I Am My Sisters Keeper, cont'd

Daryl was in ICU for several days, her right side paralyzed, she was on a ventilator for a bit. They used an endotracheal tube placed down her throat to her lungs so that the air could be forced into her lungs. Soon she was able to breathe on her own, which was good as she had pulled the "breathing tube" out on her own. She woke up from her surgical coma angry and confused. They restrained her left arm and leg because she had kicked a very large nurse across the room. When the hand was free, she would grab at tubes and wires and pull at them. They had to sedate her to keep her calm most of the time.


Most times, she would not recognize even me, but she would hold my hand while i sat next to her so that her arm could be free from restraints. Speech was difficult, and she asked the same questions repeatedly. She could not remember the answers for more that a few minutes. They had shaved half of her head for the surgery. Staples made a jagged line from her forehead to behind her left ear. The right side of her mouth drooped slightly.


She tried to get out of bed to go pee, not understanding what a foley catheter was and why she had that. Stickers on her chest with wires to monitor her heart. She would feel for things with her left hand and bring them up to her eye to look at it.


"What is that?" was a common question.


"Where am I?"


"Why?"


"I want to go home. Take me home."


She was like a little girl again. She had her temper tantrums just like when she was a small child. She threatened to beat me up when she would not get her way with me. That was when she was not calling me Mom.


"Mom, where am I?"


"Mom, why am I here?"


"Mom, untie this for me."


I would tell her, "I am not mom, I am Tomasina."


"No you're not." would be her angry response.


"Why do you say that?"


Then other times she would not recognize me at all.


David would come up to the hospital, and I would leave for short whiles. Then Daryl would be angry because I had not stayed. Friends from work would visit her, but she did not know who they were. One person she recongized was the friend who went to the emergency room with us that one night. Daryl remembered that this friend told the doctor she did drugs. She would have nothing more to do with this woman. She banned her from her life.


In the private room, she did not require restraints anymore, but she still needed constant supervision. Her memory was very slow to return. She required therapy to help her to walk again, but her right leg would drag behind her slightly, and her right arm would sag to her side.


They placed her in the extended care facility for further therapy, when she no longer needed to stay in the hospital, but was not strong enough to go home.


When she was here, I brought her son to visit. Sadly, she did not remember him. It was hard to watch him talk to his mom and she would say to me, "Who is this kid?" She wanted me to take him away, until I finally convinced her that he was her son.


The next day, she questioned me.


"I have a son?"


"Yes Daryl, you have a son."


"When did I have a son?"


"You adopted him Daryl. It was final when he turned 5."


"I have a son?"
Confusion twisted her face each time she asked me this question. Even when she came to my home on her release, she could still not remember the son she had cared for since his birth. He was now 10 years old.


The doctors wanted her to go to a skilled home where her therapy would continue. She required speech, physical and occupational therapy. She refused to go to the facility, because it would take her farther from her home. She was beginning to remember some things, but she had such a short term memory she forgot what she remembered much quicker. After multiple visits from her friends, she would finally remember their names and how she knew them.


She understood that she would not be able to return to work for a long time.


"But I am going back to work." She would tell me that often, though she could not remember what type of work she did.


During the first few days of all this, I had to acquire legal guardianship for her. I had to have the legal right to sign papers for her, pay her bills, request past pay checks, fill out social security disablitly forms. Anything she normally would have done. When she found out this, she became so irate, that she had lost her "freedom". She could not see it as my helping her to get back on her feet. She argued with me every time I saw her. She would demand that I give up the guardianship. She would not listen when I tried to explain that the guardianship more or less just ended. The judge set a time limit on how long I could be her guardian, and to renew it if needed, I would have to return to court.


Her financial life had become a tangle of unpaid bills that needed to be taken care of. She was behind in her rent, so I had to pack her things and put them into storage. She was so angry that I could not keep her home. Why she could not go back and live in it. We argued about money that she didn't have. David helped me to pay some of her bills and the storage fees.

When they released her from the extended care facility, I brought her to my home. Her son had already been living here. Her room was upstairs because that was all I had available except to put her in the living room. She was able to take the stairs with some difficulty, but due to my worries, David came and put a bannister onto the staircase. It was a great improvement in helping her to get up and downstairs. My son Timothy happened to visit at this time, and he built a porch out the back door so that it would be easier for Daryl to come in and out of the house.
So began our lives with Daryl.
to be cont'd