Today sucked.
Today the doctors sat us down and gave us the news my brothers and I had a sense was coming, but weren't prepared to really hear.
The stroke was catastrophic. They weren't able to save her brain. She is, for the most part, gone. About the only processing that's going on is that she's able to see us out of one eye, barely recognize that someone she knows is in the room, and squeeze our hand.
I'm reserving my real emotions. But, let's just say that this is about the suckiest thing I could imagine. Turns out she'll be lucky to live out the week. She signed a do not rescuscitate order and told all of her friends and family to let her go if she was going to be in such a state. Thankfully that took most of the hard decisions out of our hands. But it still was tough not overriding her wishes.
If there's some good that might come out of this, please sit down and communicate with your family about what you'd like to have happen in a similar situation. Do not leave these kinds of decisions to your next of kin.
Anyway, now I gotta stop crying, pull myself together, and fly relatives in from around the world. (Her sister is reading my blog, hello Tante!) There are many family and friends who can't make it here. We really appreciate your kind thoughts and prayers and we're reading these to my mom, she tugs on my hand when we're there, so the notes are comforting. If you need to talk with me, I'm on cell phone at 425-205-1921.
How do you say goodbye? One hand squeeze at a time.
Damn, this sucks.
