#feeling some sort of way about manually held airways...

[resuswhore]

💞 would love to open a handsome boy's lifeless mouth, finding it grey with hypoxia, and clip a pulse ox monitor right to his tongue like he was my pretty puppy 💞 feeling the chord and the hard plastic as I press my warm, hot mouth over his cold, limp, grey one to give breaths 💞 using the clip to pull his slack tongue out of his mouth and airway, so I make sure all of my air reaches his pretty chest 💞 doing compressions and watching the clip bob, taking his tongue with it, as his body spasms under the effort 💞 maybe I get to slide a tube down his throat, using only my hands of course, getting to guide it down is airway and into his lungs all on my own, no scope, the process intimate, my hands digging around and manipulating his tongue and jaw to get it in place right 💞 getting to take that tube down and use it, kissing around it, forcine air through it 💞 maybe I get to see some fluid drain out of it like a spout as I do compressions or turn him on his side 💞 getting to see his mouth full and used 💞 getting that pretty puppy mouth all pink again so I can kiss him softly 💞 what a dream 💞

[lonibergqvist]

One year later.

It’s hard to believe most days that it’s been one year since I lost my mom. The cliche rings true; It seems like yesterday... when I arrived at the hospital early in the morning to spend a little time with her before she went into surgery. There was a storm coming. The hospital staff went into some sort of ‘storm code’ and made us close the drapes to the windows on our 7th floor room overlooking much of East Green Bay. The sky was dark, the air sticky and still. 

Where is your father? Despite feeling unwell and unable to get out of the hospital bed the last week, my mom still had her feisty spirit intact. Infallible. 

She called his cell phone. Where are you? I could sense that even though we had fought the insurance company the last few days to get the operation approved, my mom was nervous. It had only been two weeks ago that my mom’s doctor performed a chest x-ray, investigating what was thought to be a bronchitis. The shock of finding a tumor must have been difficult to digest, scary. Unimaginable. 

We both expected my dad to be operating on Phil Time; a reality that we had come to accept. My dad would always be ‘on his way’ though his actual arrival time would be variable. This morning, he was up early and almost at the hospital. 

The rain started pelting the window. 

When my dad arrived, I went downstairs to find a cup of coffee and took a moment to walk outside of the small hospital cafe to feel the storm hit. Hospital employees ran from their cars, shielding their heads from the rain with jackets and wind-blown umbrellas. I assumed most were running late due to the weather. They entered the building out of breath and relieved to be out of the wet. 

Back upstairs, my dad sat near my mom’s bed, gently stroking her leg. 

He announced he would take a walk down the hallway to take a look but my mom quickly shot down that idea, thinking he would get lost, or take too much time, or miss her being called downstairs into surgery. 

He settled for peeking out the drapes inside the room. 

The operating doctor arrived and talked to us briefly about the procedure. He would go inside, look through her airways and if possible, insert a small stint. The stint would give my mom a chance for breathing better, for getting treatment and to prevent things like the pneumonia and blood clots she had been hospitalized for the previous week. 

An attendant came to drive her downstairs. My dad took a photo of her going into the elevator and she flashed the middle finger. Further evidence that even lung cancer couldn’t make my mother go down without a fight. 

The last thing I said to my mom before she was taken behind the doors to the operating room was I love you, Mom. I guess it was the perfect thing to say. Looking back, I can’t really think of anything else I would have liked to say. Just I love you, Mom. 

The next few hours blurred together. The first clue that something was wrong was a nurse who rushed into the waiting room and informed us that my mom had lost a lot of blood during the procedure but they were still working on her and doing everything they could. My dad and I held hands, unsure of how serious the situation was. Another nurse visited us again. She told us my mom’s heart had stopped but they had been able to start it again. It’s good news. 

Then the hospital clergy came. They sat down next to us in the empty waiting room and asked if we wanted to pray with them. We politely declined but when they left, I started to understand the gravity of my mom’s condition. I called Kjartan to come meet us and he dropped Eleanor off at the neighbor’s house.  

We stayed clueless for a while. They moved my mom to another operating room and attempted to remove one of her lungs to stop the bleeding. In the end, they had kept her alive for over three hours, manually massaging her heart and trying their best to save her. Afterwards all of the doctors visited us. They sat with us. One even cried with us. She was the first patient he had ever lost. 

There was a sort of numbness that followed. I was crying but it all seemed empty. The flood of family and friends who came to support us over the next few days was incredible. But still, I was numb. Even in giving a small speech at my mom’s memorial service, I could feel myself saying the words, even believing them but unable to really give in to the reality that my mom was really gone. I think that’s all normal. There’s no right way to grieve. 

When we arrived home to Denmark, I found myself oscillating between business as usual and complete devastation. It usually happened in the shower. Maybe it was the solitude. The break from work and kids and life that allowed me to feel it. I could just cry. Let the tears merge with the water. 

It’s hard to believe that I haven’t talked to my mom in a year. We would talk almost daily. I’d count seven hours backwards and judge whether it was a reasonable hour to call due to the time difference. Over FaceTime, my mom would have her first cup of coffee and hear about the new thing that Eleanor did or we’d exchange some gossip that we saw on Facebook. That’s tough. I really miss that. 

After a year, I’ve found there’s no easy way to lose a parent. My mother was a fundamental part of who I am. Profoundly. Some days I have to remind myself that she’s gone, and other days I feel my mom’s presence so intensely that I refuse to believe death can take someone away. I’ve had days where I’ve needed to mentally walk through the day my mom died, just to remember that it happened. I’ve even had some regrets about the time I spent with her. I think about how wonderful it is when Eleanor cuddles up with me in bed and I wonder why I didn’t do that with my mom. Such a simple thing that would have brought her so much joy. Why didn’t I do that more? Looking back, I wouldn’t have gotten so annoyed with concerns about my safety or whether I was eating enough. I’m thinking about getting a motorized scooter to get to/from work and I can still hear my mom’s voice, so clear, questioning whether it’s a good idea and reminding me to wear a helmet. These things are imbedded in me, they haven’t disappeared with her. 

Maybe the hardest thing though is knowing that my mom would have loved to know my kids. I hear people who have lost parents say that a lot. I was a few weeks pregnant when my mom went into surgery, so she knew there would be another baby on the way. She was excited but I also think she was also scared that a diagnosis of lung cancer would prevent her from being a part of it all. As Eleanor gets older, I see so many ways that they would have connected. There’s a lot of Patti in Eleanor. And of course there’s a lot in me.

Whenever I was home visiting, whether in college or living in California, we would get pedicures at the same nail salon near Target. My mom really hated to have her feet touched and would always squirm when she got a pedicure so I always kind of wondered why she wanted to get them. Each time the technician finished with my mom’s feet, there would be a pile of dead skin on the floor. We would laugh and it became a running joke that her feet were so bad. She would always talk about her feet, Philbrick Feet. All the women have them. Small toes, high arches, square. I have them, too. 

And now Eleanor has Philbrick Feet. At two years old, her toe nails are painted pink and we call them Ooh-La-La Toes. Eleanor can name many parts of the body: arm, the other arm, leg. But she thinks toes are actually called Ooh-La-La Toes. I think sometimes about how my mom would have called them that. How she would probably have taken Eleanor to the same nail salon to get her feet done. A special day with Nana Lou. Painting Eleanor’s nails is just one way I keep my mom with us. 

Even after a year, she’s always with us.

Ooh-La-La Toes. Three generations of Philbrick Feet.