March 14 and 15, 2014.

2014 has been a rough year so far. Like really rough. I don’t think I have experienced such a rough year before. I know I am starting my Saturn return, I know the year of the Horse tends to be a powerful one, but the amount of stuff that keeps happening in my life is overwhelming. So overwhelming that I just can’t deal with it on my own anymore. So, after a 5 year hiatus from therapy, I have my first appointment today with a new doctor. A woman is a friend to mindfulness meditation and tries to figure out and solve problems in a holistic approach.

 

March 14^th will be a day that I always remember. My surrogate mom had a massive aneurism pop in her head on March 14^th and died instantly. We kept her on life support until her daughter (my best friend) was able to fly from Medford, OR to Flagstaff. I haven’t seen my person in almost two and a half years, and I was so worried about seeing her. Especially under these circumstances and knowing that her and Nan were so very close and talked almost every night. When she called me to tell me her mom had a stroke, I didn’t think it was a big deal, but then when I went to the hospital on Friday afternoon, I knew it was a much bigger deal than what she knew/said. No one wanted to tell S what was going on, since she had to fly all the way back home.

Walking into that room, I just knew she wasn’t there. Even though she looked like she was sleeping, it didn’t look or feel like her. When I first walked in, her brain pressure was at a 15, while my brain, your brain, most people’s brains are at a 2 or 3 in regards to pressure. It stayed pretty high all that day, most of the night, with it finally getting to 2 or 3 Saturday afternoon. But, once anyone started moving her or touching her, it would go back up to 7 or 10.

One of the most difficult parts was that because she was on life support, her chest was moving, her feet were moving, she was warm, and just looked like she was sleeping. I kept trying to remind myself that she was gone and that she had been gone as soon as the aneurism popped in her head, but it didn’t look like she was gone. It just looked like she was sleeping.

S came in around 12.30 Saturday morning. Roger, her brother, uncle, and myself were all standing there waiting for her at the front of the ICU. We pulled her into a different room so that the nurses and all of us could talk to her and let her know that she needed to remain calm while she went to visit mom. It was really rough sitting with her and telling her this news. I cried a lot, she cried a lot, hell we all cried a lot. It was THE hardest thing to keep from my best friend, my person, my sister.  She calmed herself down once the nurses said they would have to sedate her if she couldn’t keep it together, and then we all walked in with her to see her mom.

The two of us stayed there all night (really, morning). I sent my partner home to get some good sleep. He came back at 7.30 in the morning with tea, yogurt, and granola. He is such a wonderfully good man. Through this whole experience really, even almost three weeks after the fact, he’s been so good to me and so supportive.

Nan was on life support for the whole day on Saturday as they got a donor team together, did the tests for donor transplant, and got the word from the neurosurgeon that she was in fact brain dead and not coming back to us. Apparently, if there is marijuana in your system when they do a brain scan, little sparks show up in your brain still, so neurosurgeons can’t actually call you brain dead because, according to the scan, there still is activity in your brain. I never knew that, so that was a bit of a shock. But like I said, the neurosurgeon did all the tests that they do and there was no sign of life.

After that, they started taking vials of Nan’s blood to start doing the testing for organ donation. We all went home again for a few hours, got some sleep, ate some food, and showed up at the hospital at 7. We all agreed that 9 pm would be the time they would start getting her prepped for surgery. We all sat there silently, crying, supporting each other, and just saying our last goodbyes. The donor coordinator came in around 8.15 and we all held hands and had a moment of silence. Then each of us said our goodbyes, and they prepped her for transport to go down to surgery.

I very much believe in souls and I know that she has moved on to a place with no pain and is starting her new journey. And one of the most interesting things being there in the hospital was seeing how Nan reacted to people. When people got too loud or touched her too much, or moved her, her blood pressure would sky rocket. And for a while there on Saturday, it was a constant alarm. I like to think she was telling us that she was ready to go. She was calm the whole night S and I were in the hospital room, and I find comfort in that—that she was spending her last night with her daughter and no alarms sounded, and she was happy.

The following Saturday we had Nan’s remembrance circle, and it was so perfectly Nan. I can’t imagine a better way to send her off and for everyone to say their last goodbyes.

It’s been a struggle, and I will talk about it more soon, but I wanted to mostly get the story out, say what happened to so that people who were not involved in it personally know.

Lastly, here’s Nan’s obituary: http://azdailysun.com/news/local/obituaries/nan-falvo-rankin/article_0cbfcfa4-aeea-11e3-83b8-0019bb2963f4.html

Forever in our hearts.