She and my dad told me some basic wishes should they become incapacitated and need medical intervention, but all too soon I learned that life is far messier than we can plan for. As I picked up my son from his first high school homecoming dance, my phone rang. My mom was anxiously awaiting a report on this milestone, which had been nerve-racking for him and me.
There was no real crisis; it was merely the beginning of those teen years when parents become idiots in their kid’s eyes. Everything about planning for this big night had been a struggle. I figured my mom was calling to hear how it went.
The next eight days were a rip in the space-time fabric of my life. My mom had “the worst surgery a human can have,” according to her cardiothoracic surgeon, a warm, gentle man. Her aorta, the big artery that comes out of your heart, had burst.
Like an over inflated balloon. She “miraculously” survived the seven-hour crucible to repair it, he said, but it left her body more beaten than before. Her carotid artery burst and she had a heart attack and a stroke during the surgery.
She was hooked up to machines that breathed for her, urinated for her, and monitored what seemed like every conceivable physical sign. Now, we waited for her to wake. Her legs twitched, her face grimaced.
She was more borg than human, linked to giant machines with LEDs and graphs and alarms that chimed whenever her body didn’t respond as it should. As we waited for signs that she would live, I told her everything that was going on, who was taking care of her, and what they were doing. Crying, I told her I loved her and that if she needed to pass over, she should and we’d be OK.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
