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By Lori Newman It is my mother's last admission to
the hospital and I am there for my daily visit.
Two days prior she learned that
her stomach cancer had returned.
I open the hospital room door
to find no one there. The bed is made - a pillow with the hospital emblem lies
atop a clean, white sheet. The closet is empty. Her flowers are gone.
Where's my mother? As I rush
down the hall I am five years old again, lost and frightened in the Stop 'n Shop
as the manager calls over the loudspeaker, "Could Mrs. Carol Cohen please come
to the front of the store?"
The intern informs me that my mother was
moved closer to the nursing station because she fell during the night. She
explains that the morphine can cause a "twilight" sensation so that the patient
thinks it's morning when it's not.
I envision my mother, believing
she's at home, falling as she gets out of the hospital bed to answer my father's
call to make breakfast.
Her new roommate is a stout, elderly woman.
There is a crowd of people on her side of the room behind the drawn curtain.
They keep talking to her, loudly. I try to ignore them as I talk to my mom to
see how she is doing.
She doesn't remember falling.
She is more sad today and doesn't want me to leave.
"Stay a little longer."
I feel guilty for wanting to
slip out quickly. I would give anything for her to throw back the covers and
say, "Enough of this, let's go shopping." Instead I try not to look at the
commode placed next to her bed.
The next morning I call her on the
phone. She pleads to be moved to a new room. She tells me that her roommate made
terrible gaseous noises all night while moaning, "I am going to die. I am going
to die."
I immediately call the nursing
station and demand a room change. I hound the housestaff until she is moved.
I return to the hospital later that day. Mother has been transferred to
a private room. She is more relaxed and able to sleep. This is better. This too
is palliative care.
But I am sad that she had to
endure such an ordeal and forever haunted by the thought of my mother lying in
the dark, listening to those words spoken aloud, I am going to
die.
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