Why is my bed shaking? What is happening? Oh, wait, I think it’s my phone. Yes, somebody’s calling.
“Hello? Hello.”
“Shayla, did I wake you?”
Here I am, sound asleep, dreaming of who knows what. Suddenly, my bed was shaking, and I wondered what was happening. With a start, I realize it’s my phone ringing.
I am grappling for my cell in the dark. After what seems like an eternity, I pick up the phone and look at it. I see it is my mom calling. I know it is never a good sign for anyone to call in the middle of the night, but my sleep-hazed brain cannot figure out how to answer my phone. Panic is setting in.
Finally, I figure out how to answer it, and in this dreamlike state, I say, “Hello?”
“Shayla, it’s your mom. Did I wake you?”
“Ahhhhh, yes, but that’s OK.”
“Well,” my mom explains, “I just want you to know I am okay right now, but I am in the Hospital Emergency Room.”
“Wait, What!?”
Blink, Blink…. Okay, this is real; I am awake now!!!
“Mom, what is happening? Why are you in the emergency room?” (I know, this is an obvious question).
“Well, my blood pressure was extremely high, so I went to urgent care, and they told me to drive to the emergency room, so here I am.”
“Wait a minute, Mom, your blood pressure is high, and you are driving yourself around town at night?”
My mom is almost 84 years old and has glaucoma. She has lost some of her vision, and while she can drive herself around during the day, she has more difficulty at night.
She lives three states away from me. What should I do?
I can hear the nurse come into her hospital room and take her blood pressure. She told my mom it was in the lower 200s now, but it had been somewhere around 250/100 when she entered the ER.
“WHAT!?!?! OMG, Mom, you could have had a stroke while driving yourself to the hospital! What were they thinking at Urgent Care sending you off to drive yourself to the ER?”
Little did I know I was on speakerphone, and the attending nurse heard every word. I realized this when she said she agreed with me. But now that I know I’m on speakerphone, I stay quiet and listen.
I did a Google search during this time and discovered just how dangerous it is to have blood pressure readings that high! This is serious.
I can hear the panic in my mom's voice and the sweet nurse reassuring her, explaining they have given her medication in her IV, and it is bringing her blood pressure down.
Okay, that’s a relief, but WHY was it so high? My mom is scared, and that is scaring me even more.
I decided there was no way the hospital would send her home with skyrocketing blood pressure, so at least I knew she was in good hands during this crisis since I couldn’t be there.
My mom is preparing me
This is about the time she starts telling me all she needs me to know in case she dies.
This is terrifying. I pray for her out loud. I feel it is essential.
My heart is beating so hard, and my hands are shaking as I type all of her information on my phone, just in case this is the last time I talk to her.
I thought I already had this information on my phone, but I didn’t. So now my mom is giving me her friend's phone numbers in case I have to call them to make arrangements.
She tells me where things are in her house, what she wants me to do with them, and where I will find all of her important things.
She continued by telling me who her priest was, where his church was, what prayers she needed him to pray for her, and what she wanted at her funeral.
I’m trying to be calm. I remind myself this is not the first time I’ve gone through this with her.
This all sounds familiar
When my mom was here visiting a few years ago, she got Covid and ended up in the hospital. I went there to see her, and she did the same thing. She started telling me all of this vital information, but at that time, I videoed her with my cell phone.
“Hey, wait, Mom, I’m pretty sure I already have all this information on video.”
“What?” She is shocked. She has no memory of telling me any of this information before. She doesn’t remember my videoing her in the hospital.
She thinks about it for a minute and then asks how she looked in the video.
“Mom, you were in the hospital with Covid; you looked sick.”
As I was saying that to her, it struck me as funny. Here, she is in the hospital with extremely high blood pressure, but she’s worried about how she looked in the video I took several years ago.
My mom is fancy
Before I knew it, we were laughing about the 35-minute video I had of her in her hospital gown, with messy hair and no makeup.
Forget the fact that she was deathly ill at the time and telling me all of the same “in case I die” information I had just written down.
She was concerned about how she looked in the video. If you knew my mom, that would not surprise you because she always looks beautiful. She dresses to the nines and has her hair and makeup done impeccably.
So even though none of this is funny, we laugh until we cry. I tell her that when I visit her in the summer, I will show her the videos, which makes us laugh even more.
Laughing helped both of us calm down and breathe easier. About that time, my brother called, and she needed to hang up so she could talk to him. She reassured me she’d let me know what happened and then hung up.
They sent my mom home
The following day, I learned that they discharged her, and she drove herself home from the hospital in the middle of the night because her blood pressure was back down to a safe level. Again, I am horrified. How can they send her home so soon?
A few days later, my mom saw her specialist, and it turns out he had recently changed her blood pressure medication, and obviously, he shouldn’t have.
Flying to visit my mom
I traveled to visit my mom the next month so she could go over her “death wishes” again, but this time in person, so I would be prepared “just in case.” I will be her executor, so I know I need this information, but I don’t want to think about any of this.
I’m trying to stay calm and pray she will be around for many more years, but I’m unsure. I know she’s tired of feeling old and is often in pain. She misses her husband, who died in 2020.
I understand, but I’m not ready to let her go yet. I still want to believe she has many good years left.
God will get us through this
I’m feeling fearful but also very much at peace because my mom is a strong Catholic, and I know where she’s going to go when she dies. I know she will be happy to be reunited with her husband of 38 years.
I worry I won’t be up for the task when the time finally comes. However, I know God will be with me and give me the strength to do what needs to be done.
Have you ever been woken up in the middle of the night?
Was it bad news, a wrong number, or someone who didn’t realize how late it was?
Were you able to go back to sleep afterward?
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~ Shayla Renee’s Blog on Medium.com ~