update

I think we are in the clear. *Knock on wood* That's what I thought during the last post, but the next day they called me again and had to re-ventilate my mom because she was just so weak and her lungs couldn't breathe. But two days ago they took out the tube and yesterday I visited her and she was sitting up in bed, putting on makeup, reading a murder mystery. I laughed out loud when I saw her. There is a specific laugh my family has when we recognize absurdity in the most grim situations- like yesterday when I walk into her room in the ICU and she has the social workers and nurses sitting around her bed smiling. In hospitals- my mom is a movie star. They love her. It's good because making an impression probably greatly increases your chances of survival in a world where so many people are coming in and out all of the time. I laughed and laid my head on her lap and she soothed my hair in a way she hasn't really done in awhile. I laughed some more when she told me that she was in a military hospital and the sign on the wall (which really read MICU) said "FULL METAL JACKET" and she asked me to call my ex-marine brother to see if he wanted her to steal him one. I pulled a mirror from my purse and put it in front of her to show her the Cathedral of Learning through the window behind her. You're in Oakland, Mom, I said, There are no military hospitals in Oakland. She was satisfied for a few minutes and then explained that because my dad was in Vietnam, we get shipped to top secret military hospitals when "shit starts hitting the fan on the outside." I told her she was confusing her dreams of the last two unconscious weeks with her reality. She nodded.

At this point I am a little worried about what the long term effects will be. The nurse handed me a sealed plastic bag with all the pill bottles they found laying around her head when the ambulance came to her apartment. There were over eight empty bottles of strong psychoactive "medications," including seroquel and lamictal. Seroquel is particularly disturbing to me. I once took a few from my mom and a guy friend of mine took one and passed out within minutes. They are so strong. This friend was about two hundred pounds and young- so imagine what an overdose of them can do to a 100 pound woman. But so far, so good. She seems very alert and aware. Stubborn as always.

The night before yesterday was hellish. I was up all night with anxiety attacks, thinking she was going to die, trying to anticipate all the terrible ways such a tragic event would change me, forever alter me against my will. The next morning I call and the nurse tells me she was successfully weaned off of the ventilator, but she was refusing to take a feeding tube. Her vocal chords are very weak and a little damaged from the way her throat was swelled and the way the EMT's had to rough them up to open an airway. (The EMT'S in the apartment kept saying, "she has the throat of a twelve year old girl! She's just so small!) So, it's difficult for her to swallow and her gag relfex is weak. Anything she eats or drinks is going into her lungs and she is so thin that they have to put the feeding tube in and she was refusing it, ripping it out when they got it in successfully. I was yelling at the nurse, "well, fucking tie her down! Restrain her!" The nurse said, "we can't. We can't go against the patients wishes."

"Her wishes?! What are you hospital Kevorkian? She tried to kill herself. What's the point of your twenty four hour sitter then? Why not just hand her a razor blade if that's her wish."
"Ma'am. We can't restrain her. She is very clear headed and she is refusing the feeding tube."

So, I rush out of bed and get to the hospital in like five minutes. I roll in there with fury from hell and tell my mom plainly that if she doesn't accept the feeding tube I'm going to kill her. I thought of that scene in "What's Love Got to Do With It" where Ike Turner is leaning over Tina's unconscious body in the ambulance whispering, "If you die. If you die, bitch, I'm gonna kill you." My mom and I both start laughing and she agrees to accept it as long as they use a different method of holding it in... some details I don't understand, but my mom does because she was a nurse for twenty eight years. They agree. She holds my hand as they shove the tube down her nose and I keep reassuring her and promise her all sorts of goodies for cooperating: Lulu's Noodles Pork Lo Mein, new summer sandals from Steve Maddens, a haircut by Angela. Her eyes brighten and she promises me to keep the tube in after I leave. The nurses ask me to leave while they do some x-rays and I walk to the cafeteria feeling pretty proud of myself, pretty adult and with it. It's like a weird game of dress-up where I am prancing in my mom's dresses. You see, she was always the one who went to the sick and dying in their time of need. According to the fucked up gendered division of labor and heart in our family (and the world in general), my mom was always the one to deal with the sick, the visceral, the injured children. My mother took care of her dying mother for years. She spent a week in the hospital when my brother had a bad car wreck. She took care of my dad's dad when he was dying in our upstairs bedroom. My mom had to deal with all the shit and I know this aged her, wore her down. I tell her so when I go back to the hospital. She cries a little, relieved to have someone acknowledging her worth.

When they called to tell me they were putting her back on the ventilator a few days ago, Nina was sitting in my living room watching a movie. Nina takes a benzodiazepine called Ativan for her anxiety and she has formed a dependence on it over the year. Because of all of this shit with my mom, she took a few extra, gave me a couple, and ran out of her prescription. She was four days without it when we got that call. She walked into my bedroom and I told her the news and she said, "Oh, Jessica" and laid down on the bed next to me. I began rubbing her back.
"What are your fears?" I asked her. She didn't respond.
"Nina, it's just a minor setback. She is improving. Don't worry." I said, continuing to rub her back. Still no response.

Then she started convulsing and gurgling and fell off the bed and onto the floor. I immediately understood that she was having a seizure from Ativan withdrawal. My heart jumpstarted into a mad frenzy of adrenaline and fear. I rolled her over onto her side and, without really thinking, I shoved my fingers into her mouth because I didn't want her to bite her tongue. Now, I found out later that everyone knows to NEVER put your fingers into the mouth of a person having a seizure. I didn't. I never saw a seizure before and all I knew was my soulmate twin-sister was in danger of biting her tongue. So, after I shoved my two fingers in, she lock-jawed on them and it was the most excruciating pain ever. I was crying and hyperventilating and her eyes were rolled back in her head like she was in some voodoo trance and mine were rolling around with the madness of pain and somehow through all of this I managed to call 9-11 and give them my address. For about five seconds she loosened her jaw and I had an opportunity to remove my fingers, but consciously chose not to because I was so afraid she was going to hurt her little tongue. The adrenaline kicked in further and the pain was twice removed, happening somewhere in the next room to a girl that was me, but really wasn't. I said to myself, "goodbye fingers," and just accepted that she was going to crunch through the bone and bite them right off. After about a minute, she eased up, relaxed, appeared to be sleeping, then she woke up and looked at me as if I were from a different planet and then her mind was wiped clean as a baby's and she didn't understand anything around her. The ambulance came and took her to the hospital. They were like, "yeah, never put your fingers in someone's mouth who's having a seizure." and I was like, "Oh, thanks. Now I know."

Nina is fine. She is working on quitting the ativan with the slow-taper method which takes about six months. My fingers are still numb and purple and kind of phantom, but I guess it's a small price to pay for her precious tongue. When I told Nina about it when she woke up in the hospital she put her hand dramatically to her face and said, "Oh! I will never play piano again!"

We (Nina, Sandy, and I) sat there laughing and I stopped feeling sorry for myself and felt ready for whatever new affliction the universe was going to hurl at me. I told my mom about everyone's prayers and candles and she was so happy. I can't prove it, but I totally believe and know that it was the power of prayer that brought my mother back to me.

Now it's just a matter of waiting to see how she will recover mentally in the top secret military hospital in Oakland.