Now for a Great Weekend

It's been a roller coaster of a week.

Sunday ended with us planning up a storm for this coming weekend and the arrival of the rest of the family. Two main issues: was Mom going to make it? and how to break the news to Mom about her impending visitors. (She doesn't always take well to surprises unless she's in on the surprise. No surprise!)

Susan called her cousin Debbie who has had a long career in social work most recently in hospice. Debbie can talk about such things, she lost her own father last year. End of life does not always come quickly. As long as the patient is drinking water, urinating, is talking and has reasonably good blood pressure and oxygenation, life can go on for quite a while. Susan's concern was that Polly stay around to visit Mary the following weekend. She called Mary with a report that things seemed marginally stable.

Then I called the apartment to talk to Dad. Of course Mom answered as well, but she was not conversant, a radical change from the previous day. I was left with quite a dismal impression. Michael Malouf visited the same day and did not have an alarming impression as you can read in his comment to the Sunday blog post.

Susan's sister Meg visited Mom Tuesday and had a good visit. She stayed with Mom while Dad went to his rehab class and found her time in Mom's room to be slow, quiet, peaceful and relaxing, much as Susan had found it relaxing Sunday morning. However Mary talked to her yesterday afternoon and had the same alarming reaction that I had had. So much so that she flew down Wednesday, a day earlier than planned.

Mom's nurse was surprised as well by the sudden decline in Mom's condition. She suspected an allergic reaction to the morphine and has switched her to synthetic opiates and a strong dose of benadryl. Mom's skin had become exceedingly dry and her lips were swollen and cracked. Her mouth and throat were inflamed as well, making eating painful as well as difficult. I hope the synthetic works as well as the morphine making her attempts to breathe more comfortable. Jean-Aimee (her nurse) also ordered round the clock nursing as well, so someone will be there besides Dad.

Wednesday I took a long lunch and spent a couple of hours with her and saw the changes for myself. Mom was in good spirits and Dad said she was having a much better day. We had a good visit. Before I left, I asked her if she remembered that Brother Stephen (nee Andrew, Michael's best friend growing up) was being ordained Saturday. "Oh, of course, yes. And you received an invitation!"

"Yes," I said, "Well I think he's going to have a surprise guest."

"You mean Travis is coming up?" (From San Antonio.)

"Well, Travis is coming up, but that's not the surprise I was thinking of."

She looked and me and her eyes got wide. "You mean Michael is coming?"

I nodded. "Yes he and Laura will be here Friday morning."

She closed her eyes, took a breath and said softly, "I'm going to get to see Michael."

And she's going to see Britt who's flying in from Los Angeles. Anna is coming from Salt Lake and Caitlin is coming as well. Mary will get to see the joy on Mom's face when she breaks the news.

It took a chain of 23 emails to get everyone moving on the same page. The big question was whether to come all at once or one at a time. Britt used mathematical notation to express it best:

JOY + TOGETHERNESS > ONE-BY-ONE