Today is December 31st—-the last day of 2007. Who knows what it will bring?
The last few days have been very difficult for Aunt Phyllis—yesterday being the worst. First of all, on Saturday, our nurse inserted a catheter as it had been getting very hard and painful for Auntie to be put on the commode. Her fear of falling would incite her to hang on to anything with great strength and her immobility made her stiff as a board increasing the difficulty of turning her, sitting her down, getting her back in a comfortable position in bed. Therefore the catheter which she did not like.
Without going into some of the less pleasant details of the last couple days, I’ll skip to yesterday …….Debbie and I were there, as Deb had a 7:15 Mass to go to, and Jack and I went to the 9:45 Mass at St. Anne’s. Debbie was alone with Auntie as we attended Mass and encountered a real mess which required massive cleanup on Auntie. She really needed help, rang for the Aide (who didn’t respond as the computers were down and didn’t get the call), toyed with the idea of coming into the chapel to get me, but thought it would alarm too many people, so struggled on her own. When I came in, she was in the midst of the mess. I was able to help somewhat, but she did most of it on her own. That was painful for Auntie as turning her and cleaning her hurts her physically. God bless Debbie!!
Then Peter and Siggi came along with another nephew, David, from Indiana, and his wife Martha. Shortly after, Peter and Siggi’s daughter Karen and her two girls came. So seeing there was company, Debbie left, and then I left to make a return to Mayfair. About one hour and ten minutes later, I got a call on my cell phone that there was a problem with Auntie. I happened to be parking the car at St. Anne’s at the time so was very close. The rest of that day was almost a nightmare.
Longer story much shorter: Hospice nurse was called and came in and had tremendous difficulty in settling Aunt Phyllis down and relieving her pain…..she was in so much pain….stomach area and back….the meds didn’t take…. Julianne conferred with the doctor to find out how much and what else she could administer. There is somewhat of a possibility that her intestine could be twisted again judging from the pain she was having, etc. Who knows? During all of this, we called Debbie who came back and knelt by Auntie’s side. Only Peter and Siggi, Jack and I and Debbie and Julianne remained there at this time. Julianne worked very hard to find a Hospice nurse for the beginning of “Continuous Care” again. She found Beverly who would come in at midnight till noon. I forgot to mention that after maybe an hour or more of physical struggle, Auntie finally fell asleep and relaxed. She had not moved—- up at least to the time Beverly came in.
Beverly came out of the bedroom and said “I hear the ‘death rattle’” and took me in so I could hear it and see how her throat moved. I neither heard nor saw what she termed the “death rattle”. However, Auntie did have a lot of phlem yesterday; so I suppose it was possible.
I think Deb and I will be “on duty” today and we don’t know what will happen tonight. We’re invited to a wonderful dinner at John and Kathy’s for New Year’s Eve , but who knows what will happen today?
I need to mention again, that just a few of us could not be doing this caregiving alone. It honestly requires our whole families who help out in whatever way they can…….mostly be supporting us and keeping things going at home. They really aren’t getting good meals as we are not there to cook or eat with them, laundry gets piled up as does the dust, etc. But I know that we wouldn’t trade this Journey with Auntie for anything in the world. She has been such a blessing to us and the beautiful smiles we get and the “I love you” she whispers are incredible gifts.
For her sake, we hope the journey will end soon. She seems to be wanting to hang on and not give up. Debbie has had some beautiful conversations with her about dying and we all would have stories to tell about that!……Like when I told her we were all going to die sometime and she agreed but then said: “We might fool them.” ???????? “We might not die”. I guess she wants to call the shots.
Well, Happy New Year to you! God is truly Good!
Peg
