The first call came at work that morning. Grabbing my cell phone between meetings, I saw it was Mama calling. “Hi, how are you? I sure did enjoy my visit. I can’t believe we were having breakfast together just yesterday. What’s up?” I tried to sound upbeat and casual, but calls that fell outside of our weekly routine unsettled me. This was a Wednesday and I was at work. Mama never called me at work.
“Oh, I’m just fine,” Mama said in her smooth and reassuring voice. I could hear background noises I couldn’t quite identify.
“Good. Good. Say, where are you, Mama?”
“Oh, now don’t worry. The cat got between my legs this morning when I was getting the paper and down I went. I’ve got a goose egg on my head, and Deb thought we’d better come on in. Just like before.”
My ears instantly picked up on the voices, machines, and general urgency that filled an emergency room. Mama continued, “They, the doctors, don’t seem at all worried. They took a quick look, like they always do, and now we wait. They’ll X-ray it, make me tell them today’s date and say who’s the President, and send me on my way. I should be home by dinnertime. I didn’t want you to worry if you tried to call. I’m not supposed to be on this phone in here.”
It was true that Mama had been through this before, more times than I could remember. Dr. Muncey, her primary care physician and health overseer for fifteen years, was calm and reassuringly consistent. “Your mama’s blood pressure meds can cause dizziness, but she needs to be on her current dose to lower the risk of stroke. If we lower the dose, she’ll have fewer dizzy spells, but could have a stroke. It’s a tricky balance.” Her ER doctors basically confirmed this over the years, often meddling with her medications, which were promptly readjusted by Dr. Muncey.
Mama sounded genuinely unconcerned, but ready to get home to a good dinner. “I’ll call you tonight when we get home.” And then she rang off with our standard goodbye, the phrase she uttered through my grade school, college, and grad school years and at every departure in between, “Love you and wish you luck.”
Hours passed, and there was no return call.
Dinnertime passed in Virginia, and also in California, where John and I ate very little.
I was about to call her when our phone rang. It was Deb Elson, Mama’s caregiver. She sounded frantic, and worried that someone was about to blame her for a bad situation. “Your mama needs an operation and the doctor wants to talk to you.” In the background I heard the hum of fluorescent lights and the paging system calling for assistance at Curtain Four.
After a brief silence a young, authoritative male voice came on the line, a Dr. Mel Ross, surgery resident. He confirmed that Mama’s fall had resulted in a bleed inside her brain. “Your mother is unresponsive and we need to relieve the pressure in her head. Otherwise, she’ll die. I need your consent to proceed.”
“Put her on the phone, please.” I was insistent but polite.
Snide and impatient, he said, “It’s a waste of time. She won’t be able to hear you.”
“Put her on the damn phone. Now.” A moment later I heard breathing and a rustling of papers. “Mama. Mama, it’s Drew.”
“Drew.” She answered and she knew me. “They say they’re going to have to operate on me. They want me to sign papers. Do you know what they want? Should I do this?” Her voice sounded like a weak, distant and scared version of herself.
“Mama, you remember you fell and hit your head? Well, they need to help you with that, with the bump on your head. It’s important.”
“So, do I have to do it? Drew, do I?” She sounded small and alone, her voice afraid and
uncertain in a way I had never heard before.
Fighting back tears, I assured her as best I could. “The doctors say you have no choice, and they have to do it now.”
There was momentary silence at the other end. I could hear Dr. Ross issuing orders impatiently in the background. Mama asked, “Drew, will it hurt?”
I kept my voice from breaking long enough to assure her that it would not.
“Well,” said Mama, now calmer, “then that’s what we’ll do. You can tell him I say yes.”
“I love you Mama.”
“I love you too, sweetie.”
The doctor seized the line. “We have to do this now. So, do we have your
permission?”
“You have her permission, doctor. She understands.”
“Ok. I have to go. Thank you. The surgery should take about ninety minutes. We’ll prep
Mrs. Carter now and should have some news for you in two to three hours. You can call back then.”
I hung up.
John was one step ahead. “Just in case, I’ve gotten us flights. First available at nine-fifteen. a.m. with a change of planes in Atlanta. Gets us there by six p.m.” I nodded, gratefully, still numb from the news.
After an exchange of calls with work and my sister Kit in Atlanta, we waited.
Two hours passed and we called. An efficient voice answered. “We just don’t have anything to report at this time.” She paused, as if looking at her watch. “Try again in three hours I’m really sorry.” I supposed she was. We called again after three hours, with the same result.
Around midnight we called for a third time, and I spoke briefly with her surgeon, Dr. Cummings. “Mrs. Carter tolerated the surgery well and we successfully stopped the bleed.” He seemed pleased. “As she came out of the anesthesia, she opened her eyes briefly and was able to say her name.”
“And that’s a good sign, right?”
“She’s been through a lot, Mr. Carter. She’s sleeping now.” I explained we were coming the next morning, and he advised us to get some sleep.
“Your mother is in good hands and will likely sleep most of the next twelve hours or so.” Not entirely reassured but somewhat relieved, we called my sister Kit with the update and went to bed, hoping for a few hours of sleep that we’d need for the travel ahead. It wasn’t to be. At the tail end of a few fitful hours of sleep, the phone on the night table rang. It was my niece, Claire, a surgery resident at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore, a few hours’ drive north of Mama’s home. Claire had been briefed by her mother, Kit, shortly after midnight. “I didn’t like what Mom had to tell me, so I got up and drove down to see GranMamma for myself. They were wheeling her down to the ICU when I caught up with them.
“They stopped for a second and I spoke to GranMamma. She smiled and seemed to know me.”
“And that’s good, right?” I looked for anything reassuring.
“Yes. I thought so, too. I went with her and helped get her settled in the ICU. I was sitting with her, and after a few minutes, she looked over at me but she didn’t seem to know me this time, and her breathing changed. I called the nurse and they prepared to put her on a ventilator and asked me if GranMamma would allow this. I didn’t know what to do, so I said yes. Uncle Drew, you and John need to come home. I don’t like telling you this, but I don’t think she has much time.”
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