BE READY … Life Can Change in an Instant!
Wednesday February 27th started like any other. As a baby boomer with both parents in their early seventies and fortunately in excellent health, it would not have occurred to me that the day would unfold as it did. On that late February day, I received the call that every adult child fears receiving and cannot fathom receiving.
My mother was due to fly to Florida for a vacation with friends on Friday and I was planning to take her to the airport. So when I received a call from my mother’s home phone number, I assumed it was her calling to finalize details of her trip. The voice on the other end of the phone however, calling from my mother’s home, was not my mother. It was an unknown person who informed me that it appears that my mother had had a stroke and the ambulance was on its way. From ten miles away, I listened breathlessly to the conversation happening on the other end of the phone as the ambulance arrived, asked the unknown person where to take my mother (fortunately she asked me) and they drove off with my mother.
As I arrived in the emergency room in shock and disbelief, I was acutely aware that this was the beginning of the nightmare that was my mother’s first stay in a hospital in her life, other than giving birth to my brother and me. After an extensive battery of tests, we learned that my seemingly healthy mother suffered not only a stroke, but also a heart attack … absent of any symptoms for either injury.
Life as I knew it, changed that Wednesday. For the next several days we sat in suspense by my mother’s side while neurologists and cardiologists worked tirelessly to bring her heart back to normal rhythm and the damage from the stroke to a minimum.
Since then, my mother has made remarkable improvements, and has now successfully transferred from an inpatient medical hospital to an inpatient stroke rehab hospital. In less than two weeks, she has gone from eating meals with her hands to nearly returning to the mom that I know.
My mother’s health crisis appears to be over for now as she will likely successfully and safely return to her life, for now. But my eyes have forever been opened and the cloak of naivete’ and innocence of “it will never happen to us” that I known for my almost fifty years, is gone.
As a Boomer and parent of two ‘tween daughters, I reluctantly accept my membership in the ‘sandwich generation’. As a card-carrying member of one of the largest demographics in history, I must accept that time marches on. The reality of this crisis is like a huge wake-up call, that I must be prepared for the uncertain days, months and years ahead. So, be ready … life can change in an instant.
Now wiser and albeit a bit raw this very personal experience, I now look forward to continuing my The Simplified Life blog.
Originally posted 2008-08-21 05:53:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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