Memaw had a crown put on a tooth a few months ago. Something happened when she was eating a nut and it started to hurt. Over the weekend she woke up and noticed the side of her mouth was swelling. It kept getting tighter and bigger so on Monday morning she went to the dentist to see what was wrong. The dentist said her tooth needed to be pulled so he sent her to an oral surgeon. On Tuesday morning I had go with her to the dentist because they were going to sedate her and she needed a driver to bring her home. We had no idea how this tooth extraction would completely take her out of commission for a couple of days.
When I went in to the room to bring her out, she was still sedated and seemed morphed into the chair. Her mouth was sagging open and she looked like a little old lady deep in sleep, dreaming of meeting her maker. I had to fight back the tears because she did not look like my 60 year old dragon-slaying mother. The dental assistants seemed to be in a hurry to get her awake and out of the building. Mom looked to me like she needed to sleep for a few days, but we worked and worked at waking her up. We helped her into a wheelchair and took her out to the car. In her sleepiness she told me to go get her coat. On the way home, she continued to ask in between sleeping intervals, "How did I get to the car?" I answered honestly for a while reassuring her we pushed her in the wheelchair. Then as she persisted in asking the same question over and over, I began to tell her things like, "You grew wings and flew" or "We rolled you right out of there." Whatever I told her didn't seem to stick because she was really sleepy with sedation. She became very nauseous and I thought for sure she was going to throw up in the car. I had to stop at the church to driveway and parked the car, she wanted to sit in the car. She was so drowsy that I really began to wonder how I was going to get her down the stairs and into her room. I sent Matt a text to see if he could come home and help me. He was in the middle of a meeting so I decided to hang out in the car with mom for as long as it took. I layed her seat back and I started reading my book. Then I wondered how long mom would really sleep and figured she needed good rest in her bed. I told mom that we were going to have to get her up and get her downstairs to her bed. She continually asked me, "How did I get to the car?" She was not coherent with anything. As I tried to set her up in the car, she said she was going to throw up. I ran to the house to get a bucket. When I came back outside, she had thrown up blood all over the concrete. I cleaned her up and then grabbed her arm and told her we needed to get her into the house. She was very weak and nauseous, but we finally got her into her bed. I called the dental office to get some more information on her medicine and how much she needed to eat before she took the pills. I fed her some yogurt, gave her the pills she needed and then started the 20 minute ice pack rotation. This continued for the next 24 hours. Thank goodness Josie came home from kindergarten soon so I could enlist her help. She was quite the expert nurse by the time I had to leave to go pick up the other kids from school. She was a little nervous at first being the sole caretaker of Memaw, but once I trained her and she was confident working the timer and her nursing responsibilities, she was fine. While I was gone, Memaw called her to help give her a drink of water. When she was done Memaw said, "Thank you nurse." Josie said, "Just call me the doctor." Josie was pretty confident with her abilities and she figured they were beyond nurse duties. She had earned the title of doctor. When the other kids returned home, Chloe and Mason joined in on the nurse/doctor duties and took turns timing the ice pack changes. They had a walky-talky and when the timer would go off, they would say into the machine, "Memaw, it's time to take off your ice pack." or "Memaw, it's time to put your ice pack back on." These children are all very compassionate helpers and loved doing their duty.
What a crazy couple of days!
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