Seventeen
After going to my old church on Sunday morning, I decided to get on the road to head up to Moms’s. With everything that had been going on, I hadn’t had time to go early and spend some fun time with her. As late as it was, we’d only be able to have a nice dinner and get a movie from Blockbuster. I’d spend the night and would be ready to take her to chemotherapy first thing in the morning.
Church was okay, but as I expected, nothing like the presence-infested services I had gotten used to in Mozambique. The music was good, prayer was good, and Pastor Reynolds taught a great sermon on the joy of the Lord, but still . . . I was used to hours of worship where each person felt like God was sitting next to them. Where we literally sensed the presence of angels in our midst. Where miracles happened, often without someone even laying on hands and praying.
We had a saying that with the way the earth was rotated, Africa was much closer to heaven than America. Miracles were common and His presence thick.
I thought it was because the people were so desperate and dependent on God. There, He was their only option. They didn’t have big hospitals, expensive medicine, or even clean water. If God didn’t heal, then death was certain. In America, we had the best hospitals, the best research, and the best medicine. Therefore God really wasn’t necessary, except as a last resort. And then it wasn’t like anyone believed He would actually show up.
It was good to see some of my friends from church, but for some reason, I felt somewhat distant from them. Several of them promised to call and that we’d get together soon. Part of me hoped they would, so I wouldn’t feel so bored and lonely, but another part of me thought I’d still be bored and lonely even if we spent time together.
When I called Moms to tell her I was on my way, she didn’t sound right. It seemed like her breathing was really labored, and she could only say a few words before she had to take another breath. All my freeway fears dissipated, and I drove as fast as I could to get to her.
When I rang her doorbell, it took her forever to get to the door. I was about to go fish my key to her house out of my messy glove compartment when she finally opened the door.
“Hey, Tree . . . come on in . . . boy you got here . . . quick. You musta . . . been flying.” She snatched a quick breath every few words.
“Moms, what in the world is wrong with you? You can’t even breathe.”
She waved a hand and tried to pretend like nothing was wrong, but we had to stop twice for her to catch her breath just to get to the kitchen table. “Just feeling a . . . little winded for . . . some reason.”
“Well, whatever the reason, it can’t be good. I’m taking you to the hospital. Now.”
“Aw, Tree. It ain’t that serious.”
I could tell she had tried to force out that whole sentence without taking a breath to prove to me that she was okay. It was apparently too much because she went into a coughing/choking /gasping fit that left me terrified. I grabbed her purse and jacket, locked a firm hand around her thin arm and pulled her toward the door. “Let’s go, Moms. Which hospital are you being treated at? University of Maryland?”
“I ain’t going . . . to no hospital, Tree . . . they can check me out . . . tomorrow when I go . . . for chemo.” Another coughing and gasping fit doubled her over. When she stood back up, I stared at her face. It kind of looked like the area around her mouth was turning blue.
“Moms, you’re going to the hospital. Either you follow me to the car or I’ll pick you up and carry you. Which is it gonna be?”
She folded her arms and glared at me. I bent over, grabbed her around the waist and was about to put her over my shoulder.
“Okay . . .” she gasped. “Girl, you . . . better be glad . . . I can’t breathe . . . otherwise I’d be . . . putting you over . . . my knee. You done . . . got too grown . . . for your own good.”
“Moms, that’s enough. Don’t try to talk anymore.” I pulled her down the walk and put her in the front seat of my car. I hurried around to the driver side and got in.
“Oh, now . . . you trying . . . to shut . . . me up?” She was breathing too fast from our rush down the sidewalk to the car. I should have carried her like I threatened to.
“Moms, please. Just be quiet and breathe. Okay?” I turned to look at her while starting up the car. “Please.”
She nodded and sat there gasping for air.
Thankfully, University of Maryland wasn’t too far. I parked in the emergency room entrance and ran inside to get some help. “Can I get someone to help me with a wheelchair? My mom has lung cancer and she can hardly breathe,” I hysterically announced to anyone who would listen.
A young, black man in scrubs grabbed a wheelchair and followed me out to the car. I didn’t have to strain to see this time. Moms was definitely turning blue. She didn’t have the strength to argue when he gently, but swiftly lifted her in his arms and placed her in the wheelchair. He pushed her, almost running, into the emergency room entrance. I started running after him, but he called over his shoulder, “You better move your car, ma’am. I’ll take good care of her. I promise.”
It seemed to take forever to get myself to the parking garage across the street, and then back over to the emergency room. When I walked in, the gentleman who had wheeled Moms in was waiting for me with a young, black woman in scrubs.
She must have seen the panic on my face and began to speak as soon I got over to where she was. “Your mother has been taken back to X-ray. Her oxygen saturation was low, but it came up some when we put the oxygen on her. We’re moving quickly to figure out what happened. When the doctor listened to her, it sounded like her lungs were filled up with fluid. If that’s the case, then the surgeon is standing by waiting to do a procedure to take some of the fluid off her lungs. If her oxygen saturation doesn’t come up, she may need to be intubated—have a tube put down her throat—to help her breathe.”
She led me over to a more private area of the waiting room and sat down with me. “I’ve called medical records for your mother’s file, but I need to ask, do you know your mother’s DNR status?”
I sat there breathing for a second, trying to catch my breath from the run from the parking lot and from all the information she had given me. “Her what?”
She frowned as if I should know what she was talking about. “Umm, with most cancer patients, early in the treatment, the oncologist—cancer doctor—discusses with them what they would want to happen in case of an emergency such as this one. If your mother were to stop breathing, do you know if she would want us to do everything to keep her alive including putting the breathing tube in, pounding on her chest, and shocking her if need be?”
My eyes widened, and my mouth seemed stuck open. I couldn’t believe she was asking me all this stuff.
“Ma’am, I know that it seems like a difficult question for me to ask at such a critical time, but we wouldn’t want to do anything against your mother’s wishes.”
I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around what this heartless woman was asking me. “I don’t know . . . we haven’t talked about that at all.”
She placed a hand on mine. “Ma’am, as I said, I don’t mean to be cruel. With terminal patients, it’s a very important discussion that needs to happen. Ideally, not during a medical crisis. Are you her next of kin?”
I nodded, shaken up by her use of the words “terminal” and “next of kin.”
She squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, but if something happens and your mother is not able to communicate with us, you’re going to be the one that has to make that decision.”
I furrowed my eyebrows. She couldn’t be serious. “Well, why don’t you get back there and help her so I don’t have to make that decision.”
She let out a deep breath and pulled her hand away from mine, obviously frustrated that her attempt at a “therapeutic conversation” hadn’t worked.
The person sitting behind the big desk at the emergency room entrance called over to us. “Nancy, her chart is on the way down from medical records.”
Nurse Nancy nodded and turned back to me. “Hopefully she and her doctor have discussed this and there’s something on the chart. I’ll go back and check and see what’s going on with your mom. Okay?”
She got up and walked past the main desk and through a set of double doors. I fumbled through my purse for my cell phone and dialed Tiffany’s number. After a few rings, it went to voice mail. She was probably still mad from our argument on Friday. She had locked herself in her room all day Saturday, and then went out that night. She wasn’t back before I left for church that morning.
After the beep, I said, “Tiffany, it’s Trina. I’m at the hospital in Baltimore with Moms. She’s real bad sick and . . .” I almost said the doctors and nurses were acting like she was gonna die, but that would freak Tiffany out too bad. Instead, I said, “You need to get a ride and get up here as soon as you can, okay? Love you.”
Next I dialed Monica’s cell number. After a few rings, hers went to voice mail as well. Was the whole world mad at me? After the beep, I said, “Monnie, please call me. I just brought Moms to the emergency room. She couldn’t breathe and turned blue on me. She looks really bad. I need to talk to you. Please . . .” My voice broke, and I hung up before I started crying on her voice mail.
I sat there fidgeting for a second, wiped the few tears that had slipped down my face, then flipped open the phone to make one last call. This time I got an answer. It was Zembala at the mission base in Pemba. “Zem, it’s Trina. I need you to get a message to Gabriel. Tell him . . . tell him I need him.”