Back to Work

Reading Michael Palin's Diary ( The Hollywood Years) has left me with a sense of guilt.  Why am I not writing on a daily basis?  I can come up with a long list of excuses:  Mom demands a great deal of attention, and tends to sulk when I go on the computer.  Sometimes, I am too tired after doing chores for her.  All the same, the real reason is I am afraid to write.

So, how is my Aged Parent?  She is doing much better, because she found the right physical therapist.  A knew how to get past her anxiety, and make her move.  He did not buy into her nervousness, but would patiently explain that fear made her muscles tense, and the tension would cause her falls.  At the beginning of his nine week session, he said that 'yes, your knees are in bad shape, but the real problem is in your head". Mom opened up and began to work seriously.  She can use a walker, but Ginny and I are unable to get her to do so on a daily basis.  

Perhaps with this record snowfall, we might be able to take Mom once around the first floor.  It's a tough call, because Gloriana has lost none of her Anglo Irish stubborness.  She has made passive agressiveness into an art form.  If PA were an Olympic sport, Mom would take the Gold medal.

Groundhog Day

Mom did not sleep well last night.  She was, and is, anxious about wh. or not she ought to get a knee brace.  The 'what time is it, Peggy?"  calls began at 330am, and continued on an hourly basis until 7am, when I finally realized "nessun dorma" and got up.  At one point during the calls, I replied a little sarcastically that it was 'still dark, and I can't see the time without my glasses" to which Queen Lear replied 'you are so cruel to me".  Mom gets very melodramatic when she is sleep deprived:  a cross between Mildred Pierce and an early Christian Martyr".

Not that I am a morning person either, especially when my blood glucose is low ( this morning, it was 52)  I guess the message is try to be courteous  despite the time or health issues.  It can't be much fun being 83, stuck in bed, and confused on top of it, only to be answered by a cranky daughter.

  Speaking of children, it's no wonder that old age is often described as 'second childhood".  This morning, that thought made its' way through my curdled brain, and I realized 'if I change her Depends, and get her comfortable, perhaps she might go back to sleep."  I got her a clean adult diaper, wipes, and changed the wet depends.  Sure enough, Mom's mood improved dramatically, and I was no longer labelled as 'a thankless child".  After washing, cleaning and changing, I put a couple of warm blankets on Mom, and she fell asleep.

It's funny, how age makes a person regress, and the child becomes the parent figure.  Neither of us is comfortable with the role reversal, but I find it gets easier.

Dance of the Caregiver

This dance is a cross between the Lambada, the Beer Barrel Polka and the Electric Slide.  It means I have to constantly change my approach to Mom.  She tends to change the rules, but does so without telling me.  So, I have to keep alert, and figure out what she really, really wants.  These mental gymnastics are far more exhausting than an hour of weight training.

Today, I had the morning planned.  I would change Mom's adult diaper in the bed, give her a sponge bath and get her dressed.  Wrong.  Mom opened the dance by getting into her wheelchair, before her Depends had been changed.  I saw this and asked 'what are you doing?". and she replied " I am going to get on the commode".  Why she did not just tell me " I need help to get on the commode' is beyond me.  Anyhow, I went and fixed a cup of tea.  After a 10 minute lapse, I said " what do you want to do?"  and she said " I don't know.  You are supposed to tell me, or nothing gets done".  I remarked 'you always get mad when I tell you what to do" only to be told " I don't do anything unless somebody is in charge".

So, I saw my opportunity, and got her onto the commode, cleaned her, and the commode.  Then she took a sponge bath, and got dressed.  I just love the idea that I am the boss.  Mom is a total control freak, and has fought me every step of the way, when I attempt to get her to do something she doesn't want to do.  Suddenly, when it suits her, I am the power and the glory.  Tomorrow, I will be the bad daughter who bullies her.

Mrs. Euclid

Why 'Euclid'?.  I remember one snippet of his formula from high school geometry: " a straight line is the shortest distance between two points".  Mom has always had a very unique form of logical reasoning, and it is not the least bit linear.  She can take up the most irrational position, and defend it brilliantly.  There have been times when I told her 'the wrong family member went to law school; it should have been you, not me".


Let's take the early morning wake up call.  By early morning, I mean the time of day described   by Sinatra as 'The Wee Small Hours of the Morning".  Mom will begin, by calling "Ginny" ( which is my Sister's name) at 4AM.  Or she'll call her Sister, Lucille.  ( Aunt Lucille died almost 20 years ago).  I sleep in the living room, and Mom is in the dining room , so of course I wake up immediately and ask 'what is it, Mom?".  9 times out of 10, she wants to know the time.


So, I've been asking her since November 'why are you calling other people at 4Am.  She replied " I'm afraid to call you, because you'll get angry at me, so I call your Sister instead.  Oh, it's ok--I can go back to sleep because you are either calling a person who sleeps like the dead (Ginny) or one who sleeps with the dead ( Aunt Lucille).


Or, the other excuse was 'you answered me, so you were already wide awake".  I tried to explain that I have trained myself to wake up when she calls, but I can tell by the expression on her face that Mom isn't buying it..  A close family friend once tried to convince Mom that she was a leader, but Mom said "no, I could never take charge of people."  He replied without missing a beat " You are a follower who won't be led".


I must take Penny for a long walk and clean the kitchen

The Tao of Elizabeth

I've had some very unusual chats with Mom today.  Part of the problem is we are both sleep deprived, because Mom awoke about 6am, insisting that I phone her doctor, because her left leg was swollen. ( it's the leg with the open sore and cellulitis). Knocking the sleep out of my brain, I took a look, then at Mom's direction, took her temperature.  It was 96.8: normal for her. 

Figuring that the ER at the local hospital was still overcrowded, I decided to play for time.  I propped her left leg on a pillow, and said 'if your swelling hasn't gone down in two hours, we will go to the ER.  ".  Anyhow, the swelling ) line where her sock was, went down, so no ER.

Later that morning, Mom started talking about her latest obsession, the lady in the ER who was pretending to be my cousin, Jeanne.  She said ' I looked at her, and knew something wasn't right about her.  She had two left feet".  I asked 'was this a dream or did it really happen"?  Mom gave me a withering glare and said 'don't you think I know the difference?".  I said 'yes, but if you don't tell your daughters that it's a dream, they might think you are loopy". 

In the afternoon, I went to the kitchen to make tea for Mom.  She calls out from the dining room " I can see you, and you are sitting on top of the breakfront, with a small goatee.  No, I think you look like a werewolf or a bear"  I said 'that Birthday gift had better be good.  How can you see me if I'm in the kitchen?".  When I walked into the dining room, I realized that Mom was talking about my portrait: half of my face is in shadow, and it does look a bit like a five o clock shadow.  Yes, the portrait is next to the breakfront.

What have I learned today?  That robots impersonating people have an extra left foot, and some of Mom's more far out remarks aren't so far out if you look at the context.  Well, the three footed robot is a bit odd, isn't it?

That's my Mommy

January has been a busy month.  Somehow, Mom scratched her leg, about New Year's Eve, and it began to get red.  I even phoned the doctor that night, but she blew me off, because I had seen her a few days ago, and discussed how Mom was a bit loopy with the urinary tract infection.  'Why are you bothering me this time of night over a UTI?"  until I explained it wasn't so much the UTI as the redness on the leg..  Yeah, I was not to thrilled to be dissed by my own attending physician.

Anyhow, the leg got redder by the day, looking quite bad on the 9th, so we took Mom to the ER the next morning. It looked like a war zone.  All the chronically ill seniors who did not 'want to be a burden" to their families during the holidays, came down to the ER.  Every inch of space was taken up with gurneys.  Mom was lucky enough to get a cubicle, with another older woman as a roommate .  Both ladies were in their early 80's with cellulitis in the left leg, and both got very demented when the antibiotic IV's were started.

Mom and I had some interesting conversations.

Mom:  there's something funny about that woman's leg.
Me:  (stupidly) yes, she has cellulitis, like you.
Mom:  no her arms and legs do not look quite normal.  She is a robot.

I laughed so loudly that people walking by looked in, to see what was happening.   Mom also decided that the hospital was being run by Bernard Kerik , who was Guliani's Police Commissioner.  Somehow, the robotic old lady had been put in the witness protection program.

My conclusion:  Mom watched too much Law and Order, and we won't let her watch the Twilight Zone marathon next  New Year's Eve.

Bring on 2010

2009 was a truly nasty year, and I am thrilled to see it end.  Why?  Like the poet, 'let me count the ways":

Mom spent three months in hospital and rehab.

She's lost some ground mentally and physically.

I had many teeth extracted; broke a toe; hit my head against the upstairs wall; slipped on the ice, and messed up a tendon in my left arm; and got 'a flu like virus'.  All this, while taking care of the aged parent.

a close, and young relative had a substance abuse problem, which caused much heartbreak.

On the other hand, I have vowed to lose weight and write more, but I must get to the bank and supermarket, or there will be no tasty salmon in yogurt sauce tonight.