Long-time readers of this blog should find something better to read, but you might remember that I’ve written a few times about my mother making me mental. Moms can do that, and nobody’s Mom did it better than my mom, but old age mellowed her, and we’ve gotten closer.
A month or so ago, doctors said that a valve in Mom’s heart was wobbly, and ought to be replaced, so my sister Katrina — who lives with Mom, and is her best friend and caretaker — checked Mom into the hospital for surgery. It’ll be quick and easy, they said, using newfangled up-the-artery techniques, and Mom would spend the night after surgery in the hospital, then go home.
The surgery went smoothly, but the after-effects were anything but. For a day and a half, Mom didn’t know who she was, where she was, or even that she was in a hospital. Since then she’s figured out who she is, but she’s still cloudy, often needs the basics re-explained.
“Why am I here?”
“You had surgery, Mom.”
“I did?”
After another week in the hospital, in addition to her recurring confusion, Mom’s heart rate was scary low, so the doctors recommended a second surgery, to install a pacemaker. We worried, and reminded the anesthesiologist that Mom’s old. The surgery went fine, same as the first, but again Mom emerged confused.
For the past two weeks, she’s been in a rehab center, where she gets daily physical therapy because she’s forgotten how to walk, though walking had never been a problem before the surgeries. Mom used to walk to church twice weekly, as it’s only a block from her house, but now she can’t walk without a ‘spotter’, in case she goes down.
Katrina stays with Mom from breakfast to supper, every day. Me, I visit for 2-3 hours almost daily, giving Katrina a break, and watching Mom’s slow recovery.
She’s still only about 75% there. I miss the rest of her, and I miss her text messages. She used to text at least daily, sometimes several times, sometimes so often it was mildly annoying. But my last text from Mom was the night before her first surgery. Since then, nada.
Meanwhile, her recovery continues, but so slowly that some days I wonder. She usually says “Hello Doug!” when I arrive, but some days it’s, “Oh hello, I’m so glad to see you,” because she recognizes me but doesn’t know me. On good days, though, we can talk about old times, and she remembers through the clouds.
Yesterday, Mom & I had lunch together in the rehab center’s dining room, and she kept forgetting to eat, or perhaps just had no interest in the bland food. She spent an hour and a half eating perhaps a dozen bites of chicken and rice and broccoli (which she now calls borkoli), but she ate all her pudding like a good girl.
Across the room, I spotted a piano. Mom grew up poor, but a piano was in her parlor and she’d learned to play. Our family never had one, so I’ve only heard Mom tinkle the keys a few times, but I asked if she wanted to play the piano and she lit up and said yes, please, so I wheeled her over.
“Baldwin,” she said, reading the brand label above the keys. “The piano in our house was a Baldwin.” And then she started playing. It wasn’t Horowitz, but she got 2/3 of the notes right, and I was able to name that tune: Bringing in the Sheaves.
She played several more hymns, and we sang together, and I didn’t even mind belting out superstitious lyrics I absolutely don’t believe. Then the activities supervisor came by (I suspect someone had asked her to silence the old lady at the piano), and invited Mom to play “Solve the Mystery” in the games room, so I wheeled her there.
Mom kinda surprised me by knowing the way: “Turn left here,” etc. That’s gotta be a good sign, right? Then I noticed that there’s a sign, literally: “Games room,” with an arrow pointing to the left.
One afternoon in the games room, I watched Mom and about a dozen people, some in wheelchairs, others in various states of disrepair, batter a beach ball across a table for half an hour — a hand-eye coordination exercise, but also kinda fun and funny to watch. Another day when I’d been there, the activities lady tossed random questions, gently forcing the patients to think and express themselves.
For “Solve the Mystery,” the activities lady read a kinda complicated Agatha Christie knockoff, a few hundred words about four characters in a drawing room. It was all spoken, with no reading and no pictures, and the mystery was too much for most of the patients to follow, let alone solve. Heck, I had a hard time keeping the characters straight myself, and I was sitting on a couch, not participating. Mom, though, correctly eliminated one of the suspects: “Evelyn couldn’t have done it,” she explained to the facilitator, “because you said she left at 8:30, and the crime didn’t happen until 9:00 at the earliest.” So Mom’s head is starting to work again.
I am cautiously optimistic, but still full of worries. Mom was fine when she checked into the hospital, but now she has a new heart valve and a pacemaker, a head that’s never quite clear, and she can’t hardly walk.
United Health Care is her insurance — yeah, the same bastards whose CEO was assassinated. They sent a letter that says that Mom’s rehab is covered for 21 days, because they ran the algorithm, and the average person Mom’s age, suffering Mom’s symptoms, is discharged after 21 days in rehab. Coverage for Mom’s rehab ends on April 8, says the letter.
My wife was in poor health for the last seven years off her life, so I have extensive experience dealing with hospitals, nursing homes, and insurance, and to me the letter is bad news. Katrina’s always had great health, has never cared for a fatally-diagnosed loved one, so she took the letter as good news — yay, Mom’s coming home on April 8. Sure hope Katrina’s optimism wins out over my pessimism, but it’s hard to envision Mom leaving rehab in a week.
This morning, though, Mom texted me. I thought Katrina must’ve typed the words, but she didn’t. Mom typed it herself. My last text to her had been a week ago: “I am visiting you every day and every day you’re a little bit better than the day before. KEEP DOING THAT PLEASE.”
Mom’s reply: “I am veree glad to see you every day.”
4/1/2026
itsdougholland.com
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