WWTBAM Bored

When my mother died, I walked in to visit her just minutes after she had died in the nursing home, literally walking in on her sitting up in bed dead, and was too late to have the staff be able to revive her. Before I stopped in to see her, I'd mailed some of the videos I was selling back then and had to stand in line about a half hour at the post office (it was a week before Christmas). I've often kicked myself about not seeing her before I went to the post office, when I might have been able to do something to save her (I actually think about that more than missing the Millionaire question).

Love them and see them while they're here

When my mother died, I walked in to visit her just minutes after she had died in the nursing home, literally walking in on her sitting up in bed dead, and was too late to have the staff be able to revive her. Before I stopped in to see her, I'd mailed some of the videos I was selling back then and had to stand in line about a half hour at the post office (it was a week before Christmas). I've often kicked myself about not seeing her before I went to the post office, when I might have been able to do something to save her (I actually think about that more than missing the Millionaire question).
Love them and see them while they're here.

My Dad had his 2nd knee replacement a couple days shy of his 89th birthday, about 5 years later than he wanted it because screwy things intervened involving family member. Who I blame, because they're definitely to blame. He concealed when he was scheduled to have it well enough that when I found out about it, I couldn't book a reasonable flight, so drove nonstop instead. Or tried to. I had some kind of foreboding, or just realistic worry about an operation on one so old. But I couldn't drive completely nonstop anymore, so got in just after the operation. My sister said that something weird had happenned, & he didn't come out of the operating room on time, but the doctors weren't talking. We should have beseiged them, & maybe hired lawyers, but were glad to eventually see him awake & talking, so let it pass.

He died less than 72 hours later. He didn't wake up. We had just been in to see him the night before. If I'd insisted on sleeping in the chair in his non-private room, he'd have gotten angry. And I can bet I would have fallen asleep myself anyway, eventually, just like I had to do during the drive in. Instead, he stayed up 'til 2:00am trading local-community stories with his room-mate, & died at dawn.

SSS, old people should be hooked up to monitors at all times. Especially people like my Dad who had some complication during surgery that the surgeons clammed up about. Especially people like my Dad & your Mom, who are already in medical facilities, either for surgery like my Dad or because that's where they live, like your Mom. When the monitor goes off, the help is that much nearer. I think all these facilities are completely shirking their duties by not hooking up the "inmates" to simple "are they still alive" monitors.

It should not be up to you to kick yourself for not arriving a moment sooner to a place full of people who in my opinion were not using technology to help them do their job. It should not be up to me to kick myself for not insisting that an 88-year-old surgery patient, who has already had complications the doctors refuse to discuss, should not be given the same "we remove the monitors as early as we can" treatment given to a 28-year-old. In my opinion, the "maximize profit" medical system killed my Dad. Or even if he couldn't have been saved no-matter-what, made it impossible for help to arrive in time to at least be able to try.