The fact that Mom lived on her own and that my Aunt A lives 2 hours away; I live 45 minutes away, have children and a full time job; and my sister lives just out of town but also works and has 2 children made it difficult to have someone with Mom whenever she needed it.\u00a0 So God sent us angels.\u00a0 There were many more than we even knew about I\u2019m sure.\u00a0 But today I\u2019ll describe 1 very important angel.<\/p>\n
The time that Mom spent at St B hospital during August and September of 2009 was difficult to say the least.\u00a0 How do you deal with being told that your abdomen is full of tumors?\u00a0 And we all tried to be there as much as possible but our lives did have to go on outside of the hospital.\u00a0 One bright spot was her roommate, let\u2019s call her Daisy.\u00a0 Daisy was amazing for Mom.\u00a0 She had an incredible sense of humor and really cared about Mom.\u00a0 She would look out for her and let us know if anything unusual had gone on while we weren\u2019t there.\u00a0 This was so important because my Mom wouldn\u2019t tell us what the doctor or nurse had said if we weren\u2019t there to hear it.\u00a0 Mom couldn\u2019t handle what she had been told most of the time so she would usually say that she didn\u2019t know what they had said or just that we should speak with the charge nurse.\u00a0 And so that\u2019s where we would go.\u00a0 But Daisy was able to give us insight every once in a while that the nurses couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 Daisy wasn\u2019t nosy, she was vigilant and caring.<\/p>\n
One day 3 or 4 doctors came into Mom\u2019s room and spoke to her about her condition.\u00a0 And to this day we don\u2019t know what that conversation was because Daisy knew when privacy was needed and left the room and Mom never even mentioned that doctors had been there.\u00a0 Once I had spoken with Daisy I knew better than to ask Mom about the conversation.\u00a0 When Daisy came back and the doctor\u2019s were leaving one of them leaned over and said, \u201cKeep her laughing, she\u2019s going to need it.\u201d\u00a0 Daisy took this seriously and made it her mission to keep my Mom\u2019s spirits up.\u00a0 And Mom was very quiet after that conversation with the doctors so she didn\u2019t ask her either, just gave her some space so she could deal with whatever it was that she had been told.<\/p>\n
There was also a day that I arrived and Mom was in quite a good mood and she proceeded to tell me that the doctor had been there to tell her that there was hope.\u00a0 Her prognosis wasn\u2019t as dire as they had previously said.\u00a0 The doctors were going to do chemo and they had high hopes.\u00a0 I was hesitant to believe this based on everything else we had been told but joined in Mom\u2019s relief.\u00a0 As soon as I could I got away with Daisy to ask her if she knew anything about what my Mom had said.\u00a0 Daisy hadn\u2019t heard the conversation because she again had left when the doctor came but it was so good to talk to her and get her perspective to bring me back to reality.\u00a0 I then talked to the doctor the next day and found out that Mom had not been completely truthful.\u00a0 The doctors had come to tell her that she was not able to be cured but that if she was up to it they would start chemo treatments as soon as she had recovered enough.\u00a0 The chemo would hopefully get rid of whatever small tumors were left over from surgery.\u00a0 But they couldn\u2019t guarantee how much time she would have after the chemo stopped before the tumors would return.\u00a0 And they would return.\u00a0 I was devastated.\u00a0 I wanted so badly to believe her and I felt duped.\u00a0 I think that was when my resolve to always second guess got stronger.\u00a0 Again I went to Daisy just to talk and make sense of it.\u00a0 And she calmed me down by saying that my Mom didn\u2019t mean to mislead me she just didn\u2019t want to be the one to tell me the real news.\u00a0 She told me as much as could deal with and wanted me to get the rest from the doctors.\u00a0 Mom hadn\u2019t wanted us to worry.\u00a0\u00a0 That helped enormously to understand where Mom was coming from.<\/p>\n
Mom and Daisy had a great time together watching old Elvis movies, joking about the food and joking with the nurses.\u00a0 Daisy would join right in when visitors were there and then leave for a while to be sure Mom had the time she needed.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how deep their conversations ever got but I don\u2019t think that was Daisy\u2019s part on Mom\u2019s team.\u00a0 They became friends; something Mom really needed being in the city away from her other friends in Steinbach.\u00a0 And Daisy became an ally that we could rely on to watch out for her when we weren\u2019t there.\u00a0 When Mom found out Daisy was going home she was quite upset.\u00a0\u00a0 They had been roommates for a month.\u00a0 You get to know and trust a person over the period of a month.\u00a0 Mom had more really good roommates but no one like Daisy.\u00a0 They kept up after they had both left the hospital and Daisy was at Mom\u2019s funeral.\u00a0 We are so very thankful to Daisy for making Mom\u2019s life a little brighter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The fact that Mom lived on her own and that my Aunt A lives 2 hours away; I live 45 minutes away, have children and a full time job; and my sister lives just out of town but also works … Continue reading