Haze and Fog

Yesterday was crazy at the hospital with mimi. It was like she had taken some sort of crazy pills! Oh wait...she was on morphine. My dad had relieved my aunt and I was the relief for pop but when my husband and I arrived...dad warned she was talking crazy. Unfortunately, she just seemed in a haze and fog the entire day and no relief was in sight. I felt for her because she knew she felt crazy but nothing was helping. She was in so much pain that she needed the morphine. Also, she was a pain med anomaly, instead of the small person 2mg, she needed the 5mg to even touch her pain. But that brings us to the haze and fog. I felt for her as this out of body experience took her over one hour at a time. Her words were like turrets, bursting out pointless phrases every once in awhile. She actually told my husband when we left to lock the door and she would check on everything once we left. What?

Everything from she needed to get up and get her clothes on to waking up at 7:30 p.m. and asking when I arrived. "Mimi", I said, "I have been here all day." "Oh", she replied looking at me with foggy eyes, "I thought you just got here." I knew something was wrong. She was in a permanent state of haze and fog the whole day. And then seeing her in so much pain just broke my heart. Every breathe she took ached her abdomen that was still freshly stapled from the cut Dr. Hot Pants had to do in order to find an artery that would work for the bypass. The incision was from her sternum all the way down to her pelvic line. On the small woman, it appeared as though she was a bull that the butcher was having a hey day with cutting left and right. She could not take deep breaths because it hurt so badly. The consequence of this was the lack of oxygen to her brain which leads us to the haze and fog.

This morning at 5:00 a.m. the phone rings. Rolling over from a vino induced nap, I saw that I did not recognize the number and knew...it was the hospital. The nurse apologized and said they had been fighting with mimi all night. She had pulled out her I.V. and removed her heart monitor and would not leave the oxygen in her nose. The nurse proceeded to tell me that mimi was freaking out because no family was there. I told her I would be there in 20 minutes. Begrudgingly getting ready, I hated to think about what I would walk into when I arrived. Would it be a complete circus? Racing to her room I found her lying down, calm finally, and the LPN told her I was there. Mimi knew who I was but she kept saying how crazy she felt. I assured her it would be ok and then had to explain to her like one would to a 5 year old that she cannot pull out her IV or remove her dressings from the surgery. And then about every 20 minutes, I would repeat myself. She was crazy.

Exhaustion would have been restful to me at that point. I could barely keep my eyelids open but mimi was not lacking energy. She kept fighting everyone and everything. I tried to explain that the more she fought, the longer she would have to stay. She would quit briefly and then start Round 100. When my aunt arrived around 9:30; I could not get up from my chair quicker. I needed a nap....a 5 hour nap...I needed to breathe. The hospital room was finally getting to me and I was the one feeling crazy, suffocated, out of touch with reality. But the entertainment portion of the morning was just getting started. We tried together to explain to mimi that for everything she pulls out; that was another day she would have to stay in the hospital. Mimi responded with "pig slopping hog wash" and her favorite word "shit" and did not even listen. Then I explained that they were trying to heal her. I think she mistaken "they" for televangelist because she then went into a rant of "How could you be so stupid and believe they will heal you? They just want your money and they are faking it. " Excuse me, what? Pig slopping hog wash? Stupid? Who was this woman?

So I grinned at her rant and left with intentions of a nap that two furry kids would not let me have. As I laid on the bed, hoping both dogs would fall over and get some sleep as well, I prayed that this haze and fog was morphine induced. "Please Lord, don't let this be mimi? It is not her. She needs her mind to have a good quality of life." And I went into a hazy sleep myself and hoped that the fog for everyone would lift very soon.