This photo was used for an ID button from the Brooklyn Army Base during the war

Today is supposed to be my day off, a break, a little serenity. I’ll be going, hopefully to Brooklyn, where my parents grew up, to the Brooklyn Museum, my favorite Peruvian restaurant and to a show. My head and heart are floating somewhere. I go through motions and as I do life gnaws at me.

The phone rang. That was it. The Hospice nurse called to say my mother has pneumonia and the crisis team was going back in to do round the clock care. I knew something was brewing weeks ago when my mother began to cough in the rehab center. I knew from phone conversations with the aide; no words had to be spoken, I could hear my mother’s oxygen and breathing treatment. And, when I called this morning, I knew when I asked to speak with her and she could barely get passed, “the roses are gorgeous.”  My mother always asks how I am. She calls me darling. It’s not going to happen much longer. The mother I knew is no longer there, she is leaving, she can barely say anything without choking. It is possible that at some point she aspirated some food or liquid. “It’s not her blood pressure that will get her,” the nurse said, “it’s going to be her respiration.” They are going to start her on a Z-Pack, that strong antibiotic (how will she get it down?) And the final loss of self: they are going to supply adult diapers.

As long as I have known my Mom, she has had terrible allergies: food allergies, air-borne allergies, allergy-allergies. She’d break out with hives, red angry welts would cover her and she’d pop all sorts of antihistamines. I remember little pills, Pyribezamine, that were her mainstay. At some point she lost her sense of smell. Pyribenzamine makes me think of throwing a flammable liquid on a fire. Who knows what long term effects it may have had. But it kept her going, able to breathe without rashes and itches and runny eyes. My mother was the one who was most physically sensitive of all four sisters. And she was also the toughest. When some little boy attacked one of the young twins she said she jumped him and beat him up.

Mom and us girls

And that’s how I feel when a wrong is done to her. I have found my outdoor voice, indoors. I yell. There is no reason why they aren’t picking up her garbage. There is no reason why they stopped bringing up the mail or giving the aide a lousy cup of ice cream. My mother’s residence, the Emeritus Regency is a big disappointment. They are happy to take your money, but I see no compassion or interest in the residents. I hope that Google picks this up and throws it onto the internet for all to see. You are as good as your money as long as you have it. And if you need to talk to a higher up, “he’s at a meeting.”

Tomorrow will be my mother’s ninety-fifth birthday. Ninety-five years old. A milestone, an achievement, a wonder of wonders. She has been totally independent until now. She recently said while in the hospital that she didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. She never was.

This series is linked: see “continued here.” Also, below the line there will be links for the previous post and the next.

continued here

The series starts here