“Your father has been moved to another unit for closer observation,” she stated.
Fighting the urge to be sick, I managed to ask the nurse, “Where is he?”
“MICU, third floor, ma’am,” the nurse said pointing toward the elevator.
My heart skipped a beat as I heard an explosion of words in my head. “Oh God, what is going on?”
I spent the remainder of that twilight-zone day traveling on an elevator from Dad on the third floor to Mom in the emergency room, trying to comfort them, each fraught with concern for the other. I didn’t know whom to worry about the most as I felt myself stretching thinner and thinner. Dad’s condition worsened and he was not responding to the chosen medications. At the same time, no definitive diagnosis seemed obvious for my mother and she was not improving. In every opportunity with nurses and doctors, I pleaded that Mom be admitted for additional evaluation. Trying to be on two different floors was difficult, but having one of them in the hospital and the other at home was impossible.
I was approaching a breaking point with none of my sisters in sight. With Dad’s medical history and knowing that the emergency monitoring service had also phoned Exhausted Teresa early that morning, I was sure that my sisters were en route to the hospital and would be arriving at any moment.
Instead, in the late afternoon, their phone calls began.
My sisters wanted answers from me. I was supposed to tell each of them whether or not to come home. Their questions circled my head like a swarm of bees. “How serious is Dad?” “What is wrong with Mother?” “How long will they be in the hospital?” “Do you really think we need to be there?”
How could I know what to tell my sisters? It was too soon to have much information about anything. Navigating the emergency room twice in one day, dealing with more nurses and doctors than I could count and trying to be in multiple locations at once left me completely dazed. My physical stamina disappeared, and in its place remained only spinning thoughts. “Could Dad possibly survive this? What am I going to tell Mom? What is wrong with her? What if something terrible is wrong with both of them? How long could this possibly last? What do I do next? Where is my family? Why aren’t they here? How could they leave me alone to make all these decisions?” On and on the questions spun…
Saturday ended with Mom, given a generic diagnosis of complications from diabetes, staying on one floor while Dad rested in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. I went home, seeking reserves for the unknown journey looming ahead, hoping that my husband was keeping a place called normal, somewhere.
…
Reflection
Insanity
The dictionary housed within my computer defines insanity as the state of being seriously mentally ill; madness.
You might find that definition oddly encouraging. You're able to get up, get dressed, go about the day, and manage to take care of what you must. Everything feels so unfamiliar—as though you stepped into another dimension. The state that you might label insanity is really disorientation. You have somehow lost the stake that you always used to nail down reality. That’s why it feels like the ground is shifting under your feet.
You think, "This must be what it feels like to be crazy!"
Relax for a moment and know that you are not going mad! Disoriented, yes. Insane, absolutely not. Life may have heaved a bomb your direction, leading you to believe that everything you knew to be true has disappeared into smoke. Just realize that even though the ground is shifting beneath you, it’s still there. Why not take off your shoes, wiggle your toes and feel the earth. It may feel like standing in sand as the waves sweep in and out around your feet. In spite of your physical size, the ocean erodes the sand right out from under you. If the waves crash hard enough, you might even fall down. Oddly enough, even if you fall, there is still ground under you. Don’t worry about the shape. It will continue to change and it may be different tomorrow than it is today.
You are okay and you’re definitely not going crazy.
…
Chapter 7
Sleep
From the moment my phone rang on Saturday morning, my ability to sleep proportionately diminished with each decision I made about my parents. I’d heard other people describe the disruption of sleep as hospital-head or caregiver’s syndrome. In a sort of oddly comforting way, I appreciated the affirmation that I wasn’t the only person who had experienced this shift. Never before in my life had sleep been so elusive.
Several days after my parents’ admission to the hospital, my body, no longer able to function, kindly collapsed. Sleep briefly took me away from the reality of the hospital, and from talking, thinking, planning, and fearing the unknown. The blessed break didn’t last very long; just long enough to keep me going.
As time marched on I discovered that when I did sleep, I visited a marvelous place where my spirit sometimes quieted enough to receive a bit of clarity. I lost track of the times when I felt as though I were drowning in the ocean of decisions, having no idea what step to take next. Without explanation, in the place between sleep and awakening, reliable answers often bubbled up and upon fully waking, I trusted the guidance.
The stress of caring for my parents never again lessened as, during any twenty-four hour period, there was always more to deal with than humanly possible. Hours turned into days. Days became weeks. Weeks grew into months and months eventually became years. My sleep difficulties continued and ironically, when I finally found the time to sleep, somehow, I seemed to have forgotten how.
…
Reflection
Rest vs. Sleep
You might think that rest and sleep are interchangeable words for the same activity. Go without sleep and your body begins to betray you by systems shutting down and erratic thinking. Your body needs sleep to repair itself and to reset for the next awake-period. Not sleeping is a lot like not eating or drinking. Stop eating, drinking or sleeping and you can’t sustain yourself very long. Sometimes during a time of unusual stress, you may find the ability to sleep nearly impossible. The mind/body doesn’t wind down far enough to let you drift off. So, what can you do if sleep won’t visit you? First of all, don’t worry about going to sleep. Worrying about not sleeping only makes it harder to fall asleep.
Try taking a rest.
Rest does not have to involve sleep but it does require you to stop your activity. Resting allows you to somewhat refresh, relax and recover. Sit for a while and put up your feet. Watch a pointless movie or read a romance novel or a magazine. Better yet, treat yourself to some sort of electronic device that, along with a set of headphones, allows you to enter another world through guided meditation, music, or listening to an audio book. And while you're at it, during these mini-respite breaks, enjoy the side benefit of blocking out noises like the phone and droning conversations.
One other thing—know that eventually sleep will return to you. It might not be the same as before the period of stress, but you will sleep again.
For the time being, just take a rest.
What is without periods of rest
will not endure
− Ovid
…
Chapter 8
Broken Hearts
Sunday morning, 24 hours after my dad entered the hospital, I was summoned by his doctors. Upon arriving I was told that Dad had suffered a heart attack. As if that weren’t enough for Dad’s body