Wednesday July 6th, 2014
I remember this day for two reasons – It was the first and last time Mom got out of bed and walked around. It was also the day the last picture of Mom and Dad was taken where she was Conscious.
It was a great day by all accounts. Mom was feeling feisty, Dad was smiling, doctors were optimistic and she was doing really great in her physical therapy.
Tests had come back, she had double pneumonia, but the antibiotics seemed to be working and Mom was eating. I remember watching her tear into a piece of chicken. She was so hungry that her hands were trembling, and she didn’t wait to use her fork so she used her hands. I was so incredibly happy that she was eating, that she wanted to eat, that she had an appetite. Several times I went into the bathroom and just sobbed. But she couldn’t finish the chicken because her mouth was too sore. I had been giving her Ginga-Violet for her mouth condition due to the malnutrition and it had helped, but she still had problems. We would rinse with the solution several times a day. But this day, her mouth was just too sore. She she would settle for tomato soup.
I had slept at the hospital every night since arriving and only to either get food or to pick up more clothes from Mom and Dads place back in Donalsonville. I had run out of clean underwear, clean shirts, my pajamas were starting to smell and my socks could have walked the halls by themselves. I had tried for days to get a chance to run out and get more panties, but every time I was ready to leave another doctor would come in with another test result or another explanation. Dad would look desperately over to me, and I knew that I could not leave until after the doctor was finished.
Finally I was able to run out to the store. I saw the sun and had been outside for the first time in days. I listened to the radio loud, had the sunroof open and tried to clear my mind of the stress. Socks, panties, Pj’s, and some shirts and jeans. I was set and no longer had laundry that could walk in the hospital with me.
Thant day Mom got out of bed herself and walked all the way down the long hospital hallway and back. If she continued to do well, she could be released in the next day or so. My knees went weak when the doctor told me that and I nearly hit the floor. I was so overcome with emotion. It had been so close. I cried again in the shower that night. I sat in the floor of the shower, let the warm water wash over me and sobbed, thanking God with every being of my fiber. She was going to live.
This is the last picture taken of the two of them with her conscious, both happy about the news. She was saying “I love you” when the picture was taken.
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