BMT Day +197 Waning moments, movie titles, e-mails and discovery

Waning moments

It is excruciating to watch.  A loved one, declining in physical function and  mentally day by day.  From a vibrant, energetic, intelligent, intensely caring and fiercely independent woman.  Teri can only take a few steps.  She can’t sit up without support.  She now spends most of the time in bed. 

It bothers me that she continues to have so much suffering at the very end.  Unfortunately, Teri continues to have significant abdominal pain.  I call the palliative care physician and we up the narcotic doses.  She also has GI bleeding, from both the lower and upper ends this morning and is likely anemic. 

She has a vacant stare and her mind seems displaced.  Yet, she still has a few moments of marked lucidity.  She can still smile transiently when she spies Jack crawling towards her on the bed.  An occasional warm smile can break through her hollowed and glassy eyes.  Last night, her breathing was periodic.  She woke up hourly, uncomfortable, unsettled.   She tells me ‘you have a heart of gold’.   Will that be her last testament to me?

Rachel and I lie next to her today.  We sit by her bedside for hours or check on her every few minutes.

Movie themes

Teri and I are movie buffs.  Ben put 7 musicals on her new iPad and she watched them all, finishing Fiddler on the Roof at home after discharge.  She’s now too weak to watch anymore.

One of my musings is what her saga would be in movie titles. 

                                                  

Beauty and the Beast – Teri said no way, at least after I excised my scraggly ‘full’ beard from residency and fellowship … I was so proud that I could, as an Asian, grow one, that I couldn’t bear to shave it for years.

Million Dollar Baby – Teri has been a fighter, standing and taking too much punishment, but not yielding.  Indeed, her marrow is from a newborn babe.  And, her paid medical bills are nearing that dollar mark.

Love Story – in some ways it is a contemporary reprise of the theme of love and tragic leukemia some 41 years after Eric Segal’s novel replete with relapse, remission, superbug infection, bone marrow transplant, intractable viral infections, multiple complications – a dramatically medically prolonged demise – instead of a quick one in the neoplastic dark ages.

Mother Teresa documentary - just kidding.

E-mails from you

Mark Ray & Memee’s son (Hilo HI) – a personal cheer

T – totally different from anyone else I know

E – enthusiasm, energy and educating

R – relaxed, reassuring, resilience

I =  inspirational

Becky college friend (NJ) – to Rachel and Ben

Your mother was a girlfriend and spiritual sister to us, before she became your mother, and always stayed true to the right course to take.  She still knows best and we still follow her lead.

Catherine Asian Womyn’s Book Club – she remind us that Teri started:

-          Asian Womyn’s Book Club ? 15 years running

-          Annual summer picnic meeting for investment club

-          Annual 4^th of July swim party

Reiko Asian Womyn’s Club (Columbus, OH)

You have the gift of kindness.  You are not afraid to be different.  When I become critical of myself I can ask “what would Teri say?”

Jeanine (niece) San Diego, CA

I will miss your laugh and sense of humor, but most of all I will miss your love.  I still feel it every single day when I look around my house and see little notes or gifts that you have sent us over the years.  You were always so thoughtful and I am so glad my children got to know you and love you as much as I do.  You are love to me.

Rhonda gourmet club (Columbus, OH) – phone conversation yesterday

You are totally surrounded by love.  Only a special person like you could generate that much love.

Peg gourmet club (Columbus, OH) – stanzas of a poem

This journey through B's blog

Which in the end,

When you remove the medical technicalities

Has been a love story. [Not just a horrific cancer story. I guess that is true. A revelation. B]

A journey’s end

By gathering us together to celebrate you

Demonstrating strength, grace, and courage

To take the last steps alone

Yes secure in knowing that

Both your hope and love for us survived

Discovery

With your humorous anecdotes, poignant remembrances, penned poems and heart felt thoughts on how Teri affected you, many of you are helping me discover the many scented essences of Teri in a way that would otherwise be impossible for me.

                                                                                        

Thank you.