At the end, things got worse, and worse, and worse. The last time she was in the hospital - her esophagus where it hooked up to the stomach was bleeding. This was because there were little holes in it, like canker sores. They had to keep a helmet on her to keep her from pulling off all the stuff hooked up to her, including, I believe a ventilator. All sorts of tubes and needles and tape to hold things down, she was fighting everything. Finally the stomach was repaired about the best it could, from a tube that went from her nose - down to her stomach, with medicine in it to make the holes 'scab over'. The doctors had once again almost given up hope on giving her more blood, because the internal bleeding wouldn'r stop. Finally, tho, if finally quit. Her body was still taking a beating in other areas - morphine for pain, and a zillion other meds it seems, and her liver was to the point of hardly working at all.
She went into the hospital the last time on Saturday, July 8, 1995. When she was in a situation of being anywhere near able to understand what was going on around her, you could tell she didn't have long to go. The look on her face was glazed. She couldn't hardly respond to anyone, if she did try to talk, it was just sounds coming out of her throat. She couldn't formulate words. Her brain was starting to go bad - all of her system was out of wack, her liver couldn't fight anymore, her brain was doing what it could, but that was getting to be not much. I was still staying at her apartment as it was across the street from the hospital, which made it easy if I had to get over there quick. And I did have to - several times. Staying there also helped for me to help take care of her when she wasn't in the hospital.
The last time I had to get up and go running, was the morning of July 15th around 8:00a.m. The doctor had just called and told me that Patti had had a massive coronary, and it took them 30 minutes to get her heart back to working on it's own. I went over to the hospital. The doctors didn't feel there was much hope. She was being kept comfortable, and was being kept alive only by medical means (life support). Patti did not want to be kept alive this way. She had given me power of attorney, and medical/durable power of attorney. In a case such as this, if the Doctors needed to be told to take her off life support. I was the one that had to tell them to, and let her go. Under no uncertain terms, did she want to be kept alive by medical life support means.
As a mother, to have to tell medical personnel to take my daughter off life support was the same as saying "Let my daughter die". She was right in naming me as the one to give these orders, but, at the same time, its almost like killing her.
Calls were made to my two sons, and to my mother. And to a couple of Patti's close friends that were also social workers for Native Americans and for troubled teen-agers. (The group for teen-agers still helped out a lot of the kids into their 20's and longer, in they needed help, thank goodness!) I asked the hospital to call the hospital chaplain. Patti, of course was in the cardiac intensive care unit with little to no chance of getting better.
The nurses telephoned the chaplain, and explained to her what Patti's dilemma was. The nurses called me as they had the chaplain on the line, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was a good thing that she was not standing in front of me, at the time, telling me that she didn't feel that Patti's situation warranted her driving to the hospital. I bit my tongue. Very, very hard. I had to keep focused on my immediate family. A rage on my part would have rendered me totally useless, which I didn't need to do. Pay backs would come that following week when I told Patti's medical case worker about this, it was taken care of. The chaplain was then profusely sorry. As a woman, a chaplain and a child of God, she didn't owe me anything. She needed to ask forgiveness from God for making such a mistake. I had already asked God for forgiveness for being angry. But, when this happened, I felt like doing something not even mentionable. I am glad I had the ability at the time to not lash out. It wouldn't help me, my two sons or my mother out.
At 3:00pm the Doctors told me that there was no hope for Patti. She was definitely brain dead, and there was no chance of her ever coming out of the coma, let alone be able to function at all like a person should be able to. There was zero brain activity. The Doctors got her prepared so that when they stopped the machines, she would not look like this sick child hooked up to all the machinery. When I went in with my Mom, and the 3 other people, Patti looked so peaceful. I asked the Doctor how long it would take after he turned off the last of the machines. I believe he said around a minute. I told him, go ahead. The minute that she flat lined, I looked at the clock on the wall directly over the machines. 3:57p.m. Same time she was born. Same hospital. I pulled the sheet over her head and left the room.
Patti's two social worker type friends, I asked them to go tell my sons that it was over. Pete lived with me at the time, and Andrew had his own place. I didn't want them there when she was let go. Maybe I was wrong in doing it this way, but I didn't want them to have to see this. I also wanted the boys told in person, not over the telephone - my only baby girl, and their only sister was gone. We would never again see her smile or hear her laugh again - not in this life. But, I was the one who had to make the call to take her off life support.............
