Mount Vernon Hospital, Alexandria, Virginia, 2008. ICU ward. It’s my mothers last day. She’s here for the third time in as many weeks. This time her breathing is labored enough, intubation is on the table. Again.
If you don’t know, intubation involves placing a tube down the throat, attached to a machine to help her breath. A ventilator. In theory, the body recovers, the tube is removed, carry on.
But that last bit, removal of the tube, takes way longer for my mother. And the whole process steals my mother’s voice. I know exactly what her answer is. Hell no. As her medical legal advocate, I completely agree. I agreed the day of the car wreck 11 months earlier. The wreck that ended her husband’s, my dad’s life. My sisters had not agreed.