Wednesday, January 21, 2004
The acupuncturist said, today, she considered Mom's recovery "remarkable".
Clever choice of words, although perhaps not so much clever as meticulous.
"Remarkable" has to be considered in context of my mother. It is, indeed, remarkable for someone with a lower back sprain to continue to be hobbling after two and a half months. It is even somewhat remarkable for someone her age. I'm not talking remarkable good.
But my mother appears to be following her own schedule, as she did with her anemia and is finally recovering, for no reason apparent to anyone, with unusual resilience, All Things Mother considered. I'm not sure why it took two months plus for her to traverse the bulk of her recovery within the last 4 days. She's been having mini-recoveries all along, every few weeks or so, but this recovery has been dramatic.
She's lost about 10 pounds since August, 2003, and most of that, I'm sure, since she fell. Although I know that some of that lost weight was muscle weight I can also see that she lost fat and I have been taking special pains to keep her well nourished and as hydrated as is Motherly possible.
Do we (as a species), by the way, understand dehydration in the elderly? I vaguely remember searching it some time ago although I don't remember my parameters. What I do remember is harvesting very little information, all of it in the vein of, "Keep the elderly hydrated, at least 2 quarts of water within all they ingest in a day." I don't remember any studies on it, why it happens, etc.
At any rate, there have been periods of days, in the beginning of the detour periods of weeks, when I was convinced she was losing strength fast and would not likely regain it. I have, too had occasional concerns about whether she would, literally, need to reteach her muscles how to exist, perhaps improve some of their habits, perhaps address the reestablishment of neural pathways obviously damaged by her ghost mini-stroke a couple of years ago. I've felt that her health practitioners have not been moving fast enough on these issues. Then, yesterday and today, she is up, around, alert, a little pale but less so later in the day, standing straighter than ever, only vaguely aware of discomfort in her back, easily aroused to her appointment, looking sleek and spiffy in her clothes and her freshly styled hair...and the acupuncturist notes, with interest, before she began working on my mother, that she is "recovering" "remarkably".
Later, after my mother's 15 minute post-pricking snoring nap, the acupunturist mentioned again my mother's improvement since last week. I related, probably clumsily, the story of her (what I labeled) self-healing from a year and a half bout of anemia with help from the accidental colonic.
Now I am being put in mind of how my mother is using dis-ease (as Sam Keen speaks of illness in To a Dancing God), at this stage in her life, to express her perception of how her life is continuing to develop. This is not something she's done before, or, maybe, she's done it in subtlety, beyond my ken. First, the loss of blood strength which I think may be analogous to her feeling, perhaps, a lack of inspiration toward life. Then injuring her back, which seems obvious: a loss of strength to determine what upholds her life. I have sometimes wondered if it is at all coincidental that she fell and sprained her lower back within a week of MCS&BL's visit and the final determination to sell the house in Mesa. Aside from her fall allowing a slowing up of the business of changing our geographical status, it allowed her to absorb the emotional shock of what is a financially sound idea and not completely unappealing emotionally for her. Essential ambivalence expressed through her body, maybe?
Perhaps now she is ready to embrace some changes in her life. Over the last few days she's been anxious to help out with the cooking, the cleaning, etc. I was at first nervous about how to respond until I accidentally discovered that if I assent and start the task she is content to supervise. Her interest, though, as I ply the task, is keen and her input both earnest and appreciated.
Thus, over the last three or four days I've worked myself into another episode of physical exhaustion. Again I decided I had to take a nap during the last hour of Mom's late afternoon nap, laid down, set the alarm and turned the alarm off in my sleep. I bolted awake four hours later, aware immediately that I had not awakened my mother at 1900 as I promised. The house was dark. I'd done it again.
Mom was shuffling through the hall, heading "back" to bed. She said she'd been up for an hour waiting for me to wake up. Although she said she'd had nothing to eat I saw she'd dished herself some cottage cheese and was relieved that she was feeling hunger and remembering to eat.
I apologized profusely. This always happens during a 'change of schedule'; the phase during remarkable recoveries. I'm lucky that I've been able to "get away" with these lapses. They're happening less and less as I get more of a feel for the flow of the elderlife. I'm very lucky to be in a position to be able to adjust to her changing schedule. So, for that matter, is she. It allows, I think, for less confusion for her; and, I suppose, me.
So here I am, early this morning, having a second cup of coffee since 2230. I fell asleep in the middle of a snow storm and awoke to a winter wonderland. A half hour ago I took the garbage out and noticed that our ungroomed yard is an impressionistic ice sculpture garden, a fairyland revealed. The bodies of the dead weeds are frozen and frosted into an amazing environment of glittering, free form arches, stalagmites, hills and caves. I'd love to be an insect rediscovering our yard. We have the most intriguing looking snow yard in the neighborhood despite that, without snow, our yard is so unkempt I'm surprised no one's mentioned it.
Work on the website is going well. I've finished splitting the partitions and am now doing some page clean-up and insertion of site wide menus.
Tomorrow, well, today, after another "nap", outside activity will be called on account of snow. A few more storms are expected to pass through. We're snug in this foothills fantasyland, healing by the day. Mom's been remembering Christmas baking and bemoaning the fact that "we" didn't do any. Maybe "tomorrow" would be a good day to bake.
"Remarkable" has to be considered in context of my mother. It is, indeed, remarkable for someone with a lower back sprain to continue to be hobbling after two and a half months. It is even somewhat remarkable for someone her age. I'm not talking remarkable good.
But my mother appears to be following her own schedule, as she did with her anemia and is finally recovering, for no reason apparent to anyone, with unusual resilience, All Things Mother considered. I'm not sure why it took two months plus for her to traverse the bulk of her recovery within the last 4 days. She's been having mini-recoveries all along, every few weeks or so, but this recovery has been dramatic.
She's lost about 10 pounds since August, 2003, and most of that, I'm sure, since she fell. Although I know that some of that lost weight was muscle weight I can also see that she lost fat and I have been taking special pains to keep her well nourished and as hydrated as is Motherly possible.
Do we (as a species), by the way, understand dehydration in the elderly? I vaguely remember searching it some time ago although I don't remember my parameters. What I do remember is harvesting very little information, all of it in the vein of, "Keep the elderly hydrated, at least 2 quarts of water within all they ingest in a day." I don't remember any studies on it, why it happens, etc.
At any rate, there have been periods of days, in the beginning of the detour periods of weeks, when I was convinced she was losing strength fast and would not likely regain it. I have, too had occasional concerns about whether she would, literally, need to reteach her muscles how to exist, perhaps improve some of their habits, perhaps address the reestablishment of neural pathways obviously damaged by her ghost mini-stroke a couple of years ago. I've felt that her health practitioners have not been moving fast enough on these issues. Then, yesterday and today, she is up, around, alert, a little pale but less so later in the day, standing straighter than ever, only vaguely aware of discomfort in her back, easily aroused to her appointment, looking sleek and spiffy in her clothes and her freshly styled hair...and the acupuncturist notes, with interest, before she began working on my mother, that she is "recovering" "remarkably".
Later, after my mother's 15 minute post-pricking snoring nap, the acupunturist mentioned again my mother's improvement since last week. I related, probably clumsily, the story of her (what I labeled) self-healing from a year and a half bout of anemia with help from the accidental colonic.
Now I am being put in mind of how my mother is using dis-ease (as Sam Keen speaks of illness in To a Dancing God), at this stage in her life, to express her perception of how her life is continuing to develop. This is not something she's done before, or, maybe, she's done it in subtlety, beyond my ken. First, the loss of blood strength which I think may be analogous to her feeling, perhaps, a lack of inspiration toward life. Then injuring her back, which seems obvious: a loss of strength to determine what upholds her life. I have sometimes wondered if it is at all coincidental that she fell and sprained her lower back within a week of MCS&BL's visit and the final determination to sell the house in Mesa. Aside from her fall allowing a slowing up of the business of changing our geographical status, it allowed her to absorb the emotional shock of what is a financially sound idea and not completely unappealing emotionally for her. Essential ambivalence expressed through her body, maybe?
Perhaps now she is ready to embrace some changes in her life. Over the last few days she's been anxious to help out with the cooking, the cleaning, etc. I was at first nervous about how to respond until I accidentally discovered that if I assent and start the task she is content to supervise. Her interest, though, as I ply the task, is keen and her input both earnest and appreciated.
Thus, over the last three or four days I've worked myself into another episode of physical exhaustion. Again I decided I had to take a nap during the last hour of Mom's late afternoon nap, laid down, set the alarm and turned the alarm off in my sleep. I bolted awake four hours later, aware immediately that I had not awakened my mother at 1900 as I promised. The house was dark. I'd done it again.
Mom was shuffling through the hall, heading "back" to bed. She said she'd been up for an hour waiting for me to wake up. Although she said she'd had nothing to eat I saw she'd dished herself some cottage cheese and was relieved that she was feeling hunger and remembering to eat.
I apologized profusely. This always happens during a 'change of schedule'; the phase during remarkable recoveries. I'm lucky that I've been able to "get away" with these lapses. They're happening less and less as I get more of a feel for the flow of the elderlife. I'm very lucky to be in a position to be able to adjust to her changing schedule. So, for that matter, is she. It allows, I think, for less confusion for her; and, I suppose, me.
So here I am, early this morning, having a second cup of coffee since 2230. I fell asleep in the middle of a snow storm and awoke to a winter wonderland. A half hour ago I took the garbage out and noticed that our ungroomed yard is an impressionistic ice sculpture garden, a fairyland revealed. The bodies of the dead weeds are frozen and frosted into an amazing environment of glittering, free form arches, stalagmites, hills and caves. I'd love to be an insect rediscovering our yard. We have the most intriguing looking snow yard in the neighborhood despite that, without snow, our yard is so unkempt I'm surprised no one's mentioned it.
Work on the website is going well. I've finished splitting the partitions and am now doing some page clean-up and insertion of site wide menus.
Tomorrow, well, today, after another "nap", outside activity will be called on account of snow. A few more storms are expected to pass through. We're snug in this foothills fantasyland, healing by the day. Mom's been remembering Christmas baking and bemoaning the fact that "we" didn't do any. Maybe "tomorrow" would be a good day to bake.
