Without Her Words

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Today my mom woke up without her words.

Jerry walked into my yoga class to tell me the nurse from the Baptist Village had called.

When she didn't come to breakfast at her assisted living center, the nurse found her sitting on her bathroom floor. She didn't seem to have evidence of stroke except that she couldn't remember her name or who the nurse was. Emergency room.

Jerry and I met up with her at the emergency room. She didn't recognize me but seemed to know Jerry. She was pretty frustrated with all the strangers poking around on her, especially since most of us couldn't understand what she was saying. No pain, just total confusion.

“Who are you?!” she kept demanding of everyone approaching her. They would say their names and what they were going to do to her. “Who ARE you?!” she would insist to know again. I think she was trying to figure out which people she needed to remember. It was almost funny to watch the different way people reacted, but most were very patient and very sweet.

We were in the emergency room for several hours. Funny, you don’t see the doctor in there. They just listen to the symptoms, demand the tests, and diagnose. Because of her already diagnosed diseases, congestive heart failure and uterine cancer that has spread to her lungs, aides wheeled Mother away twice for a chest x-ray and a CT scan of her brain. Someone else came in to take an electrocardiogram.

CT scan showed no sign of stroke or tumor in her brain. An emergency room doctor finally came in and told her he was admitting her.

She seemed disappointed her room wasn’t as big as the one at the Heart Hospital but then again relieved that she was somewhere where lots of people were helping her. Still, she asked each one “Who are you?! Did you eat? What did you eat? Where did you get it?” When she asks other questions, she is so frustrated to not be understood.

The nurses, the nurses’ aides, the orderlies, the techs, anyone who came into the room faced the same interrogation. She hadn’t had a thing to eat all day, and it was 3:30. We ordered her some tomato soup. I gave her a spoon, and she seemed to know what to do with it. She slurped every bit of that soup down. When she was finished, she looked like one of those classic photos of a kid who has just finished eating his spaghetti.

Chris, the chaplain from the Baptist Village Center where she lived, came by and said a prayer with her. She thanked him, comforted by the ritual and the love she felt.

Aides told us there had been some emergencies for the MRI machine, so we were shoved to the end of the list.

We talked some more. Uncle Bill called, her brother.

“What you doin’?”

“Where you been? Where?”

“Did you get enough to eat?”

“OK. That’s good. That’s good.”

I showed her a photo of Uncle Bill on my iPhone. “Honey, I can’t see that.”

“He’s your brother, Billy Gene.”

“OK, OK, OK.”

Wayne called. She had the same conversation, almost exactly, with him.

I showed her a photo of Wayne on my iPhone. “Honey, I can’t see that.”

“Wayne’s your son, your oldest boy.”

“Where is he?”

He lives in California now.”

“Where is he?”

‘In California.”

“OK, OK, OK.”

Greg called.

“What you doin’?”

“Where you been? Where?”

“Did you get enough to eat?”

“OK. That’s good. That’s good.”

I took the phone away. “Who was that?”

Your younger son, Greg. He’s my brother. I’m Janis.”

“Who is he?”

“Greg. You remember Greg. He lives in Muskogee.”

“Where?”

“Muskogee, where you used to live.”

“OK, OK, OK.”

Michelle, her nurse from the Village came by.

“What’s your name?”

No answer. She turns her face away.

“You’re Dorothy.”

“Who?”

“Dorothy.”

Blank stare.

“Who are you?”

“I’m your nurse. Remember me?”

A smile. “Yes, you’re the sweet one!”

We found you on your bathroom floor this morning. Do you remember? You forgot everything.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Michelle stayed while she ate her supper, watched how she used her spoon.

She told me, “Don’t stay here tonight. She’ll have nurses with her. Go home. This might be the last full night of rest you get.”

We waited all day for the MRI. Finally orderlies came for her at 8 pm. The trip to the MRI machine was long and scary to her. It was hard to get off the bed and go pee in the bathroom. After the test, the orderlies tried to move her from the table to her bed. She flailed around and banged her head hard on the bed rail.

Once she was back in her room, a nurse came in. “We will find out the results tomorrow.” So we got Mother ready for bed, nestled in, turned the alarm on the bed so they’d know if she tried to get out to sit on her potty by herself.

I was exhausted. “Mother, Jerry cooked us a roast for supper. I’m going home to take a bath and eat.” I was still in my yoga pants!

“OK. Whatever.”

“We’ll check on her every hour,” the nurse said.

I cried all the way home. I cried while I ate my delicious roast beef dinner. I cried when I went to bed. I woke up at 5 a.m. and could go back to sleep.

At 5:30, the nurse called me. “She’s had a rough night. She says she lost and she’s afraid no one can find her.”

“OK. I’m coming. Let me take a shower, and I’ll be right there.”