Faith, My Rock

Hello everyone. I hope you have been able to enjoy your holiday season this year. I am convinced that all of these moments are precious. Mine has been challenging, to say the least, but I think the duration has been appropriate and memories have been made; something that has become very important to me. Now, between Mom’s hospitalizations, an incredibly intense work project in a new job, getting ready and traveling for Christmas, oh..and taking care of my parents, I’ve really fallen behind on my blog here. I would apologize, but I am fairly sure you understand how it goes. It is amazing though, how quickly this activity has become very important to me; this is on my priority list!

So, I did begin this entry while my Mom was in T-ICU (trauma ICU) but apparently got distracted and never finished/posted it. I decided to try and finish up the entry from the hospital instead of picking up with 12/27, primarily because it is on topic. I certainly hope I catch all of the verb tense changes I need to make – if I don’t, please forgive me.

December 17, 2009
The other day I mentioned I would be blogging about my faith lessons, and they really have been plenty – believe me. Sadly, I can’t remember what brilliant thought I was having when I responded to Sharon’s post – but I’ll wing it.

As my Mom and I were preparing to travel home (out of state) for Thanksgiving, she had a really bad bout of encephalopathy that I couldn’t manage at home, so she was admitted to the hospital. They really did knock that episode out in a few days, but then she started having other problems, ultimately extending our stay there to a staggering 9 days. Each day a new ailment/issue would crop up while the discovery/ailment from a couple of days previous would drop off the radar. Twice daily, as the results of labs/tests were read-out and the “maybe tomorrow” message was delivered, I witnessed my Mom’s “I’m a prisoner here” monologue-tirade that finally evolved into her AMA discharge, against medical advice, as she had taken all she could take.

Boy was I torn about letting her do that – my self-talk teetered between being an irresponsible pushover and being a lovable son/caregiver who was allowing for some quality of life even if the cost could be dangerous. Honestly, I thought we could probably handle it at home and that the doctors were being overly cautious because of everything wrong with her system. We had already missed Thanksgiving, and because of something her hepatologist told her, she had become convinced that this would be her last holiday season, and frankly, she felt they were conspiring against her to keep her there. Well, I knew that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t convince her of that, so home we went.

A while back we visited her liver doctor who manages her pre-transplant care, and he zapped her hope and sent her into a tailspin of depression by sharing with me, in front of her, that he didn’t think she would get a transplant and that I should take her home and make her comfortable. Although she said that she didn’t really listen to him, it was obvious that she did. I stood in faith that this was not the case – and continued acting as if we didn’t hear that – frankly, I refused to accept this deflating, de-motivating, and hope stealing string of statements.

Last week, we began the evaluation for pre-kidney/liver combination transplant and found out a couple of positive things about transplantation: first, the combined liver/kidney list will be a completely different list and is much, much shorter, so people get their organs sooner. Secondly, there is no real age limit, per se, for transplantation. The surgeon advised, counter to what the liver doctor had told us, that they really go on physical age. For instance, he said, “We transplant a kidney into an 80-year-old.” They probably wouldn’t do a double organ transplant, but he assured us there was not a 65-year-old age limit as we had been told. Now, things may have changed over the years, after all, she’s been on the list for 6 years now.

So, it was apparent almost immediately her hope and resolve had been restored. She was also doing better last week physically than she has in a very, very long time. Combine that with the excitement about going home for Christmas for a couple of weeks to spend time with my sister and her family and she was literally dancing little jigs and singing Christmas songs; so wonderful to see – again, God rewarding the faithful.

December 19, 2009
Now … I pray for my mom’s safety every day – for her to be protected. I’m not sure what happened with that on Thursday of this week, but she fell and sustained a severe head injury/brain bleed while in a state of encephalopathy. Now, I went to bed at 2 a.m. that morning and she was fine – I was comfortable enough that I didn’t feel the need to have her room monitor on. Again, I was up at 3:30 a.m. as and she seemed fine. Somehow, though, the altered mental status hit fast and hard and I was awakened by a loud thud, jumped out of bed and ran to my mom’s room where I found her crying hysterically leaning up against a wall (the one she hit) with just her Depends brief on – quite unusual. I was able to calm her down, and help her to the restroom and only after getting her back in bed and getting her gown back on her did I discover that she was bleeding a little at her temple. I got the first aid kit and started to get it cleaned up and realized it was probably going to require stitches.

Since it was almost time for her day-aide to arrive I just started getting ready and waited. By about 30 minutes when we were ready to leave, Mom had developed quite a bit of swelling from her fall. Long story short – they did a CT of the head and found a bleed in the head, and she needed to be at a Level II trauma hospital where a neurosurgeon is available 24 hours a day. They shipped her out via ambulance and admitted her to the Trauma ICU at a major hospital in downtown Fort Worth, where I began writing this entry.

December 22, 2009
Her recovery has been incredible – she’s gone from not remembering anything bordering the incident by hours either side, to actually remembering loosely what happened. We were supposed to travel back home Saturday for Christmas, 12/19 and they discharged her Monday, 12/21. So, all-in-all it was only a two day delay and for such a major ordeal. My poor mom has just been through the ringer – and experienced so much suffering.

It can be challenging to not focus on the why of the suffering, like asking the question “what has my mother done that is so bad she has to suffer like this?” Obviously the answer to that question is, nothing. Instead of trying to find answers to questions like this, I try to choose to remain standing on my faith – believing that my God is a good God who has a plan for each of us. Much of the time, we don’t understand what that plan is, but honestly, it isn’t always necessary for us to understand and often times we are not yet prepared to understand anyway. Now, with all of that said, I don’t do this all of the time. Sometimes I almost hurt myself trying to figure out things or fix things – but most of the time I at least get to a place where I can surrender whatever is troubling me. I can tell you this, when I finally put my faith into action, I am invariably rewarded in some way for it.

Since my parents have been ill over the past decade, I’ve have experienced a lot of faith B through the demonstration of your faith, someone can believe that if they try it, it will help them – and of course it does.

Personally, I don’t see how people survive some of the difficult things thrown our way in life without faith in a higher power or being (whom I call God) to help them through it. Just the thought of ‘white knuckling’ it makes me cringe.
Almost every day I hear from someone who says they don’t know how I do it – taking care of both my parents, and doing it so well. I do it with Divine assistance, guidance and direction. It is hard to be a caregiver – very hard. If I make it look easy, I certainly don’t intend to – who has the energy for that facade!?!

I am thankful for the support structure I have in place that includes my family and friends, my employer and clients, medical personal in doctors offices and hospitals, this website, and my God. Now, I have challenges with each of these groups as well, but in the end I am able to help my parents because of these resources – and that means what I do and how I do it has a little bit more power behind it because I am so blessed. I am blessed because of my faith, and my God blesses me, so that I can be a blessing.

Take care all – have faith!
Blessings,
-Derek

Tags: faith, family, holiday, hospital, injury