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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
A LOVE STORY 2009-07-01 I haven't written on Family Wisdom in a long time. This essay will explain why, but says a whole lot more. It is the story of my parents, and especially a very courageous woman: my mother. Three weeks ago, after a long and debilitating illness, my 83 year old father died. Four days later, my mother followed him. Theirs is a love story that lasted over 65 years, including nearly 64 years of marriage that produced two children, a girl (me), and a boy, my brother Terry who died forty years ago. Five years ago, my father had two back surgeries and never fully recovered. He had been suffering from severe back pain and after the surgeries the pain was gone, but so was his ability to stand erect. One year of physical therapy did not improve things, and in fact new symptoms began to appear. He began moving very slowly, falling frequently, and had difficulty keeping his eyes open. His emotions seemed erratic and his manners deteriorated. He began to have trouble chewing and swallowing. A neurologist diagnosed atypical Parkinson's Disease and started him on medication to treat symptoms of Parkinson's. My father could no longer drive nor help with anything in the house, including the finances. So after nearly 60 years of being the head of the family, my father now became dependent on my mother, who took over as the boss. Nearly two years ago, two years after my dad's first symptoms, she began to feel more tired than usual but thought it was just that she was 80 years old and slowing down. She hired a woman to come in two days a week so she could leave my dad to run errands without worrying that he would fall. She also hired a company to keep her house clean. In November of 2007 she was so tired that she went to the doctor who determined she needed an immediate blood transfusion. Two months later she was diagnosed with Acute Myelocitic Leukemia, for which, the doctor told us, there was no cure for someone her age. He gave her just a few months to live. My mother smiled politely and told the doctor he simply didn't understand. She had a husband to take care of and she couldn't die. He would have to find some way to keep her alive until her husband died from his illness. She began using an experimental pill that in the one study using it for leukemia, had an 80% failure rate. It worked for my mother for nearly 8 months, and reduced the blast (leukemia cell) count to 0. When it failed, as the doctor warned us it would, she insisted on another treatment, which kept her alive for another 8 months. Each of these treatments were difficult to cope with as each killed healthy blood cells and necessitated dozens of transfusions of red cells and platelets, and injections to stimulate the growth of white cells to fight infection. My mother was told not to drive because of her condition, and so I drove her twice a week to lab tests, often once or twice a week to transfusions, and every other week to her doctor's appointment. We hired caregivers to stay with my dad when my mom and I were gone and to help both of them with daily activities. I ran all the errands, bought the groceries, planned meals, and did anything outside the house that needed doing. When I was not driving my mother to her many appointments, I tried to find ways to help my dad. I bought a variety of things to help keep his eyes open, did things to make his walker less likely to tip over, kept him company and tried to keep up his spirits. But the only person who could really keep his spirits up was my mother, and in trying to stay alive for him, she ended up being out of the house more often than he liked. A few months after my mother's treatment began, I decided to seek a second opinion on my father's condition. I had been reading up on Parkinson's Disease, and his symptoms seemed so much worse. Ultimately, he was given the diagnosis of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a Parkinsonian type disorder that is much more severe, progresses more rapidly and has no treatment. He would soon lose more and more of his abilities. In spite of the many blows they were receiving, my parents did their best to enjoy the time they had together. They had favorite television shows, followed golf and basketball, and spent time talking in bed each night and morning. My father was able to talk better in the morning (by late morning or early afternoon he had often grown silent and at the end of his life, he could only signal us with his hands) and so they liked to stay in bed for a while to have that time together. My dad also sang a song each morning for my mother. Even though he had largely lost the ability to talk in complete sentences, he could still remember the words and melodies to hundreds of songs. Two months ago my father began sleeping more, became incontinent, and began falling more frequently. He would try to get up at night without waking my mom, and then fall on the way to the bathroom, so my mother put barricades up against his side of the bed. He pushed them away. Then she took a long scarf of hers and tied one end to her wrist and one to his, so any movement on his part would wake her. He untied the scarf. Finally, my mother made the decision to contact hospice as she knew we needed more help. Hospice sent a nurse three times a week, but after a crisis necessitating hospitalization, my father entered a final decline. In the meantime, my mother's condition also deteriorated. There were no more treatment options. She hid her pain and weakness as long as she could, but she did tell my father that she was not doing well, and when he told her he believed he was dying, she told him she was dying too, and said she would follow right behind him. And she did. He was confined to a hospital bed for the last two weeks of his life, and my mother slept next to him in a small twin bed, until she realized she was getting no rest and needed to return to her own bed at night. She did her best to visit him in the final days, but it became impossible for her to walk and so she rested in her bed or on the couch in the family room most of the time. She dozed off throughout the day and we had to ask for stronger pain medication for her. But she always went in to say good morning to my dad, and always kissed him good night before retiring. My father died early on the morning of June 8th and my mother's pain and difficulty breathing became worse. By Wednesday, I had to take her to the emergency room just to get oxygen for her. A medical transport brought her home on Thursday afternoon, already enrolled in hospice so we could have both morphine and oxygen at home for her, and so she could die in her own home, as had my dad. I thought we had at least a few days, but I was wrong. Less than twelve hours after we brought her home, she died peacefully. We had a double funeral and a memorial service that included a bagpiper playing "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," a song my mother requested ahead of time to be played at my dad's funeral. As so often happens when someone dies, there are strange occurrences or coincidences, and always lessons to be learned. The memorial service was held on June 18th, which happened to be my birthday. My sons wanted to see their grandparents before the memorial so I went in with them for a private viewing. Thus, I saw my parents for the first time on June 18th, and for the last time on June 18th. My parents 64th anniversary would have been July 7th. As the funeral director noted before my parents caskets were taken to the front of the church, they went up the aisle together 64 years ago, and they were going up the aisle together one last time. I keep thinking of the promise my parents made to each other on July 7th, 1945, a promise all couples make: "till death do us part." But my mother had made a more recent promise to my father, that she would stay alive for him in spite of her disease, that she would take care of him, and that she would stay with him until he died. How she did that, the medical professionals do not know. Her oncologist said he has never treated anyone her age, with this diagnosis, who lived as long as she did. He said she was a "remarkable woman" who was "writing her own book." Time and again, she defied the odds. The first pill she tried had an 80% failure rate, but with her it succeeded for 8 months. The second treatment also had an 80% failure rate, but that was reduced by another 10%, according to the doctor, because the first treatment had become ineffective, and that meant the cancer cells had mutated and were more resistant to treatment. She had very few side effects to either treatment, other than fatigue and some bone pain. She never lost her hair or suffered nausea. She did have a lot of bleeding from the low platelets, and was prone to infection – so I made her stay at home and away from crowds. She had dozens of transfusions and twice weekly lab tests making her a human pin cushion. But she never, ever complained. When the caregivers offered to do things to help her, she told them their first priority was her husband, and only when he didn't need them would she allow them to help her. She was the most unselfish and courageous woman I have ever known. She made a promise to my dad that she would stay with him, and though it became more difficult in the last few weeks when she was in constant pain, suffering night sweats and fatigue - to my mother a promise was a promise. She loved my dad and refused to abandon him. And in the end it was only her will and stubborn determination that allowed her to keep that promise. She told me a few days before my father died, that she wanted to die one day after he did. The only flaw in her plan, to outlive him, to care for him until he died, and to die one day after he did, was that she was three days late in dying. They rest together now, on either side of my brother, my dad on his left, my mother on his right because, as my mother told me, that is how they were positioned in their bed when my very ill brother couldn't sleep, and they brought him into bed with them, gave him a shot of scotch and played monopoly until he got sleepy. I don't know if they are playing monopoly know, or watching over me and my family, or just resting in peace. I miss all of them though, but I know it will be a long time before I or anyone can forget Robert and Frances Brennan, and the story of Frances, a determined and loving woman, who promised to stay with her husband until his death, and fulfilled that promise more courageously than anyone I have ever known. |