I know you’ll find little victories to celebrate alomg the way, so you won’t be overwhelmed by the anxiety.

Have faith that your doctor will know when the time is right for your mother to get back in her familiar surroundings. That will aid her recovery as much as anything.

It is hard to know what to say, other than that I wish for you and your family all the best of health, strength, and wisdom that your situation requires. I am truly glad that the blogosphere has allowed us all to form this community, which has offered us the chance to get to know you. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Your posts are always enlightening and very thought provoking. Thank you so much!

YOUR MOM
Your quest to “engender hope in the hopeless, et al” is very heartwarming and must be so sad and frustrating for you and your family!

My mother died of lung cancer and the short but very definitive lead time we had, was one of the best gifts we ever could have received.

Your profession probably already has educated you relative to the following comments but sometimes things are much different when one is actually involved on a personal level and not professionally.

Please take the “out of the blue” comment noted below as one strictly of caring and concern.

Having worked in healthcare for many years and dealing with many people in the latter stages of life, it makes me wonder if “God/the universe/your mother’s soul/whatever” chose this latest episode to occur more for some or all of the people around her than actually for her (or maybe both). Maybe an opportunity for…

Ultimately, you and your family are the only ones that can really answer this question but it appears to me that much was said in your VERY PROFOUND post. It sounded to me like your soul was doing the writing!

CHEERS TO MOMS EVERYWHERE!

Warmly,
Josh

I’m am going thru this now with my Dad who has finally had 60+ years of smoking catch up with him. They call it COPD these days. Puliminary disease for short and with a diagnosis of “this will never get any better”. I’ve spent the last month and a half in hospitals and rehab with him all the while thinking of his mortality and mine alike. Me just 7 months into a rehabed heart.

The best we can do is live one day at a time, keep active and continue to have hope and things to look forward to, no matter how far along we are.

She’s another pessimistic realist, though, and after awhile, she realized that the hot meals, the companionship and the care at the rehab center made up for problems like a lack of privacy and nurses who condescend to the patients. Now that she’s been to a rehab/nursing center, she knows that it’s not all bad. If she has to go back, she thinks she could handle it.

Most people who have a hard time in nursing homes are upset because they’re confused or frightened by the place. If Grandma hadn’t gone into rehab, she would have thought that going into a nursing home is the end of the world. The experience turned a pessimist into one of those glass-half-full kinds of people.

What makes all this worse is that she and my 81 yr-old Dad live with and care for my 46 year old severely handicapped old brother (a former pro golfer) who suffers from MS. About twelve years ago, they built a beautiful single story new house, so that they could take care of him.

What I try to see from all the loss, pain and difficulty I see in my family is the amount of love between them,in spite of considerable stress and strain. And I see the flow of love coming from other people, esp towards my brother and I’m grateful for that.

I heard from a good friend out there that her mother is in a hospital suffering from severe Parkinson’s. We in our 50s, we’re all going to experience this.
Thanks for sharing, neo. I feel less alone.

And it’s like having that first child, too, in that you’re uncertain and scared and it seems overwhelming at times. You recognize that you’ve entered an entirely novel part of your life and you’re not sure what to do with it.

For the most part, I find that people’s deaths are a logical extension of how they’ve lived…though you ususally can’t see that until later.

You’re in uncharted waters in a very fragile craft. Take care.

My mother suffered a broken pelvis at the age of 95. She hated having to be taken care of, but she managed to recover enough to live another year and a half, fairly mobile and still with it.

As Betty Davis is reputed to have said: Old age isn’t for sissies.

Hang in there.

I did want to urge you not to discount the possibility that your mother’s pessimism may, in fact, be one of her ’strong suits’ after all. When I read about ‘constructive pessimism’ several years ago, it rang very true to me. Your mother’s attitude may well be a positive adaptation for her. Here’s hoping that it serves her well in this difficult time.

Best wishes to your Mom, and to you. Take care …