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The Last Chapter - by Doug LoveIn the picture, Mom is eating Jello because it was all she could eat. Her throat kept closing up, and she had trouble swallowing and breathing. The week I took this photo of Mom, she was admitted to the hospital 3 times for stomach pain. The third time, the fire dept. took her there for me. She stayed in the hospital over the July 4th, 2005 weekend. |
| Then I had to put her in Crescent Cities Nursing Home in Riverdale, MD
where I visited her every day at lunchtime, and brought the dog on weekends.
At first they tried to rehabilitate her, taking her to therapy in a wheelchair.
But everytime they got her dressed, she threw up all over herself.
Finally Meanwhile, she could eat almost nothing, and cried out piteously for more pain medication. I asked the doctors and nurses to help her, but they seemed to think she was ok. |
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Finally a doctor at a Virginia hospital operated on her stomach. Then they sent her back to the nursing home, where she recovered. As of Oct. 6 2005, she was able to read, watch TV, and talk, but she doesn't like to sit up for long. Sandra, her roommate, is a member of a nearby Adventist church. I put some of mom's favorite pictures on the wall, and the more mobile patients visit her to see them. | ||
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The 100 days of Medicare coverage in the nursing home were over in November 2005,
and Mom was put in long-term care. The head therapist had evaluated her when she first
arrived at the nursing home, and said that Medicare had rejected her claim for therapy,
because she was unable to benefit from it when she was so sick.
Her right foot had become contracted while she was in the hospital. One of the therapists had been working with it, but now her rehabilitation therapy had been left to me. I was considering moving her to another facility farther from work where she can get therapy, and was trying to find a hydrotherapy facility nearby. I have taken her to chiropractor Lynn Bezak, our family podiatrist Scott Nutter, and our family doctor, Roscoe Adams. They all prescribed more therapy. Then the head therapist at the nursing home said that she would report both the doctor and the chiropractor to Medicare for fraud! I got mom some high heeled boots that she might be able to stand in. Her Christmas present to me was supposed to be to stand up in them on Christmas day. She couldn't do it. | |
 for her 90th Birthday. George Gliba took the picture. |
Friends from Greenbelt and from church showed up for her 90th birthday on Dec. 28.
We had 90 candles on the cake, and I was scared to light them all!
In early January, the problem with her throat returned, plus her saliva glands are no longer functioning. An Evercare Nurse named Dianne Ng was helping her with these problems, and had plans to help her with her contractured foot. She was able to get Jane a little more therapy. |
On June 6, 2006, Jane felt good enough to visit Greenbelt on Greenbelt Day.
A friend from church loaned us his chairlift van.
We took the House and Garden Tour, including a stop at 3-D Plateau, and had lunch
at the Beijing in Roosevelt Center.
Then we went to the Band Concert, where Mayor Davis made her the honored guest, and
gave her a bunch of flowers. By 4:30, she was ready for bed!
visit with Jane after the Greeenbelt Day concert in 2006. |
 Picture by Jason of the News Review |
On March 15 2007, she had a stomach ache. She pressed the call bell, but nobody came to help her. She called me at home, and I called Crescent Cities repeatedly. Nobody came to help her until I called 911. they took her to the Washington Adventist Hospital. They found no sign of congestive heart failure, and after a few days her infections subsided. She was then transferred to the nearby Sligo Creek Rehabilitation Center, which is run by our church. |
 in Takoma Park MD |
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If she doesn't get rehabilitation help here, she can go back for
more sessions at NRH. The food and care at Sligo are very good.
Everyone I know, including some atheists, are praying for her.
A neighbor gave Mom a large TV that she can see even with her failing eyesight, and I watch it with her on Sunday nights. One Saturday afternoon, while listening to Puccini's last opera Turandot, I explained the plot. When I told her that the name of the hero is Love, she said, "I appreciate our name". She has been dreaming of dead relatives, but her nightmares concerning my father seem to have ended. This could have been the start of a new chapter in her life and memoirs, if only she had recovered. But she didn't. On June 1, she began vomiting brown, indicating internal bleeding. She could only say single words, and once asked me to put her to bed. She was in bed. I tried to feed her, but she couldn't eat. On June 8, the nurses called 911 for the second time in 2 days, and sent her across the street to Washington Adventist Hospital, with low blood pressure and dehydration. While the doctor was telling me what they could do for her, she noticed that Jane was not breathing enough to stay alive. She went over and found that Jane had stopped breathing. I held her cold hand, and her heart stopped at 7:45. She died with dignity and compassion, at just the right time for her and me both. I had shown her the first bound copy of these, her memoirs; she died like Copernicus, knowing her words would continue. | |
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