October 16, 2009

I tried writing this on my birthday but I just couldn’t do it.  And then yesterday was two months since Dad died, and I spent it with Mom. Dad was a big kid when it came to birthdays and Christmas, especially in the presents department. In later years he kept asking for a pony or a Jaguar (no, it was not dementia, it was his sense of humor). Of course he never got either one. But he and his wife always took us out to dinner and gave me plenty of presents for my birthday. The PSU football tickets were always a highlight (even if we then lost the game). This year I was hoping to get him to Cantone’s for some really good Italian food (his favorite). Instead I went with my friend Violet, who gifted me with Mastering the Art of French Cooking (she hadn’t heard the hot-skillet story). I’m going to make something from it this weekend.

So I drove in the cold rain yesterday to see Mom. They’ve changed her medications and she actually seems a little more clear-eyed. I took her two slices of my favorite birthday cake (McCall’s Silvery White Cake with my mom’s chocolate-fudge buttercream icing). She said she’d been thinking that there should be cake, and there it was. Joe always makes me pie (his specialty) so I baked this cake with Mom in mind.

We went to one of our regular haunts—Morning Glory’s in Oxford—because I was thinking fancy soup but when we got there, a chicken and asparagus bake caught my eye and that’s what we both had. Very nice. With ricotta cheesecake for dessert. We didn’t do our drive afterwards because of the weather, but we sat and talked for a bit before I headed for home.

And when Joe came home, he brought me a very sweet message from two people I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting. Thank you both for the thoughts.

 

August 24, 2009

And now all that’s left is my mom. She’s in a home two hours away from me, declining with primary progressive aphasia. I see her once a week as much as I can. I’d love to move her closer to me, but I think it would just upset her.  I know the people who take care of her do a good job and she’s very familiar with her routine. But I’d see her every day if I could.

A column in yesterday’s New York Times really hit home for me—while that woman has her mother in her house, and a five-year-old son, the issues, the feelings, the heartbreak is the same.  If only I could do more . . .

 

July 6, 2009 cont.

I haven’t written about my mother in a long time, partly because it’s such a painful subject. She’s still in the home two hours south of here. She still functions pretty well day to day, but she gets more tired and she herself says she’s losing more of her memory.  

The worst part is how aware she is of what’s happening. The best part is that I see her every week. We have lunch. Maybe we run errands. I try to come up with subjects for discussion that she might like. Since I’m the one who helped her with the family geneaology, I know her family tree very well and we talk about people I never met but she remembers. When I see her tiring, I leave after making plans for the following week.

I doubt I would handle this illness as gracefully as she does. As she always has, my mother continues to teach me by example. I’m so grateful to be her daughter.

 

December 4, 2008

I haven’t had to use the “dementia” category in half a year. I should be grateful. My mother has been complaining lately that she’s in a fog again. (I don’t mean complaining as in whining; I just mean that she notices this and she’s depressed about it.) We hoped once the UTI was cleared up, she’d be better. She is, but still the fog persists. So I’m taking her to the neurologist in the beginning of January; it was the first appointment I could get. He’ll probably up her meds a bit. Her nurse says her present dose is pretty low. To watch her struggle just breaks my heart. Tomorrow I’m going to help her do her Christmas cards and maybe send an email note to my brother. She hadn’t realized she has access to a computer at the home—not that she could use it independently, but at least it’s there for residents’ use. She’s in a good place. I just wish she was closer to me so I could see her more often.

 

June 5, 2008

This is what a former writing student of mine called “potpourri”—a bunch of little things in my head. Niece’s birthday, trying to schedule a Father’s Day, friends I haven’t heard from lately, what’s going on with work, etc. etc.

It’s strawberry season, a time of year I miss Foggy Hollow a lot. The Arnolds grew/grow the best strawberries I’ve ever had. But between $4/gallon and my work day I can’t justify driving an hour one way to get them.

 
Supposed to get miserably hot today and stay that way through next week. I was hoping to visit my mother but she can’t go out in extreme heat and she worries about us if we do, so I don’t know when I’m going to see her.

In a minor fenderbender yesterday, on the receiving end. I probably should have been more patient with the guy who started the chain reaction, especially since no one was hurt and my car damage was minor, but it was hot and I had groceries in the car and I had just been thinking, oh I’ll get home in good time to . . .  Oh well. I wasn’t rude or unpleasant, just short.

New batteries in ol’ 85 Pounds of Love’s collar are keeping him in the yard. Thank you, PetSafe! (However, I must add, I wish PetSafe had not changed the battery to one of their own manufacturing. They are twice as expensive and last half as long, making them four times as expensive in the end. Plus I can no longer pick them up in the grocery store; I have to make a special trip to the stores that carry them.)

Can someone explain to me why mile-a-minute weed exists? Last year it took over part of our property, suffocating anything in its way. This year I’m trying the “pull it early and often” attack. No herbicides, just muscle. It worked for me at Foggy Hollow, I expect it’ll work here, too, but there’s far more of it and it may take a few years. But the entire time I’m wondering what this plant’s purpose is. Of course I wonder that about cowbirds, too, and I’m sure there’s no answer in either case.

Finally, so it’s Barack Obama and John McCain. Haven’t heard anything new yet for either one but it’s early. I sure hope this election year continues to break new ground—as in they finally talk about the issues instead of obfuscating! And I hope that in four years, no matter who wins this time, people of both genders and a bunch of races consider throwing their hats in the ring. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton broke a lot of ground; it’d be a shame not to sow it.

 

April 4, 2008

Yesterday morning my mother called me. On Wednesday the dental hygenist had given her a new toothbrush, floss, and little floss threaders. We put them in her purse. I told her they were in her purse. When we got back to her room, she asked where those things were and I said they were in her purse.

So when she called me yesterday morning to ask again where those things were, I wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t upset, more annoyed with herself that she couldn’t remember. I said, “In your purse.” She said she’d been through her purse and couldn’t find them. I said, “Did you empty the purse completely? Sometimes I lose things in the bottom of mine.”  First she said yes, but then she hesitated.

As I described the objects she was looking for, she pulled things out of her purse and told me what they were. Once she knew what those things looked like, she recognized them when she found them.

No exasperation, no frustration (on my part). I’m actually really happy to do it. A year ago she couldn’t have found her purse or dialed my number. As we approach the first anniversary of her breakdown, I celebrate the major progress she’s made in the past year. 

 

April 3, 2008

PBS aired a program last night called Caring for Your Parents, which was about the life I’ve been living for the past few years. They featured five American families—three Caucasian, one Colombian, and one where the mother came from the Azores (why no African American??) and how each one is dealing with elderly parents. Some of the parents still lived in their own homes, some were in some sort of institution with varied levels of care. All of the adult children had one thing in common—making sure their parents were getting everything they needed (sometimes to the neglect of the adult child).

The only instance of friction within the family (not with the parent but among the younger generation) was a marital separation from the stress. At the end, however, we were given hope that the marriage bond might survive the problems.

What this program didn’t really show was the strain on relationships among siblings. My family has almost completely fallen apart, which just added to the stressors from figuring out what was going on with our mother and finding solutions. One of the siblings in the TV program says that if you didn’t get along before, you’re not going to get along while you’re going through this. Funny, but I had always thought even though we were five separate people, we were all reasonable, intelligent adults and that we could come together and work to give our mother everything she needed.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. We cracked quickly along the fault lines we used to be able to step over and ignore. And aftershocks took out what hadn’t been destroyed in the quake. Right now I’m walking among the rubble, trying to find the personal items no one wants to lose, and figuring out what to do next. There’s no Red Cross for this . . .

 

October 29, 2007

A red letter day. The home called my sister this morning to tell her that sometime within the next two weeks, they’re moving my mother from skilled nursing to assisted living. She’s moving “up”!

When we moved my mother into the facility in May, we never thought this was a possibility. We were told that any type of improvement would be minor. But then she’d only been on the medication for a week and we had no idea what was going to happen.

Since she has been living there, she no longer has to struggle to dress in the morning—there is always someone there to help her. (It was the decision making, not the physical act of dressing, that tripped her up.) They give her her meds and make sure she goes to her meals, but otherwise she has shown them that she’s capable of doing far more than any other skilled nursing resident. She makes her own bed, she goes to all the activities, she volunteers for anything they need help with. She keeps an eye on her roommate, too.

Now she’ll have her own room and be able to watch whatever TV program she wishes or listen to the radio. They cut her WanderGuard off last week so she’ll be able to walk anywhere she wishes (although she’s talking about walking into town and we’re going to make sure she understands that’s not a good idea). She’ll even be able to go to bed when she wants to instead of by a schedule.

I wish there was a way for me to communicate adequately the depth of my gratefulness to the staff—both nursing and administrative—at her home. They have been beyond wonderful. What could have been a nightmare has instead been a blessing. The cookies I’m going to bake for them seem inadequate, but I hope it sends the right message: Thank you!!!!

 

October 6, 2007

The best of all possible news—my mother is moving out of skilled nursing and into assisted living, just as soon as a room becomes available. My sister received the official word yesterday and left me a message. Seems no one had told my mother, though, because when I picked her up to take her to the lawyer, I was the one to break the news.

Her life is going to change significantly in some ways. She’ll have her own room. She’s already thinking about watching her TV shows (she’s a huge Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert fan), listening to NPR, having a private space. And something most people consider a chore—laundry—she is looking forward to doing herself.

She’ll still participate in the activities she’s doing now, like the bell choir and exercise class. The staff will still help her dress and make sure she has her meds. (She’d like a change in the menu but she’s realistic!) And she’ll be free to walk where she wishes without alarms going off.

In my basement are all the boxes of the things we took out of her last room so she’ll be able to go through them and decide what she wants in her new place. My sister has a full set of furniture she can use. We’ll be moving her for the third time in a year and a half, but this move’s a good one!

 

October 4, 2007

Putting everything else aside today to note the passing of Lisa Moore. Yes, I know it’s fictional (newspaper comics, of all things!). But Tom Batiuk’s storyline in Funky Winkerbean about Lisa’s cancer returning, spreading, and eventually killing her was both moving and real.

People are up in arms about it, too. They say that it doesn’t give people with cancer and their loved ones hope.  But it should, because the storyline is not about illness, it’s about love. Les loves her through her illness and will continue to love her after she’s gone (the storyline is going to jump ten years, but that will do nothing to diminish his feelings for her, I’m sure).

I can relate this more to my mother’s illness than to my sister’s recent cancer. I can do nothing to control my mother’s decline. She’s going to get worse (or not—allow me a little denial, please!), no matter what. But I can love her and know that she loves me and that no amount of plaque in her brain will ever change that. I can do her wash and take her to lunch, call her twice a week, fill in the blanks (Alfred Hitchcock directed North by Northwest). I can laugh at her jokes (she’s still got a wicked sense of humor), tell her the latest ups and downs of my career, and soak up every bit of time we have right now.

I’m not going to say I’m grateful for her decline because it made me wake up and realize that our time together is growing short. But let me say, I got the message loud and clear!