Dealing With Family Illness
by Leslie Adams

Since Mark and I have owned the funeral home, we have not buried anyone in our immediate family. We have buried grandparents, cousins, many acquaintances and friends, which is not easy and is quite an emotional task. I thought I was going to bury my Mom in October of 2000. 

My Mom got sick late one Sunday night, went to a nearby hospital around noon on Monday and was sent home with prescriptions to start her dying process. During the next 36 hours, she took the medication as she was instructed by her doctor. She had been chilling, vomiting, and had diarrhea since leaving the hospital. Due to an accident while getting sick, my Dad had to help her take off her socks. When he did her toes were black. He immediately called me and I rushed to their house. 

Mom’s fingers and nose were turning black also. She was dying... her body was dying. We dressed her because she was lifeless and could not move. We carried her to the car and started towards Louisville, KY. She progressively got worse on the way there so we made the decision to stop at Clark Co. Memorial Hospital in Jeffersonville, IN. I ran into the Emergency Room (ER) and told them that my Mom was in the car. The ER staff promptly removed her from our vehicle and took her into the hospital where she spent the next 16 days. 

While in the ER, the nurses and ER doctor started contacting other doctors that specialized in certain organs. What organs? Every organ -- the only part of her body she did not have a specific doctor for was her brain. After spending endless hours in the ER, she was transferred to an isolated ICU room. Just hours later, with little notice, she was taken in for emergency surgery. Her body that was slowing dying, was now rapidly dying and was being poisoned. Mom had sepsis and a lodged kidney stone. She immediately needed a stint put in or she was going to die. As we stood in the holding room for surgery with Mom, the doctors would keep us updated with information---"She is too weak to undergo surgery to remove the kidney stone, and she also might not be able to survive the stint being put in. She could easily bleed to death, and her white blood cell count is extremely high.” 

Surgery was delayed as long as possible because they could not locate plasma and the wait for plasma was around 8 hours. They could not wait that long, she was dying so they ordered whole blood instead. She made it through surgery and was placed back into her isolated ICU room. During the course of the next week every doctor or nurse we came into contact with offered no words of encouragement. They never came out and told us that she was going to die, but these are some of the things we were told---"You do understand how sick your mom is, don’t you? Your mother is a very sick woman. Your Mom has a 15% chance of living. There has got to be a higher power keeping your mother alive, there is no medical reason why she should be here".  

As long as I live, I will never forget the hopes and disappointments our family went through. The first week my Dad never left the hospital. I spent many hours crying along with family and friends. Mark made himself so sick that he spent much of his time in the restroom vomiting. We had endless company and 48 different visitors one Sunday afternoon. I would always arrive at the hospital early in the morning and leave late at night. It was so hard for me to walk out the hospital doors every night because I knew there was a very good possibility that I would be coming back in the funeral coach, backing up to the loading dock (where I have backed up several times before), to pick up my Mom from the morgue. I was so afraid this would happen. 

It was so difficult for me to leave every night that if I had not have had Conner and Parker, (who were 1 and 2 1/2 at the time), to  check on at home, I probably would have stayed at the hospital with Dad. After one week of touch- and- go, they finally told us that mom was out of the woods. By the grace of God, and the power of prayer, she was going to live. Mom spent another week and a half in the hospital and was forced out due to insurance standards. She left with a dead nose, fingers, and toes (they looked like they had been frostbitten). Her dead parts finally fell off and her two big toes had to be surgically removed one year later. 

To see her today she looks great! No one would ever know this has happened to her, although she will never be the same. The reason I am sharing this story with you is because we were emotionally scarred from this, and our family will never forget the pain we went through. We have always been caring and understanding funeral directors, but this has made our commitment to serving our families even stronger. We try to put ourselves into the shoes of each family we serve, and understand their situation. We not only take into consideration that your loved one has just passed away, but also what you and your family may have went through in the hours, days, weeks, months, or years before the death of your loved one. 

Although Mom did not die this time, one day she will. We do not take her or anyone else for granted, and we cherish our time here on earth. For those who do die, it is a constant reminder to us of how precious life really is.