Watching someone suffer before they die is horrible. I cannot imagine how it must be for The Geet. At 2:45 a.m. Monday morning the phone rang. As it was ringing I realized that it was our land line, not my cell phone. My cell phone is supposed to be next to my bed every night in case The Geet pushes her Lifeline bracelet - my cell number is the first on the list of responders. I started to realize all at once that my cell phone was not in the bedroom and the Lifeline headquarters must have called all the responders and were trying the land line as a last resort. I actually missed the call, saw it on the caller ID and flew down the stairs to The Geet's room. She was in bed and short of breath, wheezing. After two previous trips to the ER, we now know that this is fluid buildup around the heart, the result of congestive heart failure. It frightens her and she panics. I decided to sleep in her room at that point and she patted the bed next to her. I crawled in and we had a few laughs. She told me that she was peeing her pants (she wears Depends) and I asked her if she was going to pee on me if I slept with her and she burst out laughing. Then I told her that I would probably wake her up with my snoring (my husband had already left our room that night due to my snoring and had no idea I was even in bed with The Geet). The Geet said "Well, I've been known to snore a bit in my lifetime too". This had me laughing out loud because for the last 30 years The Geet's obnoxious snoring has been the talk of the family. Laying next to The Geet was very emotional. I cried softly so she couldn't hear. The reality of how things change in life had hit me. Almost 40 years ago The Geet cared for me while my parents traveled out of the country. Now, under very different circumstances, I was caring for her.

When I called my parents in the morning and told them what had happened, my Dad had his own story. See the post titled "Luddite" on this blog is you need some insight into my father's technical skills. My Dad had actually heard his cell phone ringing in the middle of the night but could not figure out what it was (the Lifeline calls his cell, too). Pretty soon after that his cell started to chip intermittently to indicate that he had a message. He had no idea what this sound was and began checking all of the smoke alarms in the house. After this, he got cold and decided to put on a pair of pants. When he laid down he figured out that the cell phone in his pants pocket was telling him that he had a message. But, since he doesn't know how to check his messages, he couldn't find out who it was anyway. Not until I called him in the a.m. did he put it all together. Sigh......

On Monday my Mom spent the day at our home with Geet so I could drop off and pick up the girls at school and do some errands. The rest of the day we spent contacting The Geet's doctors to adjust her medications, trying to arrange a home health care assessment, finding an attorney to make some changes to The Geet's will and figuring out how to continue caring for her. Monday night I set up camp outside The Geet's bedroom - camping pad, sleeping bag, pillow and dogs to keep me company. She was so frightened as night came, scared to be alone in her room and panicky about her breathing. Her Dr. prescribed a sleeping pill and it knocked her out. At 2:45 a.m. (what is it with this time??) I heard her awake (amazing, since I had also taken a sleeping pill) and I went into her room. Let's just say when you take 10 mg of Ambien and you wake up before its time, it feels like you're drunk. The Geet has no recollection of waking up at 2:45 - she was totally out of it. I got her to the bathroom and back into bed and crawled back into my sleeping bag. The floor was hard (I guess that's why the call it "hardwood"?) - I'm too frickin' old for this shit. Got the kids off to school Tuesday morning and at 8:30 a.m. The Geet came to life and was feeling pretty good. I helped her take a shower, which she desperately needed, and unfortunately got to view something The Geet had told my Mom about the day before. The Geet has what we now know to be a rectal prolapse. Basically, the rectum falls out of the body and continually needs to be pushed back in. Not fun for her or for me as I had to push it back in several times today. Sorry to mention that, but its sort of part of the story.

We spent the day on the phone again and also meeting for 3 hours with a home health care RN. The Geet is now eligible for a weekly visit from a home health care nurse who will shower her, take care of some of her personal needs and check on her health. We were quite disappointed that this will only be happening one time per week (since the RN confirmed that Geet shouldn't be left alone for longer than a 1/2 hour at a time), so we then spent some time calling other service providers to see if we could hire daily help. This is harder than it should be, really. It is impossible to find people to do this. In the afternoon we called The Geet's doctor to see if he could see her this week regarding the rectal prolapse and some butt pain she's having since her fall 10 days ago. No luck, so at 3:30 p.m. we somehow got The Geet in the car and made our way to Urgent Care. They wanted us to go to the emergency room, but after two 6 hour-long visits to the ER in the last 6 weeks, I flat out refused. After a visit with the Urgent Care doctor, The Geet is now scheduled for a CT scan of her butt tomorrow and a surgery consult for the bowel next week.

I didn't eat all day and am emotionally and physically exhausted. I feel horrible for The Geet. I cry everytime I think about her life ending in this way. It is humiliating and discouraging and sad. We know that her needs are beyond our capabilities at this point. My mom and I plan to begin the process tomorrow of putting The Geet on the waiting list at several care facilities. The Geet is quite conflicted about this - Monday she said she wanted to go to a nursing home so she wouldn't be afraid at night and Tuesday she forgot she had said that and was extremely sad about moving from our home.

Tonight, Rick bought a baby monitor so that I can sleep in our bed and still hear The Geet if she wakes. We don't want her to use her Lifeline unless it is an emergency, so this is our next best option for knowing when she needs to use the bathroom. So, I guess I'm a little afraid to go to sleep tonight - afraid of how long I'll sleep before I need to run down to her room, afraid that I'll sleep through her calling for me and afraid of how this will all end. I can't imagine moving her somewhere else. I know that both she and I are praying for an end to all of this.