All of this jumping through hoops brings me full circle to the beginning of my mother’s story: A long road that began in Florida where she was living independently in an “assisted living;” a venue that began nicely and then melted down when the business was taken over, when management changed to a bunch of scuzz -buckets. Nothing could or would be fixed and the vents in my mother’s lovely apartment filled up with rats that would visit her kitchen at night and feast on what she could find; their tails would dangle from the vent grids. When they ran out of food they bit the aide on the finger. Yes, you heard that correctly. During the year that my mother transitioned from eighty-nine to  ninety, her world, and mine rapidly changed and fell, plummeting to the depths and rebounding to the heights in erratic, unpredictable bounces. At some point during her ninety-fifth year she got pneumonia, after a fall and and a fractured arm and somehow survived hospital stays and hospice. It was about seven years ago that we moved her back to New York City where she has survived a couple of more falls and for now, has survived Covid pneumonia.

It is all inconceivable: Time after time I thought it was “the end,” but somehow, someway, my mother’s will to live has been forever strong, enduring the oddest of situations and calamities.

I have finally been able to get my important calls through, I have been able to communicate with whom I needed to communicate with. My mother’s vitals appear to remain stable over the time she has been in the hospital.

4/21/20 Rep: Nita

Finally, I was able to contact the agency that supplies the aides: You have to understand that the aides want to work, they want to come back, they know she has tested positive, they don’t care. I would think you have to be somewhat desperate to want to work with a covid patient. They supposedly have the necessary gear. In addition, I am planning to have someone there during the night hours for a while; I can’t leave her alone at night. I have the number of another agency to use as a backup. In these crazy times I need to feel some sort of security.

The discharge day appears to be Thursday. Apparently a doctor on duty can discharge a patient on a moment’s notice, I am insisting on another day. People need to make plans and get things in order, in a world that no longer has order. A world that has changed so radically that we can’t recognize it. Or ourselves.

This series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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