Rough roads |
and rainbows too |
If only I had heeded that mental message! It will always grieve me tremendously to think of Mom spawled helpless and alone on the hardwood floor of her living room where she fell. How frightened she must have been! (The medics and doctors tried to assure us that she probably was not conscious, but her spirit was! Her spirit, I know, was crying out for help and I wasn't there. No one was there to help her. Four to five hours later my oldest brother found her. He had thought it too late to go visit her but had promised her that he would stop by for a minute. His intuition urged him to drive by just to see if she was still up, something he would not normally have done. When he saw the house completely dark with all the drapes still open, he knew something was very wrong. Because of the length of time which elapsed before she got help, the bleeding into her brain had been considerable. The doctors didn't know which was the best choice: letting nature take its course, hoping the body would absorb the blood, or operating to relieve the pressure. No, she wasn't expected to live, and if she did, she would never again be the Mom I'd known. No more gardening and canning on hot summer days, no picking summer bouquets of the old-fashioned flowers she loved to grow; no more crying together watching old movies, no more singing together in church, spur-of-the-moment picnics, shelling peas and shucking corn in the backyard on hot summer afternoons. No more of so many things. In an instant no bigger than one blip of the heart, everything had changed. Doctors, nurses and therapists told us she would probably have a feeding tube in her for months, would regain little if any ability to speak, and might or might not recover even minimal use of her right side. Well, they hadn't taken God into account in any of that! He had His own plans for her. The feeding tube was out within a week, and she was started on physical and speech therapy immediately. At first she couldn't speak intelligibly at all; later, she was so lost in stroke depression that she gave up trying. In her all-consuming anger and depression about being alive in this condition, she cried constantly about everything. I told her I'd be angry too, that it was okay to feel that way, and I cried with her. But, because I am her only daughter and also her friend, I refused to give up when she had given up all hope. This was treacherous ground for me. Three years earlier when she had been rushed to the ER with dangerously high blood pressure, the medication she was given to lower it caused her heart to stop twice. Standing right next to her, holding her hand, I watched her life cease! In a heartbeat, she was gone! Not once, but twice while I was with her. The doctors had not restarted her heart either time, it had resumed on its own. She never believed or accepted that. In her mind, she had been on her way to heaven (for all I know, she may have had a glimpse of Glory!) and believed that in some way, I was responsible for her still being here instead. No amount of explaining that I had been unceremoniosly and instantly shoved from the room while the doctors took care of her did any good. She was perturbed with me for a long time about this. She made it clear that I was not to interfere again. So, to take charge of her situation this time might renew her old, unfounded resentment. But, I was willing to risk that. Unbelievably, her mind was not seriously affected! The brain absorbed the blood so no surgery was required. The damage that had occurred, however, was in the transmission process from thought to speech which had been severely impaired. She was an intelligent, articulate person. For her, traditional speech therapy was boring and meaningless. "Name seven objects in the room, name six things on the table, name five colors. Do you know the names of your children?" her speech therapist would drill her three days a week. It didn't help that this therapist was high-strung and flighty, agitating Mom with her very presence. After months of this, Mom was so frustrated and upset every therapy session, that I finally mentioned it to her doctor. He was as adamant as I was that this was not good for her. He called and fired this therapist before we even got home! He was concerned that Mom's whole life was being taken up with three therapists, each of whom worked with her three times each week. He could see that she was being allowed no time to enjoy the life to which she had so tenaciosuly clung. Initially, some of my brothers were upset about the termination of her speech therapy, but were content to leave it at that. Not I! That therapy was not effective for her, and for all her efforts, benefited her almost not at all. But, there had to be something that would work. I refused to give up! |
"She was a prisoner in her own body!" |
