Dear friends of Rae Russel (my Mom),
I was with her yesterday, Friday, 9.26, for four hours at Kaiser (hospital) Redwood City. I made the effort to get there (30 miles south of SF) earlier, before 9am, when her energy level is much higher than in the afternoon. When we visit in the afternoon she’s just sleeping, and it’s frustrating to hear the nurses report she opened her eyes earlier in the day before we were there. I saw her Thursday too, but later in the day when she's much sleepier.
The Good News is she’s hanging in there, not getting worse and I say a LITTLE better in her awareness and awakeness.
The Bad News is we all agree we feel like we’re in a race against time: the longer she’s stuck in a hospital bed, the more her old body deteriorates. Everyone knows lying inert in bed is awful on the body and means more rehab time when you finally get up.
More Good News is she was transferred yesterday, up from the farther away Redwood City hospital with its Neuro unit, back to San Rafael which is closer for most of us to visit. Her condition is stable, she doesn't need any more neurosurgery, thank you. Andy and Karen and I will see her around 11am today. I'll report any big changes.
Her brain surgeries—one to remove the tumor, a second to stop the bleeding from the first—are behind her. Her CT scans are, as they around here, "clear." Only the unpredictable process of her brain healing and her body recuperating lay ahead. This is certainly all still unknown and life threatening territory. I’m able to be realistic and acknowledge a GOOD result here would be: my Mom wakes up, becomes able to converse with all her friends and family again—rather than just mumbling a few responses when we talk loudly and repeatedly to break through the fog she's in. Then, once able to interact, having a year to live.
We’ll take more, we’ll settle for less, but we're unanimous in not wanting her laying inert and only marginally responsive in a hospital bed. We all know Rae wouldn’t want this either. She rolled the dice and opted for surgery, to get more time than if the tumor were left intact in her head.
We are where we are, in some way a familiar feeling place to Andy’s coma experience a decade ago in some respects: there is no reason she can’t recover, staring today. And no cautious doctor, no person can predict what will happen (perhaps only Rae). And also, one other respect: we're in consensus that your thoughts and prayers and well-wishing directed her way ABSOLUTELY HELP.
Thanks for being there and wishing her well.
With love,
Jack
2 comments:
Go, Rae, go. Your thoughtful writing and soul sharing is a reflection of what she's given to you, Jack, and I believe this blog enters into the "karma equation" too.
We're definitely sending good energy her way. I think my "powers" get replenished after the taschlich ritual I'm doing for Yom Kippur on Tues. (Symbolic casting away of the transgressions of the past year, clearing the way for more mitzvot -- good acts -- for the coming year.)
Share a smile with her for us. See you before too long, hopefully. (Dance church next Sunday? Going regularly with all that's going on?)
Love, Lar&David
Re-reading old diaries, I found this entry from 1976, when I was 18years old:
"This afternoon Rae came over. We talked for a few hours -- wow! She is really a most incredible woman. Women like her make me so happy, feel so powerful, so possible."
Auntie Rae, I love you! ~Martha
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