Understanding the Assignment

MARCH 6, 2021

It’s Saturday morning and my mom’s house is buzzing. Family members have been busy moving things, rearranging things, cleaning things. Mom is coming home today.

Less than 24 hours ago, doctors at Mayo Hospital were picking me up off the floor. The words, “It’s cancer and it’s everywhere,” literally took my legs from under me.

My mom’s family — her husband, her children, grandchildren, sister, nieces and nephews — has been helping to prepare my mom’s house for Hospice in the Home.

Hospice in the Home means providing palliative care for the terminally ill, keeping them as comfortable as possible until the end. According to the doctors, my mom has an expiration date: two weeks.

My family has worked tirelessly to prepare the house for my mom’s arrival. What my family doesn’t realize is that the door to my mom’s house will soon be a revolving one. There will be a line of people stopping by to visit… to reminisce… to pay their respects.

What no one understands is that we’ve just turned my mom’s house into a funeral home. I don’t know how to prepare them for the living wake. I don’t know how to prepare me for this.

As I exit the elevator on the 5th floor of Mayo Hospital, I stop to think about how I got here. Literally. I don’t remember getting in my car. I don’t remember driving to the hospital. I don’t remember parking my car. Yet, I’ve walked through the hospital’s front doors and, well, here I am.

I’m here to discharge my mom. To talk to the doctors one last time. To escort the medical transport van to my mom’s house.

As I head towards my mom’s room, I remember that six doctors were waiting for me yesterday. I start to remember their words. How they broke my heart. How they made me cry. How they made me feel… so alone.

Halfway there, I stop and duck into a bathroom. “Get it together,” I tell myself. “She needs you to be strong.”

I wipe my tears, blow my nose and take a deep breath.

Room 5F. Only one doctor is waiting for me this time. It’s my mom’s primary hospital doctor. That beats the six doctors that were waiting for me yesterday. The bad news had been delivered. There’s no need for the other five.

SOMETHING’S WRONG…

“How’s she doing today?” I ask the doctor.

“I want you to go in, talk to her a little bit and then come back out. I’ll wait here.” he says.

My face wrinkles up, that’s my confused face, because I don’t understand what he’s getting at. So, I head into my mom’s room.

Something’s wrong.

She looks worse. Her color is worse. Her speech is worse. Her brain fog is worse. She’s not able to sit up.

I was just here yesterday. She was sitting up in the chair next to the window. She wanted to feel the sunlight on her skin while she ate her pan dulce. It was in that chair that she looked directly at me, and the six doctors, and told us repeatedly that she was “ready for the fight” with her fist in the air.

There was never going to be a fight. Everyone in the room knew this, but she still had enough energy to muster up some spunk. Twenty-four hours later, that spunk is gone.

I spend a few minutes hugging her, kissing her check, telling her she’s going home today. She said he understands, but I’m not sure she does.

I head back out into the hallway where her doctor is waiting for me.

LISTEN TO WHAT I’M ABOUT TO SAY…

“How does she look to you?” he asks.

“She looks worse than yesterday,” I say, wiping away more tears. “What happened?”

“It’s the cancer,” he says. “Remember yesterday when I told you she had two weeks?”

I whisper, or whimper, a “Yes.”

And then he takes a deep breath…

“After evaluating her this morning, I think she’s only got a week. I’m so sorry,” he says.

I’m hyperventilating. “But you said she had two weeks! Yesterday, you said two weeks!”

He looks down at his feet, he’s hesitating. He’s giving himself some time while he searches for the right way to say something he’s probably had to say a thousand times.

“This cancer, once it gets to the liver, it’s so aggressive, and it’s just too late.”

He continues to talk, but I can’t hear him. I can’t hear anything. And now I’m suddenly looking up at the doctor.

I’m half-way to the floor when he grabs my left arm. My knees hit the hard surface when someone, I don’t remember who, stops to help him and lifts me up by the other arm.

There’s now a low, staticky, buzzy noise in my ears.

I’m standing upright again, but someone or something keeps moving the floor beneath me while tilting the walls back and forth. My whole world is on tilt.

My mom’s words, “Just breathe,” come to me. The doctor’s words have knocked the wind out of me, and I’m gasping for air.

“Just breathe.”

This is something my mom has said to me my entire life. During the most difficult times, she has been there to comfort me and say, “Just breathe, mija.”

Who’s going to tell me to “just breathe” when she’s gone?

My hearing is back, which is good, because what the doctor says next hits me hard. He begins with, “Listen to what I’m about to say.” When anything is prefaced with “Listen to what I’m about to say,” it’s cause for concern and your full attention.

He continues with…

“Today, you’re going to take her home. You’re going to let her eat whatever she wants, let her drink whatever she wants.”

“Let her see who she wants to see. If there’s someone she wants to see, urge them to come see her, because this is it.”

“Let everyone know that if they want to see her, if they have anything they want to say, the time is now. She’s got a week, tops. And you need to tell them exactly that, be explicit about that.”

“In the meantime, you will need to make her as comfortable as possible and Hospice will help you with that.”

His words feel urgent, like marching orders. It’s all become clear to me. I now know what I need to do and I don’t have much time.

It’s one of the last things that I will ever do for her. Something I’ve never planned for or anticipated, but I now understand the assignment.

The assignment: Plan the last week of my mom’s life.

***

Soy hija de Gloria. Una guerrera. Esta es la historia de mi mamá. Y mi terapia.

I’m Gloria’s daughter. She was a warrior. This is my mom’s story. And my therapy.