donnarose

I received the phone calls at work on September 12, 2007.  The first from my Brother-In-Law, that she collapsed and it did not look good.  The next from the neighbor who had been friends with my parents for 25 years or so.  She broke the news that Mom just collapsed and died.  The two of us just cried with each other.  She was such a strong woman.  Between the phone calls, I kept telling the Assistant Director of the library (who only started 2 days before) that she had been through open heart surgery, survived Colon Cancer, had a dissection of her intestants, was Diabetic, but that she always came through.  This time she didn't.

She had called me 2 1/2 weeks before to let me know Dad had been diagnosed with the beginning of Alzheimers.  My husband and I took a trip up to see them.  They lived 7.0 hrs. from where we live.  I made a special CD of family pictures to view on their p.c.  Two weeks later, she was gone.  Both my Dad and I knew that she knew she was going to leave us.  After she died there were things placed in areas of the house where she knew we would find.  Including the Miraculous Medal she left in the first music box I gace her when I was about 7 years old.  We always talked about God and our religion.  How both of us would have liked the church to go back to Latin.  There was a Christmas floral arrangement to place on my Sister's (Sharon) plaque at the mauselium at Christmas time right under the T.V..  My Sister who had been married to the Brother-In-Law who made that first call.  She had died of Cancer. 

The family all gathered for the services.  My Dad asked me to do all the arrangements.  There were two other older siblings left who were there.  But it was my Sister's (Sharon) Daughter and I who went through all the details.  My Father was devistated.  He kept talking how it took two years to catch her, and 68 years to keep her.  He almost collapsed a few times during the following days.  People were there to catch him.

 The following Monday he wanted everything transfered into his and my names.  Including the changing of the will.  It was a week from the day that my Mother was laid to rest, when my Dad passed out in the kitchen.  Both my Sister (Rita) and I were in different places in the house.  Rita found him lodged between the stove and cabinets.  I called 911 and they responded quickly.  I was on the phone with the dispatcher while begging my Dad to not go to sleep, stay awake.  

I rode in the ambulance with him.  He had a blood clot on his brain.  No one knew if it was new or old.  They kept him for a few days to let it heal.  It was only minimum bleeding.  This was when changes to the will were made.  Right in his hospital room.  The executer was changed from my Brother to me.  All of a sudden I became the caretaker of my Dad.  I was scared as hell.  He was released.  Less than a week later, it was his birthday.  He likes Chinese so we took him to his favorite place.  My Sister noticed he was not himself.  I thought it was his depression about Mom.  I kept telling her that if he was going to live by himself, he would have to do the things Mom would have done.  I still keep kicking myself for not seeing the obvious signs he was getting worse.  The next day he could not even get out of bed.  It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life! He was drenched in every body fluid there was.  It was October 3rd.   

By 5:00 pm I received a call that he needed to be transported to a hospital in Burlington, Vermont.  He was bleeding on the brain enough to warrent a craineotomy to drain the fluid and Vermont was the closest hospital to perform it.  This meant a transfer by ambulance four hours away.  To make a long story short.... That ambulance broke down in route, another ambulance to take him to the nearest hospital, then another to take us to Burlington.  We left Ogdensburg (home)at 7:00 and arrived at Burlington at 1:30 in the morning. Four hrs. became 6 1/2 hrs.  I looked so old and weary, they thought I was his wife.  Dad was 90 and I was 53.  I'm the "baby" of the family.  He still introduces me as the baby.  He also blames the operation for his failure to remember things.  He was so heavily sedated, he does not remember the trip to Vermont.  Which is the way I want to keep it.  I still don't know if I did the right thing or if I should have kept him under "comfort care" as the hospital worded it.  To have let him die in comfort!  He came home.  But he lives in a Nursing Home.  I take care of his finances, pay his bills.  The last time he was living in his home was the day of his birthday. Only a few weeks after Mom died. 

After the worst was over, I was still emotionally traumatized by everything.  Setting all the incidental things that go along with rehab, establishing hid settlement first in a Adult Home, then the Nursing Home.  Yeah, I cried at work.  But then my job threatened to force me into psychiatric treatment.  I left the next day.  Within a few days I left to stay at Dad's house in Mid Winter.  I was there to see my Dad every day.  That was treatment for me!

Mourning my Mom?  I don't know if I have yet.  I haven't even been able to add to her memory book.  My siblings haven't even shown an interest.. My neice left a message.... "You loved me even before I was born."  We will love her forever!