My mom passed away last night. She had taken a huge downturn right about Thanksgiving - going from her spunky, independently-living self (at 91!) to being very "confused" (which almost seems to be a current medical term) and not being very aware or able to communicate well.
She was residing in San Angelo, where she'd lived since 1985, and I saw her several times a year...until recently, of course. Covid had locked down her apartment building for quite awhile. And then, once things opened up a bit toward the fall, she adamantly did not want me risking coming over there. That's just how she was, but I still talked to her several times a week. She had been losing weight steadily for awhile, I knew that, but she still had her faculties and while slowing down some, I didn't think much about her condition.
Come the week of Thanksgiving, things changed. I talked to her on Monday, and something sounded a little strange but not enough to where I thought too much about it. She did mention during the conversation that she was having phone problems and that there had been another outage of the phone lines where she lived. (That had just happened a couple of months before, and someone at the high rise called me to tell me that fact.) Tuesday, I had been really busy at work and didn't get a chance to call (calling her after work hours was not the best time), so Wednesday I tried to call her several times with no luck. Again, I thought about what she'd said about the phone lines, but at the same time I was a little concerned. Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I tried to call a few times again with no luck. Again, I'm thinking "aah, the phone lines are down. Damn." I tried to call the high rise office with no luck. Friday morning, I'm just about to start calling again when her friend Janie (who does not live at the high rise) called me to say I needed to come over there quickly, as something was wrong. She had gone to take something to my mother and had found her fairly unresponsive. Janie called the Home Health nurse, and she had gone over there and called me immediately after Janie did. They were calling an ambulance to take her to the hospital. She was again, really unresponsive.
So I packed quickly and headed to San Angelo. I got there in the afternoon and got to the hospital by the early evening. When I saw her, I was shocked at how she looked. The nurse told me she had a Urinary Tract Infection, and that this often had a devastating effect on the elderly, causing all kinds of confusion and whatnot. And several people told me that. The woman who manages the high rise, the doctor, another nurse, etc. I couldn't believe my mother was so out of it. She barely knew who I was, although I'm sure wearing a Covid mask didn't help. My visit seemed to agitate her, though, and she kept trying to get out of the hospital bed. So I stayed as long as I thought I could and left.
I stayed the night, then tried to contact her financial advisor the next morning and let her know what was up. I went for another couple of visits at the hospital. The first one, and I'll never forget this, she looked at me after I'd said hello and made small talk of some sort and said "you look just like my son." For someone who was the child of a woman who was always in control and in charge of her destiny, etc., this was pretty devastating. Again, my visits seemed to agitate and make her think we were leaving, so I kept them sort of short. I went by her apartment (and the power was out in the whole building when I got there), got the mail and then headed home. Everybody kept telling me "she might pop right out of this," but I didn't really believe it. Even though, if there was someone who would pop out of it, it would be her. So I didn't do anything about her apartment this trip. Sometime in early 2020 or so, I had gotten myself signed onto her Wells Fargo banking (of which I'm a co-owner), and so I would be able to pay her bills, etc. Very happy to have been astute enough to get that set up in my last visit there while she was lucid.
And of course, she never really "popped back" at all. After a couple of weeks in the hospital, she was moved to skilled nursing, a rehab area in the Baptist Retirement complex. Two weeks after my last trip, I headed back down there, this time armed with several empty plastic tubs, with a thought toward beginning packing her apartment up. Saturday morning, I met with a rep for Sagecrest, which is where the Alzheimer's patients live (they also run the skilled nursing). I took my first (and still only at the time of writing this) Covid test. I had to have that to visit Mom in the skilled nursing building. I paid a couple of visits there, and she seemed somewhat aware of who I was. The second visit (Sunday morning) was filled with "I love you"s and some hand holding. That was nice. But I still, for whatever reason, could not pack her stuff. So I headed back home again.
As December began to fade, I realized some real steps had to be taken, and while I was trying to decide how to handle this, my bandmate Brant, from the Pocket FishRmen called me and said "let's get in my truck, drive down there, and get that stuff moved." I readily accepted, and so the Sunday before New Year's, he and I headed down there to see what we could get done. Brant's a go-getter, and we had all of the furniture out of there and over to Janie's in a few hours. We successfully moved her electric chair over there, which was the thing I was worried about the most if I would have had to do this myself. The rest would have to wait, though. I didn't even begin to get into her closet area or really anything else.
On the following Tuesday, I headed back to San Angelo, deciding to stay Tuesday night and take my time packing the rest. So late Tuesday afternoon, I pulled up to the high rise and was about to take the plastic tubs into the building when Janie called. Turned out she and Edward had been over there on Monday and cleaned the place out! I don't know if I've ever been more grateful for favors. I had packed up several tubs when I was there with Brant but had not taken any with us (other than one with important papers). I had most stuff that I considered important, but I suspect I might want to take a look at those tubs in the future when I go back.
Wednesday morning I met with the Sagecrest caseworker to turn in a Medicaid application, if we needed that help when the time came. I had not had a Covid test this time (and I could only get one from them), so a visit to Mom couldn't happen this time. And once again, I headed home.
That was my last time in San Angelo (as of now). I had planned on going back to visit Mom, but Covid restrictions were tougher than ever, especially at the nursing facility. I did talk to her on the phone once, at a nurse's suggestion. I was kind of shocked she suggested it; I didn't know Mom was even capable of holding a phone. That was Monday, January 18th. It was a pleasant enough call, and Mom seemed to know who I was. She wasn't very lucid, so it was a very one-sided conversation. But I said what needed to be said. That was the last time we spoke. I had planned to go back for a visit but did not make it in time.
I would call whatever nursing facility she was in from time to time to see about her. The nurses never said anything different. It was always "she's here. Not eating much. Sleeps a lot." And her weight was dropping. I knew it couldn't be long.
Last night, at about 7:55, a nurse called me and said Mom was having some breathing difficulty and wanted permission to administer a breathing treatment and possibly morphine if it came to that. I said "yes." She said it's time to come see her if you can. I said I'm near Austin, and we're in the throes of a rare winter storm. She told me that in her experience, it could be minutes, hours, or even longer if her breathing got under control. I thanked her. She called me ten minutes later; Mom had just passed.
