My mom had her surgery on Tuesday.  I had been forewarned by numerous people that anaesthetic can have nasty effects on those who suffer with dementia.  I was warned that she may not come out the way she went in.  I was also advised to begin looking into funeral arrangements.

The morning of her surgery she also had dialysis which takes a toll on her every time.  She often spends a lot of the day sleeping after dialysis.  She looked a little weak when I met her in dialysis and I asked her if she was alright to walk over to the outpatient surgery or if I should get her a wheelchair.  She said she was fine, but before we made it out of the unit she was dangerously close to falling.  I sat her down right away and got a wheelchair.

We waited a little while in outpatient surgery before two nurses came to go over her paperwork.  That took a while.  The nurse completing the paperwork was unable to figure out her meds or even follow a simple direction.  The other nurse couldn’t figure out how to dial a phone number as it was being recited to her.  I don’t what would/could have been the outcome if they had tried to figure it out on their own.

During the question period to complete the paperwork the nurse asks my mom if she’s recently been tested for C. Dif.  She calmly, without looking up, says to my mom, “You would know if you had been.”  At which point, I had to point out to her that she may in fact, not know if she had been.  I don’t think she liked that, but too bad.

They finally managed to get the chart completed and proceeded to take swabs and blood in order to prepare for surgery.  Having the IV put in was very uncomfortable for my mom.  I could see the pain so clearly on her face.  She became sad at one point as the full extent of her medical condition hit her.  She really, at that moment, had no idea she was so sick.  I thought that this could very well be it.  I thought the anaesthetic was going to do it.  That the surgery was going to be the thing that put her over.

Luckily, after all the time we spent working on that pre-op paperwork and making sure the nurses and doctors knew everything that they were dealing with, they decided not to knock her out.  Of course, I didn’t know this until hours later when the surgery had been done and they brought her to her room.

I couldn’t believe how relieved I felt.

I think I’ve been preparing myself for the past month or so for my mom’s passing.  I thought I had come to terms with it and I thought I was fairly prepared.  I saw her and she looked pretty good considering the day she’d had. I said to her “You’re already awake”, she replied, “I was awake for the whole thing.”  I said, “How was that?” and she was like, “It was fine.  I didn’t feel a thing.”  She still doesn’t.  The neuropathy is so bad that she’s just undergone a partial amputation with no pain whatsoever!  Talk about a strange blessing.  My husband suffered the worst pain due to severed nerves and phantom pain and because her nerves are already dead, she’s cruising through this like any other day.  In kind of a weird way, she’s lucky.  I’m glad she’s not suffering, because having seen it first-hand, I know it’s incredibly hard.

Yesterday I was wiped out.  I could barely function.  I got to the point where I literally couldn’t remember the last time I showered.  I have been holding all of this so tightly in my body that I felt like my entire back was broken.  Last night, instead of staying up late “to work on another project or something I “should” be doing”, I went to bed early.  This morning I set my alarm, got up before my kids and took a nice, long shower.  After I took my daughter to school, I went and had my brows done.  I finally felt like a human being again.

I am so happy they didn’t put her under.  I don’t know what would have happened if they had and I don’t know how I would have dealt with it.  I think I’m just going to have to enjoy whatever time is left and try not to prepare myself anymore.  I can’t spend the rest of her life worrying about the next thing that can hurt her or go wrong with her health.

For now, she is well enough and we have another day together.

Counting my blessings and being grateful.  🙂