She forgot about my father's aide that she used to hate; she accepted her as someone familiar, rather than a stranger. They shares the same bedroom. Her aide takes her out everyday to meet other coworkers downstairs since they worked and lived together all their life. Most residents of the building are seniors with or without their adult children, a lot of aides also get a chance to gather, to chat with each other, and sometimes even play Mahjong on the garden table, while all of the seniors in their care sit in a circle in their wheelchairs. Some seniors can talk to each other, while others like my mom just watch. She could not make conversation anymore. But she knows them and fears strangers.
My sister was ready to request her favorite Buddhist Tzu Chi (慈濟) to ask them to help my mom reach a pure land Sukhavati. We have been praying for my mom in our Catholic church and requested prayers from Carmelite communities worldwide. Jonathan and Richard get regular updates from me, I use Free video WeChat with my brother daily, except when he is working. I caught him smoking, he used to hide from me by putting down his phone and sometimes I saw smoke. I asked him, "smoking again?" He picked up the phone and smiled and said he smokes much less now. Now he was smoking while talking to me, and did not even care any more. I really worry about him. I told him to stop smoking. I asked him to come to US so no one would give him cigarettes, since there is no cigarette-sharing culture in US. My father quit when he came to our home; he brought 2 cartoons but did not even smoke 2 packs. He had to go outside to smoke alone. He quit 'cold turkey' at age 70s. He then told every one of his smoking colleagues to quit, since he stopped coughing in the morning, and had much more strength. My brother could hop on Air China to come to US for free but he has never visited here, not even once. I worry about him. I could feel my mom has tried her best to keep my brother company. Not being able to see my brother, not being able to video WeChat with my sister and me must have been very hard on her.
My mom was making great progress while my oldest uncle's wife turned 93, she moved to Shenzhen, the southern coastal city of Fujian. Her son bought a separate condo for her, her retired daughter and son took turns to stay with her, so she has someone with her 24/7. She loves playing MaJong and she has been playing it since she retired at age 55. She tried to join the local senior Majong club but the club refused her because she was too old. So her son and daughter play Majong with her at home, but Majong needs four persons per table, just two is really difficult. So she gradually lost interest. Since she has a pinched nerve, sitting down a long time is really not good for her. Her children took her downstairs to walk for one hour every day. Shenzhen's summer is no fun walking, especially when walking an hour. Her son and daughter were so hot and sweating, but she was not hot! Not hot at all! She sometimes needs to take a sleeping pill, although most prescription drugs do not need a prescription to buy in any drug store, sleeping pills are a controlled medicine. Her son could only get them for seven days at a time, plus he did not think it was good for her so he switched the sleeping pills with vitamins. Afer a while, her mom started to complain, "what kind of sleeping pill was this? it does not work. Can you ask the doctor to prescribe a different kind of sleeping pill"? We think she should be able to take sleeping pills at her age, since she does not really take any other pills.
My mom's sister died in her sleep at home a few days ago, while my mom was ready to be released from the hospital. She was the number 7 sister in the big Guan family and my mom is number 6. She was a few days short of 88. She graduated from China's University of Geosiences in Beijing, the same university from which the 6th Premier Wen Jiabao graduated. She spent all her life working in the Sichuan Institute of Geology & Mineral Resources. Compared to my parents working for the oil company, she was really poor since they do research, then turn over whatever they found to the industries. Premier Wen Jiabao made the change to the Sichuan Bureau of Geology & Mineral Resources, they were then better than our parents' oil company. Since Sichuan produces most natural gas, but Russian gas took a big piece away from them, and they were the only one in town before. My aunt received a good retirement but she felt cheated for her life. She wasted a lot of her life in politics, she also lost her husband from cancer. When she was introduced to Falun Gong, she completely dove into it. She did not care about anything else except Falun Gong. She was no long shopping or cooking for her working kids. All she talked about was to ask people to join Falun Gong, my mom was interested in the beginning, but lost interest after a while. She was upset with her and her brother, starting her complaints to the Communist Party. My uncle said to her that she benefited from the Communist party, her education, job, housing, pension, free health care, plus she was a lifelong member of Communist party, why she turned her back against it. She was on her own for a few years, practiced Falun Gong meditations all day long, refused her high blood presure, cholesterol medicine till she collapsed one day. She almost died, she was really weak, restricted at home after. She gradually got into Buddhist meditation and gave up Falun Gong. She had a stroke last year which made her even worse. The last gathering right before my oldest uncle died in 2000. She was in blue in photo.
My brother who has a car helped her daughter and son, just the three of them, since none of them were married, and had no children either, and since China was still locked down, and gatherings were not encouraged. My brother helping them for two days at the crematorium. Then my brother went to the hospital to take my mom home. My mom was pleased to come home and she was talking to my brother. My brother was in a much better mood as well. He bought an oxygen machine for my mom too. Hoping my mom could recover soon and start walking again. She was in the hosptial for over one month, from August 31st to October 9th. My mom is the only survivor of her five siblings.
The total cost of my mom's hospital stay was 190,000 yuan. The Chinese need to pay the hospital cash and then get reimbursed by their insurance, the many different levels that hospitals do not undertake. My mom paid out of her pocket 12000 yuan, paid her aide 13000 yuan who was with her 24/7. Admittedly, most was from my brother since my mom only gets 4000/month, not even enough for her aide.
Now my mom has to live with the feeding tube through her nose from now on. Her tube needs to be changed every 3 weeks. Her aide and my brother cook the normal food and blend it first, then use a big syringe to force them in, washing the tube with clean water afterward. Her maide loves the color red, like most farmers in China. She even changed my dad's white underwear to red color. My mom loves clapping her hands whenever you ask and she plays with her toys too. Thanks to the free WeChat, I could have a videochat with her at night, which is her morning. I play a video speaking Zigong dialect by a Chinese person in France and using French. The best and closest to her which I could find for her, and even the girl looks like one of our cousins. My mom loves it, she stares at it and I play it over and over again. Sometimes I also play the songs she used to love. We all had changed our dialect to the Chengdu dialect. Each place has their own dialect, so even when we speak Mandarin, one can tell where you from by your accent. We all understand our own dialect, might not be able to speak anymore. I used to be able to speak Zigong dalect, and changed to Nanchong dialect when I joined my mom's workplace there, and then changed to Chengdu dialect. Living overseas most of my life now, my accent changed again, so it is mixed, and some even think I have a Taiwan accent. Maybe influenced by my sister's family from Taiwan. 
My mom is getting stronger again, my brother could hold her hands walking now, she loves to follow my brother clapping her hands, and of course reading the newspaper. She could stare at the paper for half an hour. 
My mom has swallowing problems due to her dementia. Feeding her has been a problem. She does not open her mouth. My brother turns his head every time he hears my mom choking on her food. He said that when the aide went back home, he would be the one to take care of my mom. It takes him over 40 minutes to feed her, but the aide was always in a hurry because she wants to take my mom outside so the aide could meet the other aides in the garden. My brother is still working 24-hour or 48-hour shifts at the airport so he does not have to work daily. I worry about his health; he said he could sleep there since the airport was not busy. When he is not working, he stays at home to watch over my mom. I tried to tell him to go out somewhere and take a vacation, since the aide is there 24/7. I said our mom is 91 and she could leave us any time, so you have to prepare for it, but he did not say a word, but was in tears. He is the only one there taking care about my mom since my sister and I could not travel to China since the Pandemic started in 1999.
This year, my mom was in the hospital twice already due to aspiration pneumonia. Her aide had to
feed her slowly with thicker liquid food. My mom held the food in her mouth and forgot how to swallow. The day before Chengdu locked down on September 1st, she was choking on her food and threw up most of it. She had a seizure at 3 AM and my brother and her aide took her to the hospital. She was having another aspiration pneumonia. Due to COVID testing, they waited four hours for the result.
The capital of Sichuan province, Chengdu, locked down its 21 million residents to contain the Covid outbreak. Chengdu is the biggest city to shut down since Shanghai’s awful two-month lockdown earlier this year. The move upset the lives of millions of people and businesses, affecting China’s economy and beyond. The Wuhan Institute Of Virology thought they were studying coronavirus with the USA by collecting thousands of bats from caves all over China over the past decade, resulting in a big outbreak and they had no clue about how to make effective vaccines. They also refused to buy effective vaccines for the country's 1.4 billion people; instead, they chose to lockdown the whole country, whole cities one by one and test millions each day; they pulled out every positive case to isolation by force. 27 individuals died when a bus transporting them to a COVID-19 quarantine facility crashed in southwest Guizhou.
My brother could not go to the hospital to see my mom; her infection was under control after 10 days hospital stay. We were talking about how to change her feeding tube at home.
Then she was infected again, this time worse than before. Three other patients sharing her room passed away, and then she was the only one left. Her low grade fever kept coming back. All of the antibiotics on the list had been used except one, Colistin, also known as polymyxin E. The hospital did not have it in stock; my brother had to apply and go through obtaining layers of leaders approvals. All of the other antibiotics were cheap, a couple hundred yuan but this one was over 8000/day for 3 doses. She ended up using 4 doses per day for 10 days. The aide is with her 24/7, tube feeding her through her nose, changing her diapers and cleaning her, reporting to her nurses and doctors. My brother pays her 300/day plus food in the hospital. Normally she gets 150/day, 300 on weekends and holidays. Since my brother is single, he does work on weekends and holidays a lot. My mom's monthly pension is only 4000. Her insurance had an app setup on my brother's phone, since my brother could not get inside of the hospial, he had to give his phone to the nurse to videotape my mom. My brother had to pay all of the expenses first, then get reimbursed by the insurance company. I asked him if my sister and I could send money over, he said NO. We do not know how much he paid for my dad's expenses, but we know our mom does not qualify for a lot of benefits compared to my dad. My dad could stay in a 2-person room, my mom could not even go there even though there are vacant rooms. My mom stayed in a room for four patients, plus an aide at each patient's bedside. That is 8 persons, without any private bathroom inside; they all had to go out of the room to use public bathrooms. The other three patients died soon after.
