My Mother

I cannot believe that it is only a month since I last posted on my blog. It feels like a year! So much has happened, and I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning.

Sunday - 25^th April 2010

We took my mother to see the doctor. She had been complaining for days of a pain in her back which kept shifting from place to place. Once examined, the doctor found she had shingles, and was also dehydrated. At 83, he felt he needed to admit her for tests to make sure she was ok.

Monday - 26^th April 2010

My cell phone rang beside my bedside at 4am in the morning. Like a bolt of lightning I grabbed it, just knowing that a call at this time of the morning could only be bad news. With bated breath I heard the voice identifying herself as sister “so and so” from Robinson Life Hospital. She needed to inform me that my mother had gone to the bathroom and tripped over her drip stand. She had broken her femur bone in the right leg and would need to be operated on. My heart raced, at the thought of anesthetic with my mother at 83. I knew this could not be good. Four years ago, she had also fallen and crushed her right shoulder, and had a replacement. Having nursed her then, and remembering how difficult it was to pull her up out of bed, I felt this dead dull dread in my heart, how would I cope with this?

As there were no beds available in ICU, they strapped my mother’s leg up, and she had to wait until the following day to go into theater. We rushed through that morning, as early as we could, and found her under heavy sedation for the pain.

Tuesday – 27^th April 2010

My mother was operated on early in the morning. My Father and I, my sister & her husband, two brothers with their wives, and my two daughters all sat waiting in the hospital lounge just outside ICU. The atmosphere was tense, as we were unsure of what to expect. Eventually we were allowed to go in to see my mother, but only two at a time.

It was not a pleasant sight. Monitors beeping, oxygen mask over her face, drips and pipes hanging like spaghetti from their stands. She was breathing shallow, but managed to open her eyes and greet us. The news was not good; she had a very bad break and another less sever lower down on the leg. A steel pin had been inserted from the knee, fastened with two screws, all the way up the leg to the hip, then another very long screw that fastened the pin onto the hip bone.

That night, at 8.55pm, I received a phone call from my cousin in George in the Cape, to let me know that my mother’s eldest sister, aunt Minnie had died. I wept, as she was like a second mother to me, and her and my mother were very close. How was I to tell my mother, in her state? I was afraid it would have a devastating impact upon her. Even though we had been expecting this news for some time now, the shock of her death was no easier had we not known. My sister and I discussed the matter, and decided we would not tell my mother at this stage. We were not even sure she would understand.

We were told that my mother would be in ICU for a day or two… it turned out to be 7days in total, under extreme sedation and morphine for the pain, she started to hallucinate. Doctors do not tell you this, and do not warn you either. It was a very scary time for us, as we thought she had gone totally insane. She was hearing things & seeing things that did not exist …It was devastating to see her like this … but there is much more to the saga which I will continue in the next blog and will perhaps help others understand their loved ones in a situation such as this!