The Teeth of the Matter

Mom - a year ago today

A year ago today, my mom lay in intensive care at Duke.To say she was near death would be a grave understandment. After  a morning ride in to the ED with Durham's finest Emergency Medical Technicians, and then holding court in a ER bed all day, she was moved to a room. She was alert and talkative and then she wasn't.

A GI bleed  had been hiding coyly behind low blood pressure symptoms. As evening approached it erupted with the speed and horror of volcanic eruption. Staff scrambled to manage her body which became something horribly beyond  her control. Her eyes rolled back and her eyelids fluttered closed. I held her head, helped  clean her up again and again and snagged her dentures, tucking them in a styrofoam cup - thinking she would either need them again to eat or to look nice in her casket. Soon  an "all call" went out and her snug room became overpopulated with doctors and nurses. They were the holy men and women of medical experience, who spared no patience for Mom's befuddled resident. At their directive, she was quickly she  moved to the ICU.  I trailed along-  numbstruck yet somehow impossibly rational.

Once there, she was placed on a ventilator. And she bleed, and bleed some more. She was given blood,  again and again and I offered a prayer for thanks for each donor.  GI staff was called in on their weekend off and she moved to a procedure room and back. Night turned into day. My family appeared to wait with me- their presence  an enveloping balm. They brought with them a big bag of survival gear - a throw, water, snacks, books.We settled in and waited.

We were told there were two major bleeds and with Mom's age, her prognosis was not good. Interventional Radiology was called in and the team's lead spoke with me honestly explaining that cauterizing the bleeds gave her a chance, but to be prepared - it was a long shot.

We bore witness to her time in limbo- nurses moving in careful choreography and flocks of doctors making rounds. More blood.   Evening approached. Mom had survived the procedure, she had a chance, she was stable, though still on the vent. My family took me home. I'd been at the hospital 36 hours.

I slept fitfully and arose early to arrive before rounds. I found my bag, determined to give Mom's teeth a good scrub before I returned to Duke. I reached into the bag where I remembered tucking the styrofoam cup and it simply wasn't there! I panicked. I pulled everything out and put it back in. No cup! No teeth!

Some calm inner voice spoke to me - telling me to call the ICU waiting room attendant. Perhaps a family member had thrown it away thinking to help tidy up my bag.  It was still dark outside and I imagined the janitorial staff already silently sweeping  and tidying the expansive area. The attendant on duty was the one I had met the night before. I asked her if the trash had been collected. No, not yet. And then I asked her, would you check the trash for a styrofoam cup with a lid on it - and look for a set of false teeth?

I remembered her clearly as a tiny bird of a woman, compassionate and professional, and I imagined her  fetching rubber gloves and inventorying each trash can, pulling out the cast off coffee cups and snack wraps. After what seemed like an eon, she returned to the phone, breathless. "I have them!" she exclaimed.

Relief coursed  through me and praise and such gratitude for this small mercy. My mom's teeth found safe and sound! And found, within minutes of the arrival of the cleaning crew!

The attendant put the cup in her work area.  When I arrived, I found that shift change had sent her home to bed and put a new worker in her place. When I asked if there was a cup for me, she turned with a puzzled look, plucked it off her desk, and placed it in my hand. I peeked inside, humbled and assured.

Assured because I felt at that moment very close to God. I had no idea or expectation on how things would turn out, but I knew t that God was with my mother. That He would lift and protect her, that He would wrap His loving arms around her and whether He took her home or healed her fragile body He would not let her go.

And He anointed her with His presence - through every painful step of healing, through her time of confusion ("ICU psychosis"),through every moment  of rehabilitation, through her return to my home. She has basked in His presence. And not a day goes by that she doesn't express appreciation for the life she's continued to live and thanked God for it.

It's not been easy - for her - for me - for my family. The GI bleed, ultimately attributed to a prescription she was taking, turned out lives sideways. But the richness of each "bonus day" that Mom has been given has been deep and precious and good.

And the styrofoam cup? It still sits on her sink, holding her denture brush and denture paste. A constant reminder of how God lifts us and holds us and cares so much for us that He reunited my mom and her teeth.

Mom - today - a year later

The styrofoam cup - God's miracle vessel