We were in a rush and feeling overwhelmed and disorganized that Thursday morning at Mass General.
It had been six days since Bette had had major neurosurgery to remove the largest of her brain tumors, and less than 24 hours since she learned that the real source of her cancer was in her lungs, from which the cancer had spread to her brain. That news was a crushing blow. We had thought it was just brain tumors and the surgery had removed the biggest of those tumors. What now?
Well, the most immediate “what now” was that the nurse came in the room and announced that my mother was being discharged. She could go home.
“Today? With all these staples in my head?” Bette asked. (There were 56 of those suckers in the back of her head, crusted with dried blood, still at great risk of infection.)
“Yes, now. Do you have someone who can drive you to the Cape?”
Bette had no clothes, but I had a car and we were making a break. Getting out of sicksville to bring her to the home near the beach that she built and loved so much.
We figured out how to wrap her up in blankets over those flimsy little hospital johnnies, and decided that not having shoes wasn’t going to be an issue. The hospital socks would keep her feet warm , I’d pull the car up to the hospital door and we’d get help getting her in the car, avoiding the March slush. I called my uncle to ask him to turn on the heat at mom’s house. The nurse came in with pages of post-op instructions, lists of medications, a schedule for follow up visits. It was overwhelming.
Then my sister Nancy, a nurse practitioner, arrived, followed by the neurosurgeon, who also wanted to review all the instructions with Bette.
Fortunately, Nancy is a brilliant medical professional and was able to help my mother understand the implications of what the doctor was explaining, and reassured us that she’d be down the Cape the next day to help sort out all the medications.
“Is there anything else,” the neurosurgeon asked.
“Is it alright for Bette to have a martini,” asked Nancy.
“A martini?”
“Yes,” said Nancy. ” My mother has always enjoyed a martini at night before dinner. Can she drink a martini?”
“Well, er, ah, I don’t know. I guess it can’t do any harm,” replied the doctor.
With that my mother thanked the surgeon for all he had done for her, got in the wheelchair, and away we went, speeding down Boston’s southeast expressway before rush hour, feeling like a couple of offbeat Thelma and Louises.
When we got to my mother’s small town early that evening we stopped at the pharmacy to get the drugs, the grocery store to get gourmet take out, and then scooted to the liquor store to get some vermouth and vodka.
At home that night Bette was elated. She was home, able to sleep in her own bed, her own quiet bedroom. No doctors, no tests, no other sick people around. She lifted up her martini glass and toasted, “To Home.”
I lifted my beer and toasted. “To Nancy, who knows all the right medical questions to ask.”
Now that’s a patient advocate.