My mom and my sister came into the room to join us, my girl's followed in a short time later. The chaplain asked if we would like to say a prayer and we all agreed that would be a good idea, bring us all a little closer even though we were all standing in her small, cold, ICU room where she was now breathing only with the assistance of a ventilator as the Dr had explained to us, this will help her rest more comfortably and give her some relief in struggling so hard for one simple breath.
My sister and I left the room, arm in arm, our parents and my girl's had stayed in her room for a bit longer, I was worried about the 2 person max they have been heavily enforcing these last 4 days but today seemed as if it was not going to matter.
My sister and I had not had a lot of time to talk, we went downstairs to the hospital chapel, we closed the door and we cried, we laughed & we prayed, we prayed for our family and the very uncertain future that had come it seemed just over night. We sat in silence for a time and then decided to make some phone calls and pondered some decisions that would need to be made, who would make them, our parents were in no condition what so ever to make any type of decision about their youngest daughter who was fine 1 week ago, giving birth to a baby boy, her first child and the first boy on our side of the family for 3 generations, what is going on here, I just don't understand!
My sister and I made it back to the waiting room where she was greeted by her husband and what seemed to be a full house of family and friends that had come to be with us in this time of uncertainty. I made my way to the family room to find my mom resting, on a small row of chairs in between the arms, perfectly tucked away and as uncomfortable as it looked she was resting well, my youngest daughter was in the room with her, sitting quietly curdled up in a chair, I hugged her, kissed her forehead and left to go back into the room, as my dad was in the waiting room talking to my brother-in-law while my oldest daughter was in the room alone where I was headed.
I entered the room and stood at the threshold watching my daughter attempt to talk, interact with her aunt, touch her skin, held her hand as she looks at all the machines and monitors, I fought back my tears and stepped in. I asked if she was ok, she looked at me from across the bed and asked me with brave tears in her big brown eyes, "mom is aunt Tanya going to be ok?" I told her, honey, I don't know, things look really bad right now, she needs to stay strong and fight this and it hit me, THIS is what she meant the other night when she said she was tired, this is what she meant when she said she didn't want to do this anymore, she was needing me to tell her I was proud of her, of all she had done and that everything would be ok and it was ok that she was tired, she needed to know just how brave I knew she was and that I admired her! Did I make it clear to her the one night when we had our talk, did she understand me, did she know that there is nothing in this world I would not do for her, what if it was too late now?
The nurses came in and needed to change over some of the machines and medications, they politely asked us to leave the room, we did and joined my mom and daughter in the family room where my dad and sister came when they saw us come through the doors. My mom woke up as we all sat in a little bit of silence, no one was sure what to say next but I knew this was going to bring the 6 of us closer together no matter what the outcome was. The nurse that had been with Tanya the whole week came in and told us that she would need a signature to do another blood transfusion this afternoon as the one given last night was not working and she needed more blood, she let us know that they would be increasing her antibiotics and the infection she had was spreading. I remember my dad moving closer to my mom, none of us had dry eyes at this point and my dad told the nurse "whatever we need to do we will do."
The nurse looked at me, smiled and them looked back to my parents and said I need to talk to you folks and see if we can get a DNR signed for Tanya, the room was now more silent, my mom broke down, my sister ran out of the room and grabbed her husband on her way out and was in a frantic panic "I need to pray, I need to pray where is Eugene the painter", my girl's went to my mom's side and my dad and I stood up, the nurse {I still can't remember her name} looked at us as we approached the door and said I will give you folks awhile while I get the paperwork ready, I will prep her for the transfusion and be back in a little bit, my dad nodded and he left the room, I followed.
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