Mom & Me Four Archive

    I slept out in the living room last night, not only so I could keep an eye on the cat-through-the-screen developement but, as it turns out, I took an hour's nap last night while Mom was zoning on TV and awoke to a swarming and splitting of colonies of carpenter ants on our ceiling. Don't ask me why, but it seemed to me that sleeping in the living room would cause the carpenter ants to say, "Nope, that's the lady who kills us. Avoid going through this house."
    So, I was up early again this morning, although somewhat later than 0300. Our couch is a fold out futon and, folded, makes a comfortable bed for a short person (and at least one cat), but doesn't afford the same depth of slumber as my own bed. I checked in on Mom at 1100, her 12th Hour, and she asked to be allowed to sleep. No problem, I was getting tired, myself. Wow! A nap two days in a row!
    I awoke around 1430. Mom had, apparently, been up for about two hours, eaten about a quarter of a Costco sized jar of dill pickles and a few slices of sourdough bread with butter, "because [she] couldn't find the cheese," apparently lounged in her rocker watching me sleep, then headed back to bed. The second time she opened the bathroom door roused me.
    I almost insisted that she stay up; then, I discovered she'd had a good morning, was well-hydrated, well fed, had entertained herself (her tabloids were rearranged at the kitchen table) and was ready for a nap. She apparently hadn't leaked through last night, although I had her change out her underwear and pajamas, just in case.
    So, technically, she's napping now. Yes, I'll be seeing to it that she bathes, later.
    I've been researching hardware stores online. We need a new lighted ceiling fan in the living room; a new light fixture in the kitchen; I need a particular type of Arcadia screen door made to resist cats, which, so far, I'm not sure exists. I may have a door company down the street design one, if possible. I'm thinking the old time metal screen would work, if it's still available. I think I'm coming into a Maintenance Month.

... in my mother's diet:

1. My first consideration is always to manage a health crisis.
2. My second consideration is my mother's wishes regarding troublesome doctoring and her inability to cooperate with some medical procedures. Case in point: My mother, at her initial diabetes diagnosis with her second doctor, was given a choice of whether to manage her diabetes. Because she liked the doctor (he was wonderful, too bad he retired) she decided to "give management a try". It actually took us about a year to really control it, and I let her take the lead. I didn't think she'd ever go cold turkey off the Hershey's Almond Kisses. But, she did. Then I had to learn how to control it without glucophage.

    Although #2 sometimes trumps #1, this is the general order of importance. Managing electrolytes in my mother's diet is subject to the above two considerations, as is managing sugar.
    This is also why I keep meticulous watch over such things as "Skin & Circulation", and even take into account "Will & Spirit". A feisty spirit usually means a quick recovery, if recovery becomes necessary; and, as well, allows for indulgences, one of the things that I think contributes to her longevity.

...The Tangled Neuron on the Information & Resources page. I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but I first ran into this site serendipitously in late March or early April of this year, just before my mother's "routine" doctor's appointment, when her hemoglobin had taken a surprising dip. It was this site that challenged me to consider, once again, the risks of frequent blood transfusions over those of high iron supplementation. I continued to come out on the side of aggressive iron supplementation for my mother, partly because of Niferex-150. But, I thought about it again and did more research. So far, iron supplementation seems to be working for Mom. I think it will, as long as her kidney's remain stable.
    A frequent, quiet reader of these journals e'd me and asked, well, here, let me quote her: "With your mom retaining fluid, why do you not restrict salt? I can see where the ham is something that she probably won't give up and then it isn't worth pushing the point. V-8 juice has a lot of salt as do regular peanuts etc. I had to keep my mom's salt intake below one gram a day (1987-1988), which meant making mayonnaise and bread for her because there wasn't as much healthy food available back then. For her it was because of congestive heart failure."
    I wrote her back to say I would be answering, in a few days, but it is convoluted. So, I decided to answer here. My mother is more prone to experience episodes of low electrolytes rather than high. She had only one episode of high electrolytes and her physician put her there with a combination of Prednisone, furosemide, K-Chlor and salt pills. To be fair, though, this was after a low electrolyte episode. After the high electrolyte episode I tried a low electrolyte diet on her; researched it through the USDA Nutrient Database. Luckily, at the time, she was seeing some doctor every week to two weeks and having her blood drawn for at least a CBC and BMP every week. Within a week of me instituting a low electrolyte diet (which was actually pretty easy, I also make our mayonnaise, in order to keep out sugar, but it helped here, too; I also bake bread for her through the fall, winter and spring) her electrolytes had dipped out of the normal range. Later, of course, in early August of 2004, I discovered I could over hydrate her into low electrolytes.
    So, this is, fundamentally, why she is not only allowed salt (and potassium) but I sometimes makes sure she gets a good amount of it. We swing back and forth, for instance between low sodium V-8 juice and regularly sodiumized V-8. As well, her water retention is just as apt to be provoked by low electrolytes, as by low hemoglobin, as by, well, not, actually as by electrolyte overload, as her only episode of this was induced by electrolyte supplements.
    Sometimes I'll purposely cut back, but not cut out, electrolytes. More often than not, if her feet are swelling and I want to head torso (CHF) swelling off at the pass, I'll give her 10 mg furosemide and up the electrolytes in the diet.
    She used to, by the way, practically live on sodium/electrolyte injected foods. At this point, I'd say her electrolyte tolerability is average, the electrolyte portion of our diet is average to low average, and she seems to be doing fine. I only used furosemide 5 times over a two and a half month period before this last health review. That was pretty good. One of those times I accidentally gave her too much and had to scurry to make sure she got enough salt and fluids within a couple of hours, her debilitation became obvious quickly; she was a little like a drunken sailor.
    As well, my mother's diagnosis of CHF has remained debatable. More often than not, after routine ultrasounds and whatever else they do, always making note of the leaky mitral valve, common in the elderly, her doctors are as apt to pronounce her heart "fine" as they are to note "a little enlargement". I blithely refer to episodes of swelling as "CHF" in her monthly health reviews, but she is just as likely, at this point, to die of the quick development and bursting of an abdominal aneurysm as anything. Despite her frailties, she has an unusually resilient spirit.

    Did I mention why I was up at 0430 (I was actually awakened at 0300...I think 0430 was the first time I looked at the clock)? Our cats figured a way to undo a loose screen and get out. At 0300 they were climbing the screen from the outside, calling to be let in. I immediately, upon letting them in, found the offending screen, thought I reinforced it well enough with duct tape, decided to have coffee, stay up, enjoy the latter part of my favorite time of day...and, subsequently discovered that I hadn't reinforced the screen well enough.
    Otherwise, yesterday was a slow day for Mom. She remembered the visit and reminisced about it, once again asking about who "that other young woman was", and was she "related".
    I considered going to Costco early this morning to replenish my sparkling water (that's practically all I drink), but I've got enough to last me another day and this day seems to be drying out and shaping up nicely. Maybe I'll be able to do a little catching-up with the journals and some people.
    I've performed a second reinforcement of the screen and it has already proven sturdy. That's the problem with animals. You usually have to fix an offending avenue to The Great Outdoors in front of them. Thus, they study your movements and take these into consideration the next time they try the gate. The Little Girl immediately tried to get out and couldn't. So, we're okay for awhile. As a precaution, though, I am going to have each of them micro-chipped and databased this week. This is not a good place to let pets roam wild. They are, outside, Happy Meals To Go.
    Later.
    I'm sure.

    Deb, the author of The Yellow Wallpaper just reminded me, and, what of the tiara? I worked and worked Thursday night trying to get the tiara to stay in; even broke down her hair style and added more teasing; tried to use the two pastiches instead of one but her fine, very thin hair can't hold two. Bottom line, I couldn't remember how I got the tiara to fit in the previous hair style (which I thought I was recreating), discreetly nestled in all her teased, augmented, becurled, cemented hair without showing the combs in the back. At one point I said, exasperated, "Mom, it's like the rim of this thing has stretched. I don't think that's possible. It's pretty sturdy metal." I didn't further elaborate that it was, though, very cheap.
    "Maybe they make them for children and adults and we need to get a child's one."
    Out of the mouths of babes and the demented; and, those who have quickly developed an emotional attachment to a particular type of body decoration.
    This means I'll be looking for a children's size tiara.

Backstory:
    My mother used to frequent the hair parlor twice a week, once for a wash, set and style and once for a restyle. She's been doing this since I can remember. She assures me that she started the habit when she started working, which would have been as an older teen. It is a habit she has continued in the face of my father, at times, when he had nothing better to do, pettily harassing her about the money angle, although this was not financially necessary.
    Even after I would no longer let her drive and had taken over the managing of all her life business we remained faithful to her twice weekly "Hair Days", so named because we inevitably made the most of her hair style and ate lunch or dinner out, maybe even shopped at a gourmet market or a discount store we'd never visited. The only interruptions to her hair routine were health crises and her recoveries; until she fell and sprained her back in October of 2003. She has, pretty much, recovered. The only problem is that certain types of chairs and sitting procedures can cause spasms and days in bed. Unfortunately, the beauty salon chair and its backward hair-washing tilt are both hazardous.
    Before my mother's back injury, once I was no longer working outside the home, I was with her everywhere she wanted to go and everywhere I wanted (or could cajole) her to go. I am the type of person who immediately tries to make sense of and learn about any environment in which I find myself. Thus, in a beauty shop I became intrigued with the procedures used on my mother's hair. When it became necessary for me to take over the production of Hair Days, I discovered I was able to "do" her hair surprisingly well. Practice has made better. I have to tell you, the Queen Elizabeth I hairdos, I just took a wild stab at those. I figured, why not? I astonished myself on the first two. I can set and comb and back comb and shape and spray with the best of them. As well, the advantage to me doing this for her is that I know she loves, loves, loves having her head and hair "played with" and, since my income doesn't depend on it, I see to it that the sensuality quotient is at its highest.
    The thing is, I'm not a hairdresser. So I come up with things, execute them, then, I'm afraid, stumble through my memory of it a couple of times, which stumbling may or may not brand me with the necessary routine. Included, too, is attention to her scalp. Aside from it having increased in sensitivity as she's aged, most hair products cause her head to itch and scale, so I try to get them on and off every couple of days. As well, I allow her scalp periods (two to three days), when it rests, gets washed every day and I apply one of two psoriasis OTC salves every day.
    Information wise: Yes, I wash her hair free-sink-style, using Aloe Vesta Cleansing Foam #1. It's not as labor intensive as it sounds. In fact, I believe her hair is actually cleaner, now, than it was when she trusted the beauty shop to do it. She gets it washed at least twice a week.

    I've been surprised at my hair styling facility, acquired strictly from watching, asking the hair stylists (my mother had her favorites in Mesa and Prescott) what they were doing and how they were doing it, for no other reason than to pass the time. When one of the hair stylists (the hair sculptor) talked my mother into a hair piece, I learned how to work with that. Believe me, doing hair has never been a looked-forward-to career choice for me. But, I've always been interested in acquiring new skills, so technical caregiving is right up my alley, for a relative, anyway, one time only, probably.
    It is truly set-back surprising, when a caregiver stops to think about it, how many skills and specialized understandings of civilized knowledge (legal preparations, for one thing) one develops out of necessity as a caregiver. It is a little like interning. And sometimes, too, seeing certain types of activities in their context takes the monster out of them. At least, that's been my experience. I am reminded of a journal whose author just contacted me, Mona of The Tangeled Neuron, which is a chronicle of her search-and-destroy mission against Alzheimer's and other dementias in memory of her father. Not only does she debate, from a caregiver's point of view, with anecdotal information, the various diagnoses and test results thrown her way as a result of her father's medical profile; she also is generous with sources and her technical understanding is presented in an impeccable lay style. My first experience with her journal, in fact, happened for me in April before Mom's last appointment, when I was researching on behalf of her dropping hemoglobin. It was very helpful. It will be shortly added under the Honorable Caregiving Blogs section.
    I hear some reconnaisance coughing. Time to check in, again, on the Mom.
    So, long story short, no tiara. I'm betting her wig seller has something in a reasonably adjustable tiara...
    ...later.

...regarding yesterday. Maybe I'll "list" it:

• She had the equivalent of one cigarette yesterday, a "Light 100". Our guests, too, were discreet smokers, which helped. She put her "first" cigarette out halfway through, at my suggestion, because she was gasping. Went on oxygen for about an hour, through brunch. Then had the last "half", on which she left a long butt. Oxygen again, from then on. I didn't notice any obvious congestion, but I gave her a "preventative" 200 mg of guaifenex in the evening before her dinner.
• She was in a slooow party mood, but a party mood nonetheless. The night prior, in excited anticipation, she had tried to talk me into awakening her when I awoke: 0430. No way, I laughed. As it was, I started calling her at 0830, a little over an hour after company arrived. She finally moved to sit on the edge of her bed a little after 0915.
• We were both delighted with the visit. I think part of this is that it was short and intense, with plenty of time to savor it and enjoy a relaxed retirement out of the visit. I think we may no longer be at our best on extended, live-in visits. Not that we won't do a few more. But, those are getting tedious.
Not unrelated: Everyone quietly noticed, myself included, how much more attendance Mom now requires. I was not nervous but steadily busy and focused on the most minute of matters throughout. I was in good spirits. I took care to jack myself up with two extra strong cups of coffee and a speed-lite cold pill. At one point, though, one of our guests took me aside, advised me to leave "Mom" to the other two, she would be fine, and, I knew this. Everyone was surprised, though, at how continually active and attentive my care of her now is. Can't say it was an unpleasant surprise; just noticed.
• Everyone of every species was delighted to see everyone else.
• The food was Early Summer Lite...perfect for everyone.
• We had the diverting, unexpected surprise of one of our cats figuring out how to claw her way through the screen. It was a bonding experience.
• Mom got around surprisingly well. Her knee "went a little weak" when she was coming in from the back yard (where we spent almost all our visit, very pleasantly, I might add) from the added exercise of walkering over a rough surface and having to step over a very few obstacles. I need to see to evening out the backyard. The front yard was taken care of minimally last fall. Anyway, from resting in her walker, Mom's knee recovered, within an hour, to the point where she didn't remember it's previous weakness.
• I am surprisingly refreshed by and grateful for the visit.
• Flowers, a fresh bouquet, pinks and yellows and some Gerbera daisies. Very nice!
• Lots of kitten play.
• Lots of intimate ribbing.
• I cannot stress this enough: Exactly the right length under exactly the right circumstances.
• Even monks need community, I guess.
• I cleaned the kitchen and picked up in the dinette. No vacuuming. I cleared paths through the livingroom and the back bedroom (my room). I gladly and cheerfully did more food preparation than I had planned. It all turned out well.
• I am pleased, in the wake of yesterday, to be up since one of my favorite times of day, 0300, having a wonderful day, thank you.

    Last night, as Mom (and I) wound down, I had my usual autonomic visions of more "getting out", maybe downtown around the square, "doing lunch" or maybe an early dinner out, here and there, maybe chairing her up and going the Wildlife park just north of here...we'll see. I'm certainly and unexpectedly energized from yesterday. Maybe Mom is, too. Positive attitude.
    Later.

...well, react to, I guess, a line I read in David Pogue's NYT email Circuits [subscription only I think, but free], in the midst of his reaction to Bill Gate's philanthropic retirement announcement, and I quote:

Maybe when you're in your 50's, you start to think about how you'll be remembered.

    Well, I'm not thinking of that, and I don't think my mother ever has. She is always surprised, to very rare tears, when someone remembers and salutes her. She is naturally modest, almost to a fault.
    I don't doubt that wanting to be remembered is an activator in the lives of some, but I don't think it's a universal trait. And, I think, it's one of those traits that you have to have acquired early in your life to display it in one's Ancient years.
    Just had to mention that.
    Yesterday. Yes. I'm getting to that.
    Later.

    In this post I'm going determine, cold and quickly, which of the above linked Eight Essentials seem to apply to my mother. In order to avoid, as much as possible, violating a copyright, I'll refer to them by number and title, only. To read the short text for each essential, click into either the title link or the link immediately above.

1. Sharpen Your Mind:
    I'm positive, from what I observe of my mother's experience, that at least the last sentence of this one is true: I believe my mother's brain was naturally set, almost from birth, for longevity. Longevity is one of her personal family legends:

• People are expected to live into their 90's and further.
• People are not considered "lucky" unless they live past 100.
• Dying in one's 70's or before is tragic: Death in this decade or younger is considered to be wholly the fault of the deceased unless resulting from an act of god or something like, which the deceased could neither foresee nor avoid.
• Death in one's 80's is debatable: Maybe Aunt Matilda could have lived into her 90's if she hadn't insisted on cooking with lard instead of vegetable oil or if she'd taken her medicine like she was supposed to. This despite the fact that what is now considered "healthy eating" is eschewed, in my mother's family, in favor of rich, creamy eating; and doctors generally aren't trusted, not even at the last minute when their services have been engaged; and anything sounding vaguely medicinal is considered to be half (if not more) fabrication.

    It is hard for me to say whether my mother consciously exercised her brain. I assume she crosswords, for instance, for fun. However, maybe she also has mental exercise in mind. She is, after all, a retired Special Ed school teacher who, along with my father, well, they "didn't raise no dummies".

2. Maintain a Positive Outlook:
    My mother is the champion of the positive outlook. She is not a pollyanna; better, she is a realistic, ironic optimist.
    For a long time after I came to live with her, her energy level was quite high. I can't say it is now, but she surprises me with spurts of energy springing from long term habit: If she remembers she could and thinks she can, she can do it. Still. Even with the energy drain of chronic illness. She can be counted on to overestimate her energy reserves, but she's blase about this. Her philosophy is, "Any time is a good time for a nap."
    I can attest to the fact that either she has an incredibly high pain tolerance level or she dismisses pain so easily that she cannot be said to be plagued with pain. I'm sure a lot of this has to do with her positive outlook.

3. Cultivate Healthy and Intimate Relationships:
    I'm thinking, now, one could postulate that when Mom asked me to be her companion she was doing just this. Our relationship is so intimate I have considered that I Am My Mother's Lover. Although she is not socially vivacious, never has been, she enjoys sociability from the fringes with those other than family and long time friends. Otherwise, she definitely seeks to keep avenues open with family members, through thought if not through outright action. She also has a credible history of society and intimate family life.
    I do not know enough about her life long sex life to know if her ostensible lack of one, now, would be considered excusable. I have speculated in places within these journals about my mother's sexuality and sexual history, but she is difficult to talk to on this subject.
    I do know, from personal experience, that once the hormones settle down past menopause, sexuality is a take it or leave it proposition. From this new perch, I wonder, sometimes, if the definition of an Ancient sex life is overrated or, at least mis-defined. I'm not sure my mother could have improved her life, now, by having pursued a sexual relationship in these past years.
    Sensuality, though, is extremely important, from an intimacy standpoint and from a stimulation standpoint. Touch your Ancient One. Get to know them by feel. Be so eye familiar with your Ancient One that you are on early alert for problems. Being the recipient of this kind of attention, I think, is important to longevity, and social receptivity.

4. Promote Stress Free Living:
    I'm not sure what are the "stress busters" referred to in the article. Whatever they are, though, I can testify that my mother has internalized them and uses them frequently. It is almost impossible to stress this woman out. About anything. She can be seen to adjust to surprises, sometimes very volatile ones, but stress, for her, is easily dealt with.

5. Master Your Environment:
    Hmmm...well, I don't think my mother has ever done this. She adapts, but rarely masters, her environments. She is, however, very flexible, even on her own. She singlehandedly, with occasional reminders and suggestions, took herself off her Hershey's Almond Kiss Pills, once she had a chance to digest what her diabetes was and means. She has weathered acts of god well throughout her entire life, the most recent of which was the flood up here in 2000. Overall, although she's slower, now, if "something", anything, a forest fire threat, anything, I have no doubt that my mother, with a substantial second right arm, would make it through fine.

6. Shape up to Stay Young:
    Hmmm, well, she may be beyond this now, mostly, although, as you know if you're a regular reader, I can still, astoundingly, coax her into movement if conditions are right, including temperature, wind speed, amount of sun and her own physical reactions. She over estimates her abilities constantly but pulls back immediately when she realizes this. She has lived a life of physical vigor and spontaneous exercise of a variety of types, right up to her early 80's.
    I wonder if, at her age, assumption of the ability to move trumps actual exercise, although both she and I notice immediate benefits when she is more active.

7. The Longevity Diet:
    Mom has accomplished this one in her Ancient years, mostly with my gently insistent oversight. To her credit, as well, although mostly canned and lacking in the abundance of fresh vegetables (although fresh fruits, including wild fruits, were plentiful and we ate a lot of fruit as kids; so did my mother); our family diet was very healthy. She indulged in a lot of sugar back then, but, I'm sure, not nearly as much as she would have if she hadn't had four kids around to raise. We were barely allowed sugar and/or salty treats. See Sweet Satisfaction.
    And, yes, she does get her treats. She is also not apt to overindulge.

8. Modern Medicine to Look and Feel Younger:
    Well, we're doing the best we can within constraints:

• Her ailing digestive system;
• Her desire to be poked and prodded as little as possible and to take as few medications as possible. She enjoys spurts, still, of making herself aware of what I'm feeding her in the name of medication, questioning each pill, sometimes demanding to know why she needs to continue taking her pills.
• She was put on a cholesterol lowering medication between 1990 and 1994, under her own cognizance. I remember discussing it with her over the phone. She would have been between 73 and 77. Within less than a year a study came out which I read independently in Seattle that indicated that if the patient had a history of high cholesterol (my mother does) but is past the age of 70 and has no heart trouble, the benefit of medically lowering cholesterol is highly questionable, thus, better to preserve liver function by keeping the "elderly" from overmedication. I told her about the article when she spontaneously, in one of our weekly long distance phone calls [1700 every Saturday, generated from her home in Mesa, AZ], announced to me that her doctor had taken her off her cholesterol medication.
      It's debatable whether paying more attention to her cholesterol would have delayed or prevented her mini-stroking, which may have headed off most of her present dementia, although not all, I think.
• Earlier in our journey my mother did consider, on and off, plastic surgery. Her early and prodigious wrinkling around her face has always concerned her. We talked about it the other night, in fact. I have encouraged it, but she has never been able to take it down to the wire. She has become less concerned with changing her "look" as she ages.
• I certainly don't think we're overmedicating her. I sometimes wonder if we are under medicating or testing her. But, quality of life to my mother means the fewer doctors and the less obvious preventative and medical attention, the better. Up to the point of crisis I believe this should be respected. I further believe that, in crisis, questioning procedure is legitimate.
• She has a Living Will to which I intend to judiciously adhere, considering my mother's fascinated hold on life.
• My mother continues to perceive herself as being much younger than she is, except on days when she is able to, as she says, "Count the years in [her] joints." She is astonished when she rediscovers, sometimes on a daily basis, her age-related infirmities. This, I guess, qualifies as "optimism" and "positive outlook".

    So, I guess my mother would "score" (if such a thing can be said), pretty high and, no doubt, would be considered justification (although not the ultimate justification) of these Eight Essentials. Interesting exercise. I'm thinking of some possible amendments:

1. Feeling lucky has a lot to do with "it", I think. Or blessed.
2. Maintain a humorous outlook. Humor is sometimes more valuable than outright positive thinking.
3. Come to know and be true to your spirit. Surround yourself, as well, with people who enjoy and look to your spirit.

9/22/08 Addendum:  Since I originally wrote this post, both of the links I originally used, which listed the Eight Essentials, are no longer available online. They have been published as a book. Thus, I've linked to Dr. Small's website in the title of this post and to the book that enlarges on these Eight Essentials.

...is posted over at the The Dailies for today's date. I would create a target over there, but I'm too tired, happily so. [9/22/08:  Target created.]
    Once again...
    ...later.

    I'm sure I'll write more about it tomorrow. Remind me to address, cold, The Eight Essentials, about which I learned over at Dementia Blues.
    I'm bushed, too. I did, however, pull off about an hour's nap.
    Later.

    The "messages" episode took place throughout Monday and into early Tuesday morning. Monday's the day our company was supposed to come. We'd both been talking about it all weekend. It wasn't until Sunday night that we found out company would be delayed until Thursday.
    The company we'll be entertaining tomorrow isn't genetically family, but they may as well be considered so; it's MCF and her daughter, and maybe their friend/boarder. Mom has known them longer than I have...back into the 1980s. She and MCF, in fact, planned MPS's baby shower for MCNC's birth. She and Mom have a long history. So do she and MPS. She and I do, too, although slightly shorter than theirs. Yeah, they're family.
    Now, I know that by "folks" Mom definitely meant her mother and father, since she later defined the word as such. But, this is the way the demented mind can work: One part of the family can substitute for another part. The phone messages? Well, MCF and I had a couple of phone conversations prior to Monday. Although Mom was never on the phone, she was with me when the calls took place and was briefed, in detail, immediately afterward. And, of course, she knows MCF is a "woman", and, as well, MCF is one of the few friends I didn't think to suggest when trying to determine the identity of the messenger because the word "folks" led me to believe that we were talking about Mom's born into family and long ago friends, not recent, chosen family.
    So, I think the mystery is solved.

    Before I hit the sack, though (luckily I'm so damned tired that I will have no trouble bedding down two hours earlier than usual), I want to record Mom's and my bedtime conversation tonight.
    After I'd kissed her goodnight and headed to the kitchen to set up the dishwasher, I thought I heard, faintly, Mom calling me. I checked and it wasn't her. This isn't an unusual occurrence. I'm sure it's connected with low level anxiety, which would certainly describe my evening: Finishing preparations (yes, I did a little, very little, cleaning) for the visit; fixing Mom's hair (which was unsuccessful...I had trouble with the tiara tonight and couldn't remember exactly how I'd gotten it to work in her hair before); trying to convince her to go to bed earlier than I knew she wanted.
    So, as I was leaving her room for the second time after checking to see if that "still, small voice" was my mother or my imagination, my mother pulled me back with, "You know, ever since I've moved into this bedroom, every night you've thought I was calling to you right after I go to bed."
    Not exactly right. "Well, Mom, I actually imagine I hear you calling much more rarely than every night, sometimes not even every month. And, you've been in this bedroom since 1997. But, what are you trying to say?"
    "I think there's some kind of noise coming from this side of the house that sounds like me."
    I burst out laughing. "Well, yeah, there is, and it's usually you!"
    She flashed her grin of ironic acknowledgement. "You know what I mean."
    "Yeah, Mom, I do. And, you know what I think? I think it's the Devil, beckoning me to my true calling." I've said this before but until tonight she's ignored it.
    "Using my voice."
    "Hey! Yeah! That's brilliant, the Devil disguising itself as people's mothers! What a coup! So, I am the Devil's spawn, aren't I?!?"
    In her best Inscrutable-Ancient-to-the-point-of-being-vaguely ominous tone, eyes just this side of narrowed: "You'll never know, will you."
    You're right, Laurel. Wicked.
    This is one of the reasons I'm here; one of the reasons "It's no sacrifice."

    That's it. I'm headed for bed. The Dailies can wait. Expect me to be back...
    ...later than sooner.

    I'm much more up for it than I thought I would be. Mom, when I remind her, is looking forward to company, too. They'll be arriving very early, before Mom awakes, I'm sure, although I'll be rousing her much earlier than usual after they arrive. They won't be here long; they'll be leaving early in the afternoon to miss the worst of rush hour traffic in Phoenix, but it'll be refreshing to see them. I know. I can't believe I'm feeling this way.
    Although I'm keeping the treats to a fruit and vegetable tray, deviled eggs (I don't use sugar or sweet dressings in mine) and cranberry scones, I expect Mom's BG to go on holiday, tomorrow, so I'm going to try to keep today easy on her insulin.
    Yesterday she just wasn't feeling good, so we didn't walker, but I checked in on her a few minutes ago. She decided she wanted her "full 12", which'll take her to 1300, but she seems alert and much better. She wasn't plagued with body aches, yesterday, but internal lung congestion and a feeling of being tired all over. Yesterday was her actual protracted sleep day, rather than a few days ago, the one I was expecting. I don't think it was the walkering on Monday that put her under yesterday; I think the wind has been blowing allergens around and it all caught up to her yesterday.
    So, nothing much to report yesterday and once Mom rouses today it'll be a busy day, getting her ready for company tomorrow, including yet another Queen Elizabeth I hairstyle, so she can show off her tiara. Cleaning? Maybe some. I usually clean for company but, I don't know, although I had a lot of energy early this morning, I'm beginning to fade after two short nights...tonight is going to be another one and I see no possibility for a nap, today. Everyone always says they don't care if I clean...so, I guess tomorrow I'll find out exactly how much nobody minds my natural lack of housekeeping!
    Later.

    I couldn't believe what she'd said. I repeated it to her teasingly and continued, "Who are you, really? What did you do with my mother?"
    She laughed and said, "Oh, I'm your mother, all right," as though, if she had a chance, she'd deny the distinction.
    "Could it be? Yes it could." [Can't remember what that's from, probably a nonsensical double-dutch jump rope rhyme; I used to be a ferocious double-dutcher.] Once again, the heat of another summer is stirring my mother's reptilian soul, and, not secondarily, her body. Although she seemed to need to recuperate from her walkering yesterday, she was pleased with her performance and didn't consider the episode merely my insistence on putting her through drudgery. No back or knee "iffiness" either. She even looked good out there and stayed a bit, sitting on her walker seat, just to enjoy the sultry wind. I suggested that, today, "when we go out", she can walker around while I trim back the pyracantha. She was enthusiastic, noting that, "they sure need it". They sure do. I have, once again, high hopes. Although these hopes often surface and are often sunk, I figure, hoping is not a complete exercise in futility. Certainly, if I was in her position, I'd prefer a companion who hoped.
    Although I noted over at The Dailies that she bedded down earlier than usual, she also arose about 45 minutes later. I thought it was just a bathroom visit. When I joined her, though, she was bright-eyed and she'd put on her glasses, even though she insisted she was going back to bed. However, while still on the toilet she asked, "Now, what have you heard about the folks (her parents) coming out?"
    Despite her activity and alertness, yesterday, she spent an unusual amount of time talking about an impending visit by "the folks" (her parents). After the first mention of it, when I dutifully recited our detailed Review of the Dead, she continued to revert back to the possibility of the visit. I figured, today is not the day for continual reminding and, henceforth, responded, "I don't know. Nobody told me anything."
    Last night, though, I said, "You know, Mom, you've mentioned this several times today. After breakfast we went through the review of all your dead relatives. I think you're just into remembering them as alive, today. So, you know, maybe we'll just stick with that."
    She wasn't shocked. Her response, though, was peculiar, "Well, where are all these messages about the folks' visit coming from, then?!?"
    This intrigued me. I had to follow-up. I assume that she's "receiving" these "messages" in a dream state. I was able to solicit that they come by phone (she never answers the phone anymore, in fact, most of the time, the ringer is turned off and I scan caller ID for calls that need to be returned), a "woman" calls these messages to her and the woman isn't someone to whom she's related, although she insists it's someone she knows, despite the fact that we went through the list of possible relatives, friends and acquaintances and it isn't any of them. So, we went through The Review of the Dead again. With each person (excluding my dad, whose death she remembered last night), about halfway through each recounting she'd say, "Oh, yes, now I remember that one."
    Although she remained up until about 0130 last night (light out minutes before 0200), watching yet another series of M*A*S*H episodes I was able to scrounge for her when she decided she wanted to watch TV after our discussion, before her final retirement she asked yet another curious question, "What do you suppose it means, that I keep getting these messages that the folks are going to visit, since they're dead?"
    I decided on a humorously depraved approach: "Well, maybe it means you and I are shortly going to be in a position where they can visit us!"
    She laughed, then said, "That means we'd have to be dead."
    "Well, yes, or maybe, we'll suddenly become mediums."
    "Well, I don't know if I'd like that," she said. "We have enough visitors as it is."
    Interesting, I thought, that she considers our rarely visited life full of visitors. Thank the gods. My position is, the fewer visitors, the better.
    I couldn't, of course, resist pondering the conversation after she retired. It gave me the willies, though. Although I am more prone now, than ever, to not only believe but want it to be true that we are all unique and thoroughly mortal, when we're dead, we're dead, except maybe as an extension of what I consider to be the ultimate Buddha-head's nirvanic awareness of the innumerable lives The One has lived, is living and will live, I'm open to anything and, anyway, despite my desires in this respect, I continue my relationships with the dead and a resistant part of my brain assumes that the dead are continuing their relationships with me. Maybe these "messages" that my mother recently insists she's receiving are actually being received (always in sleep) and she, or both of us, will be soon checking out of "this hotel", as my mother's sister, in her dementia, referred to, first, the hospital she was in wherein she endured the several major surgeries that immediately preceded her dementia, then to life.
    I've got a book on the final days of the terminal that I haven't yet cracked, even though I bought it months ago: Final Gifts. Maybe I'd better get busy and read it.

    Completely unrelated to the above: Last night, CBS Evening News, my mother's preferred half hour of "national news", because of Bob Scheiffer and his white hair, featured a story on the "senior" game Brain Age. [As an interesting aside, last night, immediately after the news I looked up the story and it was not on CBS Evening News's front page. I had to pull a site search for it. I notice, now, it is. They must change the front page according to what is generating the most interest at any particular time.] Mom scrutinized the segment and suggested that we buy it. "I could use a little brain stimulation," she said.
    I then searched it through the entire web, got a fairly good description of it and decided, even though I wondered if she'd even understand how to operate it, what the hell, it's only 20 bucks, why not?!?
    So, a copy of the game is on it's way to our residence, due to arrive in about a week. As I mentioned to the author of Dementia Blues in a comment last night, in response to her wondering if pre-demential brain development and exercise of a variety of types, including an active life, could somehow forestall or eliminate dementia in the elderly, I no longer have an awful lot of faith in this theory, even though I previously subscribed to it. My mother seems to be an example of the opposite: After my dad died (she was 67) she threw herself, as many released-from-marriage older women do, into what I would consider to be, for her, an extremely active life, involving travel, including out-of-country, joining groups, taking a perceptive, active interest in investments, pursuing informal "senior" classes, joining groups (the joining of which was modified by her typically non-social purview), updating herself (she even owned a computer before I did), became extremely involved in the caring for her present-in-Arizona grandchildren, intensely pursued the genealogy of her famly, including traveling to this purpose; the woman was a whirlwind, for her, anyway. As well, she's always done crosswords and continues them, even though she cheats, now, much more than she ever did. Even after she asked me to combine households with her she kept up, including traveling alone, maybe even extended her activity, since she had discovered she definitely did not have a propensity for the lived alone life and felt better living with someone, which is why I was able to continue working outside the home for a few years after coming to live with her. Still, dementia stalked and caught up with her. On the other hand, my father, who announced at his retirement at 55 that he intended to "sit in [his] rocking chair and drink [himself] to death," which he did (although it took him 13 years; he had an astonishingly durable body), fervently wished to become demented as an excuse for his behavior, or, maybe, as a reprieve from his behavior. Never happened, much to his dismay.
    So, I'm very curious to see what my mother makes of Brain Age and what it makes of my mother. I think she's past being disappointed by anything so I perceive no great danger in her possible discovery that it is beyond her. Something I read, too, seemed to indicate that the various levels include introductory segments that might suit her out of the box. I also noticed that the game involves using a stylus. I'm not sure my mother will "get" the device, but, you know, she might surprise me. We'll see. I'll definitely report back on further Brain Age developments.
    Later.

    Whereupon, my mother displayed her best comic impression of infirmity and illness. But I don't think she means it, today, so after she finishes her leisurely breakfast we'll take the walker out for a driveway spin. Maybe two laps today, who knows.
    We also, earlier had an interesting, civilized confrontation over shelving. My mother suddenly noticed the amount and variety of items I keep handy on the vanity area to the left of "her" bathroom sink. Staring at the disarray she said, "I was just thinking..." this always means she's thinking of some sort of organizational alteration... "we should put shelves over the back of the toilet," she twists herself to indicate the empty wall behind her, "so we can get rid of all those things on the sink. I'll bet you don't even remember what they are."
    Au contraire. We use all of them every day. They wouldn't be there if we didn't. I remind her of this.
    "Wouldn't you like them out of the way, though, when you're not using them?"
    I laughed. "Mom, you're the shelf person. I'm the 'leave it there, I use it' person. If you were keeping house you could have it your way. I'm keeping house, though, so I get to do it my way."
    She started at the assertion that she's no longer her own housekeeper.
    I could see a more entrenched argument coming, so I headed it off with, "Mom, since I'd have to be reaching behind you constantly throughout your bathing in order to access those items, it may look better to shelve them but it works better for me to have them just a few inches away."
    "Oh," she said, nodding considerately. "I never thought of that. But, what about when I bathe myself?"
    I grinned, patted her face gently on both cheeks and kissed her forehead. "My dear," I said, "I don't think that'll be happening, anymore. Look at it this way. Monarchs and Mandarins used to have the luxury of having royal bathers. You've reached their level of importance. You, now have a bather of your own."
    She straightened and primped on the toilet. "Oh, my! Maybe we should hire a staff to handle my entire life, then!"
    I had to laugh again. "Mom," I said, "I'm your staff."
    Some minutes later, while she was applying lotion to her arms and dressing on her own in the bathroom and I was setting up breakfast, I was thinking about how I am, indeed, a one person staff...shades of I Can't Get It for You Wholesale, about which I continually forget...but, even more startling, forget about employed staffs of people, I am, literally, the staff, as in steadying implement, upon which her life leans. "Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." And, as is the nature of staffs, if they are handy and reliable, they usually become an unnoticed source strength. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Not bitter, really, but not complimented, either. Observant. Cool-headed. Wondering what is the typical fate of discarded staffs.

    Anyway, quickly, before I seize the moment and move my mother out to the driveway, I want to mention yet another caregiver blog. I know, I never thought I'd find yet another literate, readable absolutely sensical blog about caregiving, simply because I don't look for them. But, the author of The Yellow Wallpaper does and, trusting her taste in these matters, I've been checking out her links. I just this morning finished reading through Dementia Blues. It journalizes the experiences of a partnered daughter taking care of her demented, frail parents as a sensitive, extremely concerned, live-out caregiver. It's sharp; perceptive; outspoken. As she mentions, as well, I believe Dementia Blues and The Yellow Wallpaper represent the larger caregiving experience in this nation than mine does. My situation, as I've mentioned before, is a fluke. The situations of the above two authors, I'm sure, is extremely representative of boomer caregiving to our Ancient Ones. As such, they both, I think, have more day-to-day relevance for other caregivers than my journal and are definitely more approachable from a word-count standpoint. I, once again, highly recommend Dementia Blues and will be expanding my out-links to include this journal.
    I'm not discounting the value of my own journal but I think, the value of mine runs more along the lines of, say, the documentation of an entolmologist minutely recording, minute to minute, the lives of insects; extremely valuable in the long run, fairly boring in the short run, not to mention completely unrepresentative of the relationships most of us have with insects.
    My mother calls from the bathroom. I'll put up the links...
    ...later.