Week 8 - Authorial Presence (Problem/Situation)

I still can’t even count how many times my mom has attempted to do something outrageously dangerous and I’ve had to stop her.  She’s always been an advocate for pushing her limits and proving she’s still just as tenacious as ever.  I don’t doubt her either but I also don’t believe the right way of going about it is to, for instance, lift things that are exceedingly too heavy, or walk briskly across a glare ice driveway wearing shoes with no tread whatsoever.  It causes me to worry often, especially given the unforeseen nature of what inevitably occurred.  

It was a beautiful summer’s afternoon; the heat and humidity were just right. The breeze rolled through the opened, screened-in windows and I could smell the lilac bush and freshly cut grass coming in from the outside as my sister, Amber, her girlfriend at the time, Jen, and I sat in the kitchen with my mom.  Amber and Jen lived with us for a short time in order to get back on their feet, so it was a typical day-to-day happening to all be seated around the kitchen table at that time, especially considering it would be getting close to dinner.  Jen had two kids from a previous relationship that also lived with us, and they were contently playing in the living room watching SpongeBob Square Pants.  The conversation wasn’t anything I found especially disconcerting, that was until the topic of the dreaded child’s swing came up. 

“So,” My mom said, and I could feel what was to follow, “It’s a beautiful day, why don’t we hang up the children’s swing in the tree outback?”

My face instantly looked as if one of our many cats had come into the room and shit under my chair.  As if it weren’t bad enough the last year she hung the children’s swing in the front yard and apparently had to get on the roof of the porch to do so; suddenly it had to go in the back yard where the closest branch for a swing was, in a rough estimate, 16-20 feet in the air.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, really,” I said as if it should be obvious to everyone that it was a horrible idea.

“Why not? I hung it by myself last year”

“Yeah…I know.  That’s not really compelling me to change my opinion, rather the latter - Because it’s safe to be doing that shit by yourself, Mom.”

“Pfft…whatever, stop treating me like an old lady, I bet I can run laps around you!”  This was another fact I did not doubt at all.

“I’m not challenging you; I just think it’s a bad idea, that’s all.  Do what you want.”

Amber and Jen sat quietly until the conversation finally changed to something other than the spat my mom and I were having.  After a few minutes, as I knew it would, the conversation turned back to the goddamn children’s swing again, only this time my mom felt differently, sort of.

“Look, I’ll just go into the garage and get the kid’s swing out, I won’t hang it yet, I’ll wait for my contractor Steve to come here next week and he’ll hang it.  He has a ladder,”   Mom said as if this was a consolation. 

“Ok Mom, Do what you want.”  I knew she was going to do what she wanted anyway, so after simply obliging, I went to the bathroom.

Within moments I could hear over the running water of the bathroom sink that she was recruiting help for something - something that clearly wasn’t simply going into the garage and digging out a swing.  She fully intended to get up in that tree, even though we didn’t have a ladder and the ridiculous height was dangerous in itself even with a ladder.  I came out of the bathroom to find Amber sitting at the table, drinking a beer. 

“Where’d mom go?” I asked.

“She’s outside with Jen, I’m not sure what they’re doing,” She said as she took another swig.

Suddenly and faintly in the distance I could hear someone screaming and it caused my stomach to sink to my feet.  The inevitable had finally happened and mom had met her match.  I ran out the back door and into the back yard to find Jen visibly shaken, paralyzed by fear.  It took me about a second to realize what had happen:  My mother had fallen the 16-20 feet from the tree and was lying on her side on the ground, motionless.  I ran to her and immediately attempted to get her to come back to consciousness without moving her.  Jen stood there, staring, until I screamed at her to go call 9-1-1 and it was at that point my sister came out to realize what had happened and ran over.  Jen immediately pulled out her cellphone as I managed to get Mom to open her eyes and say something, anything.  Mom instantly started to try and move but I managed to talk her into remaining still, something she already knew from her 22 years of nursing.  Even significantly injured, she was still going to prove somebody wrong.

The ambulance arrived promptly and put her gently on the stretcher.  None of us were able to ride with her because they needed all available room for staff to immediately start helping her.  I panicked the whole way to the hospital, riding behind the ambulance.  It wasn’t until we got to EMMC that I started to relax; once she was in Triage but as if it couldn’t get any worse, they put her in the same triage room my father was pronounced dead in.  Ominous feelings filled the room as I tried to remain calm and get into the mindset of being her medical proxy, not her daughter. Amber and Jen went out to the waiting room as the head triage nurse came in and immediately tried to administer Dilaudid for the pain. I was told she needed it because it was too soon to get into MRI and X-ray, the doctor still needed to assess her and the pain would cause her blood pressure to skyrocket.  The problem with that was the nurse clearly didn’t examine her charts beforehand, otherwise she would’ve noticed that not only is my mother allergic to MSG, she’s highly allergic to Dilaudid, Morphine, Codeine, Aspirin, Acetaminophen, Sulfa Drugs; basically you name it, she’s allergic.  I immediately deflected the nurse’s attempt to sedate my mother and sent her back to check her charts.  Moments later I was told to leave the room so they could perform something, and my mom said she was okay with it.  No sooner than I left did that nurse slip back into the room and administer the Dilaudid anyway. 

Soon enough my mom was put into a triage transport waiting room and was violently puking from an adverse reaction to the high powered narcotic.  I managed to get it under control before she was transported, via some whole milk, and we managed to make it to the third floor where she would be staying for an extended period.  After she was moved to her bed, it was about 8:30pm and I was informed that none of us were allowed to sleep in her room. 

“You going to be okay here overnight?” I said optimistically, hoping it would only be a night but knew it wouldn’t. 

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” My mom said also lying.  She hated hospitals for good reasons, and in some way she was trying to make me feel better as I was to her.

We all then went home and called it a night.  The next day I was there as early as they would let me, and I found out that mom had broken her pelvis, several ribs, her sacrum, and other various bones.  The only good part is that every doctor told me there was no reason she wouldn’t fully recover, but the downfall was they slated her to be there for three weeks.  My mom’s expression instantly dropped; although they managed to regulate her pain with something and I attributed her statements to it, she was adamant that she would not take that long.  The doctors insisted she stay bedridden until they felt she could get up, to prevent further injury, and told her the drugs would make her feel as though she was better.

Every day I went and visited her, and the progress seemed to be unrealistic.  I couldn’t understand how she was able to move about as she was, even in her bed and having the pain sedated.  It wasn’t until I caught her venturing to the bathroom that I realized she was back to her old habits; defeating the odds and maintaining her resilience.