Archive Notes: This is an English translation and rewritten version of a blog post originally published in Japanese on September 22, 2019. [Japanese version]
A Sudden Emergency: The Day My Mother’s Ticking Bomb Ruptured
Every day, I used to visit my mother, who lives next door, to deliver her medicine, help her with light exercises, take out the garbage, and clean her house.
For the past two weeks, she had been doing well with a good appetite and no episodes of disorientation (in her case, losing track of morning and night).
However, when I visited her yesterday morning, I felt she lacked her usual brightness and energy. Well, there are days like that.
This morning, when I visited her after 24 hours as usual, her medicine from yesterday afternoon and evening was still untouched.
When I asked her, “You didn’t take them?” she gave a vague reply, saying, “I don’t really remember about yesterday.”
Then my father came out of the room and started complaining to me with intense agitation about my mother’s strange behavior yesterday.
Apparently, she was normal until I left, but after that, from the moment she woke up from a nap in bed, she seemed to have lost track of time. He was angry because she prepared breakfast two or three times, and multiple plates of rolled omelets were piled up.
I calmed my father down, telling him that there was no use taking his anger out on someone whose dementia symptoms were progressing. I stayed with them for about an hour and returned home around 9:00 AM, saying, “I’ll come back later.”
Eight hours later, just past 5:00 PM, I went back to check on her again, and she was normally eating dinner with my father. Her responses were clear, and she even told me to take the bread on the table home, so I went back and ate it.
However, three hours later, at 8:14 PM, an emergency call came from my father. “She collapsed and can’t move,” he said.
I rushed over immediately, barely grabbing anything. I was so relieved that I hadn’t been in the bath at that moment… If I had been even 10 minutes later, my emergency response might have been delayed.
Dropping everything, I shut down my computer and rushed over to find my mother collapsed between the kitchen sink and a chair. It seemed she had fallen in an even tighter, more cramped position, but my father had managed to straighten her body.
There was vomit beside her. She was breathing but unconscious, and I knew instantly that this was no ordinary situation, so I immediately dialed 119 to call an ambulance.
For some reason, a fire engine arrived in front of the house first, and the firefighters began emergency first-aid procedures. The front of the house was in a commotion with neighbors gathering. Why the fire engine came first remains a mystery.
About three minutes later, the ambulance arrived. The paramedics performed emergency treatments on my mother while she was still down on the kitchen floor, administering electric shocks and putting on a mask-like device to secure her breathing. During this time, they questioned me about what time it happened and what her condition had been like.
Since I had rushed out in whatever I was wearing, I dashed back home for a moment to make myself presentable, grabbed my bag and my mother’s, and got into the ambulance.
Since there was an advanced critical care center nearby and the paramedics found a prefectural hospital patient ID card in my mother’s wallet, they requested acceptance from that hospital, and she was transported there. This was my second time riding in an ambulance in my life, but I have never been so deeply shaken and distraught until now.
She was taken to the ICU, and after the imaging results came out, the night doctor (a female physician) called me in to explain the situation. By that time, my daughter had driven over after receiving my call, so we were able to listen to the explanation together.
To conclude, the bleeding in her brain was massive, and my mother would never regain consciousness. Even if they were to remove the blood through surgery, the prognosis would be worse than it is now, and she would never recover consciousness.
About two months ago, my mother had handed me a note stating her refusal of life-prolonging treatment. Therefore, since she would not recover consciousness, I declined surgery and life-extending measures.
She had a history of cerebral infarction, and because of the side effects of her medication, she had experienced small brain hemorrhages before, so it was like she was holding a ticking bomb. For that reason, I measured and controlled her blood pressure every single day, but even so, I couldn’t save her.
It shocked me so much that my own heart felt like it would stop, and it is true that I feel deeply depressed, wondering if my management was poor. She had survived numerous major illnesses in the past where it wouldn’t have been surprising if she had lost her life, but she could not defeat this brain hemorrhage.
Regarding her long-term care insurance certification, we were in the process of applying to change it from “Support Level 1” to “Care Level.” We had just received a reply stating that the assessment date would be in November, two months away. It seems to be very crowded.
We had someone come over to give an estimate for installing handrails in the house, and we were trialing rental care equipment, but now none of it is needed anymore.
Even though I understood in my head that anything could happen at any time, the condition of the brain changes so suddenly that my heart just cannot keep up…
I asked the doctor, and she said it wasn’t the type of bleeding that occurs gradually over several days, but rather a massive amount of bleeding that ruptured all at once.
From tomorrow, I am worried about my father’s (89) condition. And whether my own body can hold up.
I knew this day would come eventually and had prepared myself for it, but today (yesterday) was that day.
