Night Must Fall

Mom is doing much better, but she does have certain fixed notions, which make caregiving a little more complicated.  For example, she hates the Hydraulic lift and will not use it.  Her physical therapist tried to coax her into it Thursday afternoon, and Mom turned to me and said 'you try it first" ( I said they had used one on me the first time I was in the hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis.)  So, I sat down, and Man Chan (the PT) put the seat under my butt, clipped it to the chains on each side, raised me from the wheelchair, and moved the lift to a regular chair, where he sat me down.  I felt like a cross between the Girl on the Red Velvet Swing and fat Henry VIII being lifted onto his horse.

Despite all this, Mom still will not use the lift.  And now she has turned against the hospital bed, even after I moved heaven and earth to get the bed transferred from the bedroom to the dining room.  I want to get her into the proper bed tonight, because sitting in that wretched chair, and sleeping in it  (it's a thickly upholstered Recliner chair) is not good for her backside, or her lungs.  Mom must be the most stubborn woman in the world.

To be honest, Mom reminds me of our Beagle, Penny.  Penny gets spooked by mechanical objects ( hospital beds/hydraulic lifts) and refuses to have anything to do with them--just like her Grandma.  Penny, when scared, cannot be reasoned with, and neither can Mom.  Both of them are fascinated with their excretory functions, which I can understand in a Beagle, but not in a woman who has her Masters' from Teachers College.

What topped yesterday for me was the movie 'Night Must Fall" on TCM.  Mom really has mastered the Dame May Whitty role, of the autocratic old Lady in her wheelchair.  Alas, May had  a very stylish old wheelchair with no arms and a rattan seat--kind of like FDR's.  Mom has a chrome and vinyl job--too modern and it does not suit her Aristocratic persona.