RIP Mary Jeanne Whiteacre

When I started this blog a week or so ago I did not expect to be writing this post nearly so soon, but it goes to show you that we don't know everything.

My mother's rapid demise began when she broke her leg. I think that somehow she reached a decision a few days later that she had decided that it was not worth the effort to continue to live. She virtually stopped eating this past weekend and was not very social whenever we went to visit. She slept a lot and talked even less.

Wednesday night around 7:00 we got a phone call from the nursing home. John Paul took the call and they said my mother was being taken to the hospital. I was out running errand when Monica relayed the message to me. I quickly finished up and headed to the hospital. I got there around 7:45 and was told that they were getting her settled in the back and I could go back in a little bit.

Well, it was nearly 8:45 before I got back to see her. When she arrived at the ER, her core body temperature was just under 93 degrees. They did a CT scan of the brain and I assume that showed nothing unusual, but I was never really briefed about the results. Looking at her urine there was obviously some sort of an infection in the bladder or somewhere around there. She was being partially sedated to make her more comfortable and to keep her calmer. She did reach out to me and I held her hand for about 15 minutes and then intermittently for the next hour. She was on a ventilator and was wrapped in the special air blankets where they pump warm air in to raise a persons temperature. By about 10:00 they had her about as stable as they could get her and they transferred her to ICU.

Jari joined me as they were admitting her to ICU. The doctor there was very good and talked with us at great length about lots of stuff. When a person comes in with an infection and a LOW body temperature it is a really bad thing. My mom had a directive to physicians that no extraordinary means be taken to keep her alive. We talked and realize that this might be (probably was) such a situation and we agreed that they would administer antibiotics and IV fluids and continue the respirator during the night, but not get very invasive and aggressive.

The doctor politely send Jari and I home to get a decent nights rest and told us that they would call the cell phone if anything was happening. We got home around 11:15. Around 11:45 we got a call from ICU. As my mother's body temperature rose, her blood vessels began to relx and dialate a bit. THis caused her blood pressure to start to drop. At that time her blood pressure had dropped from where it was (~100/50) after they stabilized her to about 60/30. That was very much the beginning fo the end. About 12:15 am on Thursday September 3rd we got the call that she had died a few minutes before.