I Don’t Know What I’d Do Without You

We came to Vancouver three weeks ago — or was it three years? — to bring my mother-in-law Louise Fuoco to Vancouver General Hospital for a common elective surgery, a hip replacement.

If we’d known then what lay ahead, we would have turned tail at the doors to the hospital and never looked back.

And yet, in the midst of the crises and hellishness of the last three weeks, a few glimpses of gold remind us of what Mother’s Day is all about. And of what my mother-in-law Louise is made of.

This isn’t a story about all the medical emergencies and procedures she’s faced in the last few weeks, but to give you some context, I’ll just say that the lovely Louise has gone through cardiac arrest (we saw the Code Blue team leap into action to save her life), emergency surgery for the ensuing dangerous compartment syndrome in her arm, a second arm surgery, and is now facing a third. She’s been poked and pricked in nearly every part of her body, she’s been put on so many drugs we have trouble keeping track, and she’s spent some time in ICU.

All of these emergencies were the result of her rare allergic reaction to the drug Heparin, a blood thinner commonly used to prepare people for surgery. We were literally 15 minutes away from leaving the hospital to take her home to Salt Spring Island after the hip surgery, (which went extremely smoothly, by the way) when she lost consciousness and the Code Blue team worked for an hour to bring her through. (In fact, Louise is now considered a kind of wonder woman in ICU, where the doctor wrote on her chart, “Amazing recovery!!!”)

So, it’s been a rough few weeks….but here are some things I’ve learned about Louise that I might not have learned otherwise. Through the pain and unexpected complications of the last many days, Louise has maintained a grace under fire that has been almost unbelievable. Except when in extreme pain or heavily drugged, she unfailingly thanks the nurses and doctors for their care, and she is daily appreciative of the care she is receiving both from the professionals and from family members who are all pitching in to be there for her. She also has an inner strength, perhaps attributable to her Scottish background, and is more resilient than I ever could have imagined. She knows she’ll get through this, one step at a time, and she’s ready to keep on fighting.

Louise also has a quirky and hilarious sense of humor. When I remarked dryly to her one day, after yet another group of specialists had been called in on her case, that she really didn’t have to make use of every department in the hospital, her reply was, “Okay, I won’t use maternity!”

I can’t count the number of times Louise, both at the low points and when she’s feeling a bit better, has said to the family, “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” to which my reply is that we don’t know what we’d do without her either. And it’s true. Louise is a beautiful, talented, and gracious woman: a quilter, a seamstress, a florist, a community volunteer who drives for “the seniors” on Salt Spring (I chuckle over that, since Louise herself is 84, as she proudly tells the doctors!), a cat lover, a much-loved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and mother-in-law.

When I hear the usual mother-in-law jokes and put downs, I can’t help but think about how different it is for me. On this Mother’s Day, I’d like to nominate my mother-in-law Louise Fuoco as the woman I most admire.

Here’s to your continued healing, dear Louise.

Photo Credit

“Louise Fuoco with great-granddaughter Sophie,
2008″ by Holly Broadland © 2008

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