TheBanyanTree: Two long weeks (part one)

[Wolfie]

Monday the 8th was a long day.  My husband gets up at 4:30am everyday in 
order to be at work by 6:00am at his place of business half an hour away.

My mother in law's husband called mid-morning to get my sister in law's 
phone number, so he could call her to come help take care of my mother in 
law.  I gave it to him, and asked what the problem was.  He told me that 
she (my MIL) had tried to go to the bathroom earlier that morning, and 
once she was down, couldn't get back up.  He had to "practically carry 
her" to the bed.

That's not good.  My MIL is in the final stages of cancer, and is on 
multiple doses of morphine daily for 'intractable cancer pain'.  This 
understandably makes her wobbly and disoriented.  Some days are worse 
than others.

Shortly thereafter, my SIL called me to see if I knew what was going on.  
I told her what my MIL's husband had told me, and she confirmed that was 
what he'd told her as well.  She was preparing to get in the car and go 
to her mom's.  I asked her to call me when she got there, and let me know 
what the situation really was.

A bit of background here, for clarity.  My SIL was a beautiful, smart 
child who, after her parent's divorce, fell in with the 'wrong sort of 
people', and got involved with criminals and drug addicts.  Her self 
esteem is non existent.  Her mother (my MIL) has been taking care of her 
all her life.  Getting her out of trouble, sending her money, and talking 
her down from her suicidal highs. My MIL was a classic 'enabler'.  This 
has not helped my SIL's self image at all.  Without her Mom she can't do 
anything.  She has been hospitalized more than once for mental disorders, 
cutting herself and suicide attempts, and has been officially diagnosed 
as a paranoid schizophrenic.  Let's just say that she is not the most 
capable, reliable person to call on in a crisis.

To make this worse, my MIL's husband of five years is an alcoholic (my 
opinion only!), who gets really mean and ugly when he drinks.  He is a 
Ward Cleaver generation who requires someone to care for him.  He cannot 
cook, clean, do laundry, or take care of a child.  He has to be babysat 
or he just falls apart.  Without my MIL, he can't do anything.  Does that 
sound familiar?

So, now we have the mental patient going to help the drinker.  (sigh)  I 
called my husband to let him know what was going on. Not being able to do 
anything from work, he just asked that I call him if anything happened.  
I reminded him to get the FMLA (Family Medical Leave) paperwork going, in 
case we needed to go to help.  He said he would.

My SIL called again a couple hours later to say that MIL's husband had 
called the doctors, and they were sending a home health nurse out to draw 
blood and check on her, and they had scheduled an appointment for her for 
the next morning (Tuesday).  So far, so good.  I called my husband and 
gave him the update.

To make the rest of this easier to understand, you have to know that my 
MIL and her husband live in HV, a town in western KY.  Her doctors and 
her sister are in BG, a town in south central KY.  My husband and I live 
in LEX, in northern KY, and my SIL lives in northern Mississippi!  Oh, 
the complications only get worse...

My husband got home, we followed our normal routine for dinner etc., and 
he was in bed by 9:00.  At 9:30 his sister called, panicked, for advice.  
I had to get him up to talk to her.  My SIL had gotten all her affairs in 
order - someone to watch the kids, someone to take care of the dog, 
someone to notify her husband.  The she drove the 5 hours straight to HV. 
 When she go there, my MIL was non-responsive, and very hot.  She had 
waked up enough to ask for more medicine (morphine), and then fell back 
into a non-responsive sleep.  My husband advised that they take her to 
the hospital there in HV.  My MIL's husband (who had been hitting the 
bottle for several hours by now) refused to take her there, because her 
doctors are all in BG, and that is where he thought she should go.  A 
couple of phone calls later, we finally got the information that my MIL 
was running a fever.  My husband called his Mom's doctors in BG to ask 
their opinion.  After three or four phone tag calls, my husband actually 
got hold of the real doctor, instead of a nurse or an answering service.  
The doctor said to get my MIL to the hospital there in HV now.  Not in a 
minute, but RIGHT NOW!  My husband called his sister and told her that.  
She did what she was told, and called the ambulance.  We then got another 
call from her telling us that they couldn't find any of the insurance 
cards, and my MIL's husband was being extremely unhelpful, and rude to 
the EMTs who had responded to the call.  He was insisting that they take 
her to BG, an hour and a half ride.   My husband asked to talk to him.  
He finally just told him that *THIS* is what was happening, we were 
following her doctors orders, and to go along with it or get out of the 
way.  After a scathing comment, he gave up, and let them take her to the 
nearest hospital.

Not quite an hour later (we're up to midnight now), we got a call from my 
SIL at the hospital.  They had my MIL in intensive care, and were asking 
about resuscitation orders - how much effort should they go to to revive 
her should she die.  My SIL was in a panic, and my husband told her to 
sit tight, we would be there in 4 hours.

We dragged the kids out of bed, threw a few handfuls of clothes into a 
couple of bags, shoved the dogs into the car, and took off for HV.

To be continued...
-- 
Wolfie
wolfljsh at insightbb.com
http://home.insightbb.com/~wolfljsh/index.html