We thought it was tough when my husband's father got very sick and suddenly passed away when we had just started college 5 years ago. Nope, we can top that. Not only am I battling cancer and some really annoying chemo side effects (can you say mood swings and rash from hell?), but now my husband's mom has gotten very sick and we don't have a good feeling about her outcome either. Only this time, we are 960 miles away. And we have to rely on a non-medical minded brother with control issues for information. As nurses, my husband and I have specific things in our minds that we need to know in order to process the situation. The brother is our eyes and ears in the hospital and "She's stable" and "there's been no change" is simply not a good enough report of the situation in that ICU room. You see, his mom had a bad heart attack over the weekend. Later that day, she had a stroke which has had devastating effects. And now she's developing pneumonia. This triad of events in a frail, elderly, compromised person is not good. We know this. We are prepared for the worst. She is a DNR. She doesn't want to have CPR, she doesn't want to be on a ventilator, she doesn't want to be shocked. My husband wants so desperately to be there. He needs to see her, needs to see the numbers and reports, needs to feel the situation out. She is not able to speak so he can't talk to her on the phone. Frustration doesn't even begin to describe the feelings in this house. But as nurses, we are crafty. And we have connections.
You see, we went to nursing school in Oklahoma. We have nursing friends in Oklahoma. The people in Oklahoma are a very friendly bunch and will go out of their way to be of assistance. That's just what they do. We now have friends in that ICU who understand what we want to know. What we need to know to make informed decisions. We also have friends that will go whisper in mom's ear that they are friends of ours and that we we are thinking of her and that we love and miss her. We have friends that are willing to go see her and Skype or Facetime with her so that we can see her and actually TELL her these things. Us nurses are a tight group. Tighter than family apparently. And that's just fine. Because friends are the family that you get to pick yourself.
The hardest part is trying to figure out when we should go to Oklahoma. I am currently working from home and my job is flexible so that isn't an issue. My husband however is scheduled to work the next 5 out of 6 days and has very little vacation time. So we are trying to figure out what is the best thing to do. Do we just pack up and go so that we get to see her and know we got to say goodbye just in case she doesn't recover. Or do we wait for something devastating to happen to make that trip, never getting to say those last words to her face. Could my husband be at peace with this? In addition to these difficult decisions, there's the issue of my weekly chemo treatments. I've talked to my Oncology NP and she says if I have to miss a treatment, it'll be ok, we will just have to add one on to the end of treatment. But we don't want to miss if we can help it. Our decisions right now can be described in one sentence...Rock vs. Hard Place.
Words cannot express how sincerely thankful we are for all of our family and friends who have sent out prayers and been such support during all of our trials lately. We couldn't do this without you. You keep us going, keep our thoughts as positive as possible and just genuinely warm our hearts. Thank you. And please continue with your prayers. If we end up making this trip, the weather is really yucky in that part of the country, so please also pray for our safe travels as well. And to our friends "on the inside", THANK YOU for taking care of Nana as we call her. You have no idea what your help means to us.
