Death has a way of stripping you down bare. I was 11 yo when my Mom was called home. Before she died she was on dialysis. Dialysis is where they hook you up to a machine and and take you blood in a continuos motion out of your body and do what your kidneys are supposed to do. Healthy kidneys clean the blood by filtering out extra water and wastes. They also make hormones that keep your bones strong and blood healthy. When both of your kidneys fail, your body holds fluid. Your blood pressure rises. Harmful wastes build up in your body. Your body doesn't make enough red blood cells. There would be a van that came and picked her up twice a week in order for her to go to receive treatment. I used to race the van to the hospitial in order to meet her there. I would sneak into the hospitial where she was, the nurses would feed me, they would give me little snacks. Lord bless those nurses please. I just didn't want her to be alone. How I made it through school? God's grace.
The first time I seen it done, it was a combination of hurt and anger. Hurt because my Mom had to go thru such treatment, anger because of the pain she had to endure. Yet she never complained. It was the beginning of the end, she lost so much weight. Seemed like she was just wasting away. She had a large open wound on the inside of her left thigh, I cleaned that wound 3 times a day. If you have ever made homeade biscuits of cut cookies, you know that you must take the cutter and press very firm in order to cut straight through the dough. If you don't it leaves a impression in the dough. This wound was cause by numerous injections into the same area. I wonder did she stop getting high once she started going to dialysis. This was a time when they did not test for HIV/AIDS.
2 comments:
Wow. I knew that she was on dialysis but don't remember the van. I just remember her leaving and returning home tired. I'd go into her room, she'd be laying down usually. I guess she was so tired that she didn't want to be bothered because most days she wouldn't let me stay. She'd sing the Ray Charles song "Hit the road Jack" but I hadn't seen her all day and didn't want to leave her. I can remember sometimes coming in to find her in bed crying softly. I always thought she was so strong cause she never wiped her tears away; they'd fall and linger on her face till they dried. What's insane is I don't remember her being big. In my mind she was always small. It wasn't until I was older and saw pictures that I saw her true weight. No one may know the answer to this but were the doctors concerned about her weight loss at all? It just seems odd to me that anyone could call her rapid weight loss healthy.
She was the definition of strength, she truly beared her burden. She just didn't want to be seen that way. Not by her children. I don't rememember if the doctors were concerned.
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