A few nights ago, Mom and I were at our rented apartment on one of San Francisco's highest hills. She lives in Florida, I live in New York and we were both in California to visit our first grand/great-grand child. Mom was getting ready for bed when all of a sudden her speech was garbled.
Not wanting to leave her, I shouted upstairs for the homeowner to call 911. By the time she made the call and brought the phone down to me, mom was okay. In fact she was incredulous. "You're calling 911? What for? I'm fine." I started to cancel the call. Luckily the ambulance was on the way. We could hear the siren. When the paramedics arrived, mom was still saying she didn't need to go to the hospital.
The crew set her up on a stretcher and let me ride shotgun down the hill. Mom spent less than 24 hours in the hospital, but it was an important wake-up call. As many of you have already guessed, she'd suffered a TIA – a mini-stroke. As one of the doctors said, "This is a lucky thing. A warning sign." A CT scan showed no brain damage, and mom quickly got impatient with acing the mind-vibrancy tests various neurologists administered. She'll be on a blood thinner for the rest of her life, which looks to be a nice long time.
A happy ending, but the experience gave me a lot to think about in dealing with a parent's illness. Here are some tips I can pass on.
Resist Magical Thinking. When mom recovered so fast – the incident lasted no longer than a minute – I was tempted to respect her wishes and not go to the hospital. A health writer, I knew exactly what had happened to her. I knew she needed evaluation and treatment. But it was so tempting to let life go on, to pretend it hadn't happened. Like the proverbial tree in the forest, if we didn't acknowledge the incident, it hadn't occur.
Travel With Documents. Mom never lost consciousness or brain function, so she was able to make medical decisions for herself. One of the most organized people on earth, she's long had all the pertinent documents: a living will, medical proxy, power of attorney. As her only child, I'm what our former president called The Decider. But in other circumstances not having those documents at hand could have created miles of red tape.
Be There When The Docs Are. Mom's was a clear-cut diagnosis with an obvious remedy. No second opinion necessary. Still, it's an onslaught of information. When the doctors described tests and results, symptoms and treatment, I typed notes on my laptop. Whatever I didn't absorb, I could read later on. Also, be alert to things the docs might miss. When Mom was advised to stay another week in San Francisco while they adjusted her dose of blood thinner, she pointed out that she only had three more days worth of her regular meds. We left the hospital with prescriptions in hand.
Those are the lessons I learned. I'm sure many of you have had similar experiences. Would love to hear your wisdom too.
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