I wore my earphones to protect me from him.
When I opened my eyes, the doors to the lift were closed so I had to hit the button for the floor I wanted to go to and wait. When I left the elevator and walked the familiar hallway towards my mother’s room, I realised that it had been one full week since my mother had arrived at the hospice. She had previously been in the hospital for weeks with pneumonia that had gotten worse and worse. She had reached a point in her illness where nothing more could medically be done for her. We were recommenced to have her transfer to a local hospice where she could live out the remainder of her life in comfort.
Nine years ago she was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and now she had entered the late stages. Her disease had progressed quickly over the years and now she was speeding towards the end of her life and I couldn’t slow her down.
The mother who I visited now was only a shell of the lady I once knew, her moments of clarity were now few and far between. She couldn’t do much for herself in terms of mobility and her speech was starting to get worse and worse. It hurt my heart each time she asked me who I was and looked at me like I was a stranger off the street, but I always made sure to keep a smile on my face because while it was difficult for me, I knew that it was absolutely terrifying for her. She was in a constant state of confusion, she was often ill and she never knew what was going on.
The only other person who experienced what I felt was my stepfather, Michael O’Rourke. He and my mum married three months after her diagnosis and while I called him by his first name now, he was, in many ways, my dad. I bonded with him during a very dark and lonely time in my life and I knew with great certainty that I wouldn’t have been able to get through the past nine years without him by my side.
“Frankie?”
I looked up and smiled, the very man I was thinking of called out my name but as I neared him, I saw the look of concern on his face and felt my stomach flip. I removed my earphones, and tucked them and my iPhone into my bag as I approached Michael.
“What’s wrong?”
He placed his hand on my shoulder when I came to a stop before him.
“Bad day,” was his response.
My shoulders slumped. So much for manifesting my good day into reality.
“Crap,” I pushed hair out of my face. “What happened?”
“She got violent with a nurse earlier. Luckily she didn’t injure the woman.”
I felt my heart drop to the pit of my stomach.
“Violent?” I was astounded. “Mum was violent?”
“I know, honey. She’s the sweetest lady we know, but ye know how this disease progresses. Things about the person change with time, she’s reactin’ differently the past two days. She’s angrier, more prone to snappin’ and cursin’ at the nurses.”
I lifted my hand to my neck and rubbed.
“How is she now?”
“Sleepin’,” Michael answered. “She was very agitated when I got here at nine, but she’s just fallen asleep not too long ago. She was given a sedative to help her relax.”
I nodded. “How is her chest?”
“Still the same, I was hopin’ it would have cleared a little, but nothin’ has changed.”
We went inside Mum’s room and sat on either side of her bed. She was a heavy sleeper, even more so when she was sedated, so we didn’t have to worry about every little sound waking her up. While Michael went to fill her pitcher up with fresh water, I adjusted her blanket around her body and tucked it back into place. My eyes moved to her face and my heart hurt. She was fifty-five years of age, but she looked like she could have been in her late sixties. Her disease had taken its toll on not only her mind, but her body too.
I sat down just as Michael re-entered the room.
We celebrated his sixtieth birthday last week and the week before that we celebrated his partial retirement. He didn’t have his usual lengthy client list at the doctor’s surgery he owned, he filtered those patients to two new doctors he had recently hired. He only went into work on days when things were very busy and, luckily for him, those days were few. This meant he got to spend a great deal of time taking care of my mum, which put my mind at ease for the times when I could not be there.
“Was she bathed today?” I asked Michael. “It doesn’t look like her hair has been washed.”