Lola died Thursday. Lola wasn't her real name, but that's what I called her. Lola was Loretta Gorski, Diane's Mom. The very first time I met her some 34 plus years ago, she told me she had grown up wanting to be a Radio City Rockette with the stage name of Lola. She would have been the first and only sub-five foot tall Rockette, but the name stuck and she was Lola until the end.
Lola lived with us for 20 years in a connected apartment we built by converting the garage into living space. She lived there with Diane as her primary caregiver until, after taking a fall in December, 2019, she needed more care than Diane could give. We moved Lola into an assisted living facility about fifteen minutes from home on March 6, 2020. One week later, the facility was put into COVID lockdown, and for over a year the only real contact Diane had with her Mom was phone calls and waving to her as she stood at the window of her third floor apartment while Diane stood in the parking lot. She was so happy when the facility reopened for Diane to visit her, to hug her again.
Lola lived in her assisted living apartment until Memorial Day weekend when she took another fall that sent her to the hospital. From there, she was sent to a rehab facility with the hope of getting her strong enough to go back to the apartment that had become her home.
On Wednesday, June 30th, Diane brought her outside to meet Asaph, her first great-grandchild, who was visiting from Florida. She was ecstatic and he was happy to sit on her lap.
That night, everything changed.
The nurse called Diane early Thursday morning to tell her Lola was becoming very lethargic and confused. They were sending her to the hospital. Diane called from the ER to tell us Lola was out of it. They ran a battery of tests to determine that she had infections of several organs and systems. She handed the phone to the doctor so he could discuss his findings and find out what we wanted to do. As her Healthcare POA, I made the decision to begin comfort care and allow the infections to run their course in her body.
We met her back at the care, now hospice, facility, but Lola really wasn't there. She slept virtually all of the time and was not really lucid during her wakeful periods. We called Matthew during her last (and really only) lucid moment and put the phone by her so they could talk a final time. After Matthew tearfully told her that he loved her for the last time, Lola said, "I'm glad you're not here." She didn't want his last memory of her to be seeing her in her current condition. After that call, she went back to sleep.
Lola had a few wakeful episodes after that, but she was never really lucid. In one of those times, she told us (about 50 times in a ten minute period) that she loved hot, black coffee. She had another wakeful, but not lucid, moment during our final visit with her Wednesday evening. She looked over at me with a blank stare and said, "Bye."
Diane said, "Mom, that's Scott."
She just looked over at me again and said, "Bye."
Diane asked her if she wanted me to leave and she said, "Yes," then she looked at Diane and said, "Bye."
Diane asked if she wanted her to leave, too, and she said, "Yes." Diane asked why and she said, "I'm going to sleep."
She was snoring away within a minute, so we kissed her forehead, said goodbye and headed to the car.
Diane got a call from the hospice nurse at around 7:45 Thursday morning to tell us that Lola had died. She was sleeping comfortably during the nursing checks through the night and sometime after the last check she had simply, peacefully stopped breathing.
Lola loved our yard and had asked that we scatter her ashes in our wooded backyard, so sometime in the coming weeks we will head into the yard and tearfully say our final goodbye.
Lola was 98.
No comments:
Post a Comment