DAY 5: Normalcy

Sadly, hope remains for only our family. We knew from the sudden rush of that family to the room where their grandmother lay that she had passed away. We saw a range of emotions again, all of which seemed to finally rest on the idea that she had gone to a better place. An old woman in the group told me that, then gave me a hug and wished us well.

We will not face the same situation! I remain convinced that Mom is going to pull through.

Today went well for her again. Early this morning, I discovered that she'd moved up in the world to a bigger room with sunny windows. It's probably twice the size of her former room, plenty of space for us all to get in and be with her. The light makes it a lot more cheerful.

I went with her in the morning to IR (interventional radiology), where they put a basket in an artery to protect her organs from a blood clot ascending from her legs. Kevin and I had wondered yesterday whether collecting blood clots in a basket ran the risk of clogging the artery at that place, but the doctor told me that there was less than a 3% chance of that happening. The basket looks like a tiny umbrella without the cloth.

Later, she went down for another CT scan and, at last, an MRI of her brain. We'll get the results of that test tomorrow morning, and eagerly await good news that there is minimal and reparable brain damage.

I called our uncle, Pat, who's a radiologist in Newport Beach, Calif., and brought him up to speed. He sounded unconcerned, noting that our uncle Keith had fully recovered from a severe subdural hematoma, a head injury far worse than Mom's. He also told me about his doctor friend who'd been in a car accident in front of his and Pat's hospital at the time. He, too, fully recovered but with a different personality. He'd been an introvert but came back on the the job as a raging extrovert, married a bombshell, and kept on practicing medicine, just as a different guy. That story got us all to wondering who Mom would return as.

I also spoke with our aunt, Terry, and was happy to get a call from Dr. Dumont personally. He apologized for the delay in sending her records and said that his being out of the office the day before should not have mattered. He promised to check into what went wrong and see that it didn't happen again. Beyond that, he listened to Mom's full report and agreed that it looked hopeful. He offered to speak with any of the doctors at St. Anthony if we thought it would help.

I took a break from the hospital late in the morning, after Mom's tests and when she was sleeping. The rest of the family wasn't down yet, and I needed to get away. I drove up 6th Ave. to Lakewood where I browsed a Borders Bookstore and ate lunch at Chipotle Mexican Grill. The bookstore was paradise, always is when I return from Japan. So many English titles! I sat alone at Chipotle and ate a great carnitas burrito and drank a Coor's Light for local color. I watched the people come in for lunch from work. It made me happy to see regular folks concerned with normal stuff that would all cease to matter the moment they discovered their mother in ICU. I heard the chatter: deadlines, relationship problems, crummy bosses, car maintenance, election predictions and vows to leave the country if so-and-so wins, and a general bored malaise that blankets all who count minutes in cubicles. Paradise, I say! I'd take boredom over our family's current situation any day, I decided. I promised that I wouldn't allow myself to feel bored ever again, even long after Mom fully recovers. Instead, I'd remember back to the hour-to-hour uncertainty of Mom's situation and draw gratefulness from the improvement to normal life. I also knew that it wasn't true. When the distress fades away, so does appreciation for the joy of normalcy. We are just not very good at perspective.

Back at St. Ant, I sat with Mom and read a book on global mysteries that I bought at Borders. I didn't want anything serious. There were so many interruptions all the time that I thought a collection of short writings would be better than a long read. That mystery book from Time was perfect.

Emily, Kevin, Karen, and I took a walk part way around Sloan's Lake, then they went back while I continued on. I'd been in the hospital a long time already and wanted to finish the walk. I took some nice pictures for Mom. The difference between the Colfax side and the park side is dramatic. I want her to see the beautiful place in which she recovered. I'll spare her shots of Colfax.

This afternoon tossed a full moon above the clouds over downtown Denver. The evening light and that moon combined to give me some pretty shots of the hospital area. I'll show her later.


Back in ICU, the girls were not doing well. I said to Emily that I'd like to get the email addresses of some key people in Allenspark and Estes so I could keep the whole community informed easily. I keep hearing about how much people care and thought it would be a good way to cut down on the phone calls. Emily said curtly, "No, I don't want to mess with that now." I said that's precisely why we should find out some emails, so she didn't have to mess with PR anymore. Then I said there was nothing for her to get angry about. "I wasn't angry," she said, and slipped over to the dark side.

It got quiet and her face got long and tempered like steel. I tried saying some routine things to loosen her up a little, but she replied with nods or one-word answers. She cried quietly and to herself, with big, unfocused but staring eyes between cries. I felt bad, but wasn't sure what had gone wrong. Nothing, of course, except the whole damned situation. That's what was wrong, and it got to Emily more than anybody.

We tried talking about Christmas, since we were pretty sure Thanksgiving wouldn't be festive with Mom in the middle of recovery. Then talk turned briefly to who'd been in the hospital. When it came to Karen, she said, "Well, not yet, but I will be."

"What? When?"

"December 15th. They're going to break my jaw."

Right about then, Colleen rolled into the room, rested her elbows on the foot of your bed, and announced, "I hate life. I'm not afraid to die. I wish I'd never been born."

We decided she should not be the first one Mom speaks with when she regains consciousness.

Despite the best efforts of Dain -- and those are pretty good efforts by any measure -- Colleen couldn't keep herself up today. She and Emily comprised a laboratory to study the outward signs of despair.

Kevin made an abortive attempt at humor when he quipped that Emily had nothing to be sad about, she's Mom's favorite child.

"I hate when you say that," Emily replied in a freeze-dried voice.

He glued a smile to his face and looked down at Mom, no more jokes forthcoming.

There we stood, Mom's ring of supporters around her bedside with the respirator wheezing along in its rhythm. Not picture perfect, but that's a family and we're hers. It crossed my mind that Mom's had a few mis-timed comments of her own over the years. She's had a few fights. She's shed a few tears. She's snapped at people and been hurt by the snaps of others. Everything going on in that room today was something that she'd seen herself.

Normalcy.

That's what had crept up on us and in a way it was nice. A nice completion would have been if Mom had awakened and joined right in. But she didn't, so we stood a while. Emily went to the restroom and came back and stood beside me. She started to cry and I rubbed her back. She said she was sorry about getting angry. I said it was OK. I rubbed her back and shoulder for a long time. She stopped crying.

A little later, I asked if anybody else used paper towels to open the doors of public restrooms. Everybody did. How many people hated to drink from other people's containers? Everybody. Who didn't like to scratch other people's backs with their fingernails? All of us. The room warmed up a little. The Clean Freak Five were in better spirits.

Back in the now-empty waiting room except for us, Collen showed everybody her report from Colorado Quitnet, a service that helps people stop smoking. Her printout congratulated her on making it a year and said that she'd saved almost $1,000 in cigarette costs and had added a little more than a month to her life expectancy.

"That's great," Emily said.

"Well, come on," Colleen replied. "Only an extra month to live? Big deal. It'll take me twelve years just to add a year to my life."

"In 60 years you'll add five years of living," I pointed out.

"So what? It's not worth it. You want to know my plan? To wait until my second child's 18th birthday and then start smoking again."

"Over my dead body," Dain interjected.

"You like smoking that much?" I asked Colleen.

"I love it," she said with no hint of a smile.

This evening and up until Kevin and I left before midnight, Mom was pretty active. Her eyes are oozy and ugly still, but her color is looking fine. We were amused that the first parts of her body to get back to life were her feet. They're wiggling and shaking and twisting about as if nothing had changed. She even managed to pinch Karen's hand with her toes. Hard, too, she said.

Colleen rubbed lotion on those active feet, and I smelled the fragrance of the lotion the rest of the night.

Finally, a special treat today was a music therapy session. This was quite a coincidence because I thought while driving Mom's car and listening to Jim Croce that I should get a radio and play some of her favorite CDs in the room. Then, I ran into the music therapist and asked if she could play classic songs of the 60's and 70's. She said sure.

She came to Mom's room with her guitar and music, stood at the foot of Mom's bed, played the guitar, and filled the room with her fairy's voice. She was made for that job. Emily, Karen, and I were soothed, even if Mom wasn't. She played "Let it Be," "Sound of Silence," and "Morning Has Broken," each a lovely rendition. She herself was lovely, too. Soft and warm and caring. She asked questions about Mom and our family and really listened to the answers. She was a walking stick of green incense, slow moving and peaceful, assured that the world would turn out just fine. I really like her and her music. She'll come again on Tuesday.