For those who recall my post about my mother last week, I'm sure you may understand how therapeutic posting these blogs can be. She had her nephrostomy tube (a tube inserted into the back through the ribs and connects to the kidney for assistance with the expulsion of toxins) removed on Monday, at which point the clock was started.
A few days before she had that tube removed, she had been rummaging through her belongings in an attempt to try and wrap up what she could and try to disperse her belongings to her family. She gave me some "Mother's Day" jewelry she wanted to give to my fiance and a coin collection she's had for decades to give to my son, as well as some jewelry she gave to my brother to give to his daughters.
However, I think the hardest thing for me was when she found a drawing from 1989 that was a caricature created of me at a skating rink. Back in those days, our class had a skate party about once a month. One month when I was in the 4th grade, they had an artist sitting in and drawing simple little profile caricatures. When Mom came to pick me up (back in the 80's, it was totally cool to just leave your kid in a public place and leave. LOL) I begged her for one of these drawings. Unfortunately, she turned me down and I was just crushed. I had to have one of these drawings of me. I proceeded to toss the biggest fit the entire ride home. We made it all the way to our driveway and I didn't let up.
We sat there in the driveway for about 30 seconds, and suddenly she said,
"FINE!! We're going back to get it!"
So then we drove all the way back to the skating rink and paid for the drawing to be made. I was the last one to get one, and I never saw that artist again.
We are nearing the end, and things are getting harder and harder even just from morning to evening, let alone by the day.
We expected something more on the scale of weeks, but it appears very clearly that it's going to be only a matter of days. We are sticking with her 24/7 to help her in any way we can as she continues to decline. She can no longer speak to us, and we're unsure if she knows we're there. But she's ready, she's at peace. She's told us she hopes this doesn't last long, and according to her nurse, it appears that we may be looking at tonight or tomorrow.
So I'm leaving to go back over there the moment I post this.
Thank you all for the support you all have given me. This has been so incredibly hard.
