Breathing
posted in Arizona, Holidays and Festivals, Illnesses, OmegaGranny, OmegaMom |When you’re a new parent, with a small life depending on you, you find yourself doing strange things sometimes. One commonality that I’m sure my readers have experienced is how new moms and dads can find themselves stopping by their child’s bed in the night and watching—urgently, because you can’t hear the breathing and you’re afraid that something’s wrong. You wait, suspended in the moment, your anxiety ramping up, until you see the slow, gentle, up and down movement of your child’s torso in tune with her breathing, and you move on, reassured.
I found myself doing that with my mother while I was visiting over Christmas.
I’d be padding into the bathroom in the middle of the night, and find myself popping in to hover at the side of her bed over her, watching, suspended in the moment, my anxiety ramping up, until I saw that slow, gentle, up and down movement of her torso in time with her breathing. The anxiety was always there. I’d find myself sneaking in while she was taking a nap, just to be sure. The sound of her oxygen machine—which she’s used for years now—receded into the background, becoming part of the everyday noises of the house, but it was still loud enough so that when I’d check her, I’d have to get very close to see the small movements of breathing, to hear anything. I hovered, just checking.
When we first got there, my brother and family were ensconced in the living room, so we made a nest for OmegaDotter by the side of mom’s bed, and I slept in the bed with her. It wasn’t reassuring. She was not her normal self; she was lethargic, quiet, enervated. We were all worried. Bro and SIL had taken her on an overnight trip down to Tucson, and from the pictures, it looked like mom hadn’t gotten out of the car much.
So there I would be, in the middle of the night, waking up with one of my infamous hot flashes, and I’d hear mom gasping for breath, with a soft moaning sound that turned into a whimper. I would sit up and watch her, my brows furrowed, my heart aching. If it kept on, I would nudge her slightly awake, so that she would close her mouth and breathe from her nose instead, the nose which had the cannula of the oxygen tube. Then she could breathe, and I would be able to fall asleep again.
Her cardiologist had put her on a huge dose of Lipitor in mid-December. My brother—at least twice her weight, and with cholesterol levels much, much higher than hers, was on 10 mg per day; she was on 80. The theory, as we understood it, was that it was a jolt-dose, a purposeful systemic shock—but even so, it was unnerving. Especially since the medical listings of Lipitor on the web included “enervation”, “exhaustion”, and “weakness” as possible side effects. We made her promise to go to the doctor after we left to find out exactly why she was put on such a high dose, and see if he wouldn’t lower it. In the meantime, I suggested that she simply halve the pills and take half the dose.
The day before we were supposed to leave—after my brother and family had left themselves—we went out on a drive to the lake, to see the (vile, mean, odious, scary) geese who had chased me and grabbed my pants legs and pecked the back of my knees in a vain search for bread while I was videotaping them. It was chilly, but bright. The dotter and I wandered around, she fed the ducks and geese, I took photographs…and mom stayed in the car. Yes, it was chilly, but this was not like her. She said later that day that every day she felt just a little bit worse. Not a lot. But enough. And she was hardly eating at all.
That night, in the kicthen, as I was giving her a hug, I leaned my head on hers and whispered in her ear, “Would you like me to stay a bit longer?” She reached up her hand to cover mine on her shoulder and said softly, “I think…yes, I would.”
