This About Says it All

Difficult day. My sister called me at 8:00 am to say that the ambulance was at mom's house...and had been there in the night too. Mom felt weak and dizzy and nauseous and the caregivers had called 911. Mom refused to go to the hospital. She says that if she went, she'd have to quarantine when she got home (which is true). We all support her decision - I truly don't believe that there's anything the hospital could do to "fix" her at this point. She's 93 1/2 and has Parkinson's and there's simply nothing to fix. 

I always get to mom's by 9:30 on Wednesdays to relieve the caregiver, and today I was early.The traffic was awful and it took me almost an hour to get to Vancouver from my home in NW Portland. Mom is eating only little spoonfuls of applesauce and seems to have difficulty swallowing liquids. She's very tired, but restless and so weak that she cannot even help transfer herself from her chair to her wheelchair. I stayed with her until 4:00  when my brother came, since I had to battle the traffic back home again and hate doing it in the dark, especially on a rainy, cold night. It took so long that I was stopped on one of the bridges overlooking the city. I could see many cranes working on buildings - some of them are decorated with green and red lights...and always with a Christmas Tree on top of the cab. It's an interesting custom - I don't know if it's specific to Portland. I thought it would make an interesting blip but of course it was really difficult to get a clear shot of it. At least you'll know what that green and red horizontal line is in the distance!

I don't know if Mom will make it through the night. But I would really rather that she not die on my birthday...tomorrow. But it is what it is.