Watching her breathing for the last time
My lovely old Mum has advanced Parkinson’s and is receiving ‘end of life’ care in a nursing home. Someone from the home will let us know if there is a change in her breathing pattern to indicate that the end is near. Meanwhile, she is sleeping peacefully and unresponsive. At least I thought she was unresponsive – but today I’m not too sure.
Last weekend, for the sake of making conversation with someone who is comatose, I told her how my journey had taken an hour longer than it should, owing to the M42 being closed for works on the white elephant HS2 viaduct. This Sunday, if she could hear me, she must have been rivetted with the news that there was yet another 6.5-metre-wide abnormal load travelling up the M1 at 10 mph, with all the rest of us trailing along behind it … all deep, meaningful conversation!
I found Don Williams on YouTube singing “The Ties That Bind” and played it to her from my phone, reminiscing about how the song became our favourite about forty-five years ago, when her car, which had previously been Dad’s, had an 8-track cartridge player, complete with a few cartridges that were Dad’s choice of music.
I played the song again and sang along, not too loud, I hope! I noticed her breathing became slightly audible, with a very quiet murmur on each exhalation, and hoped this wasn’t the previously mentioned change in her breathing pattern. Maybe she was either singing along or asking me to keep quiet.
I mentioned it to the carers, and they said they had noticed it too sometimes when they were talking to her, and when I asked a lovely family friend who visited regularly, she had also managed to get this response. So, Mum is still with us!
As I left for the evening, the nurse on duty said he doesn’t think she’s ready to go just yet…
All week, I’ve been carrying my phone everywhere because if I leave it in another room, my current ringtone, Bowie’s “Starman” starts playing in my head, and I think I’ve missed a call.
A funny thing happened mid-week, when I phoned the home to ask if there was any change. Someone took a message and a lovely nurse phoned from another number and assured me they’d ring back if there was any change … so you can imagine how I jumped when ‘Starman’ blasted out later that evening, whilst the phone was in my hand, with that same number on the display.
What followed was a bizarre conversation where I confirmed several times who I was, thinking the caller was being ultra-careful they had the right person before imparting bad news. It wasn’t until she asked, “is Penny there?” that I realised the caller was a resident with dementia, who must have picked up the nurse’s phone and pressed last number redial. It turned into a lengthy phone call!
This is a very strange time, being in limbo, knowing that Mum is going to die soon. Not that she’s had much of a life in recent months, being hoisted from a bed to a chair and barely being able to communicate. Yet she’s never complained bless her. Two years ago, when she was in hospital after falling and breaking her hip, I got tearful, saying how much I hated seeing her like this, and she replied with her typical Yorkshire understatement, “I can’t say I’m too chuffed about it myself.”
Tonight, I’m at a lovely quiet campsite I discovered. Well, it’s quiet apart from the planes taking off and landing at the local airport … but that’s far preferable to people deliberately making a row at the Travelodge, and it’s lovely to be here in the cool fresh air with the wind blowing around the tent.
I feel quite calm, being not too far from Mum, drafting this blog post with song lyrics looping around in my head. Does anyone else have that going on all the time? Whilst I know every lyric of every 70s Bowie song, it can be annoying if I only know a couple of lines so they have to keep playing on repeat!
Tonight’s internal song, as the title of this post might suggest, is James Blunt’s “Carry You Home” and it’s making me weepy …
To separate Sunday from Monday, here’s a lovely mixed-metal dragon sculpture, for no other reason than that was lurking outside my tent:
Monday morning, I packed up my stuff and headed back to the care home, with the intention of sitting there for a couple of hours before heading back down the motorway.
I nipped in the big Tesco just round the corner from the home. As usual, it was difficult to get out of the place, with its long row of closed checkouts, and a queue for the self-service with one staff member ducking around cancelling the “unexpected item in the bagging area” message that happens if someone breathes too heavily near the scales. Anyone in a hurry was regretting trying to buy alcohol, anything sharp or anything with a security tag. I wasn’t worried about the time; I thought it was possibly a bit too early to turn up at the care home.
As I pulled into the carpark, Bowie was singing “Starman” from my bag. That would be my brother ringing to ask what time I’d be there so we could meet up. I parked and called him back, and couldn’t believe it when he said he’d had a call to say Mum had just passed away. Whilst I was round the corner checking out of the bloody supermarket!
She was still warm, and looked exactly as she had the previous day, but so perfectly still, not breathing.
When I started writing this on Sunday, the title of my post ended with a question mark, which I’ve just removed.
I wonder if “The Ties That Bind” would be appropriate for the service?
Love you forever, Mum xxx
Word on a Whim 