The long goodbye began

 

It's Jan 20.

And I'm not talking about this day for that.

No, I'm talking about last Jan 20.

But, I need to go back to Dec 11, 2017, first.

In short: I was at Greenwich to call Stamford/Greenwich basketball. The game is a blur but I remember clearly that my mother went to the hospital. She told me to call the game and meet her and my sister later.

As I drove home, I reached my sister to find out mom hadn't even been seen yet, so I raced to Putnam Hospital Center. 

"Well, Nancy," I said to her. "This is another fine mess you've gotten us into," echoing Laurel and Hardy of many years ago. It was humor that has always sustained us.

We spent a long night there until they finally admitted her. Laura and I each groggily went home.

She was home in time for Christmas when she began to feel off again. Despite my telling her to go to the hospital, she refused, only to wake me around 3:00 the next morning to tell me to take her back to the hospital.

This is all part of when we discovered her kidneys were done and she'd need to begin dialysis. By early 2018, she was going to the Davita Celia Dill Dialysis Center three days a week. She eventually regained the strength to drive herself, and we all carried on.

Until Jan 20, 2020.

Sean was here as he was off from high school for MLK Day. I recorded a podcast early that day for Hunt Scanlon and Mom decided she wasn't up to going to dialysis. Now, if you don't know, it's not ideal to skip a treatment, but adjustments can be made. She'd need to get in Tuesday, no matter what. She declined my offer to drive her to the center, just preferring to let whatever it was run its course.

It was getting close to 3:00 and I needed to leave for Greenwich, as I was supposed to call Millbrook and Brunswick in hockey. I said goodbye and left Sean with strict instructions to keep in touch with me.

But I knew better. I stepped to the living room and sat on a chair for a moment.

"Is your father still here?" I heard Mom say down the hall.

"She's asking for you," Sean said.

She decided she needed to go to the hospital. I prepared to drive her but we realized that she was too weak to go down any of the stairs in the house. She didn't like the idea of being carried down to the car.

I did something I've never done: I called an ambulance.

They soon arrived and got her out.

Poor Sean had never seen such a thing and, now, here was his grandmother (he's really blessed with great grandparents, only missing out on my dad, and is close to all of them) being carried out to an ambulance.

He and I followed a few minutes behind.

Laura soon joined us at Putnam Hospital Center, where I joked that Mom should be on a rewards program for her frequent visits.

There was just a bad feeling that this was the beginning of the end.

While I argued with myself about the hockey game (I've told you about how my parents raised me to honor commitments), Joe Early was quick to douse that flame. I worried about leaving them in a lurch at the last minute, but he was resolute.

"It doesn't need to be said, but I will," he texted me. "DO NOT BE AT BRUNSWICK TONIGHT."

Any pressure I felt was gone, even if Mom felt I could go and come back to the hospital. I glanced at my phone once to see that the broadcast carried on announcerless.

She would be admitted to Putnam once again. Then she'd go to Vassar in Poughkeepsie where she was supposed to have surgery. 

There was one Saturday night when I called basketball at Brunswick and drove to Vassar to see her. Laura and Stephanie were both there. We went to a Buffalo Wild Wings a few minutes down the road where the three of us had a quiet dinner as we were all exhausted.

"Take my picture," she told me.
Vassar Hosptial, 1/23/20

The surgery never happened and it was recommended that she go to a nursing home.

Between her heart surgery in 2013, the 2017-2018 kidney issues, and now the weakness that she had built up that needed to be addressed on Jan 20, 2020, she had seen more than her share of healthcare facilities and dealt with a ridiculous amount of non-answers.

Now, she was faced with going to a nursing home to rebuild her strength, as she couldn't walk.

She first tried a place called Putnam Ridge, near Brewster. Laura drove her there (Laura, my niece Stephanie, and I were the first three on chauffeur duty).

The next morning, I was awakened by a text that said, in short, if someone didn't come to pick her up, she would call a taxi.

I was closest, so I put myself together and went to Putnam Ridge. I made my way to her room.

Putnam Ridge, 1/30/20

"I know you're mad," she said.

"Good," I countered. "We're on the same page."

My exasperation was over her inability to not even make it 24 hours. I felt she hadn't given it a fair chance. Plus there were times where it was frustrating for all of us -- including her.

I got her out of there, painting on my best smile to make the best of it for all involved (the staff was kind but it was so awkward). We drove to a few places to pick up any needs and I got her home. Then I basically pushed her up the stairs.

She got around the house using a walker, and the stairs were extremely difficult to get her to dialysis, but we got it done.

I shopped and tried to make some food for her, but her dietary needs weren't going to be helped by me. By that Sunday, she admitted she was ready to try another nursing home. She said she was going, ostensibly, for the food, but she was going because she needed help.

She slept a lot on that day, which happened to be Super Bowl Sunday. We had been invited to a party at my cousin's house, but she wasn't up to going and, ultimately, I couldn't leave her. I didn't feel right doing so.

My sister worked the phones, along with one of her doctors, and she was ready to check in to Waterview in Purdy's, NY. I took her to dialysis that morning, picked her up when she was done, and checked her in.

More details of all of this can be written some other time, but I'll long remember how check-in just felt...weird, going to this back door and her quickly being whisked into a room in a place whose decor made us feel like the celluloid version of The Shining.

I mean, really. Where's the Big Wheel?

She'd be there for over a month and, honestly, we wondered if she'd ever come home again. I'd visit her as many times as possible, but some of those visits just consisted of watching Jeopardy and her looking tired and maybe even resigned. It was very concerning. She resisted doing the physical therapy she was there for and was overall miserable. 

"All work and no play makes Rob..."
This is pre-lockdowns, etc. Waterview had concerns about
the flu, so they asked me to wear a mask. Mom wasn't amused (2/4/20).

She left, happily, on March 10. As you can figure out from the timeline, it was good to get her out of there, as the world was rapidly changing. I couldn't help her pack or even visit her room because of something called a "coronavirus." As I waited for her to be wheeled out, the Connecticut media was announcing the halting of all high school sports.

Perhaps I'll get into a closer breakdown of my own events leading up to March 10 some other time.

Again, we made stops and got home. This was the first time she got to try out her newly-installed chair lift.

I went and did "The Clubhouse" the next night and called lacrosse from the Local Live studio the following day.

By then, the world knew of Rudy Gobert and COVID-19 had stopped us in our tracks. Basically, I was my mother's caregiver for the next six months. That's not to take anything away from anyone else, but I was the closest to her in terms of distance.

Those were the last six months of her life.

So, I find myself remembering where we were just one year ago today. 

I remember how things changed quickly.

I remember how the train of this roller coaster left the station and the events leading up to it.

I remember a lot -- from pizza in the parking lot for social distancing to getting her wherever I could with the concern that it was "the last time."

How Sean and I took her to Pennsylvania to go to Waffle House and just have a frivolous (but safe) day and how my gut told me to swing by Butler, NJ on the way home.

"Hey," I said to her. "Do you want to show your grandson where you lived as a kid?"

I've rarely made a smarter move. My gut told me it would be the last time.

It's for these reasons that, while not trying to alarm, I'd warn people to see her or keep in touch with her. Of course, COVID made seeing her very difficult. It's why I felt such gratitude for getting her to my niece's wedding in August. I kept stressing that everyone enjoy it. At the time, I felt like a jerk. Now, I realize my instinct was right.

And, yet, it felt like this stubborn bird would keep flying. I didn't think she'd land quite so soon.

But, we all know what happened. She used up every last ounce of what she had left from March until the morning of September 4, when her heart finally gave out.

It's hard to say when the end really began. Was it the dialysis of 2018?

Or was it one year ago today: Jan 20, 2020.

We'll never know and it doesn't really matter.