Mom & Me Four Archive

...The Dailies you know that we were both up until the wee hours of the morning: Mom until 0245, me until 0330. I'm not sure why we were so full of energy. We read, talked, Mom watched some TV but discovered that there "isn't much on" after midnight, translated: There isn't much on that she's interested in watching and a lot of channels devote those hours to half hour long commercials.
    I don't think we're going to make it to the lab today. If she sleeps until 1445, that's fine with me. Even if she awakens within the next 45 minutes, by the time she's bathed, dressed and breakfasted we wouldn't be able to make the lab. So, tomorrow's our target. I'll probably keep her up right until "bedtime" today, since I want to make sure we're up a little earlier tomorrow; yes, for the lab.
    Nothing spectacular has happened...no mention-worthy dreams. I expect we'll probably do her hair and nails after breakfast so she'll be completely public-ready tomorrow. Tomorrow's got to be a no excuses day. That's all there is to it.
    Oh, taxes. Yeah, we did some of that, too, yesterday. I expect I'll have them ready to Fed-ex by Monday. It's going slow with Mom "participating", but I'd rather honor her interest than shunt her aside on business matters such as this. Last night she decided she wanted to wade through some of our previous years' reportings. I thought I could get away with continuing what I was doing (the med expenses spreadsheet) but she became unusually interested in a variety of items, especially those which are no longer applicable, so I spent a good deal of time "refreshing her memory". It's funny, after about 15 minutes of this she said, "I'm sure I used to know all this. I wonder what happened to all that information I used to have in my head."
    I actually explained to her why her memories are out of reach...the ministroking, etc. But, another 10 minutes or so later she was again expressing surprise at not understanding her tax profiles.
    In case you're wondering, she hasn't moved much, lately; maybe about a week and a half. It's frustrating, but her will is strong and she's absolutely refusing to even go out on the driveway for "a little spin". She has, however, decided to refuse my help in getting up and down out of her rocker and, surprisingly, she's noticeably more agile than she was about a month ago.
    Maybe I can finish up a couple of essays today. Maybe not. We'll see.
    Later.

    I added Mom's only brother-in-law and, most significantly, added her maternal grandfather and her only maternal uncle, with whom she lived when she attended college and about whom she's been asking after lately and frequently, beginning prior to the Educating Mom podcast. I was spurred to the updating because this morning when Mom awoke the first time, her mother was living with us. Then she asked about "where Grandpa and Harold are" and, well, I knew it was going to be that kind of day. Curiously, soon after she awoke (at 1100), before we even began her bath she headed back for bed. I let her, even though by doing so she broke through her 12 hour allotment of night sleep. She was very hazy upon first awakening and so astonished that her mother isn't living with us and, for that matter, no longer living anywhere on Earth, that she simply didn't believe me.
    She finally reawoke at 1330. She rated only an abbreviated bath. Apparently she went to bed dehydrated last night without me noticing. Aside from drinking a little over half of her quart of bedside water during the night, although she did leak, she didn't leak through her paper underwear. I changed it out before she headed back to bed this morning so her sheets and pajamas don't need washing and it was only necessary to bathe her groin area.
    Good. For some reason I've been a little hazy, too, today and a temporary respite from a few of the quotidian chores is welcome. I don't know why I'm hazy but I've been amusing myself by considering that Mom's hazy because her brain worked so hard last night during GWB's speech that it suffered a temporary cramp. She is, also, napping, as I write: Went down about a half hour ago. I decided to allow it. While she was up I called MCS for the necessary death dates. While we talked Mom once again registered astonishment that Harold is dead, refused to believe me, then refused to believe how old she is. I'm glad MCS was "present" for this. I'm sure all my sisters believe me when I relate these incidents to them, either personally or through this journal, but, well, if you're related to an Ancient One with Dementia-Lite, you haven't lived until you've experienced one of their time phases. Being on-site when one of them happens, I believe, increases the understanding of Those Absent regarding what The Present One experiences on a regular basis.
    Later.

...Tuesday, that is, seeing as how I'm posting a bit past midnight.
    I started compiling Mom's medical expenses (those not covered by her insurance) for income tax filing. This year, unlike the last few years, Mom's interest was piqued. She sat in her rocking chair while I pulled the bag of receipts I've been saving all year into the living room, then decided she wanted to examine each receipt. She asked what each red marked item was...what she (or I) used it for; we reviewed every prescription. Although she didn't remember, from duplicate to duplicate, what the abbreviations stood for or why she took medications, it didn't drive me crazy. With each repeated explanation she had different comments. We engaged, for instance, in a many-faceted discussion about her blood pressure and how I've increased her lisinopril over the last several months until she is now at a level with which I am satisfied. Sometimes she talked about what she remembered of her blood pressure history, including those years in which I wasn't with her and was fairly oblivious to it. We also talked about the way I've managed her diabetic medication; why I have selected each of her supplements and whether they appear to be performing; when she uses such items as the anti-itch cream; why she can't also deduct her paper underwear; how incredibly expensive her iron supplements have become. About halfway through our compilation I was sorry that I hadn't had the foresight, when she decided to participate, to set up the microphone.
    Although she was physically inactive today and took a nap, her mental alertness from the medical receipt project continued into the early evening, when we finished the compiling. She made me promise, when she decided to nap, not to continue until she arose. I honored my promise. This morning I informed her of GWB's 2006 State of the Union address and she expressed an intense interest in hearing it. By the time it was due she was approaching it as though we were going to watch a much favored movie. She suggested we have popcorn during the speech, which we did. As well, I was surprised at how much attention she paid to the presentation. She noticed the marked patterns of half stand-up, half sit-down applause during parts of the speech. She didn't always understand the subtler messages being sent by the different parts of the audience, but she was riveted. Although she pretty much fell for quite a bit of the rhetoric, she mentioned that he "sounds just like every other President" at one time, then later mentioned, "he doesn't sound like one of our brighter bulbs, does he?" She also shocked me when, immediately after the speech, she mentioned that he didn't talk about "the Medicare problem". I'm not sure she's aware of exactly what "the Medicare problem" is, but I was surprised to note that, from her nightly news watchings, she's aware that some sort of problem has developed recently and was particularly struck by the fact the GWB avoided talking about it.
    The woman may be a bit mentally creative, but there's life in her, yet.

    An internal "something" occurred to me while we were watching a playing of Green Card showing on one of the cable stations immediately after GWB. We were both thoroughly involved in and enjoying the movie. Suddenly, during the after dinner entertainment scene, I discovered myself thinking that I might not outlive my mother...that the opposite might happen. I know, I've written previously about fearing the possibility of this happening. Tonight, though, it was rather like I was calmly viewing one quantum reality future, one in which I'm not here to see her through death's door because I've already gone through it. It wasn't a disturbing moment, nor is it one I haven't before experienced. It doesn't happen often but every once in awhile, well, I get this feeling that she's going to survive me, not through unanticipated accident or catastrophe, but in the "natural order of things" as it applies to her and my life.
    Mind you, it isn't a disturbing "vision", when it happens like this. In fact, it has an air of unreality about it that makes me think it isn't so much a prophecy as it is a highly symbolic image my sub-conscious has created to express...something...I'm not sure what. I wonder if other intense needs caregivers to Ancient Ones experience moments such as this...and what they make of them after they have survived their charges and continued with their non-caregiving life.
    Anyone who's been there and done that have any comments?
    My intention was to be in bed long before now, but the journaling software backed up just as I was attempting to publish over at The Dailies and I had to troubleshoot that. Then, I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to post everything above. I was afraid I'd lose the immediacy of Mom's day and the vision experience I had tonight.
    But, it's time. I'm beat.
    Later.

...sometime in the late 1960's (I think it was my sophomore year, but it might have been my junior year) they included an essay. No, Virginia, the addition of an essay is not new; it's a reinstatement. I have no idea when they dropped that portion of the exam but they never should have. Anyway, we were given three subjects to write on in a limited amount of time and told to pick one. As it happened, all three of the subjects appealed to me. So, I began essays on all three and switched back and forth throughout the time limit. As I recall, I finished one, almost finished the second and was a good two thirds of the way through the third when time was called. I turned them all in. I assume, now, that they only "graded" the finished essay, but the proctor did bring to my attention, after the test, that I'd "done that part wrong"; to which I responded, "I don't care, I did it the way I wanted to do it."
    I can't remember what I got on my SATs. Don't even remember if I scored high, although I assume I did; I was a bright, excellent student (although in that particular year I was rebelling against school and beginning to learn how to skip classes and pass with very low grades, which was hard for me). It's possible that I never looked at my scores, since I also decided some time later to steal my school records, burn them, meticulously replace the ashes in my folder and replace the folder in the counselor's office. My deed was discovered sometime in my senior year, at least a year later than when I did the deed.
    The roundabout point is, this is the way I've always preferred to write: Having a couple of things going at the same time. There's a peculiar kind of transference I experience when I'm writing on diverse subjects in diverse styles that keeps me interested in everything I'm writing. That's what I've been doing over the last 36 hours with all those unfinished essays over at the essay site. Two of them are finished but not proofed. The others are well along. Some are short. Some are medium length. None is terribly long. But, that's why none have yet been published. They're all in various stages of being finished.
    The experience has been exhilarating, but I've found that I've had much less time than I'd planned. It's not easy to grab time for myself while caring for Mom. I actually thought the last few days would afford me lots more time, but I was wrong. Mom's been up more and livelier than I expected. As well, I had yet another podcast that required a lot of editing and that took some time, as well.
    The upshot is, I don't feel as though I've had any "Me" days. This time, though, I'm not in as bad a mood as I was when I decided to seek out some time "for myself". I'm not sure why. But, anyway, tax week is upon me. The last of the official documents arrived yesterday. My intention is to compile her medical expenses and get everything out by the end of this week. As well, I need to compile her blood glucose and blood pressure readings for the last month for her doctor so I can fax those in a timely manner after her blood is drawn on February 1st or 2nd, depending on how busy the lab is. So, there is yet another delay in finishing the waiting essays.
    Yes, there's another podcast up. The actual interview lasted 1h17m. I edited out the thought pauses, repetition and "okay, uhms" and ended up with 42 minutes. It's not our best effort except that here and there throughout the interview Mom and I talk about the difficulty I'm having getting information from her. That part's pretty interesting. In essence, it's an example of how honest I am with her. I used the "descendents at your knee" technique and that didn't work well. But, we'll continue, at least for awhile. I'm seriously considering moving the computer around, turning on the mike surreptitiously and recording in order to catch some of our more involved conversations...see how that works. Anyway, the latest cast is the last listed under the podcast links over there to the upper right. Ignore or enjoy. You're choice.
    Well, shit. It's late. Or early. Or something. I'm beat. I'm heading for bed.
    Oh. Everything is caught up at The Dailies. Just thought I'd mention that.
    Later.