Go here for Deathwatch Diary (One)
Go here for Deathwatch Diary (Two)
I should have known that it would be a bad omen to take the book, above, to read while sitting through the deathwatch.
Bad things did happen. My brother bullied his way into making me the obstructionist in reaching an agreement on the care my mother will get in her final hours. With pressure on me from more than a half-dozen hospital staff, he had her taken off the morphine drip. I finally gave in, provided that the nurses can put her back on if she demonstrates distress. The problem is that my brother interprets her distress as “feistiness.” I can only hope that she is so far gone that her brain is dead and will not relay pain messages to her nerves.
It remains to be seen whether the nurses will, indeed, put her back on if she looks like she needs it. Or will my brother bully them into folding to his interpretations.
Let this be a lesson to all who delegate health care proxies and power of attorneys. Choose carefully. Choose someone who doesn’t have his/her own agenda for how your long life ends — which should be neither bang nor whimper, but rather a peaceful slide into oblivion. Or wherever.
Yes, I’m pissed at the staff here, who let him do the wrong thing for the wrong reason. I’m pissed at myself that, with little sleep for 48 hours, I folded under pressure.
This is about me, and I’m not done yet.
Expressing and encouraging caution — it’s still not about you, really. It IS about you not forgiving yourself for letting go of the proxy. It IS about you, maybe, being more focused on fighting with him than just seeing where things go. It IS about resenting that hospital can only do so much and he IS the proxy. It IS about you being unable to let go because the anger is beginning to take root in your heart and soul. And it’s about you choosing to allow that to happen. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to anger and frustation. I AM saying you have a choice about what do to and how to handle it. To be honest, both of you tend react half-cocked out of the rage of the situation. His is more firmly based in irrational psychosis. Yours, is more emotional stubborness. 🙂 (I mean that kindly). But in the end — none of this is about either of you. And you BOTH need to get that and not act as though it were. He is incapable of that. I do not believe you are the same. So choose. Choose better than he. The rest can be dealt with later.
This IS about righteous anger over injustices done to me — and, maybe to my mother if she does wake up in pain. Anger over those wimpy female staff members here caving in to his bullying and not backing me the way they said they would. A nice poignant article for the Poughkeepsie newspaper about my experience here will make me feel better. Kali rises. Lilith soars.
And no, he is not the proxy. We both are. Equally. And it was a stalemate and the staff here wanted it settled. My brother wouldn’t back down. He threatened to sue the hospital and had a list of things that he said the nurses did wrong. He would not stop arguing. So everyone abandoned me and pressured me so that they could move on. Well, I’m moving on too, although not where anyone would like.