2017 Part 1: Momma

 The year 2017 was one of the most difficult times of my life. The whole year. It started out bad and got even worse from there.

In January of 2017, when I had an almost 2 year old and a 6 month old baby, my Mom went to Utah to have surgery.

She had had her knee replaced in the fall of 2015. It was one of the best things that had happened to her. She had been having so much trouble getting around because of the pain she was in. But, almost miraculously, she was able to be up and around and going. For the first time in decades, she was able to walk without a cane. It was incredible to see her going places and visiting family and friends in a way that she hadn't done in a long, long time.

Then in January of 2016 she slipped on a patch of ice, landed on that newly fixed knee, and shattered her femur. Her life not only went back to what it had been, but it declined even more. Her surgeon was able to reconstruct her femur using a whole lot of hardware. But her body didn't heal properly. She was diabetic and obese, and things just didn't work.

So, her surgeon referred her to a surgeon in Salt Lake City that could completely replace the femur and the knee for her. It took her until September of 2016 to get an appointment, and until January of 2017 to get the surgery scheduled. We were all very hopeful, to have her progressing again and enjoying life.

What happened, though, was that when the surgeon opened her knee she was full of infection that hadn't been detected in all of the preliminary testing. They took out the knee prosthetic, replaced it with an antibiotic spacer, and sent her to a rehab facility.

Something that is important to know about my Momma is that she has always been a stubborn cuss. This woman would seem to be contrary just for the sake of contrariness. If she didn't want to do something, it wouldn't be done. And if she felt like she was being treated poorly by someone, they would be firmly put on her "ookie pookie" list and there was "no way in hell" that she would listen to them or cooperate with them in any way.

The reason it's important to know that is so that you can understand what happened next in her journey. At the facility in which she'd been placed, the head of Physical Therapy at the facility got on Mom's "ookie pookie" list. Dad told us that the PT seemed to talk down to her and treat her almost like a child. Mom did not respond well to that and stubbornly refused to do much of what this PT asked her to do. When someone else would come in to work with her, she would do just fine. It was just that one person.

Consequently, in March of 2017 the head PT reported to Mom's insurance that she "wasn't progressing" and the insurance refused to pay for her to stay there. Or in any facility. At all. 

So here's my Momma, with a brick for her knee, and nowhere to go. And in Utah. And this all happened the weekend before she was supposed to go back to the surgeon to get her surgery set up. Did I mention that it took 6 to 8 weeks to get an appointment with him? Yeah. It did.

Thankfully, Mom's sister Janice and her husband Winston lived not too far away in Eagle Mountain and very graciously agreed to let Mom and Dad come stay with them. So Dad had to arrange transport to Eagle Mountain, had to purchase a hospital bed, and took Momma to stay with her little sister.

Mom had always had a bit of a beef with Uncle Winston. He hadn't always treated Aunt Janice the very best, and Mom didn't like that at all. She had always been very, very protective of her family and had no qualms about expressing her displeasure with offenders. Uncle Winston had changed for the better, but Momma wasn't one to necessarily forgive and forget easily or quickly. Or even ever, no matter the changes that were made.

So to say it wasn't completely ideal for her to be stuck in a hospital bed in their living room is a good bit of an understatement. Mom never liked to be stuck anywhere. She very proudly told us that she was a tomboy. She would go out on the farm and work with her Dad and brothers and had nothing to do with her Mom and sisters in the house. She loved being outside and active. It was truly torturous for her to be stuck.

I feel that Aunt Janice and Uncle Winston probably attained Sainthood in the patience and kindness they showed my Momma in the months that she was with them. As I had mentioned, she was kicked out of the rehab center just before her appointment with the surgeon. Dad was not able to arrange transport for her to the appointment, so she missed it. And they had to reschedule. And had to wait. Again.

Finally, finally, in May of 2017 she got back in to the surgeon and got her surgery set up for the beginning of June. Again we were feeling hopeful! A chance for Mom to get her leg working again, to get back to the activity she had briefly won. 

She went to the hospital for surgery at the appointed time, but complications ensued. The doctors found that her potassium was dangerously low and instead of having surgery, she was admitted to the hospital.

Mom had been diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure in about 2008 or so. It wasn't very surprising, truth be told. Her Dad had been diagnosed with CHF years before, and that had been the cause of his mother's passing. Darned genetics. Mom had done well with it for the most part, but her heart was still a bit of a tricky prospect sometimes.

It took a few days, but they were able to get her potassium levels back up again. And she went in for surgery again. Fingers crossed and prayers said!

But alas, the doctor found topical infection and again refused to complete the surgery. That is to say, he found an infection on the skin of her knee and wouldn't proceed. 

It's at this point of the narration that I have to interrupt and insert some genuine and utter bitterness. So much of all of this story could have been avoided had things gone differently in the rehab center. Whether it had been that Dad had advocated better for Mom - asking that she not work with the PT she had problems with. Whether that PT could have just not been an utter and complete asshole (pardon the language) due to their pride or whatever their motivation was. Whatever it could have been. If she'd been in that facility when the initial appointment came along she would have had her surgery scheduled and she would have had the level of care to prevent any kind of infection on or in her knee. Things would have turned out completely differently. End rant.

So, once again Momma had a spacer put in her knee and she was admitted to the hospital again and prescribed a round of IV antibiotics. We felt at this time that Mom just needed to come home to Idaho to recover. She wasn't progressing well being away from family. She just needed so much to be closer to home.

It was at this point of the story that an accident occurred. Dad fell and fractured his skull at Janice and Winston's and was hospitalized. 

Because of that, I had to step up and take over. I contacted the hospital and let them know about my Dad and proceeded to arrange for my brother Matt to pick Mom up and bring her up to a facility in Idaho Falls. Matt had not too long before purchased a newer Subaru Outback and was best situated to make the trip.

And what a trip it was! My Momma stretched across the back seat with no knee in her leg. And my brother Matt, who though he does have a heart of gold also has what we like to call "negative patience" with anyone in our immediate family other than children. He and Mom had particularly been known to butt heads. I think there were Angels from Heaven in that car that day.

We got Mom admitted to Life Care Center in Idaho Falls. She had wanted to go to Promontory Point, where she'd recovered from her initial knee replacement surgery and the subsequent femur reconstruction. But they weren't an Acute Care facility and that's what Mom needed because she had a port in her chest to administer the antibiotics she was given.

I came to know Life Care Center very well. I determined that my Momma needed to see family as much as possible. And as I was a stay at home mom, I had the time to visit her the most. And visit I did!! In the first few months she was in Life Care, I hauled myself and my two little girls (one of them initially a month shy of 1, the other 2) to visit my Momma every Monday through Friday.

Mom absolutely loved it when we came. Not for me, of course, but because of the babies that I brought with me. I was obligated to haul in all of my "little girl" supplies. I brought the diaper bag - with all of the diaper changing paraphernalia for both of them, as well as the essential snacks. Then there was the backpack with toys, little books and games that had to come along. And, of course, the children themselves. 

I would usually be carrying little Emma, the 1 year old. She could walk, but it was easier and faster just to lug her around. For the most part, anyway. And then my precocious 2 year old Lorna. That child was a runner. If I let her loose at all, she was gone. So, my dear and wonderful sister graciously bought me two adorable penguin backpacks - one red and one purple - that were also a harness and leash. Yes, I leashed my children. No, I was not then, am not now, and never ever will be ashamed. Judge me if you will.

So I would be loaded for bear with all of the supplies, one girl on my hip, and the other straining on the leash ahead of me. And we'd descend upon my dear Momma. And she loved every second of it. We'd usually stay and hour or so. And Mom would talk to the girls, hold them for however long they would sit still on her bed, and watch them as they played.

In hindsight, I can see the beginnings of the dementia that she would later fall deeply into. She would frequently verify their names with me. She was always right about which was which, but almost every time we visited she wasn't quite sure. 

Towards the middle of July 2017, the girls and I went in to visit Momma and I could immediately tell that something was wrong. She was sleeping very deeply, with big loud snores, and there was nothing that I could do to wake her up. I found her nurse and expressed concern, and the nurse explained that Mom had been like that all that morning. 

I called my brother Wayne, the RN. I told him what was happening and he advised that Mom should be taken to the ER and since he wasn't working that day he would meet her there. I told him to keep me posted.

We found out that because of the antibiotic Mom was being given, her kidneys were struggling to process out the morphine she was getting for pain. The antibiotic was known to be hard on kidneys. Because of this, the morphine was overloading her system and causing her to not be able to wake up.

At the ER, they dosed her with Narcan and sent her back to Life Care. The Narcan, they said, would reverse the effects of the morphine and get her back to where she needed to be.

Unfortunately, that's not what happened. 

When I went back the next day for our visit, Mom was in the same state as the day before. Her nurse was frustrated that they had sent Mom back, because it was clear that she was in a worse state than Narcan would be able to handle.

So, back to the ER Mom had to go. But this time Wayne was at work, so I got to be the one to go with her. I called my husband and had him take the girls. And I called my sister Sarah to come with me for support. 

What I didn't know at the time, but I definitely know now, is that Sarah hates hospitals. And because of that, and probably other factors, she wasn't much of a support and I ended up sending her home before everything was finished. She was a  mess.

Now, I am one that is good in an emergency. I keep my cool, am very calm, and weather my way through until I can break down after the crisis. To anyone looking at me, it would appear that I was either rather unaffected by the state my Mom was in, or that I just plain didn't care. While my poor sister was sobbing and almost having an emotional breakdown.

I've always been one that just takes care of what needs to be done. If I see a lack, I fill it. If no one else is stepping up, I volunteer. If there's no one else to be in charge, I take over. It's who I've always been. Sometimes to my detriment.

Being with Mom in the ER is probably one of the most traumatic situations I've been in. My dear Momma was lying on a gurney, sleeping, but absolutely struggling to wake up. She would open her eyes and I could see that she wanted to tell me something. She knew she wasn't ok. And I wasn't sure if she would be ok. I was so scared that it would be the last time I saw my Mom alive. 

Even though on the outside I seemed pretty put together, I was definitely not ok. But I've always been good at hiding that sort of thing. I've always been the strong one in every situation. No weakness in me, nope! I'm all good.

Brené Brown is one of my very favorite people to listen to. She researches wonderful topics, like guilt and shame. Seriously, though, the things that she has spoken on and written have been transformative for me. 

One thing she talks about is how people react in anxious situations. She says, "We all have patterned ways of managing our day-to-day anxiety, and these patterns often reflect the roles and expectations of our first families."

In her book The Power of Vulnerability she talks about an experience she had when her mother had a medical crisis. She prefaces it with an explanation about over- and under- functioning. With over-functioning, a person will take on every responsibility in the situation. In under-functioning, a person will shut down. She said that typically eldest children will over-function and younger children will under-function.  

Brené is the oldest and she has two younger sisters. In the story she shared she talked about how she very much over-functioned in the situation. When the doctor came out to talk to the family she basically shoved her way to the front and announced that she was "Dr Brené Brown", the patient's daughter, and kind of took over. She stepped on the toes of her step-father and sisters in the process. 

She talked about how, in hindsight, she was able to see that she was being ridiculous. And thankfully her sisters were able to call her out on it and she was able to back down.

The reason that I bring this up is because I very much over-functioned that day in the ER. I did it initially with my sister. I did it with the nursing staff. I did it with the doctor. I was behaving ridiculously, and I can see that now. But at the time, I was utterly panicking inside and overcompensated on the outside.

The anesthesiologist reacted very unkindly to my behavior. He was snarky and rude to me, belittling me in any way that he could. Even now, nearly 7 years later, I'm almost in tears thinking about it. It made me so upset and angry. It hurt me to the core. I was just trying to do my best, but because it didn't look that way I got no compassion.

Mom ended up being admitted to the ICU. Her kidneys had shut down. She was sedated and put on dialysis to filter out the morphine and to get her kidneys to function again. 

As I was in the ICU waiting room, finally letting myself break down a little and cry, the anesthesiologist walked by. I really, and rather vindictively I might add, hope that he felt bad about the way he had behaved.

All of this happened just before our Annual Butikofer Family Campout. Every third week in July, my Mom's side of the family all get together to go camping. I have so many memories from my childhood of those campouts being the best times of my life. All of my cousins were there and we were in the woods, usually with some kind of water near by to play in. We'd have some organized games, but mostly it was just all of us being together enjoying one another.

I was very conflicted about whether or not we should go, because I didn't want to leave Mom. But Wayne wasn't planning on being there and told me to go camping. He would keep me updated, and he did.

My husband Daniel and I had an 8 man tent for us and our 2 girls. I brought up there pack-n-play sets and they slept in those with lots of blankets. For a 1 and 2 year old, they did very well.

A huge treat that we got that year is that my brother Mike ended up stopping at the campout for a day. He also brought my Aunt Alice, Dad's sister. And even my oldest brother Bill was there that day. He would often have to miss campouts due to work, and hadn't been able to be there for the rest of that campout, but he got to be there for that day.

Mike lived in Florida and worked as a deep sea welder. We were lucky to see him once every 5 years or so. The way his scheduled worked, he'd be out on a boat for a couple of months and then would be off work on land for a couple. He had decided to take his off-boat time to check up on Mom and also Dad, who was in a VA nursing home in Ogden at the time.

We decided to take advantage of having Mike there and took some impromptu pictures of all 6 of us siblings. We sat on the picnic table at our camp site and used a couple of people's cell phones to take the pictures. There were several taken of just the 6, and then others with spouses, children, and Aunt Alice.

The quality of the pictures were not good. The lighting was pretty horrible. I don't know that you could even clearly see those of us in the back. But we were all happy while we were taking them. We didn't know at the time how very precious those pictures would soon end up being, as it was the last time all 6 of us were together.

While at the campout I tried to let all of my Mom's siblings know how she was doing. Momma was the second of 9 children in her family. The oldest girl, sandwiched between 2 boys. Most of her siblings were there. Very few of them seemed to care to hear anything about how Mom was doing.

Mom wasn't always the easiest person to love. I mentioned before her stubbornness, protectiveness, and her "ookie pookie" list. Well, Momma could be what I can only really describe as abrasive at times. She loved her family so much, but often felt left out of things and felt like no one really cared. And because of those feelings, she would get mad.

I can completely empathize with my Mom in this. In the last few years I have learned a lot about anxiety, and different reactions to panic attacks. When my husband has had a panic attack, he shuts down. He curls up into a ball and tries to hide from everything and everyone. On the 'fight, flight, or freeze' spectrum, he is very much on the flight/freeze end.

I, on the other hand, am as far on the 'fight' end of things as I think I can get. So when I experience a panic attack, I get rip-roaring pissed off and I can't control it. I yell and scream and throw things. And I know in my head that I need to calm down, but I just can't.

That's how my Momma was. When she was hurting, when she was upset, her knee-jerk reaction was to get angry. That's how she operated. She was very much a momma bear, in pretty much every aspect of her life. And, as I mentioned before, she was not one to hold back. Ever.

My Mom didn't really have any filters at all, frankly. So even when she wasn't angry, she could be really kind of awkward and possibly a good bit aggravating. She had absolutely zero tact. Like, seriously, none. And some of the things she would say... Let me just tell you... I spent a good bit of time cringing inside for her.

But she could also be, at the same time as all of that, quite delightful. She had the very best, most contagious laugh that you would ever hear. She loved with her whole freaking heart. And she would give the world to the people that she loved. She could really be so sweet and funny and wonderful.

So, yeah. With all of that, Mom was an acquired taste.

It hurt me that no one seemed to care about my Mom. It hurt that no one seemed to care how close she had come to death, how desperate her situation had been. It hurt to see my Momma seemingly so easily disregarded.

After the campout things seemed to just traipse right along. Mom was discharged from the hospital around the end of July and went back to Life Care. And I went back to visiting her. The visits were reduced to 3 times a week because I was starting to wear out. But I kept packing us up and packing us over. 

My Dad also ended up coming to Life Care. So the girls and I would go to visit him, too. He was in a different room, a different wing even, than Mom was. I don't know why, but that's how it was. So we'd visit them both when we went over.

One day in about the beginning or middle of August, when we went in to see Momma the nurse greeted me by saying, "She's just about ready to go." I had forgotten that Mom had an appointment with her nephrologist (aka, kidney doctor) that morning. I had gotten there just in time. Because I had my two girls I couldn't go along with her in the transport, so I followed along in my car. We got her situated in the waiting room initially, and then sat with her for the appointment. Afterwards she had to wait for the transport, so I just took myself and the girls back to Life Care to visit Dad.

We had a nice visit with Dad and I was ready to head home. But as we passed by the wing where Mom was, I had the thought that we should go see her because we didn't really get a good visit at the doctor's office. I went to her room, but she wasn't there. So I went to the head nurse's office to ask where she might be. I found out that she'd been taken to PT. I still had the thought, though, that we should stay to visit. So I sat with the head nurse and chatted for a while. And I was later very thankful that I did. 

Promptings from the Holy Ghost, for me at least, usually come in the form of a regular old thought or idea. I think the Lord knows me well enough that if I were to see something as a Prompting or Revelation, I would start to doubt myself and make a big old stinky deal about it. That God, He knows us so well.

When I went back to her room, Mom was just pulling up in her wheelchair. She told the PT that she wanted to sit in the chair for a bit. So I sat next to her in the obligatory room recliner. 

I had picked up her cell phone and was going through her voicemail when Mom started violently shaking in her chair. She also started foaming at the mouth a bit, pink foam. Then she threw her head back, took one deep breath, and everything stopped.

I ran out of the room, looking for her nurse but couldn't find her in the hall. I went back to check Mom. She wasn't breathing and her pulse was getting faint. I sprinted down the hall to the main nurse's station and yelled for help. And they came running.

It was a really good thing they did, because at that point Mom's heart had stopped. They had already called 911 and code blue for her room. And I watched as they pulled Mom out of her chair and onto the ground to administer CPR until the paramedics could get there. I was sitting again on that uncomfortable brown recliner with my two little girls clasped in my arms. 

The head nurse very quickly ushered me out of the room and told me that I could go to her office to wait. I started toward there, but then decided it would be better to go to Dad's room. He had heard the code called for Mom's room, and I explained what had happened. Probably not very well, but the best I could. 

I had left all of my things in Mom's room, so one of the wonderful staff went and got it. I called Daniel and he came over from work to take over care of the girls while I went to the hospital with Mom. From what I heard, the staff went above and beyond to spoil my girls - putting on special movies for them and bringing them all sorts of treats. 

And I went traipsing back to the hospital to find out if my Mom was going to survive a second go. 

This time I didn't over-function. Even though I didn't know the terminology at the time, I knew better how to behave. 

Mom had had a pulmonary embolism. That is to say, a blood clot hit her lungs. She was again admitted to the ICU. The doctors said that she was very lucky to still be alive.

I watched my Mom die that day. Right in front of me. I saw her eyes roll back and close, I heard her take one last gasping breath, I felt her heart almost stop. I watched as staff worked to get her breathing and get her heart beating again. I watched my Mom die.

I don't know that I've really let myself feel my way through that. I don't know that I've processed much of it at all. But Thank God, I listened to that thought! Thank God, I went back to my Mom's room! Thank God Above.

She spend about a week in the ICU and then went to the 4th floor of the hospital. I visited her a couple of times, but it was harder to visit in the hospital with the 2 little girls. At that time children were allowed to visit in hospital rooms. I think that has changed since Covid.

After her second ICU stint, Mom again went back to Life Care. And I continued to visit she and Dad about 2 or 3 times a week. 

Then on September 25th, the day my Dad came home from Life Care, our world changed forever.

My oldest brother Bill had been in a horrible accident the week after the campout. He was driving a semi in Sardine Canyon, out by Logan Utah, when a vehicle that was being pursued by police and going at an excessively high speed hit him head on. And there was an explosion. 

Bill was severely burned over almost 50% of his body. He was life-flighted to the Burn Center at the University of Utah.

His wife, April, was able to be with him every day that he was there. Per her, the staff was amazing and worked hard to do what they could to help the burns heal. 

But it wasn't enough. And he died. 

I was the one that went to Life Care to tell Mom. After my girls were put to bed, I left them with their Daddy and drove over to see Mom. When I walked in, I let the nursing staff know what was happening. At that point Bill had been taken off of life support and it was only a matter of time.

I went to Mom's room and let her know that Bill wasn't going to make it. We called my brother Wayne, who was at there at the hospital with Bill and April, and just let Mom say a thing or two. And I told Billy goodbye.

I can again see now how much more the dementia had progressed with Mom. Bill was her first baby. One of her beloved boys. And he was dying. But she didn't really react. I don't know if she really even understood what was going on. Frankly, I think it was one of the greatest blessings that the Lord could have given her. To not really be cognizant of her firstborn's death.

Mom always preferred her boys over her girls. Not that she didn't love the two of us in her own way. She just preferred boys. Whenever one of my cousins had fallen pregnant she would adamantly exclaim, "Oh, you don't want to have  a girl! Girls are horrible. You want to have a boy." She would say this right in front of me. One of her girls. 

I literally right now just rolled my eyes. Like I said, Momma had no tact. She said what she thought. And she never would have considered that it might be hurtful to her daughters to hear that she thought "girls are horrible". Sigh... My Momma... And, honestly, I wasn't really hurt. I was more affronted and replied with something along the lines of, "Thanks a lot, Mom..."

I have come to realize that my Mom just really understood boys better. As she told us many, many, many times: she was a tomboy. She just intrinsically got how boys worked, how they thought. So when it came to us girls... Well, we were kind of an enigma for her. And so for her, we were really a challenge. Because she just didn't think the way that we did.

And all growing up, her boys definitely got favored treatment. It didn't matter the trouble they got into - sometimes even with the law (*cough* Bill *cough*), they were her angels. And Sarah was the baby, so she was 'Mommy's precious little one' no matter her age. And then there was me. In the middle. Not a boy and not the baby. And so. To say I got a little 'crapped on' would be pretty accurate. Not intentionally by any means. Just incidentally. It was what it was.

Bill's funeral was the first week in October. He actually had 2 services, a public and a private one. His story had hit the news, as shortly after his accident it was discovered by various journalists that he worked as a Reserve Police Officer for the City of Rigby where he lived. So his accident, his hospitalization, and his eventual death was followed by many people that didn't know him.

His public memorial was held on Friday, October 6th at the Rigby High School. The Rigby Police Department headed it up. And then a private service was held the next day on the 7th in the Stake Center where he had attended church, and he was buried afterward at Pioneer Cemetery.

I was tasked with making sure that Mom had black clothing for the services. I even got her a wide-brimmed black hat. And she was there in her wheel chair for both services and the burial. My cousins even carried her in her wheelchair down the stairs of a little church in Rigby where they had a luncheon after the public service. 

Mom was there in body, but I really don't think she was all there in mind. Again, not something I realized at the time, but something I can see now. And thank the Good Lord above for it. It was a deeply painful time.

I believe it was around this time that my Uncle Kelly, Momma's baby brother, texted me a picture. He had been to visit Mom that day at Life Care. Uncle Kelly had always had such a close relationship with my Mom. She had been a mother to him. She was almost 13 when he was born and because their Mom was ill, she spent a good bit of time caring for him.

Uncle Kelly told me about how he would get scared at night, and he would go to the tiny little room that their Dad had put together for Mom to sleep in by herself (instead of sharing with 4 other sisters in a bigger room). Kelly would go to her room and say, "Coooonnnieee..." (and per him, it would be in a fairly whiny little voice) and she would say, "All right, get over here". Something along those lines. He said there was a special pillow she had that he would lay his head on. And he would sleep just fine, cuddled next to his big sister.

So it was no surprise that Uncle Kelly was there visiting Mom. The surprise was that Aunt Patricia was there, too!

Aunt Patricia was the 4th child and 2nd daughter born to their family. And she and Mom always, and very notoriously in the family, did not get along. Aunt Patricia would tell me later that Mom was always trying to tell her what to do, and Patricia would have none of it. It made Mom really mad...

So what was my surprise that not only was Aunt Patricia there, but that she was also cuddled up in my Mom's bed on the opposite side of Momma from Uncle Kelly. The picture is one of the very most precious that I have. 

Aunt Patricia told me that when Uncle Kelly had said they were "going to visit Connie" that she felt very hesitant about it. She just didn't want to cause any conflict, and that's what always seemed to happen when the two of them were together. But Uncle Kelly told her that Mom was different and that Aunt Patricia should just wait and see.

At some point in Mom's stay at Life Care she had become very belligerent with the staff. She was mean and grumpy and uncooperative. So the head nurse ended up having a meeting with Wayne and I about it. He and I had both tried to talk to Mom about her behavior, but it didn't make any difference. The head nurse suggested putting Mom on an antidepressant to try to help with the situation. And help it did. That was why Aunt Patricia was able to have such a nice visit with Mom that day.

As the end of the year approached, the situation with Mom's leg deteriorated. We found out from her original surgeon that she again had infection in her leg, and that it had turned into gangrene. We had come to a point where serious decisions had to be made, and it came out that Mom needed to have her leg amputated. 

The surgeon in Utah kept putting her off, and it looked to us like he had no intention of replacing her knee and femur. And with the gangrene in play, amputation just seemed to be the best - and probably only - option that we could get for her. She just needed to come home.

We talked to her about it, and she verbally agreed to it. But then later she seemed to forget that that was what was going to take place. Again, the dementia. And again, a blessing I think. My poor, sweet Momma.

And that's how 2017 ended for her. The amputation happened in January of 2018 and she was home by the end of February 2018. 

Overall, it was one traumatic incident after the other. Mom went through a whole lot that year. We all did.