On the afternoon of June 10th, when my phone rang at 2:30pm and I saw it was my niece, I immediately knew it was bad news. My niece and I text a lot. But a call out of the blue at 2:30 Arabian Gulf Time is a call at 1:30am back home, there’s no way that’s good news.
Earlier that evening, my mom, who is eighty and more important to me than I can describe, was critically injured in a car accident. At first details were sketchy, but as the situation became more clear, I became more alarmed. My wife and I were scheduled to fly home from Abu Dhabi on the twentieth. When I got the news, I changed my ticket to the sixteenth, the last day of school. When I got the details, I moved it to the next morning.
A driver, under the influence, had plowed into a car mom was riding in at approximately 50 mph. They hit the car with so much force that both cars rolled over and laid on opposite sides of the intersection. Mom had a broken neck, several shattered ribs, and had to be intubated. She had abrasions on her face and a massive contusion on her head like a defeated boxer. Because of the damage to her ribs and chest she was unable to breathe on her own and was in a medically induced coma. She remained in this state for sixteen days. In that time, doctors performed surgery on her neck, fusing six fractured discs. They performed a procedure called rib plating that looks like something out of a Wolverine comic.
Throughout the pandemic, I have marveled at the doctors and nurses in ICUs. What they’ve seen and the secondary trauma they experience are difficult to imagine. But after seeing them care for mom, I am eternally grateful. They are the best of us. Not all jobs in hospitals pay well, some of the people who have the most intimate contact with our loved ones are shamefully underpaid. But every hospital worker is a hero to me. They face death and grieving, sometimes angry families. The staff at Tacoma General was tremendous. At one point, a doctor told me “we need a miracle.” I started crying and we prayed together. That’s actually not true: she prayed, while I just sobbed. It's been a rough two years for the family. I lost my dad last summer to Covid. On the anniversary of his death, July 27, I had a full on panic attack about losing them both.
But she's alive. Mom’s recovery has been slow, due to her age. Her mobility will be limited going forward. She's still in the hospital, but she’s on the road back. I haven’t talked about this situation online until now, because I couldn’t figure out how to do so. I don’t want a pity party; I don’t want to respond to 100 messages; I don’t want every in-person conversation to be a recapping of a situation that has led me to tears more days than it hasn't. But this summer, I learned some very real lessons about dealing with aging parents.
These are things you've probably heard before, but like me, you didn't listen. Like the old saying goes, a hard head makes a soft behind, well, my behind is worn out. Learn from me:
We are all going to face mobility issues as we age. Multi-story houses are for the young. If you are a working adult and know you will be supporting an aging parent one day, a rambler or ranch style house is the way to go. Mom is not going to be able to ascend or descend stairs going forward, so we'll be undertaking a remodel of her house to move her bedroom to the ground floor and my older brother will be moving in and responsible for her care.
If you don't have a power-of-attorney in place for your parents, you are setting yourself up for a parade of headaches. I have a pile of angry notices from a credit union over a late car payment because we could not access mom's bank accounts until just last week, nearly two months after the accident.
Have conversations with your loved ones about care decisions and what they would prefer. At one point my niece said "Grandma said she wanted X" and my brother and I both exclaimed "That's not what she told us!" We should have had these conversations, as a family, before now. It's even better if these things are in writing.
Speaking of, if you have documents in writing, like a will, make sure everyone knows where they are. There's no point in making the documents if no one knows where the hell they are when it's time and sooner than later it will be time.
Mom was discharged from the ICU in mid-July. She was transferred to a specialty facility in Seattle where she's continuing her recovery. Sitting by a hospital bed, reading to her, sharing church gossip, and commuting on the 594 bus and Sounder train to the care facility has been my full-time job this summer.
Thankfully, mom's condition is stable and improving. We have a care plan in place for her. The person who hit her goes to trial for vehicular assault in November. And I know for sure I’ll be home for the holidays. In the interval, keep her in your prayers and learn from our experience.