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callous
October 2009 
Waiting For Life or Death
Posted on Jul 30th, 2008
by 
Fearless
Fearless
MY MOTHER is hovering half way between life and death as I write this. In the past week she has suffered several heart attacks and is in intensive care, with a 50/50 chance of survival.
Mum is sweet-natured, gentle, loving and very, very patient and I think it is this capacity she has to surrender to another's will, that will bring her through this incredible trial.
But the horrible truth is that I don't want her to.
This is a shocking thing to even think, much less utter.
Mum has had heart disease for quite a number of years. Her heart has been severely damaged by these heart attacks - she has eight stents and the back wall of her heart is very bad affected. If she does recover, we've been told it will be a VERY long recovery process and will take a lot of rehabilitation just to get her to the stage where she can even have a modicum of mobility.
After previous heart surgeries, mum has proven to be a very stubborn lady when it comes to exercise and rehabilitation - she just hasn't wanted to do it! She gets fed up with taking medication and sometimes, even though she has been told not to, just decides to stop a particular tablet if she starts to feel better.
While my sister and I have come to terms with losing mum, our poor father is still grimly holding on to the hope that mum will come home and life will "get back to normal" - as in he has mum with him. Basically, he doesn't care what condition she is in - as long as she comes home to keep him company. He is making plans to bring a housekeeper in so that mum doesn't have any domestic responsibilities at all.
My parents have been married for 56 years (I was born when my father was only 21 years old and my mother 23). Mum and dad are so dissimiliar. While mum is quiet and gentle and placid, my father is fiery, bad-tempered, critical, judgemental and TOTALLY domeering. Life is fine as long as he gets his own way.
Fortunately for their relationship, mum has always been easy-going and quite willing for dad to make all the decisions and to control every aspect of their lives. But this is something that he doesn't have any control over and it's a struggle for him to get his head around the fact that he's not the one calling the shots on whether mum lives or dies.
As a family, we've made the decision that if she suffers another heart attack, hospital staff will 'shock' her heart once or maybe twice, but they will not administer CPR - essentially this is a 'Do Not Resuscitate' order. There comes a point where everyone has to accept that all this 'extraordinary' measures to give mum the best chance of life, are just prolonging the inevitable - her body just cannot sustain life anymore - especially her heart.
But this sweet, gentle lady surprises us. For the past four days she has been in a drug-induced coma so that she can be intubated and is on full life support - her heart, lungs and kidneys being fully supported by machines. This morning, when I checked with hospital staff, her kidneys are starting to work again and they are even considering taking her off dialysis.
While publicly expressing gladness that she is showing signs of improvement, I am privately thinking, "Oh god, I just want her battle to be over - I just want her to be at peace - and I want to be free of the responsibility of looking after her."
This is a shocking admission to make and one I'm wary of being struck down by lightning for making. (Catholic upbringings linger long).
If mum survives, I know I will be expected to delay, or even cancel, my plans for this great trip around Australia. She was so apprehensive about me being on the road on my own and her fears and anxieties were relayed to me several times as reasons why I shouldn't go.
This has put me in a position where I actually want my mother to die so I can be released from this burden of responsibility. I just feel this incredible pressure for me to live a life others want me to live. For them to be happy, I have to be unhappy. And I know she doesn't want that. She has said our whole lives - "I just want my children to be happy". Yet, the decisions I make, do lead to her being anxious or worried.
My holy grail is this road trip around Australia that I'll be setting off on on 1st September and I am determined that nothing will stand in my way. But can I be that callous?
My desire for her battle to be over isn't entirely because I want to drive guilt-free down the road, it's also because I know she hasn't been really happy the last several years - since my father retired. Without work responsibilities, dad has turned his attention to the home front and has become critical of the way mum does things around the house.
As far as he is concerned, she makes too much noise in the kitchen; doesn't have 'logical systems' for things; her driving isn't good enough; she is too absent-minded; isn't careful enough; drops too many things (she has bad arthritis in her hands) ... etc, etc. Even the way she makes the bed and washes the clothes has come under scrutiny.
Because he hates to be alone, every time she mentions going anywhere, dad says he'll come too so she just never has any time away from him. Mum loves shopping and dad hates it, yet he insists on going with her and then complaining the whole time about how long it's taking, so she gives up her plans, whatever they may be, to come home just so he'll stop whingeing.
She has given up her life to please him and I'm struggling not to do the same.
For me to live the life I want to live, I need to be free of parental guilt. I'm 55 years old - I don't want to spend the next 10, 15, 20 years of my life caring for aged and infirm parents. I must be a horrible person, or at the very least, incredibly selfish (which I know I am!)
Well, there you have it. I'm a terrible person. Or maybe a nice enough person, who's just made a terrible admission.
Does anyone get to live the life they want without feeling guilty?
Access: Public
Hello Fearless
I know what you are going through. There is never an easy answer, we just have to go through it. I wish you all the stregth, which I know go got. You mum will be in my prayers.
Thank you Riet. It is a rather arduous vigil we are keeping, not sure which way it would go initially, but now we know that within the next day or two her organs will begin to fail and she will be gone.
This deterioration is such a horror. We learnt yesterday that the doctors now suspect at some stage of her being in intensive care after her heart attacks, she has had a stroke and her brain has sustained an injury from lack of oxygen.
My lovely, kind, gentle mother has gone and in her place is a warm body which breathes, and heart beats but the essence of my mum has gone.
I'll stand vigil until then end, which will probably come in the next day or so. I will stand there and know that inside that lovely little milky-white skinned body, so soft and gentle, her organs are gradually failing and taking her away from us.
I've had the last conversation I'll ever have with her - which ended with a casual, “See you later mum!” Never mind, that will have to do. It's the place she occupies in my heart that is more important.
Grace