Yesterday would have been our mother's 84th birthday. Gertrude Little Pearson was a feisty and spunky woman who took the family through a stomach-wrenching roller-coaster ride from March 1, 2007 through October 31, 2007, which is the day she slipped into peaceful sleep after being in a seven-day diabetic coma.
The siblings began suspecting something strange before March of '07, but Gertie wasn't about to relinquish her maternal control by letting her children know the full details of her debilitating health. She thought she was hiding the diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension, and arthritis. But, when the progressive dementia began to manifest itself in our mother's behavior we knew things weren't looking good for this independent powerhouse we called Ma P and Grandma P.
Hospital stays became more and more frequent, with our mother not remembering how she'd even gotten there. Our mother couldn't remember which medicines she was supposed to take when, so she just began refusing all of them. This quickly led to a further decline in her health.
Requests were made to the medical staff, whom we came to know on a first-name basis, for a memory enhancing drug to be administered to our mother. Although our mom never verbally articulated this specifically, we supposed she didn't like the way the Aricept medication made her feel; so those pills along with others began to mysteriously wind up under the hospital bed. And, then there were the times when her 80-something year old hand would literally knock the medicine cup out of the hand of a medical attendant...
Our eldest sister and her husband carried the bulk of the care giving load since they lived closest to where our mother lived -- our mother still insisted on having her own apartment. Needless to say, this made monitoring her health that much more difficult for her grown children who were spread out geographically.
With each passing day we could see signs of diminishing health, a severely weakening memory, and some depression creeping in to the psyche of a woman who had at one time held her own and managed to triumph over great obstacles for many years.
The hospital medical staff adored our mother despite the fact that she became increasingly difficult and uncooperative with and toward them. They told the family they admired her "spunk" and her determination and will to live.
And spunk she had. Even while in a diabetic coma our mother would move a toe, finger, or eye to communicate to everyone that she was not going to take any of the medicine being offered to her! She never seemed to forget to say "NO" to the meds!
In October 2007 when our once feisty and unstoppable mother slipped into a diabetic coma, and the medical staff told the family she would have less than a 30% chance to live through surgery; we knew it would be just a matter of time until our mother would simply opt to forget everything and slip into a much more peaceful life.
We celebrated our mother's life through the pain of our loss at a beautiful service in early November of 2007 before having her remains cremated and passed along to our eldest sister and her husband for safe keeping. The family and friend support was tremendous, especially since we'd just buried my husband's mother, another feisty soul, four months earlier after her sudden and unexpected passing at the age of 70.
Little did we know that the saga of our roller-coaster experience involving one strong woman suffering from progressive dementia would be useful in helping so many others.
Our mother believed in extending big and small lifelines to anyone who would accept them in her day. She would then be on the lifeline receiving end to be cared for by a wonderful hospital staff who in turn eagerly shared lifelines of encouragement, honesty, and helpful information with the woman's children. These same children would follow the pattern as a result of the need to start extending lifelines of hope and encouraging advice to other relatives and to friends who would soon be in the same position with an aging parent battling against progressive dementia...
Sharonmariabiggs
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