Mom & Me Four Archive

...Change of Shift, another carnival. This one happened to me by chance. The moderator of the carnival happened to read my post on Patient-Consumer Parade last week, liked it and wanted to know if she could link to it in her blog. I had no idea, until today, that she'd be adding it to a carnival. I noticed one of my visitors was referred from her blog and decided to click in and see how I was linked. Up came Change of Shift and I found myself at Volume 1, No. 5 of Carnival of Nursing. I was really surprised, and pleased. Curiously, although it is specifically for nurses, I scanned through several of the submissions and realized there's a lot of good caregiver stuff on there, more than I've encountered on any other carnival so far. I doubt that I'll be a regular submitter, since I'm not a nurse and, usually, I can't imagine that the stuff I write is of interest to nurses or apropos to nurse/physician relationships. But, well, you never know; I'll definitely be checking it out on a regular basis because, well, nurses are, after all, besides being highly skilled medical technicians and diagnostians, also professional caregivers. I tend to forget that there is the possibility of a natural bond between nurses and avocational caregivers, until I was reminded, today, by the introduction she wrote to my post, that caregivers nurse and nurses give care.

    One other thing I wanted to mention: For the second night in a row, after going over the details of The Dead Zone, we talked about how Mom thought she'd die. Her assumptions are very much like my hopes for her. She figures she'll either go in her sleep or keel over, as I remember mentioning here not too long ago, "by surprise."
    "I'm not the type to linger," she said. This could, of course, just be wishful thinking on both her and my parts, but, you never know. She truly isn't the type to linger.
    I mentioned that, considering her preference for as little "doctoring" as possible for the rest of her life, and my determination to honor her preference, it's certainly possible that she won't die in a hospital hooked up to instruments. "Even if you develop some sort of terminal illness, like cancer or something, I don't see why that can't be managed at home."
    "Oh," she said, I don't think that'll happen."
    "You never know, Mom."
    She looked at me as if to say, "You may not know, but I do."
    Tonight I mentioned to her my some time fantasy that we all (including the cats) go together in some sort of freak accident. I mentioned specifically a meteor falling on our house.
    I think it shocked her, but she recovered quickly. "Well, yes," she said, "that would be interesting," note that word, "interesting", "but wouldn't you want to stay around for awhile?"
    "Oh, I don't know," I said. "Maybe. Then again, you know..."
    "Well," she interrupted, "if you want to come along, you're certainly welcome. I'd love to have you." Just like she used to say when she was doing her thing, I was doing mine and we'd invite each other to cross borders into the other's activities.
    I briefly considered that she had forgotten that we were talking about dying. Then, I decided, probably not. Her attitude about death is such that I'm sure she thinks of it as another adventure. She's not ready for it yet, but, you know, she's curious, she knows it's somewhere in the future, no need to hurry it, it'll set the schedule, but, well, you can't help but wonder...
    Ahh...her light's gone out. I've got places to call and people to talk to and things to do tomorrow (which is today), early...
    ...later.