Diamond Dogs Racing

Ah, the quiet time of night. Dogs at my feet, tea in hand, time to write.

Friday morning was, very honestly, the morning from hell. Sophie was convinced there would be a snow day, so convinced that when I told her she had school, she argued with me. "Mom, there's five inches of snow out there!" she quipped. So at every turn, she stalled and struggled, staring first at her clothes, then at her cereal. Finally I became enraged. Like a mother bear, I came at her growling. She refused, as always, to brush her hair. I'm ashamed to admit, I became so angry at her fighting me to go to school, I broke the brush on the kitchen table. Elise kept saying, "mommy broke the brush, mommy broke the brush" all weekend.

The stress is getting to me, obviously.

Then, between dropping Sophie off at school and getting Elise off to daycare, my cell phone rang. It was my mom. She called to tell me there was a code called on my dad very early in the morning that morning, and the stroke team had been called in. At that moment, an NG tube was being placed down my dad's nose to drain his stomach. She was sobbing, just sobbing. I checked in at work, then dropped everything and went over to the hospital to find my mom standing at the end of the 4200 hallway, staring out the window, still sobbing. I rubbed her back, hugged her.

"I don't think he's going to pull through this time," she said through tears.

"We need to request a family meeting," I said.

"What's that?"

"It's a meeting of the treating physicians and hospital staff involved in dad's care. It's a place where we can all be present and have our questions answered," I told her.

We walked down the hall and into my dad's room. He lay, head turned away from us despondently. On the wall to his right, a vacuum suctioned bilious fluid out of his belly through the NG tube in his nose. There was quite a bit. His nurse came in, and I asked her the details of what happened last night with the code, and what was happening currently.

She said he'd been given PO (by mouth) antibiotics on top of the IV antibiotics he was already taking, and it'd made him nauseated. He sat up in the middle of the night because he felt like he was going to be sick, and suddenly his blood pressure bottomed out and he went down. A code blue was called as a precaution, but he did not code; he just passed out. The stroke team was also called as a precaution because he is at risk for a stroke, but she assured, "none of this was serious or even atypical with as much as he's been through."

"So this is not serious?" I asked for the sake of my mom, who moments before was sobbing and thinking of my dad being on death's door.

"No," she reassured. "None of this is serious." I could see the relief in my mom's face as her eyes softened. So, no family meeting was needed. But....

How did it go from being routine medical care to my mom planning a funeral?

Simple: lack of communication.

When the NG tube was being placed, nothing was explained to my mother. She stood watching, helpless, afraid to ask questions for fear of getting in the way. She heard a nurse say, "he's been through so much," but wasn't offered an explanation of what was happening and why. So, what she heard, in this unfamiliar, intimidating world of tubes and monitors and medications, was "this must be serious; he must be near death."

Because of the medication he is taking for pain, he jumps slightly, fidgeting with the blankets, his gown, etc. My mom told me later this was what my grandmother did before she died. Because of this association, my mom also drew the conclusion that my dad must be near death as well.

It doesn't take much to go from 0-60 when your loved one is lying helpless in a hospital room. Medical professionals forget this, forget what it's like to be on the other side. We need to remember, to advocate for families, to encourage them to speak up and ask questions. Because that fear and anxiety lead to unnecessary stress -- stress that can be alleviated by simple communication.

Oh yeah, and my dad? He may be discharged this week. :0)