"I Won't Even Look Like the Same Person..."

Mom is still in the hospital for those of you following the story. She is in the Cardiac Care Unit, intensively monitored by various machines and nurses. She was able to get off the ventilator yesterday. She can only whisper right now because her throat is very sore from the tube, and she's unable to swallow so she's still receiving her food through a tube in her nose. I'm very happy that she's breathing on her own, it gives me some hope that she can come home soon.

I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever be able to have a normal conversation with my mother again. I'm happy that she can at least talk to me, but she's very confused and disoriented. Most of her conversations have been about the various hallucinations she's been experiencing. She doesn't remember from moment to moment what's has been happening. At first, I thought it was amusing when she was telling me about "the weird s**t that goes on around here" & started describing what could only be a figment of her imagination. As I left the hospital today, I stopped smiling. I realized that even though it may be better for mom's mental state to be out of it instead of panicking like she was when she first came to, I would like to be able to talk to her like we used to. I hate to think that I never will.

I asked my step dad today if she was just experiencing side effects from the morphine and whatever else they had her on. His only response was that they had her on very low doses at this point so it probably wasn't the cause. I didn't get an answer on what the cause is.

One of the nurses taking care of her came in to say goodbye today. She told Mom she would be off until Monday, that she had really enjoyed taking care of her, and she promised to be back and that she hoped Mom was doing even better by then. "I won't even look like the same person when you come in on Monday, I promise," Mom told her, "you'll see."