Confessions of a caregiver pt. 2

Ma are you cooking chittlings?? Damn they stink. Can you help me clean up and make a couple pies? The friends are coming over, it's my time to host our hospitality. She hunched over in pain complaining about her side hurting, like she had been doing months before. That’s it, you’re not about to cook and you're in pain.Its okay I’ll just take a tylenol and take a rest. When she kept bending over I had to say, you're not cooking we’re going to the ER. NO I gotta cook for the friends I promised them a big dinner. What’s more important ?.....you or a dinner party? She hesitated but, if you know me I don’t play about my mama’s health. I put her shoes on for her and took her to Cleveland Clinic ER.

Usually I’d sit and wait for her to be seen but she had left food cooking that she just had to finish. I went back home, cooked the rest of the food, snapped some beans and waited for her to call to be picked up. Hours passed and I hadn’t heard a word. Before I knew it was 2 a.m. and she told me to go to bed, they wanted to run some tests and she would call me in the morning. Morning came and no word on her. I decided to just go up to the hospital. I sat with her, we watched tv, more tests, and more tests.

How many tests are there and what are you looking for exactly? Something shifted in that moment. All she said was, it's bad but she wouldn't utter the results. My sister and I took shifts at the hospital for days then she's on the phone with my nephew and says, “yeah the cancer is back and it's pretty spread out between my lungs and kidneys stemming from breast cancer. I felt my heart sink into my stomach. She wouldn’t tell me...I had to overhear it. You know what I’m not even going to worry about it. We've fought cancer so many times and beat it, I'm good. The doctor came in and that moment I knew “Ms. Smith, time is of the essence; cancer has spread and we need to look into treatment. Mom decided she would not undergo any type of treatment. No chemo, or test treatments, just holistic supplements, and herbs.

I was prepared this time, I’ve taken care of her a million times, I got it.

Breaking News, “A new virus coming from China sweeps through the United States. If you have the following symptoms you may have the Covid-19 fever, sore throat, flu-like symptoms.” WTF is this? What type of virus is this that has the world panicking? I had already had a conversation with my supervisor regarding my mom so I was preparing to take (what seemed to be annual) Family Medical Leave. I went to the office to retrieve my forms when an email came to my phone, schools will be closed tomorrow for deep cleaning in response to the Covid-19 virus.

Cool, a day off I need it so I can get mom situated. When I returned to work the next week, we were called to a staff meeting. The headlines on the news stated,”As of tomorrow schools throughout the state will be closed for three weeks to slow down the spread of the virus.”Three weeks? Oh coooooooooooool, I have so much I need to do, right on time. Little did any of us know that would be the last time we worked with our students for the school year. That wasn’t the only bomb that was dropped that week. Mom had a doctor’s appointment to discuss what the next steps would be, again she refused treatment given the fact doctor’s predicted she would only be here a matter of months. The cancer had spread at a rapid pace and there wasn’t much that could be done.

Okay, okay what do I do? My mom began an intense herbal routine that was intended to slow the spread, and keep her immune system energized. For a while things were the same she was eating, talking, still talking on the phone all day. While we were staying inside the world around us was in pure chaos. I felt like I was living in a snow globe just watching the world turn into a warzone. CoronaVirus, the attacks on black people, all going on right in our backyard. Visitors were limited to only close friends/family which was when hardships really began. At this point, I was taking care of her primarily by myself. I had help but there never seemed to be enough hours in a day to get everything done.

Mom quickly started having trouble with her balance and limited mobility. It was on a day in April, a day I won’t soon forget. I gathered her clothes for the day, getting ready to bathe her for her Zoom meeting. Before I could stop what I was doing she stood up and walked towards the bathroom. At this moment, she buckled to her knees and fell before I could catch her. I’ll forever have that image in my head. I ran to pick her up, all I could do was cradle her in my arms and cry……..

To be continued