Crossing the Creek (Tue, 5 Mar 2011)

The booklet that the Hospice social worker left with us yesterday is called Crossing the Creek: A Practical Guide to Understanding the Dying Process, by Michael Holmes, RN. He started in nursing in 1975, and "...went from Med-Surg to ER and Pediatrics, then to Intensive Care and finally, Hospice." He has a lot of experience in this particular life transition, and his booklet is fascinating in his observations and suggestions. I found it so interesting that I immediately gave it to mom. Yesterday afternoon she was out in her chair in the sun room reading it. She wasn't very far into it, but she commented on how accurate it is.

She had been reading the section that deals with sleep. People at this stage of their life commonly sleep a lot, and not only that but they sleep at all times of the day and night. Mom said that is exactly what is happening to her. Michael Holmes points out that this is a natural part of the process, and allows the person in a dreaming state to work out unresolved issues from their life. He said it is common for the person to talk or even cry out in their sleep, and that he does not dismiss that as just "talking in their sleep" but rather active work that the brain/soul is doing to work through events from their life, or even to talk to people on the other side.

So in that context, last night I woke up around 3am. I kept hearing a faint intermittent sound, and after a while I realized that it was mom's voice. I was hesitant to get up because anyone who has slept in mom's upstairs bedroom knows that it is next to impossible to sneak silently across the floor without the creaks waking mom up. So I laid there listening. I couldn't make out the words, but from the pattern it sounded like conversation. Finally I carefully stepped out of bed and slowly sneaked across the floor to the head of the stairs to see if I could make out what she was saying (I couldn't). The conversation went on for about 40 minutes.

This morning I kept hearing Jana panting at the back door, so I came downstairs to let her outside around 6:30am. Mom was already up and in the bathroom. When she came out I asked her how she had slept. She said she had a very good night's sleep, which she attributed to me massaging her stiff neck before she went to bed. (Her neck muscles were as tight as a board last night, so I massaged them a bit and mom said it helped a lot.) I just think it is interesting that she had a middle-of-the-night conversation with (someone), and this morning she felt like she had slept very well.

This morning she has an appointment with the Lake Wound Clinic at 11, so we will be going into town in a couple hours.