May Day - The final descent

I have a new routine these days.  On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I go to the Skilled Nursing Center where I admitted Mom on March 6th.  I also see her sometime on Sundays.

Tonight when I arrived I found Mom in bed refusing to eat dinner.  I went and got my meal in the kitchen and then hooked her up with the earphones I had purchased for her.  I sat and ate while she watched the news.  When her nursing assistant arrived with her dinner she again refused it.  I asked the assistant to leave it and said I would try to get her to eat something.

She did take a few sips of coffee, ate two bites of a grilled cheese sandwich that I hand dunked in her tomato soup, and a beet.  Her breathing was labored and she was coughing a lot.  I put the head of the bed up for her and helped her with sips of coffee and small bites of food.  She seemed really frail and subdued.

I asked about her latest chest x-ray and found out that she has more fluid in her lungs.  Some days she takes her lasix and some days she refuses.  Today was a refusing day.

lasix (from Websters.com)

noun

commonly used diuretic (trade name Lasix) used to treat hypertension and edema

She also told me that she had called my brother.  Apparently, he used some foul language and she just said "goodbye" and hung up.  She talks him every time I see her.  All she wants is a chance to see him again.  That is not likely to happen.

Mom is making her final descent.  I am there as her daughter, her advocate and her supporter.  It makes me sad to see her dwindle away like this, after all she has lived through in her 92 years.  She is worried about her money and upset that there won't be any left for her children.  I told her we never expected that there would be an inheritance.  I tried to calm her down about the cost of the facility, all the while making out a check for over $4000 for one month.  Soon, she will be out of money.  I have submitted all the Medicaid paperwork and continue to have the facility fax off medical bills as I pay them.

I have built up some resilience over the last four plus years with Mom.  I am glad that she is somewhere safe.  I no longer worry constantly about finding her on the floor or worse.  I am starting my internal process of saying my farewells.

Whenever I leave I comb her hair, stroke her face, give her a kiss and tell her that I love her.   She always says that she loves me so much...that I am so good.  I look in her face and see what I will most likely look like if I live to be 92.  Her skin is soft to the touch.  Her arms are slender and her body is smaller that I have ever known it to be.  This is what my Mom's last days look like...and I am happy to be along side her for this final leg of her journey.