I remember crying and saying over and over I can’t lose my mom.
2007-Mom, healthy and with NO walker!
Step back a few months…when I was 26 Adam and I began considering moving back to Nebraska. I interviewed and was offered several positions and ultimately chose one that seemed literally in the middle of no where in southeast Nebraska…two hours from my mom, three from my sister. We felt drawn to this particular community for some reason, in fact I chose the position and even a house without Adam ever even seeing the town. We knew that we were supposed to come here. We loaded up and came and had little money and Adam no job.
Two weeks after we arrived I got a phone call from my brother…I don’t know what is wrong with her but mom is sick. Mom never got sick. The woman worked 80 hour weeks to barely (if even) make ends meet. She NEVER got sick. We headed that way immediately knowing something must not be right. It wasn’t. By the next morning she couldn’t even bathe herself and was having a tough time walking. The doctors had the “what is going on with this patient” look that I myself sometimes have! I called my sister and older brother and said something is wrong. I don’t know what, it just is. Within 24 hours she was comatose and in the ICU.
Not even a day later, we were told she probably had west nile virus and it was in her brain. They apologetically looked at us but were doubtful she would live. Remember, six years ago they knew very little about west nile. She no longer recognized us but we were so very blessed in middle of the night when a doctor was on call that we had not met before. We pleaded with the nurses to please call him in for us to talk to him…albeit 3am. Having received these calls myself, he could have said heck no! But he didn’t and came in all tired and such and met with my siblings and I. We asked him one question: if this was your mother what would you do? He said, get her out of here. Take her somewhere bigger. Four hours later we were on our way to the University of Nebraska med center in Omaha hoping that being a teaching hospital they would have some sort of an experimental study going on that could maybe give her a chance. They did have a study that could she could try-we prayed and decided to go for it.
Many months later we brought mom home from a rehab center. She still couldn’t take care of herself…bathing, cooking, walking etc-but we still had her. The researchers wrote a study about mom that was published in 2004. The community they lived in rallied around my mother and brother having a silent auction, publishing newspaper stories about her and even interviewing all of us kids and her for the local news.
Flash forward six years: Happy 60th birthday, Mom. I praise God each day for you. I praise him for the past six birthdays we’ve shared. As awful as it was, that experience did amazing things for us all. You no longer have to work so hard. You seem more at peace then I can ever remember. The thing I am most thankful for is…LOVE. Prior to your illness our family never used this word. We never kissed and barely hugged. Usually only bitter emotions were shared. Not a visit passes where I do not give you or my siblings a kiss and say I love you.
All of us-because of her.
I pray for those of you that have lost your mom. There is no one like a mother and I can’t begin to imagine life without mine.
For those of you who have your mother still in your life…the next time you talk to her tell her you love her.