The Comfort Kit
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My mom had been found doubled over and non-responsive. And when they put the oxygen monitor on her finger, her oxygen saturation was in the 70s. Which, if you're in the medical field, a sustained oxygen saturation in the 70s is not compatible with life. In fact, it's not very long until someone is brain dead.
This is Rachel Waters. In July of 2023, she got a phone call from the memory care unit at an assisted living facility where her 74-year-old mother, Marsha, lived. Marsha had advanced Alzheimer's and cancer that had stopped responding to treatment and had been on hospice care for the past seven months. Rachel says when staff from the facility found Marsha non-responsive, they'd gotten in touch with a hospice nurse.
And when he got there and examined her, he declared that she was actively dying. My mom did have a DNR. A do not resuscitate order. So she did not want any resuscitation. And so in the absence of resuscitation, he determined that she was imminently dying and had hours to days to live. And so the staff called me and they got him on the line too because he was there. And they said, you need to get down here immediately because your mom may not be alive for you even to make it from New York.
Rachel lives in Queens. The care facility was in Georgia, not far from her hometown. Rachel had been traveling to Georgia once a month to be with her mother, and had known it was possible she might receive a call like this. When someone is on hospice care, it usually means they have six months or less to live, and they receive care that focuses on comfort instead of treatment. Rachel and her partner David quickly looked up flights.
Unfortunately, there was a really catastrophic storm with massive flooding that had grounded all flights leaving New York. We had three flights in a row canceled. So we had to take an Amtrak the next morning to D.C. and then fly to Augusta. And the whole time I'm texting the nurse, like, is she still alive? Is she still there? Even though she was not responsive, she was still hanging on. And by the time I got there, you know, it had been more than a day, non-responsive, no food, no fluids. She'd been put on oxygen. That brought her oxygen saturation up. But she never regained consciousness and basically looked paralyzed when we arrived. She couldn't move. And it was clear she was in the active dying process.
So we set up a bed in her room and waited.
Did she seem comfortable? No.
No, she did not. She had two large bedsores, it appeared. And the only responsiveness she had was when staff came to turn her. Her face would just distort in agony, looked like a Greek theater mask. And it was clear to my husband and I that she was in an immense amount of pain when she was turned. And sometimes she would try and make an utterance. But her eyes were unfocused and glassy. They were starting to dry out because she'd had no fluids. It was really clear that whatever dying process she was going through, it was not comfortable.
Rachel asked the care facility staff if they could give her mother something for the pain.
What happened when Rachel received the hospice call about her mother?
Most of the people who worked there were aides, not doctors or nurses.
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