Where to start... Last week my Mom had a heart attack. For those of you who do not know, my Mom has been living with rheumatoid arthritis her entire life. Eight years ago she went into congestive heart failure due to taking a drug for RA. While in the hospital for the CHF, the doctors discovered that she had the beginning stages of emphysema as well. For the last 8 years she's been fighting all three of these diseases. None of which the damage they cause can be reversed.
The past 8 years I can't even begin to tell you how many times doctors have told me and my sister that my Mom is going to die. And when she proved them wrong, the Doctors would then tell us it would only be a matter of months before her heart would fail and die. Well, it never happened. Not that this road has been easy. Believe me, it has been hell. My Mom's will to live, regardless her condition has been very difficult to watch.
A year in a half ago my Mom went into major cardiac arrest after having intestinal surgery, nearly once again losing her life. She spent 10 weeks in the ICU, with 7 of those weeks in a medical induced coma. The doctors were amazed that she survived.
The last year and a half my Mom has lived in a skilled nursing home. No longer having the strength to walk, and for the most part not being able to sit up in a wheelchair for a long period of time. The RA has completely twisted her back, shoulders, knees, feet, hands and fingers. I have never known my Mom with smooth, soft, feminine hands. They have always been swollen, raised and crooked. But what the RA has done to her now, is nothing short of horrifying.
She has been on oxygen full time for a while now as well. The last 6 months or so she has been in and out of the hospital for various reasons. If it's not her blood pressure, it's an infection of some sort. If not one of those then she's there from having pneumonia, or from having a cardiac episode of some sort. It hasn't been fun for her, nor for our family to have to witness.
On Friday of last week, the Doctor said something that we've prepared for, but didn't think it was ever going to be said. He said there is nothing medically he can do for her any longer. That there are no other medicines, treatments, surgeries that he can do to help my Mom deal/live with her condition. He said with my Mom's heart being as swollen as it is, the 25% lung capacity that she has left, that her defibrillator has once again had failed (3rd time), and with her heart strength at less than 25%, that it was time for my Mom to consider hospice.
My Mom agreed to enter hospice. She said she's done and that she has no fight left in her. For those of you who know my Mom, you know she's feisty, stubborn and loves to prove the doctors wrong. She lives for it, SERIOUSLY! I wouldn't say she's been in denial of her condition over the years. It's more or less her enjoyment of looking the doctors in the eyes and saying, "Well that may be the case... but my will is stronger than your professional opinion!" It's the fighting Irish in her, I tell you.
This week has been exhausting (emotionally) as you can imagine, because it took the entire week to get hospice set up. My Mom transferred from the hospital back to the skilled nursing home today. Mentally, I know it has to be hard for my Mom (even though she won't admit it), laying in the ICU all this week, waiting to start hospice. It's unimaginable.
We explained to Micah what hospice is and what it means. Poor kiddo. :0( It was hard for him to understand because there have been a few times when we told him (regrettably), Grandma was going to pass away because that's what Doctors told us. When we told him that she will no longer be taken to the hospital for treatments and that there are no new medicines or surgeries to help Grandma, he got it. It's hard to know exactly how he's processing it all, but we have an idea after a conversation we had earlier this week.
Micah and I were eating dinner together earlier this week, and I asked him what he wanted for Christmas. With getting the house ready to be put on the market, Soowan already starting his job down in Austin and my Mom's situation, Christmas has kind of taken a back seat these last couple of weeks. Well at least most of the 'holiday' junk that goes with Christmas, but I truly believe he's fully grasping the spiritual, true meaning of the Christmas Season. This is what our conversation was like.
Me: "Micah, I don't think I've asked you what you would really, really like for Christmas this year."
Micah: "Ummmm... I would like to go to Heaven."
Me (shocked): "And why would do you want to go to Heaven?"
Micah: "To be closer to God."
Me: "But that means you would have to die, and I don't want that to happen."
Micah: "Why?"
Me: "Because I would miss you and be sad without you here, with me."
(Note: Micah had had his church Christmas choir concert the night before, 2 performances, along with singing at both services earlier that day. They sang the song 'The Promise' with the words, 'Emmanuel, Our God is with us'.)
Micah: "You know how Emmanuel means God is with us? Well, I wish He
was with us, like He was when He was born. I wish I could of seen Him, and been there. I think it would be nice to
be with God."
Me (fighting back tears): "Yes, it would be nice to be in His presence in that way. But you know He's with you all the time. That is why he gave us the Holy Spirit?"
Micah: "I know... I just want to be closer to Him, that's all."
GASP!
Me: "OK, besides going to Heaven... What else would you like for Christmas?"
Micah: "For Grandma to go to Heaven."
(at this point the tears began for the both of us, and he poured out his little heart out to me).
Micah went on to say that he wanted Grandma to have a new body. One with straight hands and fingers, and one with good lungs and a strong heart.
My sweet, sweet boy. He could of asked for anything, but these two things were what was on his heart. Eternal gifts, not worldly ones. Wow! Talk about the phrase 'out of the mouth of babes' or what? It's humbling when you see the child-like faith of your own child and you realize it's so much more alive and pure than the one you hold yourself.
With that said, I have taken comfort in the one of the many names the Bible states for our God, Emmanuel. Our God
IS with us, and I feel Him here, present more than ever.
