Family Gathering

Son "number one", as my mother often charmingly referred to him, arrived today to sit by me and keep me company for the day by my mother's bedside.  This afternoon, youngest son ("number 3") came and about and hour later middle son ("number 2") stepped into the room as well.


We all visited with my mother.  This mostly consisting of the normal repartee and banter back and forth between the brothers try to out charm each other (as they do) and get her attention, and then told her they were sweeping me off to dinner.

At 6:30 I was taken off to Tommy Nevins, there, to enjoy a fine pint of Guinness and a Caesar Salad.  As son number 3 had arrived with lovely Liz and grandson Gabriel, we made a party for a couple of hours.

I returned to discover that no one had missed me and that mom had been carefully turned in her bed, received her medications and been properly looked after while I was away.

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Not much of a change today since yesterday, except that her temperature spiked a bit in the nighttime (up to 100.8) and her blood pressure dropped a bit (88/63) as well.  Her gurgling continues though the nurses have been conscientiously suctioning out the build up of secretions in her throat when they become overwhelming.

For the most part, during the day today, she went back down with the fever (to 99) and her blood pressure came back up (113/80).  Everyone is amazed at her endurance, but she is coming to the end of her strength and of course also becoming prey to the infection that was running in her system from three weeks ago. 

Fixing the infection is not an option, at this point, and would go against her "do not resuscitate" orders.  She specifically requested no further invasive procedures. 

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I found a picture of the two of us, that I really liked from last summer, after we moved her from Santa Fe to Chicago.  It reminded me of another wonderful weekend night family party in a restaurant not far from here called  Hopleaf. 

We chose it that night because it had Belgian specialties and we figured my mother would enjoy it (her being Belgian/American and all).

As it was a loud, busy and packed venue, she got to do what she so often enjoyed doing, people watch. 

At some point while we were waiting for our table and the boys had gone to fetch us a beer, she said something to me like "Oh Honey, I think I'm the oldest person in this whole place!"

I told her that as always she was really the same age as all these people, just trapped in an older body.