April 23, 2008--Snowbirding: Mothercare (Concluded)
Thus the first kind of comforting I was able to bring involved trying to help raise my mother from her depression while she was still in the ICU—she needed to be there for the careful monitoring it provided—in the hope that she would agree to eat something. Anything. This was extremely important, I was told, since the IV feeding was insufficient to help maintain her weight, which would be subsequently important if, in the felicitous words of one of the nurses, “She makes it [i.e., lives long enough] to rehab.”
It is never easy to convince or cajole anyone that hospital food is anything but abysmal and even unhealthy. That they must view it as essential to their recovery as their almost equally unpleasant medications. It is a wonder that even a happy and optimistic patient—one, for example, who has just had a rejuvenating facelift—could mobilize any interest in overcooked vegetables or pot roast that is indistinguishable from those limp greens. Thus, to get someone in the ICU who has just had a stroke to think about eating that tasteless mush, even a forkful or two of it, is a challenge. It’s doubly difficult to feel motivated about eating when the screen that endlessly displays vital signs is constantly and alarmingly flashing and beeping and buzzing. Especially when on occasion, when the power surges, it goes terrifyingly flat line. And it is additionally difficult to think about eating if that stroke, as it did with my mother, results in even a small deficit in manual dexterity. Her continuously quivering right hand clear evidence of this.
Thus, you have a picture of my mother two days after the onset of her stroke. The ICU nurses reported that she hadn’t eaten a thing. Not even the Ensure supplement, which was prescribed to make up for any nutritional gaps in her “intake”—along with “output” another felicitous piece of hospital jargon.
Wanting to avoid the Ensure I understood. During one of my own hospitalizations, where the food was even worse that what the Florida Medical Center served up, they had tried to get me to down some. I made a valiant effort, but choked on the chalky taste that managed to penetrate the chocolate flavor that was meant to mask it. So I didn’t even try to get my mother to drink any, I knew better than that, concentrating instead of what looked like it might have once been chicken that was lying, untouched, on her tray that second evening when we visited.
Trying to be upbeat and chipper in spite of her unaccustomed immobility and the look on her face that could not hide the fact that she realized the trouble she was still very much in—it is difficult in an ICU to distract yourself from feeling dangerously vulnerable (the man in the bed to her left, in a “room” that was separated from hers by only a curtain so she and we could easily hear, though we did not want to, the doctors telling family members that he had only hours to live)—in the face of how I found my mother, and not being very good myself at pretending that all was well when I knew it wasn’t, still I tired, in the spirit of knowing that my assignment in this was to bring comfort, I said, “You’re looking better than you seemed this morning.”
Nothing came back to me from my mother so I chirped on, “But I see that you didn’t touch any of your food.” To this she grunted and, with eyes closed as if to put the tepid food out of sight, she agitatedly shook her head from side to side. I was glad to see she had the capacity to do that. I took it as a sign that she was in fact doing better than the morning when moving her head or just smiling seemed beyond her abilities.
“Did you try any? The nurse told me it’s very important to eat. I know the food’s not good, but . . .”
“Salty,” my mother grumbled and resumed shaking her head violently side to side. I knew she hated salty food.
I looked over at the tray and saw that the chicken, as it cooled, appeared to be growing a crust. But still I said, “I know it’s salty,” almost adding and drying out, “but you need to try to eat. You won’t get better if you don’t.” To this, with great effort, she raised her left hand and, letting it tremble, drew attention to the fact that an IV line was inserted in the crook of that arm; and, by looking up at the plastic bag that was connected to the line, showed me in that way that she was getting nutrition.
“Yes,” I said, “you do get some benefit from that but not enough. You still need to eat. Food.” She continued shaking her head back and forth. I was beginning to worry that by doing this she might bring about another stroke. This couldn’t be good for the blood flow to the back of her brain where the clot had formed. So, to try to stop her and to get some, such as it was, real food into her, I said, “How about if I help you.” Immediately the head shaking stopped. “You know, what if I cut up the food into little pieces and I feed you?” She made a humming sound which I took to be assent.
Taking advantage of that, before she could change her mind and resume her head shaking, I rolled to her bed the adjustable table on which the tray had been placed and cranked it up so it would fit comfortably over her. I then raised the top of the bed so that she was more or less in a sitting position. Rona adjusted her pillows to make her more comfortable. And while she was doing that I cut the slab of now room-temperature chicken into tiny pieces. Blow the plastic line that brought oxygen to her nostrils, my mother appeared to be smiling.
“Here are some mashed potatoes. I know you like them.” (But you won’t like these, I thought.) “Now open wide.” I brought the fork with a small amount of the potatoes to her mouth while cupping my other hand under her chin to catch whatever might fall off.
“That’s good,” I said encouragingly as she strained to lift her head from the pillow and, as I had instructed, opened her mouth.
“That’s good,” I said as she sucked in some of the potatoes while the rest fell into my waiting hand. “That’s a good girl.”
A good what? Had I said girl? To my mother? I called her a girl?
Indeed I had. And, I realized, I had been talking to her as if she were not only a girl but a very little one.
As I heard myself—especially my deliberate cadence and tone—from some deep almost prehensile part of myself--I recognized the echo of these words and this intonation as the very ones my mother had employed with me many decades ago when I was her little boy, sick at home with the chicken pox or measles, as she, in the ICU, had become my little girl.
* * *
But even with my mother there, connected to a forest of life-sustaining IV tubes and monitor lines, with the diagnosis still uncertain, with her not as yet out of danger, and with her rapidly approaching 100th birthday, still, in spite of all these signs of frailty and the evidence of her impending mortality, I continued to need to believe that she was capable of rising from that bed and unhooking herself so she could be available to nurture and love me. As she has been through the decades when I had the croup or my tonsils needed to be removed or when I came home bloodied from the schoolyard or, much later, when I faced intestinal surgery. Because, though our roles have to some extent been reversed as a consequence of aging and illness, I still need my mother to be my mommy.
It is never easy to convince or cajole anyone that hospital food is anything but abysmal and even unhealthy. That they must view it as essential to their recovery as their almost equally unpleasant medications. It is a wonder that even a happy and optimistic patient—one, for example, who has just had a rejuvenating facelift—could mobilize any interest in overcooked vegetables or pot roast that is indistinguishable from those limp greens. Thus, to get someone in the ICU who has just had a stroke to think about eating that tasteless mush, even a forkful or two of it, is a challenge. It’s doubly difficult to feel motivated about eating when the screen that endlessly displays vital signs is constantly and alarmingly flashing and beeping and buzzing. Especially when on occasion, when the power surges, it goes terrifyingly flat line. And it is additionally difficult to think about eating if that stroke, as it did with my mother, results in even a small deficit in manual dexterity. Her continuously quivering right hand clear evidence of this.
Thus, you have a picture of my mother two days after the onset of her stroke. The ICU nurses reported that she hadn’t eaten a thing. Not even the Ensure supplement, which was prescribed to make up for any nutritional gaps in her “intake”—along with “output” another felicitous piece of hospital jargon.
Wanting to avoid the Ensure I understood. During one of my own hospitalizations, where the food was even worse that what the Florida Medical Center served up, they had tried to get me to down some. I made a valiant effort, but choked on the chalky taste that managed to penetrate the chocolate flavor that was meant to mask it. So I didn’t even try to get my mother to drink any, I knew better than that, concentrating instead of what looked like it might have once been chicken that was lying, untouched, on her tray that second evening when we visited.
Trying to be upbeat and chipper in spite of her unaccustomed immobility and the look on her face that could not hide the fact that she realized the trouble she was still very much in—it is difficult in an ICU to distract yourself from feeling dangerously vulnerable (the man in the bed to her left, in a “room” that was separated from hers by only a curtain so she and we could easily hear, though we did not want to, the doctors telling family members that he had only hours to live)—in the face of how I found my mother, and not being very good myself at pretending that all was well when I knew it wasn’t, still I tired, in the spirit of knowing that my assignment in this was to bring comfort, I said, “You’re looking better than you seemed this morning.”
Nothing came back to me from my mother so I chirped on, “But I see that you didn’t touch any of your food.” To this she grunted and, with eyes closed as if to put the tepid food out of sight, she agitatedly shook her head from side to side. I was glad to see she had the capacity to do that. I took it as a sign that she was in fact doing better than the morning when moving her head or just smiling seemed beyond her abilities.
“Did you try any? The nurse told me it’s very important to eat. I know the food’s not good, but . . .”
“Salty,” my mother grumbled and resumed shaking her head violently side to side. I knew she hated salty food.
I looked over at the tray and saw that the chicken, as it cooled, appeared to be growing a crust. But still I said, “I know it’s salty,” almost adding and drying out, “but you need to try to eat. You won’t get better if you don’t.” To this, with great effort, she raised her left hand and, letting it tremble, drew attention to the fact that an IV line was inserted in the crook of that arm; and, by looking up at the plastic bag that was connected to the line, showed me in that way that she was getting nutrition.
“Yes,” I said, “you do get some benefit from that but not enough. You still need to eat. Food.” She continued shaking her head back and forth. I was beginning to worry that by doing this she might bring about another stroke. This couldn’t be good for the blood flow to the back of her brain where the clot had formed. So, to try to stop her and to get some, such as it was, real food into her, I said, “How about if I help you.” Immediately the head shaking stopped. “You know, what if I cut up the food into little pieces and I feed you?” She made a humming sound which I took to be assent.
Taking advantage of that, before she could change her mind and resume her head shaking, I rolled to her bed the adjustable table on which the tray had been placed and cranked it up so it would fit comfortably over her. I then raised the top of the bed so that she was more or less in a sitting position. Rona adjusted her pillows to make her more comfortable. And while she was doing that I cut the slab of now room-temperature chicken into tiny pieces. Blow the plastic line that brought oxygen to her nostrils, my mother appeared to be smiling.
“Here are some mashed potatoes. I know you like them.” (But you won’t like these, I thought.) “Now open wide.” I brought the fork with a small amount of the potatoes to her mouth while cupping my other hand under her chin to catch whatever might fall off.
“That’s good,” I said encouragingly as she strained to lift her head from the pillow and, as I had instructed, opened her mouth.
“That’s good,” I said as she sucked in some of the potatoes while the rest fell into my waiting hand. “That’s a good girl.”
A good what? Had I said girl? To my mother? I called her a girl?
Indeed I had. And, I realized, I had been talking to her as if she were not only a girl but a very little one.
As I heard myself—especially my deliberate cadence and tone—from some deep almost prehensile part of myself--I recognized the echo of these words and this intonation as the very ones my mother had employed with me many decades ago when I was her little boy, sick at home with the chicken pox or measles, as she, in the ICU, had become my little girl.
* * *
But even with my mother there, connected to a forest of life-sustaining IV tubes and monitor lines, with the diagnosis still uncertain, with her not as yet out of danger, and with her rapidly approaching 100th birthday, still, in spite of all these signs of frailty and the evidence of her impending mortality, I continued to need to believe that she was capable of rising from that bed and unhooking herself so she could be available to nurture and love me. As she has been through the decades when I had the croup or my tonsils needed to be removed or when I came home bloodied from the schoolyard or, much later, when I faced intestinal surgery. Because, though our roles have to some extent been reversed as a consequence of aging and illness, I still need my mother to be my mommy.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
3:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home