It has been a roller coaster of feeling for the last 2 1/2 weeks.

Mom was placed back on hospice care about 4 weeks ago on December 10th. (After spending about a year on hospice, they removed in March just as COVID was imposing restrictions and she was considered stable.) On Monday December 21st, I talked to her and she seemed ok considering. The nurse came on Tuesday and everything seemed stable and ok. Wednesday morning she didn’t answer my call – not unusual if the nurse is there – she usually calls back within an hour. My sister-in-law went to the house just to do a check-in and Mom was not responding normally. She assumed it was her blood sugar levels, tested them and they were normal. She called the hospice nurse who arrived about 30 minutes later. Mom most likely had a “small” stroke during the night – the right side of her face was slightly droopy. She was able to respond to the nurse but unable to sign her name as usual. The nurse said it is common in medically fragile people to have sudden changes.

Thursday morning (Christmas Eve), both of my brothers were at her house when the hospice nurse arrived. The nurse said to them she doesn’t have much time. They called to give me an update but didn’t make it seem like something major was about to happen. I live about an hour away and was about to get into the shower to go there when they called back to say she had passed. Both phone calls were 16 minutes apart.

So many emotions are running through my head even still. Maybe more on that in a later post. I think I need to do some “emotional sorting and decluttering”.

Add to all this the COVID restrictions and not being able to spend time with my own kiddo and grandkiddos as well as the political drama unfolding this week, my brain feels like mush!