Dec 23 2008
Mom and the Bipap Mask
I want to say that I’m thrilled that Mom is home for Christmas. I didn’t want her to spend her holiday in the hospital. She did that once - I didn’t want it to happen twice. But, there are things I don’t like about this situation.
I had to put the bipap mask on my mother this morning for the first time since she was discharged. I hate that thing, and I know she does, too. It’s a pain in the ass to get sealed around her face to prevent leakage, and of course, the process of sealing it is painful to her because of the pushing and prodding I have to do to get it right.
But, she was somewhat incoherent this morning, her speech was slurred again, and I knew she was short of oxygen. So, I told her how sorry I was that I had to use it, but if she wanted to feel better and eat breakfast I already had made, then she’d have to wear it awhile to build up her oxygen levels again.
Since there’s nothing I can do really while she has it on, I went to the kitchen and ate my own breakfast before coming back down the hall to check on her. What do I see, but her struggling to remove it entirely. Well, that couldn’t continue, so I went in and chastised her and put the damned torturous thing back on her explaining that as much as it was a pain to have on, it was the only thing that would make her feel better so she could have breakfast. The seal still isn’t perfect, but mostly on is better than not on at all.
I am not happy that any of this has to happen. A part of me gets angry that she didn’t stop smoking earlier, yet she talks about how easy it was to stop - AFTER they told her she had emphysema. Right - a bit too late, I think.
Dad always smoked, too, but not nearly like Mom. She’d have to have a cigarette to answer the phone, to read the paper, to go to the bathroom!! Dad cut way back after having a heart attack (caused by Rheumatoid Arthritis, believe it or not) and even expressed concern about how much Mom was smoking. Yet, he’s been gone five years now and was seven years younger than Mom. Go figure!
I do hate how this is going, though. I keep hoping when her time comes, it happens in her sleep. I don’t want her suffocating because of this damned disease. I don’t want to watch her struggle for breath. One of my biggest fears is suffocation or drowning - long before Mom got this, I was afraid of that. I almost drowned twice and choked on a foreign object twice, so I think those events may be the source of my fears. But, to see it in action in someone else - absolute dread!
So, here I sit, expressing my fears while listening to the mask do its job, however imperfectly it fits, and hope for either a miracle or a clean and quick finality. I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. And, I know I’m not alone in that.
Hi Jerz: I am sorry that you are having so much trouble there with that damn mask, they are awful to handle, but necessary for your Mom; I do hope
she gets it to where it will do her some good otherwise she is going to wind up right back in the Hospital.
I will continue to send out some prayers and keeping you both in my thoughts
and prayers; Hang in there dear Friend;
{{hugs}}
I’m sorry you’re going through all this. My own mother was “difficult” but in another way. When she was diagnosed with esophageal cancer she had to have a “G-tube” surgical inserted into her stomach area. She, at first wasn’t able to eat by mouth, and that’s why she had it …I had to give her “feedings” through that tube..usually Ensure. Well she managed to yank it out not once, not twice, but three times.
You and your mom will be in my prayers jerzgirl…it’s never easy being a caregiver.