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I know I'm late on this, but this is in dedication of Mother's Day. I had decided to finish up on a post series I started last year. The conclusion to Not ready to be an Orphan Part I, since it was about my mother. Before the series...Are We there yet,Von, I received an email from a long time reader, but non commenter, about why I start stories in post and never finish or come back with the second part. This post is not only in dedication to the female motherer bloggers I know Southern Gal, Real Hustla, and Lady Nay, eventhough I don't think she reads my blog much anymore.I have enjoyed reading about O and Poca, and Ishmeal, and Real Hustla's other little girl, that I can't remember's name at this moment. I wanted to send out a belated Happy Mother's Day. I think Belated should be my middle name. Anyway better late than never right. I also wanted to send this out to one of my quiet blog readers Baij, who wanted to know what happen to my mother, if you are still out there, here it is, just as I had started many many months ago.
It amazes me how sometimes when you are going through something, you read something, or watch something, or talk to someone, that has a story that resonates with what you are going through at that same time. Well mine happen to be an episode of Frazier rerun. i happen to be watching this rerun the night before my mother's operation. In this episode Niles has some odd luck, some weird things happen and he thinks his chances have been to good, and based off something a friend tells him, he decides to go to the doctor. Well just like my mother he thinks everything is going to check out all right, but they find something on the test and decide that Niles needs to have surgery on his heart right away. Well in the follow up episode, that came on right after it, Niles is in the hospital, had has some flashbacks about other events that happen right there in that hospital, in his life. He describes how if hospital walls could talk what would they say about you.
Well, as I walked through one of the hospital's lobbies the morning of my mother's operation. I couldn't help think about that very same thing. Although this hospital has three different lobbies and main entrance. There Is one I remember always going into. As me and my mom and her surgery day entourage head to the set of elevators for her check-in I pass some club chairs that I remember sitting in one other occasion. Although from my mom's house, there is at least 4 hospitals I can think of off the top of my head that is in a 10-15 minute radius of her house, one being an university hospital, I can truly say I only remember experience with one hospital growing up. We lived in only two different houses, growing up, and they were only 5 minutes apart really. I was still in the same school district. Anyway as I walked into this familiar surroundings. I thought about my history in this hospital. As I was saying as I walked across the marble floors that morning and passed by the different sets of club chairs, I couldn't help but think about my experiences there. I started to think...really if these hospital walls could talk...
I would think it would say to me, You again?...long time no see. My how you have grown. boy time sure does fly...
This was the hospital that little over a couple decades ago my mother was told by my father you did good. That a nurse asked her, "...That's right, you haven't seen your son yet, have you? Now let me say this I see a lot of babies but I will have to admit Mrs. Black your son is the prettiest baby in the nursery right now." See back in the 80s when women had C-section, they knocked you completely out. Not like now, where from what I understand a woman's body is just numb from the neck or chest down, and they are awake for the whole thing. I was 6 or 8 hours old, before my mother saw me...
This was the same hospital where my father told my mother, to go down to the cafeteria to get him something, when I got my tonsils taken out. He wanted to be alone with me. As soon as she left, it was business time. We did what we did best negotiated. In order for me to be discharged from the hospital, I had to drink so much liquid. At that point I had drunk nothing, because it felt like razors going down. He knew me well back then, and propositioned me. If I drunk the required amount, I could rent 5 movies of whatever I wanted. I countered with 10. In the end we settled on 8 but I had to drink more than the required, to make him look good. By the time my mother got back all liquids had been consumed for the doctors. As crazy as it sounds for a 7 year older, I believe I ended up with everyone of the Police Academy movies...
This was the same hospital, where a year later, my grandmother visiting out from out of town, said she just didn't feel good and was rushed into the emergency room. Who was taken from this world, by God, that same evening, on Mother's Day...
This was the same hospital, a couple years ago, where a nurse asked my father was he alright?...and if he needed anything, to let her know and that she was going to leave the door open just in case..." This being after I snapped after another nurse and told her, "Yes he is fine, now leave us alone, now!" My heated words about things he had done in the past and after not seeing him for quite some time, filling the hallways, and scaring nurses...
This was the same hospital where the next day I finally let my years of anger towards him go, and forgave him...
This was the same hospital where one year later, I ran in and was greeted on those same marble floors and was told to sit in those same club chairs and told that, I was 5 minutes too late, and that my father died 5 minutes ago...
The stories and history of me and this particular hospital are endless and even more detailed. Even though it's a building I can't help but think of it as an old friend who has been watching you grow up and hold all your past. As we got onto the elevators, I couldn't help but think about what else journey the two of us will experience together. How else will it play a part in my life.
We go to the 4th floor, where my mother checks in. It's about 5:30 in the morning. One of the first surgeries of the day. I didn't sleep much the night before...well not at all to be honest. Had nothing to do anxiety or nervousness. Just wasn't sleepy, for some reason. Am attractive brown skin woman at the massive desk takes her into the code access doors and tells me and the entourage to wait 15 minutes. We all were quite, my family being completely quite is...well...it isn't completely normal, that's for sure. They same lady, not sure if she is a nurse or what, she is dressed quite professional and and stylish, comes back out to tell us we can go in, for a few minutes before they start prep and anaesthesia. We head back to where she is. She is out of her clothes and has on her hospital gown and laying out in a bed, in a prep area, with her anaesthesiologist. apparently talking to him about his career...how do I know, when I walk in she has to tell me all about what exactly he does, and for me to talk to him. Always on the hunt for a career path for me, that she thinks is mom approved and that she would want for me to have and pursue. To the very end she is worried about my future. Her words are always, "You are a parent to the day you die!" We all say a family prayer. That's when I can't handle it anymore. I look down at her, as my time back there is coming to an end, and we have to leave and it really hits me then, everything that is truly about to go down. This past several days, since the cauterization, I haven't got upset or cried, or thought really much at all about it. I felt almost numb. We just took care of business. She went through were all the import paperwork and insurance policies were. We went down the to do list she put together; shutters and doors painted, driveway reglazed, extensive cleaning. She said, that out of the normal company was going to be stopping by the house while she was in the hospital, and she didn't want things looking tacky. Of course she had to throw in, that if anything happen to her, she didn't want people saying she kept a tacky house. My aunt would add, "As if anyone would think of that from you!" Through all of this time not an inch of emotion from me. However realization finally hit me in this last minute, and I couldn't take it anymore. I broke down. I don't cry as much as an adult as I use too. I especially don't like to cry in front of others. I keep it together and in until i am alone, but you gets not show out of me. However I couldn't take it anymore and just broke down,I did one of those kid cries. As I was in the arms of one of my aunts, I mouthed to her, "Don't you leave me." She gave me what felt like the weakest smile that she could muster up and mouthed back "I'll try." Then she gave me that everything is okay smile, that I learned from her. I wiped my eyes and pulled away from my aunt, and told myself to get it together. I grabbed her purse, and the bag she had all the things she wore into the hospital, and we head back to the waiting area.
Sometimes I feel like things really do happen for a reason. The current one being me not sleeping the night before. As soon as we went back into the waiting, that was on another floor, sleepiness fell on me. There was several couches and we camped out and waited during the surgery. I had gotten some New blankets from the stylish sista who escorted, when my mother check-in, before going back to another floor. The only time I woke up was when we all went to the cafeteria for breakfast. The hospital has a McDonald's in it, but I wanted something different that a biscuit or hot cakes. I ate a waffle and bacon and cheese omelet freshly prepared the chef in the cafeteria, and went back up to her floor and went back to sleep. I was up worried or having my mind think about the unknown future or certainty. Here's the thing about bypass surgery, they actually take your heart out of your body and work on it. It's actually an amazing thing, when you think about it. They take your body down to a temperature of in the 60's I believe it is, I could be wrong, but I believe that's correct, and they take your heart out of your body. They cut you open, and open up your rib cage. They take a vein out of your leg and bypass reconnect heart with the veins over the blocked arteries. While under anything can happen, either a heart attack or stroke. The heart is what gives your body life. From 6 that morning, when we left her side until about 2:30 I was under, what felt like a deep sleep, except for the time we ate breakfast and the time the moved us to a different floor, where she had been moved. I was knocked out, in a peaceful sleep. I was woken up once and told that the had incurred a slight problem and had to go back in. Other than that it felt as if I had been drugged. I feel like that was all under a Divine plan. For the last few hours it was a little worry, because of the having to go back, because there was slight leakage of some sort. Still not quite sure what that meant.
Around 3, we got the call into waiting room, and told that two members at a time could come back to the double doors, where the doctor will meet us and see her. Me and my aunt Cece were the first two. As I walked down the ICU hall, and the doctor talking about what was going on I wasn't hearing a word he was saying. I needed to see my mother. As I walked into her ICU room, I was a little taken back, at what I saw. There my mother was wrapped up like a mummy by blankets and covers, with tubes and vets coming from her to machines. They had to have her covered up like that, to keep her warm after bringing her body temperature down so far. The only thing visible was right around her face.
After different rounds of two saw her for 5 minutes, the doctor told us the best thing to do is let her rest. He told us that there wasn't anything left for us to do at the hospital, and for us to go home and rest, and come back later that evening. He gave us the number to her private ICU nurse, and that we can call anytime we like and get a check up on her from the private nurse. We left and back around 8 that night, and still she had not woke up out of the anaesthesia. The nurse told us that everyone reacts differently and has different times of coming out of it. I call back at 11 that night, and she still was out of it. The next morning around 6:30, we get a call from the ICU floor, that around 4:30 AM my mother woke up. Her account is that two men lifted her up and shook her awake. The nurse insist that they never lift patience and shake them. My mother holds on to that feeling however. We I went back to see her, that morning. She greeted me with a weak smile. Her body was still very tired. It had been thrown a lot. I smiled and talked to her for a few minutes. She then mouthed to me "I didn't leave you." I mouthed back, "No you didn't."
The last few months of last year were kinda rough and rocky on her way back to recovery. I might go into some other time. This Mother's Day, I was quite thankful to have her. That I had another one to be with her and to show her how much I love her. I know there are many who can't say that. She is one of them.This Mother's Day was a particularly hard one. Although it was many years ago, as I said above, my grandmother died on Mother's Day. This year however Mother's Day was the exact day she died in May, over a decade ago. My mother says it may get easier, but never stop missing your mother, wants they are gone.
