MOM
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moon phases � |
I really need to think/write about my mother. I am not sure that I can make it clear since that is why I need to think/write it out. I don't even know if I can cover it all without getting muddled up.
Basic background for the beginning reader:
My mother is eighty-eight years old.
She has multiple sclerosis, a progressive debilitating disease of the nervous system that has robbed her of the use of most of her body.
She is insulin dependent diabetic.
She has been losing her grip on the day to day world over the past couple of years. This has resulted in her not recognizing myself and my father. She also doesn't know what year, month or day it might be.
Having said all that to set the stage, lets get into the latest developments.
Over the past few months my mother has really be losing her relationship with the world around her. I have mentioned before that she is becomming the classic nursing home patient staring off at the ceiling with her mouth agape. I don't find this shocking but I do find it depressing. It is fairly normal for someone of her age and her debilities to be in this condition. More recently she has been having issues with swallowing her medicines and eating. She doesn't realize the pill is in her mouth to be swallowed or she forgets that she is chewing her lunch so she doesn't swallow. This is also not a shock. It could be that the MS has finally hit her throat area or it could be Alzheimer's which has a similar effect. "Forgetting" how to swallow. Often this is what is fatal in Alzheimer's.
Zoom in on the long-term healthcare providers who are trying to do their jobs. They are classic modern medical practitioners who must be heroes to succeed. In view of the recent decline on my mother's part the homecare nurse has suggested a feeding tube.
I know what my mother has feared. She has for decades said she didn't want to be a "vegetable". She never wanted to be bed-bound as she is now. She was conscious enough to adjust to the bed bound aspect of her condition. I don't know that she would understand or that it would be respectiful to use a feeding tube. That, in my mind, is moving into a heroic mode that does not account for the humanity of the patient. It ignores the simple fact that she will die sometime soon. It just cannot be any other way, at eighty-eight with health issues like she has she is lucky to have "walked" the planet as long as she has. Why invade her body in the name of buying her a little more time that she will not be fully aware of?
Over the past couple of weeks she often does not respond in any way when I talk to her. She has lucid moments but they are getting fewer and farther between. I feel her anchor to this plane is loosening. She is looking to a differnt place.
Why is it that I am looked at as if I am a monster because I question the heroic choice? I am made to feel guilty for my compassion. I want to do what is right. The decisions always fall on me and this time I fear I will get beaten because I love my mother enough to let her go quietly.
Am I wrong?
written at 8:53 p.m.
2004-06-03
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