Saturday, July 11, 2009

Where do I start and don't get me started

Note to self: reintroduce yourself to husband this evening.

Every evening after Glenn gets home, I head over to the hospice, or on the days he's off, I head over directly after work. DeAnn and I talked and realized we can only be there as much as we can (which in our case is every spare moment) but that between the two of us there is simply no way we can be there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Of course, that means our new garments are made of guilt, but what can we do?

Tina came up from South Carolina and spent Thursday night with Debbie. I joined her on Friday evening. I will cherish every moment we spent together. Deb's pump now has IV morphine in it. It gives her pain medication continuously and she can also push a button every 8 minutes for a "booster." When I say "she" can push it, I mean we. She's simply too weak. So we are in fact pushing it every 8 minutes and her pain fluctuates between a 7 and a 9 on a scale of 1-10. Which means it still sucks.

Tina and I got our pjs on and settled in for the night. The nurses came in and arranged her pillows and turned her on her side so she could sleep more comfortably. Debbie loved it. Mason, the cute male nurse called us the "yoohoo sisters" because Tina and I were yakking during the pillow arranging session and when he needed our attention he shouted out, "Yoohoo! Sisters!" Tina was exhausted from being up most of Thursday evening and although she made me take the more comfortable of the two recliners, she was able to get some rest Friday evening. I woke up every 60 minutes on cue and quietly got up to give Deb another shot from her pump to help with the pain as she slept.

We had turned in around 11:30 and Debbie woke up at 2:30 needing to go to the restroom. In spite of my previous post, we are still doing this which is a good thing since it gets her up and moving about. After, when she was washing her hands she quietly said to me, "I wish this would just come." Which I took to mean the end. DeAnn had me read this 20 plus page printout the doctor had left called "crossing the creek" which explains the death process and the various stages and what the body will do to make itself comfortable. It made a lot of sense to me and in a wacky way made me realize all this was a natural (albeit sad) progression.

I told Debbie she was in charge of that (when I read the printout it said terminal patients often hold on if they have "unfinished business"), to which Debbie replied she was in charge of nothing. "I'm not in charge of the cancer. I'm not in charge of the pain." I told her how sad I was this horrible disease had ravaged her body but that her mind and soul had not been touched.

She fell asleep again around 4 am and slept until 7. Tina slept another couple of hours and Debbie actually had a good morning (in this world of the new "normal") and had a little coffee as well as some grits. When DeAnn arrived Tina and I headed for High Falls, which is where Debbie lived until she came to DeAnn's, and then the hospital, and then the hospice, and then back to DeAnn's and now back to the hospice. Whew!

Debbie is the shutterbug in our family and she has a bar counter full of photographs at Tony's (the stepfather) at the lake at High Falls. Tina thought she could scan them all into a digital frame for Debbie so she could enjoy her photos at the hospice. Time was something of the essence as the sisters told me that the nurse practitioner at the hospice told them Debbie could pass away this weekend. I may be naive, but after the relatively good morning she had and the fact that she is still getting up and moving (though slowly and with pain) and still eating and drinking (though little) I just don't see that happening.

Tina ended up shooting the photos with her digital camera while I talked with Tony. He's 95, a little hard of hearing and still has a fairly heavy accent from his native San Salvador. I told him Debbie wasn't coming home and that she was going to die and that she was worried about him. She's worried the "vultures" as she calls them, will try to trick him out of his home and money. I told him not to give any money to Ray and that I would come by and check on him every other week, get him money orders for his bills and take him to the store. The main thing is I can tell he is very, very lonely without Debbie there and would appreciate the company.

It was nice having that time with Tina but it was incredibly painful to go in Debbie's room and see her still unmade bed from when Tina and DeAnn rescued her when she was home alone after being released from the hospital in Macon. It hurt to look at all the photos of Debbie, many when she was younger. She was beautiful and had long, long hair and such a beautiful smile. It hurts to know what this disease has taken from her. Those beautiful blue eyes are still there, though and they will pierce you to your soul.

My brother Sonny came to watch over Deb tonight. He was on a mission to find out her wishes for burial, etc and the sisters and I are praying he exercises some kindness and discretion. We think he will. I called later to see if he was doing okay and Ray and his son Joseph were there. I wanted to know if Ray was planning on showing up any time soon. Debbie doesn't like being alone and the reality is the rest of us have to work on Monday. I was taking to Ray and I know I was being cold and abrupt but when he started in on his problems I just felt as though I would vomit if I heard another word from his mouth so I hung up the phone.

He is an addict. He has addict behaviors. He lies, he steals and he tries to cover his tracks. He is a con artist and though his mother is a sweet woman, I think he cons her most of all. I no longer trust him and I don't think we can depend on him. I will be civil if that is what Debbie wants. If she asks him to be there I'm sure he will. No one can refuse those blue eyes. But my point and the reason I'm so pissed, is that she shouldn't have to ask.

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