It never rains but pours

H’s mother is dying. She has been on oxygen for a long time because she damaged her lungs by smoking, just like my mother. After her last hospitalization, she was discharged on high concentration oxygen and she fell through a crack – really a canyon in the system. Nobody followed up to adjust the oxygen, and sustained use of that high a concentration caused carbon dioxide to build up in her blood and it wasn’t until she began having periods of altered mental status and wound up back in the hospital that they realized what was happening. By then enough damage had been done that she could not recover. H. has been getting increasingly frantic as her mother became less able to answer the phone. “Who am I going to text at 3am?” she kept asking. Monday afternoon, I was on hold with social security and could not answer when she called, so she texted me. “It’s time for hospice,” and a crying emoji. “Her body is just done at this point.” She desperately started searching for a way to get to Massachusetts to say goodbye. “Uber says $37!” she wrote me, “I’m just going to use the last of my money.” So she and the kid set off with no place to stay, no money for food, and no way back. They spent Monday night crashing in her mother’s hospital room, and I sent them $20 for food. “I’m going to try and starve myself and only feed E.,” she said. “That’s not a great idea,” I replied. Later on she wrote me that her mother had woken up in pain. “The dying process I see is kinda like being in labor,” she said. I have observed that myself, so I agreed. Later on, they moved her mother to a hospice facility. “She’s all settled into the real hospice and on arrival evaluation by them and blood pooling the doctors gave her 12-24 hours, 36 at most. Kate, I’m not ready. I’m not ready for this to happen.” “I don’t think it’s possible to be ready,” I replied, thinking of the afternoon I sat by my Dad’s bed, watching his breaths wind down until they stopped. Next J. called from the hospital. He’s at Bronx Lebanon now, much worse than NYU. He tells me the nurses are mean to him because he can’t control his bowels. He sounds a little out of it, tells me he feels lightheaded and that they are moving him to the telemetry floor so they can monitor his heart. At 11pm, R.,my client from Nicaragua writes me, frustration spilling over. “I want to ask for voluntary deportation.” This is new. “To Nicaragua?” I ask. “What will you do there?” “Ya estoy cansado de este pais.” I can understand that, I’m pretty tired of this country myself. Still writing in Spanish, “Nobody helps me with anything, I don’t have school or a job. I’m going to be 30 years old and a person with nothing. I have no home. I have nothing.” “I’m not sure Nicaragua is a good idea,” I write back. “Maybe somewhere like Canada.” But R. just sends me a list of various problems. I do my best to inject a little hope into the situation, telling R what we can about some of these problems. Finally, the mood shifts. “I will have a house some day,” he writes. “When I have my house you will be welcome.” Here on Ocean Parkway I fill the fish tank, walk into the bedroom and see that Connor has not eaten anything I left for him today and is still hiding. I toss the uneaten wet food and put down tuna. He likes to eat after he thinks I'm asleep and then hide again. I have no idea how I am going to get him out of here so we can move back home.