fluids... did she get sick in the middle of the night but due to her sleeping pills she couldn't wake up? What ever happened, it cut off her oxygen and she now has renal (kidney) and liver failure. How long was she without oxygen and did it cause brain damage? Test say her brain looks good but we wont know until she wakes up. Her heart is swollen, she has fluid on her lungs.
I planned on coming here to blog how I am feeling as I need to get it off my chest, have some sort of outlet as I am not doing good. I'm a fucking mess but this is all I can handle for the moment. I feel like if I open up and start talking I will come apart at the seams. So I will leave it here for tonight...
Have you ever been so upset, hurt and broken all at the same time to the point where your body and mind completely shut down? I know I am forcing myself not to think because if I DO, I will not only begin to cry uncontrollably but I am afraid I will completely fall apart to the point that all the kings horses and all the kings men will be unable to put me back together again.
My Mum is the heart of our family- she keeps us all together. And though I think I am our family's strength, she is definitely the strong one who keeps everyone in line. As I have gotten older she has gone from being my mother into being my best friend. I do have a few other close friends but life is busy and hectic so most friends that are close to my age are always busy with their own family circles and problems which brings me back to my mum- whom I speak to every other day (at the very least).
Usually when my mum has something on her mind (or is upset about something my dad did or didn't do) she will call me; I have become her sounding board. There are times she tells me things I don't want to hear -like when she is depressed and hates her life or when she misses the rest of her family - (who have all passed away in the past few years) and there have been times where she has mentioned that she wishes she were with them in death rather than living the life she has....so when I heard an ambulance was called to her house this morning because they couldn't wake her up, I began to wonder 'had I been missing red flags she had been waving along the way recently?'
Earlier in the week my daughter called me. She was going to spend the night at my mums house but when she called to say she was on her way there, she said "grandma doesn't sound right. There is something wrong; you can hear it in her voice, she sounds depressed" so I did as I always do- I offered to play "Stealth"(start a conversation and lead her down the path of admitting what is wrong without ever asking) When it comes to HEALTH matters ,my mum has been known to hide things from me but when it comes to DEPRESSION, she has never withheld information. Raven was right-my mum did sound depressed but no matter how I poked and prodded this time around, I was getting nothing out of her- so I was left to deduce it was either bill collectors, my dad, or missing her family. most likely the later as the weekend held a 'family' gathering (to bring together the cousins we had left.)
WHAT IS KNOWN: My grand baby, 3 year old Ruxin, was in for one of his favorite weekends- time spent watching his favorite show (the "great race") with his great Grandparents. He would be eating popcorn in bed and falling asleep safely snuggled between the two of them.
My family and I are epic snorers. When we snore walls will shake. Ruxin gets very irritated at my parents snoring but never enough to want to sleep in his own bed. "Nana, Stop it- stop snor-ging" he is known to shout while shoving her in the back. When this doesn't work, my dad does the same thing my husband does, he gives her a good enough shove with instructions to "Roll over." Which we normally do without fully waking... This time my mum didn't "roll", nor did she the other 4-5 times he tried to move her so he proceeded to get out of the bed and go to her side and shove from the front... nothing. Panic starts to set in.
He went for a wet face cloth and when that didn't do the trick, he used all his strength to bring her to the upright sitting position and peeling her eye lids open. Nothing was working and he noticed the noise she continued to make wasn't snoring after all, it was gurgling. The grandbaby began to cry.
In all situations that can not be easily handled, I am phoned... but this time I didn't have my phone by the bed so he ended up calling my daughter who thought quickly and called for an ambulance.
It was my husband, 4 hours later, grabbing me by the arm and sitting me up in our bed that would animate me. I had no idea what was occurring but I could see he was on my phone and trying to rush me into the bathroom while proding me to "get dressed- hurry." He filled me in while pouring me coffee and sending me out the door. He would join me soon but first he needed to open the "rink"
When it rains, it of course must pour, and several lanes on the freeway were blocked & pushing everyone into a single lane. Once I hit the main road that passes in front of the hospital, it too was blocked off for a city downtown "Block party"- I would have to back track and find another way in.
I expected to find my mum sitting up in the hospital bed looking groggy, confused but awake. Sadly I have seen my mum in one too many hospital beds and passing through the ER- this should be nothing new...
I come around the curtain to stand face to face with a wall of machines beeping, numbers charting body functions as they rise and fall and the loud hiss of a breathing machine pumping air into her lungs. She is not awake, infact she hasn't been awake since the night prior. This can't be my mother, I don't WANT it to be my mother. I have seen people on these machines before but never my mum. She is the woman who is always laughing, who must be in the middle of everyones conversation. This woman looks nothing like her with the swollen eyelids and a wide neck wrapped in tubing. There is blood on the pillow and about 7 bags of dripping liquids feeding into her neck. They can't find a vein to do blood work as they keep collapsing.
So what happened? No one seems to know and it isn't like they can ASK her. Though she has yet to awaken from her sleep, they have now sedated her do place in the breathing tube. It is left up to the doctors to run test and tell us what they think occurred.
Troponins are high... she has had a heart attack and she has also choked on her own fluids... did she get sick in the middle of the night but due to her sleeping pills she couldn't wake up? What ever happened, it cut off her oxygen and she now has renal (kidney) and liver failure. How long was she without oxygen and did it cause brain damage? Test say her brain looks good but we wont know until she wakes up. Her heart is swollen, she has fluid on her lungs.
I planned on coming here to blog how I am feeling as I need to get it off my chest, have some sort of outlet as I am not doing good. I'm a fucking mess but this is all I can handle for the moment. I feel like if I open up and start talking I will come apart at the seams. So I will leave it here for tonight...