Juggling Work, Home and Hospital
Wed May 21, 2008 at 10:31:49 AM PDT
Cross-posted at The Workin Mom
My Granddad is dying. Right now, as I type this, he is taking shallow, shallow breaths in a hospice bed at the hospital.
My poor Mom is sitting with him, all by herself, watching him die.
And I’m at work, as much as I don’t want to be. This is an example of one of the horrible things about being a working parent.
I haven’t seen the baby in days, it seems. Not since Sunday morning, when Mom called to say Granddad had fallen down and fractured his skull. He had bleeding in the brain, which got progressively worse in the past few days in the hospital.
He went from fighting to get out of bed, begging for his pants to be put back on, asking for his wife -- to this.
I worked Monday -- when he still could talk and we thought he was going to get better -- and part of the day yesterday, until he went into a coma-like state and organ failure. We made the very sad decision to take him off the machines.
I stayed overnight at the hospital, laying sideways on a small loveseat with my legs draped over a folding chair, listening to the hum of late-night TV and my Granddad’s shallow breathing -- and then an occasional gasp, then quiet. Then, soft breathing again.
My Mom is trying not to fall to pieces yet, for the sake of her own Mom, who has been married to Granddad for almost 71 years. So, she cries quietly now and then for her Daddy, who she wouldn’t even recognize now. All of his spunk, all of her personality, all of his recognition of any stimulus, is gone.
And she’s alone. And I’m sitting here at work, because I don’t have very many vacation days left for the year. After the baby was so sick in the beginning of this fiscal year, I used all of my sick and personal days already, and several vacation days, too.
I can’t dare spend too many more vacation days now, since I don’t get a new batch until Oct. 1. All I can think about is, "What if something happens to my kids? What if I need to take days off for them?" If I take the time now, I won’t be able to take time later for them, and they’re counting on me.
Company policy won’t allow me to take today off without pay. I asked.
So, I’m here, trying not to cry from frustration and sadness and exhaustion and shear frustration. FRUSTRATION that I’m here and not with my family, who needs me, who counts on me. I feel absolutely torn.
The right thing to do is to be with them. But, the right thing to do also is to be at work.
Ironically, employees get three days of bereavement time after their loved one dies. But what about being there AS they die? I wish I could use a day of that benefit right now.
