By Judge Valarie Hill
Milwaukee Municipal Court, Branch 1
Milwaukee Municipal Court Judge Valarie Hill- BR.1
Friday, March 4, 2016. I was wide awake in the wee hours of the morning, presumably anxious about the culmination of a major project I had been working on and the presentation I was scheduled to give that weekend. I kept trying to go back to sleep, but sleep would only come in waves of insignificant minutes. I finally just gave in, got up, and got dressed.
I was ready a full two hours before I needed to be. I grabbed everything I needed for my day, and a green drink I’d gotten from The Juice Kitchen and headed to my destination. The morning seemed to operate in slow motion, but the project was going well. There came a point during the morning when a break was taken and I was engaged in idle chatter with someone.
My phone rang. I hit the answer button without looking to see who it was, put the phone to my ear, and heard the voice on the other end. It was my cousin Gail, and she was crying. Gail NEVER called me!
She ALWAYS sent text messages. I immediately rose from my seat and calmly asked her what was going on. She told me she was at my mom’s house with my mom and paramedics and that they thought my mom had suffered a stroke.
My eyes were closed and I wasn’t breathing. And then Gail spoke these words, “she’s alive and responding”. I exhaled. I told the people I was in the room with about the call and then I began trying to call my sister who lives eight miles from my mother.
No answer. I called my sister’s oldest daughter. No answer. I called her youngest daughter.
Finally, someone answered. I gave her instructions on contacting her mother and siblings, my mom’s only living brother, and other immediate family. I began to figure out how I was going to get to the hospital….in Ohio.
The one thing I feared about moving to Milwaukee 25 years ago, was that if something happened to my mom I would not be there for her or be able to get home “in time”. When I moved to Milwaukee I had no ties, friends, or family here. The only thing I had here was the job I had accepted at the public defender’s office.
I had no idea 25 years ago, that I would create relationships that would sustain me through one of the most difficult times in my life.
Women I had established relationships with over the course of my time here helped me keep it together on March 4, 2016. They helped me make airline and rental car reservations, drove me to the airport, offered to travel to Ohio with me, took care of my pooches, my house, and checked on me continuously.
They prayed for me and my mom and they still do. Nine months later and these same women are still on this journey with me.
These women are my friends, they are my sisters, they are my family, and I am blessed beyond belief to have them in my life. Before my mother had a stroke, she was totally independent.
At 75-years-old, she was a licensed cosmetologist who still had clients.
A decade ago, she founded Lighthouse Visions, a non-profit organization for children, which she still operated. Until 2 years ago, she was a foster parent for 20 years.
She played the piano at her church, which was something she had done for 60 years. And she served on numerous boards and organizations.
My mother was always busy! I often joked with my mother by leaving the voicemail message, “its ten o’clock, do you know where my mother is?”
Outside of colds, my mother didn’t get sick and has never been hospitalized during my adult life. But then there was March 4, 2016. The day my mother suffered a right brain stroke. As a result, the movement and sensation on the left side of her body has been severely affected.
After nearly seven months in hospitals and skilled nursing care facilities my mom was discharged to her home. While my mother is able to live in her home she must do so with assistance of home health care aides and caregiver assistance.
Her living situation isn’t perfect but she’s happy to be home so I do what I need to do to make sure she can stay in her home. Nearly every weekend for the last nine months I have made an eight hour drive to Ohio to visit my mother, cut grass, do laundry, cook, clean, grocery shop, take her to church, meet with social workers and medical personnel, advocate on her behalf, and other duties as assigned or required.
Yep, March 4, 2016 was “the day” my caregiver journey began.