A sense of duty...or love?

Off to bed early tonight...Bruce was so kind to stay with Mom again. I think he must have felt that he needed another night to redeem himself after his first horrible night in ARW (Aspen Ridge West). Personally, I think he is just short of a saint for the sacrifice he is making to stay with her a second night after his first VERY long night two days ago! It helps that this is a weekend night, and I'm willing to let him stay, knowing that he and Bret will both be off to work this week and someone will have to stay week nights.
One might wonder...why are we staying basically 24 hours a day with Mom and have been since Dec. 30? After two scares in the middle of the night and one in the middle of the day (in a monitored hospital environment), it's kind of like Pavlov's dogs...you just condition yourself to the fact that Mom really needs help and comfort, especially at night, and so you stay. One might also say, "aren't you spoiling your mom? She'll learn to become dependent on her kids and NOT be able to stay by herself when she gets better." Well, we've tried to help her be more independent. That's what Bruce's job was the first night at ARW. He was going to try to help wean her off of having her children around all night long. When she needed to go to the bathroom or when she needed some help, he would point her to her walker or tell her to push the call button. However, it wasn't very far into the nighttime before he quickly learned that Mom wasn't being dependent, she was actually NEEDING the help. ARW is NOT the hospital! In some ways, that's great. They aren't coming in every couple of hours to check on Mom, check her vitals or have her breathe deeply to get her oxygen sats up. So if she's doing fairly well, like she did last night, she might get 4 or so uninterrupted hours of sleep. On the other hand, they aren't coming in every couple of hours to check on Mom...which means that she needs fairly constant monitoring by us kids. She doesn't sleep...she's restless...has to go the bathroom, etc. We've seen her push the call button, and had the nurse come maybe 20 minutes later...or not at all. She's asked for nausea medication (which she's had a lot of since she was in the hospital) and no one brought it to her until that wave of nausea finally dissipated or eased up. Maybe that's a good thing and she could learn to become more independent...but when she's doing good just to keep herself alive, independence is NOT the issue. Someone has to look out for her interests and be proactive in her care, or she will become just another one of the 38 beds pushing call buttons.
Mom also requires company...she was born to be a party girl and to entertain, and we know that if left to herself, she would be VERY lonely and her health would decline instead of progress. We are very grateful that we have as much family support as we do and can swap off for nights and days. It keeps us all sane and able to carry on. We do it because we LOVE our mother. It's very hard to see her suffer as she tries to push herself when she has no breath or energy to do so. She is such a great example of the motto she has tried to teach us..."we can do hard things". None of us has signed up for this trial in our lives. But each of us has recognized the Lord's hand in this plan, and although we do not understand the whys involved, we appreciate and deeply love the whos involved. Our love and great depth of appreciation and concern for each other as siblings, friends and eternal mates has grown by leaps and bounds. Most of all, we are learning each day to depend on our Heavenly Father and trust in his tender loving care. We are learning not to question timing but to appreciate giving. We are learning each day to count our blessings of being able to be with each other, to have Mom's precious mind with us each day, even though her fragile body is struggling. We feel the love and support from far away and close up front. We humbly recognize that we could not do all that we have done in Mom's behalf without the love and support we feel from you.

So, Thank you.