Nine Years After: Reflections

Our last family photo was taken on July 11, 2015. Mom passed away eight days later 

As much as I enjoy having a Facebook account, and even taking into account that for the time being it is my main link to my friends and family, sometimes I get emotional curveballs tossed at me via its Memories feature.

If you don't have a Facebook account (and I can think of at least one individual who does not have one), all you need to know is that every day, the social network re-publishes posts one created on the same date x years ago.

The Memories posts are, of course, highly dependent on the content you create daily on Facebook. If, for instance, I share a post from this blog on my timeline today, the Memories feature will repost it on my timeline on April 25, 2020 (unless, of course, I turn off the feature).

Over the past few days (not today, mercifully), I have seen a couple of re-posts that have made me relive the beginning of the darkest period of my life: the decline and eventual death of my mother, Beatriz Diaz-Granados.

It was in the spring of 2010 that my mom began to experience difficulty while walking around the house. At the time, we lived in a two-story townhouse in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, and her bedroom - the master - was upstairs, adjacent to mine.

The five-year-long period of my mother's decline and eventual death actually began after Christmas of 2009. Mom mentioned to me a few times that her back was sore after climbing the stairs to go to bed after cooking, eating dinner, and cleaning the kitchen for the night. She attributed this to old age (she was 81 when the backache first manifested itself) and arthritis, so she never mentioned it to her Primary Care Physician (PCP) at Leon Medical Center.

Still, for a few months, Mom stuck to her usual routine, but as winter transitioned to spring, her backache got exponentially worse. She didn't complain much, but little by little, she found herself becoming stymied by the pain. Walking became a via crucis for her, and she began to go up and down the stairs more slowly than she had ever done before.

It was around this time in 2010 - per my Facebook posts of the time - that Mom's health problems reached crisis mode.

Yesterday, for instance, was the ninth anniversary of the day that we had to face reality and that Mom had to be moved downstairs.

Per Memories: 

Alex Diaz-Granados

April 24, 2010 · 

Had an incredibly rough day; we had to get Mom a few things to make certain activities a bit easier. Unfortunately her pain is not easing off, so my sister and I were pretty occupied with nursing duties.

As you can see, it's a pretty vague post. This was because my half-sister and I had not yet gotten the call from the PCP ordering us to put Mom in a comfortable bed downstairs. We were focusing on getting Mom a new icepack and some other stopgap measures because we did not know what was wrong with her. Vicky, who was still a registered nurse nine years ago, thought it was a pinched nerve. I basically accepted this since I have no medical training to speak of. 

Nine years after, I know why Mom was in so much pain, of course. 

Here's what I wrote yesterday on my Facebook post, explaining the vague entry from 2010:

Has it been nine years since Mom's health started that downward spiral?

Apparently so.

As I recall, no one - not my half-sister, not Mom's primary doctor, and certainly not me - knew the extent of her back problems. The symptoms (back pain that made it impossible for her to walk) were similar to sciatica or a pinched nerve. As such, Mom went to Mercy Hospital two times over the next few weeks to get "nerve blocks." These treatments didn't help much; the pain would go away for a few days, then return with a vengeance and we'd have to do the whole "take Mom to the hospital" thing a few days later.

Finally, her PCP ordered an MRI of Mom's back. The results were...shocking. Osteoporosis and an old injury from a car accident long, long in Mom's past had turned some of Mom's lower vertebrae into...well, powder. Some of her nerves were thus exposed, causing the pain. If Mom was ever to walk and avoid being paralyzed, she would need back surgery and the implantation of a metal rod to reinforce her spine. This was in April; the operation was scheduled, I believe, for June of 2010.

One of the first big changes we had to make was to move Mom from the upstairs bedroom she loved down to the smaller guest room on the first floor. She was to never climb stairs again, so the change - which she hated - was permanent.

From then on, things got progressively worse. 

But, that, Dear Reader, is another story for another time.