To Control or Not To Control

Nearly two years ago my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Since her 5-day stay in the hospital that summer, I've been thinking quite a bit about "control." Just how much of our life do we control what happens and just how much of our life do we think we actually control what happens? How much of our life is controlled by the schedule we want?

Just how much of our life is really at someone else's mercy, their cruelty or something else. How much of our life is not on our schedule, though we'd like it to be. So, I started to think about all the things where we are not in control, where we don't control the schedule. The weather. The mail delivery. In a restaurant. In a retail store. On the road. In the air. In a prison (although I've never been in one, except on a tour of Alcatraz). On a cruise or an all-inclusive resort (you know the kind, with a cruise director in charge of the schedule)!

And, in a hospital.

Let me explain what happened in a Fayetteville, Arkansas, hospital in May 2009.

A little background on my mom. At the age of 15 when her mother went back to work, some household chores fell to her. My mom cooked the evening meals and did the grocery shopping for a family of six. I believe this was on of the reasons my mom became so self-reliant. And, I'm sure that's where my mom began her "logistics and planning" career. It was also an early beginning on her ability to control a situation.

So, when my mom was hooked up to the myriad of monitors and IVs, she was (heck, we all were) at the mercy of the hospital staff. Everything from the pre-operating room to checking out of the hospital. And, my mom had become another person. She was no longer the independent woman I had known all my life. She was no longer in control of what was happening to her or around her. She had become dependent on the medical staff at the hospital. And, my dad and I were absolutely helpless to assist her. We had no idea how to disconnect anything that would enable my mom to leave her bed to use the restroom or go for a walk. We had to wait for the medical staff. We were not in control.

A serious situation developed when my mom was desperate to be disconnected and had become impatient. No doubt, my mom strongly requested my dad to unhook her. So, he did. Now, let me explain that when you visiting someone in the hospital, please remember that person is on medication that may cause the patient not to think very clearly. That the person's reasoning skills, their mental capacity, are greatly diminished.

I will never forget what I witnessed when I returned to the room. My mom was bleeding from where my dad had disconnected her central line. (A central line is basically a intravenous tube that is inserted and threaded through in a vein until it reaches a larger vein near the heart. Mom's central line was in her chest.) Blood. Everywhere. It was a scary situation. I have no idea how many minutes had ticked away. Luckily, and by the grace of God, by the time I returned a nurse had reconnected the central line. He then proceeded to tell us of a patient who had purposely pulled his central line and died. Yep. It's that serious. The nurse also chastised all of us, and for good reason, He did in the most merciful way. We should always call for the nurse to disconnect the medical devices. And, if necessary, soil the bed. That's right. Soil the bed.

Soiling a hospital bed is the epitome of not being in control AND experiencing an uncomfortable and embarrassing situation. Here's the kicker. Except, there's nobody around that will ridicule you for what happened. Instead, you receive the care, comfort and compassion of a dedicated nursing staff and your family. Talk about mercy in a helpless, uncontrollable situation.

I really like what Ellen Pompeo's character, Meradith Grey, said about control. In the second episode of season 7, before she could be cleared to return to surgery by a grief counselor who worked with the staff at Seattle Grace Mercy West hospital following the shooting rampage at the end of season 6, she said:

"I lost a baby. I almost lost my husband. And, my best friend may never recover. So, I don't care what you do. Clear me. Don't clear me. I have no control over any of it. I'm giving up."

To which the grief counselor replied: "Sounds like a good plan."

We think we are in complete control of our situation. In reality, we're only in control of what we do, what we think, what we say. We're not in control of other people. We can't control how fast the driver in front of us drives. We can't control the schedule for the Operating Room. We can't control how fast the nursing staff responds.

I think sometimes we lose control of our mental and reasoning capabilities. We don't think clearly. And, we don't have the excuse of being on mind-altering medication.

The thing I've learned: we can be appreciative of the hospital staff. We can be thankful we're not in an accident. We can be thankful we're able to eat at a restaurant without having to plan, cook, serve or clean up from the meal. We can be thankful for those who have extended mercy to us. We can be merciful to others even when other people are anything but merciful. (Cruel and stupid come to mind...) We can simply relax.