7 (or so) calls to get to know my life

Friday was intense. 

The exact number of phone calls was not seven, but some could be combined. That number just kind of goes with the recent theme.

The day started with my cell phone completely dead. I don't think there had been any warnings, except that I occasionally had trouble with my multi-factor authentication, which is the main thing I use the phone for. I use it for my work network, and one web tool. Sometimes I was not getting codes texted for the tool, but it is a tool that acts up a lot, so I was not blaming the phone.

Maybe that was a sign. 

I discovered its death as I was trying to log in to the work network. This started the first sequence of calls, trying to find a workaround for logging in. There were two calls with tech support, and then three calls getting authentication set up on the landline, but I was mostly able to work, a couple of times having coworkers look things up in the tool, because I did not have time to reset that.

Okay, it was Friday, so as long as I could make it through the day, I would have the weekend to try and replace the phone. I just needed to make it through to 5:30 PM. 

At about 4:50, the landline rang. 

We always worry when the phone rings that it might be something with Mom. Usually it's a survey or political ad or sales call that we are not interested in, but this time it was actually about our mother, who had been sluggish all day; did we want them to send her to the hospital?

I was working, and in fact on a call that required looking up and figuring out many things. One sister was fielding that call, but I am generally the one who deals with issues like this. 

I really wanted medical advice. 

Wrapping up my call, I was going to try and get a hold of our mother's primary care provider. I had her number stored in my phone. Rats.

I was able to find the number and get the call in just at 5:01 PM, when they switched to the answering service. I was not feeling very hopeful. While I carefully confirmed all of the information for the service, the landline rang again. It was Mom's provider.

I started to get some clarity here. She'd had a video visit with Mom earlier, and had left instructions for the facility, which included not transporting unless the family wished it. I think around shift change someone decided they should ask if the family wished it. That may not have been clear, because I was not on that call.

The provider had sent me e-mail asking if we could talk, but of course I had not read it because technically I was still working. Even then I had not finished logging the work call.

There was terrible guilt about dereliction of duty, but also, it's my mother; there is always guilt there.

Mom is in the POLST registry. Part of her expressed wishes are no resuscitation. I agree with that. I am glad we went through it when she could still understand the decisions and think clearly about them. What this really brought home is that there a lot of things that are short of resuscitation and may or may not be good ideas.

For example, one possibility was that a small infection was going into sepsis. That sounds horrible, but if that is a part of the body shutting down, that would probably be something to allow.

We decided to wait until Saturday to see how Mom was. They were also going to contact the hospice team to see about checking in, just in case. They were going to call me.

In fact, during this phone call, the other line was ringing in. That was not the hospice team, though; that was still the facility, wanting to know if they should transport. I gave that call back to Julie, and ran back to my desk.

There were still fifteen minutes left on my shift. I finished logging the one call, checked some other things, but was also paying attention to the conversation I could hear out there. 

About 5:29, the phone rang again. This was from hospice. Fortunately, the clock finally flipped over, and I was able to take that call with only parental guilt, no work guilt!

That was also the official start of the weekend. Unless things were dire, they would probably not be able to make it until Monday. I didn't know if it was dire, but we had decided to wait and see. I would call them after checking, and message the primary, and there was nothing else to do that night.

No, there was. I had to tell the other sister. The one who doesn't live with us. That was another phone call.

We have had some pretty busy weekends recently, and I had been looking forward to not having much to do for this one. A lot of errands had built up in spite of that: the phone issue, my new glasses were ready, we had not shopped, but also, I really needed to see Mom.

We were going to go Sunday anyway, but this was just a day earlier, to see.

She was fine. She was talking to a friend. She'd had her breakfast. I took an INR reading, and that is still all over the place. As I left I wished I'd thought to get her temperature, because she had a slight fever the previous day. Regardless, there was no sign that on the previous day she had been sluggish and weak and not wanting to swallow anything.

Inability to swallow is one of the last things that happens in the full progression of Alzheimer's. That made the phone calls more alarming, but this wasn't it.

There was one more round of phone calls, messages, and entering test results. We have groceries again, and I don't have to take off my glasses to read now. 

I have a working phone again. It's the same number, but I need to replace my contacts. At some point I need to set the network authentication back to text, but it hasn't happened yet.

Friday was more stressful than usual, but those biggest stressors -- work (and perfectionism), Mom (and a sense of helplessness), and trying so hard to be responsible -- that's kind of how it always goes, just intensified.

That may explain the chronic tiredness. Probably.