Life Support - for my mother

Wikipedia

Life support - refers to the emergency treatments and techniques performed in an emergency situation in order to support life after the failure of one or more vital organs.  

What a vivid lesson, this past month has brought.  My precious momma laying in a hospital bed.  Hands tied down, and a big 'ole tube, rather several,  stuck down her throat while she fought for her life.  And fight she did.  They kept drugging her and drugging her, and she still fought for consciousness.  It was incredible, and also one of the saddest things I've ever seen.

I don't think it was life she cared that much about, however ALL her children sat at her bedside, praying, and encouraging, and telling her how much they loved her.  This woman loves her children, and she was NOT gonna miss seeing them, even under these circumstances.

The one of the hardest parts of situation, was the fact that she could not speak.  In the beginning we gave her paper and pen and she wrote.  She wrote her needs, she wrote her desires, she even joked with us.  However as the severity of the situation and the fear and drugs took over, nothing she wrote made any sense.

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” 
― Lao Tzu

The kids, and even the grand kids would sit in her room for hours, and try and try to help, to understand what she needed.  She did the best she could, but she would constantly throw up her hands in despair, because we couldn't figure out what she wanted or needed.  I cried, and I grieved and I couldn't believe how close to my own life at home this was.  The nurse actually said to me, "you can't try any harder, she really isn't going to remember much of this."  I said, "But, I should be able to figure it out!  I have spent almost 25 years reading someones hand gestures, their eyes.  Discerning their intent, just by gut instinct.

You see, my son, Britton can't talk.  He uses his hands and his eyes, and anything at all to help us communicate with him.  He occasionally will still throw up his arms in despair.  His brain was damaged when he was just a baby...Our daily life seemed so much like trying to understand my mom while she was on Life support.  I never thought about it that way, and yet....  every day is about giving him the support required to stay alive.  He can never be alone.  He can't make himself understood, he is really at the mercy of whoever is with him.

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”– Ernest Hemingway

The similarities are pretty remarkable when you think about it.  His health has been a rollercoaster ride since the very first seizure back in 1991.  He could talk back then, not many people realize that.  He talked a blue streak as a matter of fact.  He loved to sing and repeat children's poems.  When he began to lose his ability to speak he would watch Disney movies nonstop.  I think he lost a lot of his ability to know what they were saying, so he kept trying, because he knew he could understand BEFORE.  sighhhhhhh  Such an awful thing to happen to a tiny child.

Then it was in and out of the hospital for tests, for years.  Heck we still do it.  But life-support has never ended for him.

Mom had that tube down her throat for four days.  She begged me nonstop to get it out.  She would beg me to untie her hands, and I would do so every chance I got.  (Inspite of the fact that my sister kept telling me I was going to "hospital jail!")  I would sit on alert, making sure she would not be able to pull the tubes out before I could stop her.  (Sitting on alert in a hospital, keeping watch is something I've had a lot of practice at.)  Having that tube down your throat, really is beyond terrible!  It is so unbearable that they give you paralytic drugs so that you don't gag to death.  I don't expect you ought to be conscious with that happening to you.

Truly, severe autism is pretty awful too.  In so many situations I've wished he could be unconscious so he didn't have to know what his life really entailed.  From the tiny two year old, losing his language, staring at me in confusion.  The nine year old, crying every single day til he vomited and mercifully falling asleep.  To the life of seizures of unknown origin that just come out of the blue and steal his health and everyones hope.  To the young man, who watches his nieces and nephews, born, and learn to speak and the questioning looks when he wonders why he is different.

I've felt so responsible all his life.  I spent years, doing all the therapies I could find.  Hoping and hoping and hoping.  Sitting him in my lap and begging him to see me, to hear me, "come back to this world."  I truly believe he has spent his life trying with everything in him.

Once again I have to say he is the bravest person I have ever known.  He still smiles, he endures more than I can even comprehend.  He fights those "straps around his wrists, and he begs me to set him free."  Every single day I try.  Every single day, I'm willing to go to "hospital jail" if I can make his life one tiny bit better.  It occurred to me that he's a lot like my mom.

"Promise me you will remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think." A.A. Milne

I know this is a little different than most my blogs, however I am going to add this comment.   You should have written down if you want life support or not.  If you do, GREAT, tell someone.  If you don't, TELL SOMEONE, and get it down on paper.  Life is beyond unpredictable,and I wish like anything my son could tell me what he wanted from the very beginning.  Of course that's not possible, but my husband and I have had long talks about life support.  It just isn't possible to know the contingency for every situation.  

It was brutal not knowing for sure what my mom would want if the situation got worse.
By the way,  we got a happy ending.  On day four, she miraculously began to recover.  The fluid drained out of her lungs, and she was able to breathe on her own.  In spite of the misery, my mom is a very unusual individual.  No complaining, no whining, just thankful.  She really is someone special. I am grateful she is my mother, I've spent lots of years being amazed at her faith, and her acceptance of her constant illness and pain.  However she never gives up hope of healing.

I've never understood how God chooses which people he heals, and which people he doesn't.  At the end of the day, I'll just thank Him and be grateful that life support is a possibility when needed.
I may have never felt so thankful.  My mom has lived on the edge of severe illness for longer than 15 years.  I realize that I will have to face living without her someday.  This "little scare" was some kind of a wake up call, even though I thought I was prepared, I am not.  I felt like a little girl, as I wrapped myself around her as she lay in that bed trying to breath, all I thought was "mommy!"  Apparently we never out grow loving our parents.

“But there's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin.” 
― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

"You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only option you have"