Difficult Decisions

Patricia Smiley here…

My mother is approaching her 89th birthday and has recently decided she wants to go home to Washington State to visit her sister who is in advanced stages of Parkinson’s. She also wants to see her friends and meet the new pastor of her church.

My mother moved to Los Angeles in 2004, about a year after my father died. I took her back to Washington in 2005 on my book tour for False Profits, ferrying her around the state to see family and friends. She had a great time, but the trip was not without its difficulties. Managing luggage and my mother in a wheelchair was daunting. A flight attendant scolded me for taking her to the restroom in first class even though it was the closest facility to her handicap-designated seat. I worried she would fall in bathrooms with no handicap bars.

Here we are in the rain on our way to the Seattle Mystery Bookstore

Still, she wants to make the trip. I hesitate to say this will be her last journey to the place where she spent more than eighty years of her life, but in fact we all recognize the reality. The problem is her health is fragile. She is wheelchair bound, nearly blind from macular degeneration, has survived two heart attacks and has a host of other health problems, including diabetes. I have traveled alone with her in the past but realize this time I can’t do it without help. Before we could begin planning the trip we consulted her physician, a UCLA geriatrics specialist who is also a saint.

“I want to go home,” my mother said to him. “What do you think?”

I suspect she wanted him to say she was fit as a fiddle and cleared to jet away on the next flight. Instead, she got a more measured response.

“I have another patient who recently asked me that question,” he said. “He has terminal cancer and wanted to go home one last time. I asked him what was the worst thing that could happen if he went. He said the trip might be too much for him and he could die. So what’s he got to lose? The truth is either way he doesn’t have long to live. I told him to go because he would be traveling to a place he cherished to see people he loved.”

My mother, who has no interest in dying either in route to hallowed ground or sitting in the recliner in her living room, said nothing. Not wanting to ignore the elephant in the room, I asked, “Did he make it back?”

“Yes he did,” her doc replied.

"Alive?"

"Alive."

He told her she had to have a high-altitude breathing test before she could get on an airplane. A worried frown creased her forehead. Later she asked me to find out what the test entailed. Blowing up a balloon, I learned. Wearing a mask that measured oxygen in her system.

“I’ve never been able to blow up a balloon,” she said. “Even when you kids were little I couldn’t do it.”

“Just give it your best effort,” I said. “There are no letter grades in this test.”

“I haven’t recovered from the last test.”

True. She has a chronic cough that won’t go away despite everybody’s best efforts. Just a couple weeks before, I took her for a pulmonary function test, which she couldn’t complete because she has such diminished lung capacity. The test was stressful and left her sore and exhausted. I could tell by her facial expression that the idea of taking another breathing test was almost as threatening as never seeing her sister again.

The following day she called my uncle to ask about my aunt’s condition. The response was not good. She is having difficulty swallowing. She cannot speak. She doesn’t recognize my uncle and would not recognize my mother, either.

“I have to take a breathing test before I can come to visit,” she told him.

“Why would you even think about getting on an airplane with this flu going around?” he said.

After she hung up, she said, “You know my uncle Bill died in the 1918 flu pandemic. Both my parents had it. Mom lost that baby boy she was carrying.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

I suppose she was looking to me for reassurance. I understand her desire to see her sister before she dies, and I am willing to take her on this last pilgrimage. I just don’t want to lose her on the way. So this is one decision she will have to make for herself. The test is scheduled for the first week in August. Hopefully, the H1N1 virus will be a distant memory and my aunt will be looking forward to her arrival. One can only hope.

So, what would you do under these circumstances?

Happy Monday!