Month: February 2019

February Musing #3: Hallucinations or Visitations?

February Musing #3: Hallucinations or Visitations?

mikegaeta

A year ago, today, would be day 6 of hospice for mom. By then, she wasn’t eating and was physically very weak. She needed substantial assistance to get out of bed to go to the bathroom or another room.

At one point, I believe on day 5, she asked one of my cousins why she was getting weaker. My mama truly didn’t understand. Such was the state of her serious mental illness (SMI); She’d have little self-awareness about her true medical condition.

Indeed, since my mom first started exhibiting signs of a SMI, this had been a constant feature. Even as her physical health sharply declined over the years, her lack of self-awareness just became more elaborate.

“The machines (blood pressure and glucose monitors) work when they want to.” “The lab results are being tampered with.” “The medicine is what’s making me sick.” She’d say all these things and more on a regular basis.

In fact, to my mom, the beginning of hospice just confirmed her belief that she would start getting better, since she could stop taking her medicines (In hospice, a patient’s regular medicine is stopped and the focus becomes on keeping him/her comfortable. Yay for morphine.) This is what she was saying God wanted, before hospice even started, after all.

While we were careful with our words, in response to my mom’s question, my cousin could only tell her the truth, “It’s your kidneys.” Mama didn’t respond. It was taking a lot of effort for her to talk at that point. Perhaps she just decided to save her energy or just pray silently. But I’m sure that didn’t make any sense to her at all. My mama was expecting to get healthier and stronger, not sicker and weaker.

As if navigating the situation and counseling her weren’t challenging enough, given her delusions, she’d also experience intense hallucinations.

Now before hospice, as part of her SMI, mom had regular audio hallucinations. But aside from occasionally seeing things that weren’t there, like cameras on the walls (They were usually just spots of sunlight coming into her room.), she didn’t really have visual hallucinations. Visual hallucinations began appearing relatively early in hospice, though. Being new to her, this understandably confused and, at times, distressed and scared my mama.

They’d begin on day 3 and, curiously, would begin around the same time she’d start developing severe apnea. My girlfriend and I were talking to my mom by her bedside in the evening, when she seemingly started nodding off to sleep.  She closed her eyes mid-sentence and her head began to lower.

Around 30 seconds later, she raised her head, opened her eyes and asked us:

“Do you see them?”

“See who, mom? It’s just us. What’s there?”

“There’s some people standing over there. Shadowy figures. I can’t make out their faces.”

“Are they scary, mom?” I asked. To my great relief, she replied, “No.”

This continued around an hour that evening. Mom wouldn’t see things every waking minute, fortunately, before finally falling asleep. But she’d continue to see the shadowy figures and would begin to see flashes of light. She’d also say she saw a woman she didn’t recognize, sitting in the room with us. Thankfully, mom wasn’t frightened, but she was perplexed by these new experiences.

Disturbing and scary hallucinations first appeared in the form of several faces she would see. One appearing minutes after seeing a little girl. We had just convened in the living room with my aunt and cousins.

“Do you see the little girl?” she asked, as she pointed behind the couch.

“No mom.” “No Aunt Josie.”

The little girl disappeared and we continued talking and interacting with her, as normally and supportively as possible. My cousins, being older than me, had a lot of good memories to share with my mom and I about my mom’s younger days. They were reminiscing when my mama let out a sudden shriek and pointed towards one corner of the room. I don’t remember the exact words she used to describe the face, but she described a ghoulish or devilish morphing one.

Unfortunately, these scary visual hallucinations would continue when mom had acute psychotic episodes. I believe three altogether.  In the evening on day 6, for example, she started complaining that her feet were getting really hot. She pleaded with my girlfriend to take her socks off. “Hurry! Hurry!” she said frighteningly.

She then described seeing the earth opening up below her and became afraid she was going to fall down through. We did the best we could to keep her calm and assure her Jesus wouldn’t let anything happen to her. “Focus on Jesus, mama. Look for Jesus. Nothing sinister is welcome here.”

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A picture/illustration of Jesus mom had in her room. a caption

The hospice chaplain recommended we tell her to look for Jesus and the light, when she started seeing things. During another acute episode, I read her favorite verses from Psalms for close to an hour. My aunt and cousins prayed with her, recited the Rosary and had salt at the ready for the duration of their stay.

I saw my mama suffer tremendously throughout the years, physically, mentally and spiritually. It traumatized and saddened me, for sure. And seeing her scared during hospice was particularly heart wrenching and painful, since she was in her final days.

Not being especially spiritual or religious, I found myself asking my grandmother, my mom’s mom, to help me and mom, out of desperation. I think she visited us on day 7, in the early morning. I’m pretty sure I smelled her, after not smelling her in more than 20 years. I, also, think mom sent a humming bird to visit me this past Monday, what would be the first day of hospice last year. I’ll elaborate on that event in a subsequent blog post.

Hospice was life changing. I’ll never be the same again.

(To Be Continued)

February Musings #2: Reliving the Hardship of Hospice

February Musings #2: Reliving the Hardship of Hospice

mikegaeta

Mama would be in hospice at home a total of 9 days. After two days of many tender, loving moments with family and no significant complications, she’d start experiencing nausea and end up vomiting twice from her bed on day 3. That day was a year ago today.

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Mama’s room, a place of tranquility now.

This was on my mind pretty heavily for most of the day. I would actually end up sweeping and mopping her bedroom floor today because of it. The grief and restlessness motivating me to do so were clear. I went over the areas of the floor she vomited on particularly well, though the floor wasn’t too dirty, since nobody enters that room now but me. And that’s just occasionally, mostly to open and close the blinds.

Overall, I’m thankful I’ve felt pretty good today, though. This is in stark contrast to how I felt for much of Monday, what was day 1 of hospice for mom. Those feelings of tremendous worry, fear, sadness and even some guilt that started to hit me when hospice day arrived reappeared, forcing me to relive it all over again.

My mind raced with tremendous stress and anxiety, on that day a year ago. Would the hospice staff and nurses be good and helpful? I heard of bad experiences with loved ones in hospice from friends and family. Even if they were decent, would my mom end up suffering too much in some way, still? Kidney failure is supposed to be one of the relatively easiest, painless ways to die, I was told. OK, but there’s still the matter of her serious mental illness. That was never successfully treated. I knew acute episodes were going to be inevitable. And the fact remained that she was coming home to die! I didn’t want mom to die! I fought so hard to protect her and keep her alive for so long!

On top of all this, we couldn’t even tell my mom she was coming home to die in hospice care. My mom wanted to live. She didn’t even believe she was really sick, due to her serious mental illness. For years, in fact, she regularly insisted that “devils” were attacking her organs and that she didn’t really even need medicine. I lied and told my mom that the new hospital bed, oxygen tank and medical support at home, all provided by the hospice, were just part of added support the hospital was giving us. Luckily, she didn’t question any of that.

Not being able to tell my mom, though, was to a large extent like a gut punch, the latest in a long history of gut punches. There was nothing else that could be done, though. Mom was suffering mightily. For months prior, she was declining markedly and becoming increasingly uncooperative and medically non-compliant. I knew the time was near and was actually frustrated that her doctors wouldn’t help me put together a plan for putting her into hospice. “She has the right to refuse treatment,” they’d say. I grew fearful that she’d end up dying of a heart attack at the house, perhaps alone or in my arms. Hospice was the more humane option, when all things were considered. I knew it was the right choice, as hard as it was.

The hospice staff and nurses ended up being wonderful. The nurses were exceptionally responsive, skilled and caring. They’d end up coming every day. What a blessing! We’d have some difficult times with my mom, but overall, things went as good as can be, considering the circumstances. And for that, I’m grateful.

But seeing my mama increasingly decline (slip away) was probably the hardest part for me. Day 3 was the marked start of that. From then on, every day, she’d get weaker and exhibit more symptoms that death (her transition) was nearing. She’d begin to lose her appetite. Her physical strength would begin to leave her. She’d start hallucinating pretty regularly, too. She’d become bed ridden. She’d start frothing at the mouth….

A small piece of pumpkin pie, I believe, was the last meal she’d have. She loved pumpkin pie. In hospice, patients are allowed to eat whatever they wanted, within limits. That was on day 5, I believe. My memory of events and the timeline do get a bit fuzzy. It’s the trauma, I’m told.

(To be continued)

February Musings #1: Mom Enters Hospice

February Musings #1: Mom Enters Hospice

mikegaeta

February arrived with a wallop. I was instantaneously taken back to this time last year, the month my mama passed. The memories and flashbacks began occurring with a feeling of slight nausea. That hasn’t happened before, at least not since mama entered hospice the second week of February. 

As February approached, I’ve wanted to write a post on my yearlong journey with grief. All this has changed my mind. My emotions are raw enough right now. I need to be careful. I’ll be visiting enough memories and experiences naturally. I don’t need to immerse myself any further. 

Instead, I thought I’d post a bit of our hospice experience. I believe I still haven’t processed the time and events fully, so maybe this would help. Today, the 16th, was the day she entered hospice. It was initiated in the hospital. She had been admitted the day before, due to breathing complications. Mama had stopped dialysis and started experiencing more fluid retention, exacerbating her congestive heart failure.

As was usually the case, getting mom into hospice was fraught with immense stress and hospital/medical bullshit. Here’s a short recollection of how the decision was made…. by me:

A year ago today, the hospital gave me the authority to make decisions for mom. I had to put her into hospice. She had stopped dialysis and was increasingly medically non-compliant. It was a decision you never want to make. I didn’t hesitate when they asked what I wanted, though. Mama’s suffering was too great.

It was a bit fortuitous the way it played out. Top to bottom, authorities and health care workers gave her too much agency. “She has the right to decide/refuse treatment,” they’d say. On this day, her doctor and the hospital social worker were in the room with me together. That never happens.

The doctor walked in while I was talking to the social worker. At that point, the social worker was being super unprofessional, casually talking to me about how downhill San Francisco had gone. How dirty it is and how it “smells like pee.” I’m pretty sure I made her feel uncomfortable. The moment she walked into the room, minutes before, I told her what I was expecting from them.

Hospitals have traumatized me. I was hyper vigilant and told her my mom is not being released, until a plan is in place for her to be adequately taken care of, whether at our home or a nursing facility. The doctor walked in and, after a short conversation with me, straight up asked the social worker, “Does Josie have mental capacity to make decisions?” The social worker, without assessing my mom directly, said, to my relief and surprise, “No. She has a serious mental illness.”

The social worker only knew she had a SMI because I told her she did during our short conversation. She didn’t assess my mama directly like I believe she is required to do. Mama was, luckily, sleeping the whole conversation, just a few feet away. (Hospitals are dumb. Their staff will have conversations about their patients’ mental states right in front of them.)

Interestingly, many times in the past, even when authorities knew mom had a SMI, they still always hid behind their civil rights language and laws: “She has the Right to refuse,” they’d say. This even when she was clearly in a psychotic state.

When I look back, maybe it was God or the universe helping me and my family. Mama had been saying Moses was coming for her, after all….  (To be continued)fullsizeoutput_592