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Posts Tagged ‘caregiving’

Another Night in the ICU

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 16, 2023| 22 Comments »


for Ally
 
 
So tenderly, the night nurse lifts
the blankets from my mother’s limbs
and notes the drainage—
its serosanguinous color, its volume.
She checks mom’s vitals and does
whatever she does with all those plastic tubes
that now tether my mother to her life.
How quietly she moves, like a wraith,
she whispers, as if she’s a wisp,
something insubstantial, a midnight trace.
Yet the gift of her work is great
in this moment when all depends on care.
I marvel at her gentleness, her humanness,
her kindness as she works
and my mother’s chest rises and falls,
rises and falls in hard-won sleep.
Like a killdeer, able to make a nest
in bare soil, gravel, even a paved parking lot,
the night nurse makes of this sterile room
a soft-enough place, a place where my mother
can be safe. Like a mother killdeer,
the night nurse stays close to the room,
her eyes and ears trained for danger.
She’s tracking everything,
determined that all will be well tonight.
 

*

Dear friends, 
wow, thank you for the generous outpouring of love, prayers and well wishes for my mother and for me. I read every single one and thanked everyone out loud by name, and I am sad I won’t be able to respond individually to you, but please know how your kind words and good thoughts are carrying me and Mom. I have a deep abiding peace, despite the new curveballs the day brought. She had another (third) surgery today, and I hope and pray this will be the last and she can now rest and recover. She’s been in the hospital since Oct. 6. She’s had an intestinal surgery, a cardiac event, sepsis, a vascular surgery for lack of blood flow in her arm, an ulcer in her duodenum, dangerously low blood pressure, and today a third surgery to repair perforations that occurred at the point of the original surgery. Amidst all this she is a marvel of positivity, resilience, and kindness. 

And as I said last night, thank you to all who care for those who need healing. I am so so so so grateful. 

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One for the Wounded

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 1, 2017| 1 Comment »

 

 

how fragile you are—

I make my body

into a nest

 

 

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