Saturday night for Mom

We visited Mom in the evening, from about 9PM to 11PM. There's nothing new to say about her condition; however, we did find out that she's receiving her new, petroleum-based eye drops every four hours, and is receiving her diuretic as needed, depending on urine output. She's still puffy, and we keep hoping that she'll be less swollen as time goes on. Her heart rate remains high, and her blood pressure is at the high end of normal. I'm worried that, even unconscious, Mom is experiencing a great deal of discomfort.

Most of our time with Mom was spent in silence around her bed. Dad gravitated to Mom's toes, saying that he was always the one to massage Mom's feet, and that she'd know he was there. We three boys took turns holding Mom's hands.

The nurse told us that she would give Mom a thorough cleaning and working-over as soon as we left, and we decided to leave at 11PM so as not to delay the process. Part of the cleaning procedure would involve suction, and as we'd already seen, the suctioning of Mom's airway caused her a great deal of pain. We wanted the unpleasantness over with sooner rather than later, so that she could sleep longer.

Everyone said their goodbyes on the way out of Mom's berth. I whispered that I would see her again tomorrow, and apologized yet again for not being able to do more for her.


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