One Happy Wave in a Sea of Misery

Hello, Dear Friends,

I am sad to report that the situation with Mom and Dad is not improving.

But we had one happy day.

Albert and Josephine Martineau, November 24, 2012

Despite the fact that Mom is in a hospital in Massachusetts, we had our annual Family Reunion. It was held at the hospital, and we all took turns visiting Mom between plates of the usual Feast. She was feeling pretty good, happy that we hadn't cancelled the festivities, and excited to see all of her babies. We fixed her up pretty (don't you think?) brought her lots of gifts and flowers, and showered her with affection and praise.

It was, indeed, a good day.

Then we were quickly ushered back to reality. 

You may not know how this whole thing started. A simple infection. On June 8th, she cut her leg, tried to self-doctor, and failed. At the time, she was caregiver to our Dad, who was recovering from a C-Diff infection he contracted when HE was in the hospital (what seems like a thousand years ago). Since she was put on antibiotics for HER infection, her immune system was more susceptible to acquiring the C-Diff, which she did, and she became exponentially more ill than Dad.

And the rest is...horrible.

Five hospitals, two major surgeries (triple bypass, colectomy) several minor surgeries and many screw-ups later, she is now a paraplegic, cannot speak, and is connected to a respirator and a feeding tube. This is the woman who, on Easter Sunday, was running all over the yard helping the youngest Martineau's hunt eggs.

We were told on Wednesday that she is not responding well to her physical therapy, so it is being discontinued. In addition, she is not responding AT ALL to respiratory therapy due to a fluid build-up in her abdomen which causes pressure on her diaphragm, which in turn causes pressure on her lungs causing the inability to breathe on her own.  The suggestion of the hospital staff is an additional surgery to release some of the fluids, in the hope that it will help.  If it does not, (and they are not terribly confident that it will be anything more than temporary, anyway), she will be in hospital, on life support, for the duration of her lifetime. She is completely sane and lucid, so there is no way that discontinuing life support would ever happen.  The quality of her life, however, has been reduced to shit.  (Sorry.  It's the only word that fits, here.)

And in the meanwhile...


...we are still caring for Dad, at home, 24/7.   He is failing.  As you might remember, he suffers from heart disease, emphysema, COPD and circulatory problems. In addition, we have recently been told that the likelihood of lung cancer is high, and senility is becoming an issue.

Dad is 89, and never did take care of himself all that well, so his condition is not all that surprising. He still smokes two packs of cigs per day, and a glass of wine, for him, is 20oz.  He can put away several glasses before falling into a drunken stupor. We have stopped trying to limit these bad behaviors, on the advice of his Docs.  Really.  And they're right, of course...his days are numbered, so he may as well 'enjoy' them.

But we are not enjoying watching him slowly die.
While watching our Mom 'despondently live'.