(It’s amazing how time prepares us for the future –or better yet trains us for what is ahead of us. We are well versed in the worth of a disabled life –and the controversy surrounding death of a loved one).
I remember clearly being in my mothers Hospital emergency room in around 1990. She was hooked up to a ventilator and all those of tubes. It seemed straightly quite and peaceful –I was waiting for my brother and sister to come to the hospital. I remember the doctors talking about the curled arch of my mother’s foot –they said this was the result of my mother’s increasing brain damage. Iit definitely was curled. She had a severe stroke. She smoked and drank to the bitter end.
I also remember when I was a child of about 8 or 9 years old. My father died of a heart attack at the young age of 44 –I was seven when he died. My mother would go out drinking with a married man friend a few years later after my dads death –she’d come home to the low income inner city project drunk all the time. Many times she’d end up in a fight with this man –there would be huge drunken fight in his car sitting outside the house. The neighbors got quite used to these enormous screaming fights. Humorously, they found out at times there would be ripped up bills (Money) and broken jewelry on the ground where the car was the night before –and my mother would send out her kids to pick up the pieces. All the adults in our part of the project had boyfriends and girlfriends –many who came in and out of their houses all the time. I mean, there was family fights all the time –it was always funny watching your neighbor in a funny fight with a spouse or friend….
More time than I care to think about, she’d get into the house still in an enormous rage. She’d wake us up going into each of our rooms telling us we were no good son of a bitches and lazy –we’d never amount to anything –and we would hear all the time that “we’d be sorry when she was dead and gone”. She’d go on a tirade for about an hour until her rage was spent. She’d hit us at time, slap our faces and heads, but we quickly leant to dodge her drunken blows.
Where does it come from when her children can look at this child abuse in a humorous manner? The next morning we would talk to each other about her visits –and our management of her outburst, screaming in our rooms –and we’d think it was extremely funny when one of us got stuck in a corner of the room. What we’d learnt later was the trick to say something funny to my mother, make fun of the situation –and if you got her laughing, her rage would be over for everyone. That humor ended up burying a lot in all of us kids–and it was very destructive to each of us.
My mother was still living in that project in 1985. The boyfriend had turned into a long term partner –but he died a few years earlier. My wife and I visited her often. We recognized she was floundering in that project –but I told my wife I was not going to rescue her. We’d adopted my daughter in 1986–talk about what a miracle can do to you. I worried about what my mother would think about a Korean adoption being she was so proud of being Irish –but she’d came from an international project community. I started to see something different in my mother eyes as I brought my daughter to my mothers project apartment –or was it a change in me. I’d asked her to come live up north with us, we’d find you an apartment –amazingly she agreed.
I’d thought I’d never leave my daughter alone with my mother. But I’d notice after a few months she was drinking less –and was more responsible when she was drinking. She made a few friends in the apartment –and she was having a good time. My daughter and my mother absolutely lit each other up when they were together. We began leaving my daughter alone with my mother for a short period –then longer periods –she always wanted to take care of Kristie. I began watching my daughter’s relationship with my mother –and I knew that Kristie was delighted with staying with my mother. A wonderful special relationship developed between them –and that’s how I began of forgive my mother for her past problems. In the end, my feeling about my mother was transformed –I could only forgive her through the love I’d seen in my daughter’s eyes for my mother. How truly fortunate I was in those last two years!
So one morning I am talking care of my daughter when I got a phone call from one of my mother’s friends. She’d told me my mother had a head ache, it had gotten worst –now she was becoming unresponsive and she was making noises while breathing. I’d told them to call the ambulance –I'll be right down with my daughter. When I got down there I’d notice the police car –I’d went up to her apartment. She was sitting on the couch –she was making terrible noise while breathing –the officer said the ambulance is right around the corner. I became so frighten to be near her –but I’d grabbed her hand and she squeezed it. She couldn’t talk, but I knew she kept trying to regain hold of my hand. They took her to the local hospital –then up to Dartmouth hospital.
Her primary doctor told us she had a huge stroke in her head. It was right over her motor control; he said we’d had a horrible decision ahead of us. He’d told us in a meeting with my brother and sister that he’d thought she wouldn’t survive the next few days –and he’d would be a vegetable if she did survive. He said she would never be able to feed herself again. He’d told us we could withhold medical care from her –and she would quickly die. We’d quickly agreed that my mother repetively talked about wanting to die if she became not able to take care of herself. We agreed to pull the plug on my mother.
We were by ourselves, my brother and sister; I said you know we got to get another’s doctors opinion on this. I just wanted another doctor’s validation of the prognosis. Before long we were we in a meeting with both these doctors. The new doctor didn’t have such a stark opinion as the first one, but he said the damage was severe. It seemed the first doctor was a little perturbed with second one’s opinion, which unnerved me. We still agreed to pull the plug.
The doctor said they would remove the meds intended to reduce her brain swelling. He said the brain would swell, would begin protruding out of the area by her spine – then he would give her increasingly amounts of morphine –and the swelling would stop her breathing and heart beat.
It took about two days before her brain was swelled enough before they would risk talking her off the ventilator. I remember being in her room by myself –I commanded my mother to move her right toe. It made a movement to my horror. I never asked her to do that again. I rationalized it was a coincidence –an involuntary movement done at the right time.
The doctor said he was ready to give my mother a respiratory test. My guess the doctor was engineering my mothers death for us –making sure when we got in the room for the final time –he’d remove my mother from the respirator in front of us –she’d stop breathing immediately and her heart beat would stop in a few minutes for us.
The doctor came back saying my mother was ready for us. We got in there –they quickly remove my mother from the respirator –all the other line had been removed.
My younger brother began having second thoughts –he said he thought she was suffocating, he couldn’t take it. The doctor calmly told him your mother can’t feel anything at all. My brother regained control of himself –and we all waited for our mother's heart to stop.
We were all crying!
It was so ugly her death –it was so horrible those last few days. I clearly remember the uncertainties that kept popping up.
We all have no regrets for what we did.
Thanks,
mike mulligan
Hinsdale, Nh
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