The Differences Between my Mom and Me

March 5th, the day before my 49th birthday. I gave Dad some Ativan from the hospice comfort kit before I tucked him into bed last night. He slept very well. He was probably also exhausted from the clamor and celebration for my birthday, not to mention stuffed from the strawberry shortcake. I was up until 3 AM. I'm not sleeping very much or well lately. Thank God for Lunesta...better living through chemistry and all that.

I thought I heard voices talking in the living room, directly under the room I've taken over at my parents' house. My son, Mike, and his wife, Jen are here. My Mom had gone into the bedroom and Michael offered to sleep in the recliner. He has a couple of herniated discs from his running career and said he'd actually found a position of comfort there. Regardless of whether or not that's true, I took him up on it. It could be that this was something he wanted or needed to do for his Pop or for us. Either way, it was helpful and appreciated. I am the designated bearer of all things emotional in my family and it can be exhausting.

I crept down the stairs at 2:30. Mike was zonked out on the recliner. Dad was supine on the hospital bed, the position he always seems to be in despite my propping and the pillows I pilfered from my employer. His breathing was very deep...and very slow. There was a long pause between two breaths and I questioned whether I had done the right thing by giving him the Ativan. Do want to ease his suffering or ours? Am I trying to hasten the process?

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It took a couple of days to get back to this post. It is difficult. I'm now officially 49, as of 4:22 yesterday afternoon. I was a Wednesday child, born on Ash Wednesday of 1957, to be precise. My son was a Monday child. His wife and I, at least, think he's fair of face. My father is a Saturday child.

"Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay."

I don't happen to agree that I'm full of woe, though my therapist doesn't buy it when I claim to be an optimist. I happen to think I have a pretty rosy view of life. It's just the people in it I sometimes have trouble with.

Yes, my father did work hard for his living. Seems to me he should have been given more of it for leisure after so many decades of hard work. He only retired a few years ago, though he had given up crawling around in crawlspaces a few years before that. Too late, though. The damage from the asbestos had been done years ago. He would turn 74 in June.

I wanted to tell some of my father's former co-workers about his cancer and impending death. Back when Dad might have enjoyed their company, (last week) I thought it was a good idea. He should know how fondly folks remember him and how much they will miss him. I wanted to ask my son's other grandparents to come see him, too. They are deeply religious people, probably similar to those my father knew in Mount Carmel, PA as he was growing up. At minimum, they could pray with him. Ideally, they could leave him with a sense of never really having lost his connection to God.

My mother will have none of it. My brother told her Dad had said he hated the thought of people seeing him like this. Of course, since my brother has only been around here when he's been needed (two, three times?) since hospice care started, he's referring to when Dad was still getting around but needing a walker, feeling so terrible about his weight loss, about needing supplemental oxygen constantly. Does anybody really know how he feels about it now? Did anybody bother to ask? When I mentioned to Dad, when he was a little more lucid, that I'd told the gay couple across the street and my parents' next door neighbor to come over, he didn't balk. It sure seemed to me as if he was receptive, as long as it was someone he'd really liked. Can't say I blame him there.

My mother and I are different in other ways, too. Granted, I've worked in healthcare a long time. I have worked in end-of-life situations before, I've helped grieving parents watch their newborn die or wrapped up a terribly premature infant so that his Mom and Dad could hold him, just once. I'm not afraid of death, even though I do no embrace it.

Mom thinks I'm pushing the medications. She thinks we're keeping him too sedated (A favorite saying of mine is, "There are no points for bravery when you have cancer!"). While I'm asleep, even if Dad isn't sleeping well, is restless all night, Mom won't give him the Morphine. Only after Dad was seen by the hospice RN yesterday did Mom agree to go a little heavier with the Ativan. I don't understand it and it frustrates the hell out of me.

I don't think we'll have to keep this up much longer. Dad slept a lot today, having gotten two doses of 1/2 a miligram of Ativan. He'll get a full miligram again at bedtime. I don't expect him to survive until this time next week, although I thought he might die in the night last night and he didn't. Only God knows, truly.

Although my relationship with Mom has always been strained, I've tried in my gentlest fashion to prepare her for the inevitable. I told her last night that I think Dad has had his rally and might not come back as strong ever again. I hope she understands. When we talked a little last week, she broke down and said, "No, not yet." I understand. But I also understand the burden on my father from needing to stay alive because we're not ready. It's Dad's turn to get what he needs.