Sunday, January 4, 2004
A Typical Day
At 1059 I experience a quarrel of internal twinges: Guilt about letting her sleep, guilt about disturbing her incredibly peaceful sleep. This is routine, though, so the twinges ripple away. I think about how weakened she became after two days of bed rest despite how strong she'd previously been. At 1100 I gently touch her and cheer her awake with, "Good Morning, Mary Sunshine. Time to get up!"
My mood is good, bright and enlivens my voice and my movements. By 1145 I have run the gamut from greeting to cajoling to harassing to attempting to shame, finally to disinterested drill sergeant, getting her from 10 hours of a prone position to a sitting position at the edge of her bed minus her soaked night shirt. In the meantime, coaxing movement by movement out of her with whatever works, praise or pleading or scolding or shock, I have also prepared the bathroom for her basin bath-and-dress ritual, taken her blood sugar, stripped most of her bed, determined what needs washing (the comforter is good to go this morning) and deposited wet material in the utility closet, intermittently stood and stared at her for obviously annoyed moments while she stared placidly back at me and smiled, repeated part of my last evening's lecture on "nursing home behavior" (I'll explain this later), set up her breathing treatment, hid all cigarettes, lighters and ashtrays, laid out breakfast preparations discluding starting the bacon (I've learned that even on low bacon will burn to a crisp in the time it takes to get my mother in and out of the bathroom and ready to eat), unloaded both the dishwasher and the clothes dryer, distributed the piles of folded clothes...
By 1215 she is bathed, dressed and is finishing her breathing treatment, over which I have kept an eye and reminded her twice to "put it back in your mouth, it doesn't do you any good in the atmosphere," while I reckon and distribute pills, hers and mine (all of which are supplements). As I dole out pills I tick the following through my mind:
At 1230 she has swallowed most of her pills and breakfast has begun. I remind her several times to drink her orange juice, once to finish taking her pills and we talk about the day, the view from the window and The Girls, who are sprawled in the livingroom in full sun.
I have asked her several times how her back feels. Her responses have ranged from a mildly surprised, "Fine, so far," to an ironic, "It's still there," the last of which she expressed just as she swallowed the ibuprofen. I figure, this morning, from the length of time it took to get her to the edge of her bed, that it was going to take a strong shot of anti-inflammatories to get her walking and walking is imperative today.
Sometime between 1230 and 1315 we both finish breakfast (well, what is actually my lunch) and I beat her in a quick game of Sorry. I don't always win. In fact over the past week I've been losing regularly even when I become frustrated and refuse to help her remember what to do as the game progresses. As we play I notic that she is moving somewhat more gracefully than yesterday from the waist, which is a good sign, but get the impression from the molasses quality of her mental reflexes that she is going to beg her way into a nap within 4 or 5 hours after getting up so, I figure, I'll steer us into the walk now.
It takes about 15 minutes to get Mom and all the equipment set up for the walk, which consists of three laps of our driveway as she pushes the wheelchair and I talk her through maintaining correct posture and "push with your legs and arms, not your back; imagine that you are a marionette being held and moved by a puppet master; contract your abdomen, contract your buttocks, there, see, that straightens you up, you're doing excellent, you're walking so smoothly; remember, the chair should move from the momentum of your legs, not the tensing of your back..."
She does well, today. Slow and well. We do three and a half laps. I notice as we end the trek that her right leg is turning ragged. This is a good time to stop. We're back in the house and she is catching her breath on oxygen, away from cigarettes, by 1415. Although she's a little winded she's recovering quickly. Her color is good. I heave a sigh of relief. Yet another day without iron supplements. Good. This is why she's been so colonically regular (for her) lately: She hasn't been quite so anemic. I recall the three ibuprofen administered this morning though, and tick off a mental reminder to keep a close eye out over the next several hours for signs that she might need an iron pill.
I have to go on a short, maybe 20 minute, errand to the grocery but she is relaxing and seems pain free so I don't suggest that she accompany me. I gently order her to remain upright while I'm gone, repeating several times that I will be home in 20 minutes or less. She decides she wants to watch the Animal Planet channel. Good. Instead of waiting for her to look for her cigarettes this time, in case this happens after I leave and she falls trying to locate them, I put them out for her. She may have gone a while without smoking if I hadn't but if I'm not in the house she is still too unsteady for me to risk another fall.
Upon my return she is completely engrossed in a documentary about training military K-9s. I notice that she has gotten herself a glass of water although she hasn't drunk much. The fact that she recognized and was motivated by her thirst is a plus. She isn't nodding off, she isn't hungry, she's not interested in playing a game so I decide to do some housework while she continues to watch dog training shows. I continue checking on her.
At about 1515 while I'm folding a load of clothes to her left she decides she'll take a nap.
I tell her, "Fine." Ask her how her back is doing. She winces and I tell her that, unfortunately, she still has three hours to go before I can give her any more ibuprofen. She knows what that is now and hardly ever refuses it although sometimes allows only one.
I guide her into the bathroom. We take off her slacks (she removed her own shoes earlier while I was gone, a good sign) and check her paper underwear. "I think we can get away with just putting a second one over this one. Do you want to sleep in your slacks?"
"No," she says, which tells me she's planning on a long, hard sleep.
This is fine considering the circumstances. "I'll wake you up no later than 1800 if you aren't up before that (I know she won't be; she does, too, I see a wry glint flash across her face). Remember, Sex and the City is on tonight. The first episode of the last season."
"Oh, yes. I don't want to miss that. Yes. Wake me up at six."
So here I am now, finishing up this post, part of what will, again, for me, be a typical day. It's about 1630, I've folded, washed and started the dryer on another load of wash in the meantime and done a few other minor chores that would have taken me out of the immediate vicinity of Mom when she was awake. Certain rooms are, at the moment, very uncomfortable for her because they are crammed with stuff and cold, to boot. The master bedroom, for instance. So I only do chores in that room when Mom is sleeping. I only do heavy chores, anymore, when Mom is sleeping. I sometimes worry that the convenience of her interest in sleep might be too much of an advantage for me. I don't know. It's hard to tell. If I wasn't worrying about her sleeping I'd be worrying her to stay awake.
Oh. The "nursing home behavior" thing. I should explain that. I've got some things to do that would fit perfectly between now and 1800 though, so I'm going to close here, check this over, post and publish.
What was my purpose in doing a running tally of today as "A Typical Day" for you? Good question. I'm not sure. Let me think about that and get back to you.
Later.
My mood is good, bright and enlivens my voice and my movements. By 1145 I have run the gamut from greeting to cajoling to harassing to attempting to shame, finally to disinterested drill sergeant, getting her from 10 hours of a prone position to a sitting position at the edge of her bed minus her soaked night shirt. In the meantime, coaxing movement by movement out of her with whatever works, praise or pleading or scolding or shock, I have also prepared the bathroom for her basin bath-and-dress ritual, taken her blood sugar, stripped most of her bed, determined what needs washing (the comforter is good to go this morning) and deposited wet material in the utility closet, intermittently stood and stared at her for obviously annoyed moments while she stared placidly back at me and smiled, repeated part of my last evening's lecture on "nursing home behavior" (I'll explain this later), set up her breathing treatment, hid all cigarettes, lighters and ashtrays, laid out breakfast preparations discluding starting the bacon (I've learned that even on low bacon will burn to a crisp in the time it takes to get my mother in and out of the bathroom and ready to eat), unloaded both the dishwasher and the clothes dryer, distributed the piles of folded clothes...
By 1215 she is bathed, dressed and is finishing her breathing treatment, over which I have kept an eye and reminded her twice to "put it back in your mouth, it doesn't do you any good in the atmosphere," while I reckon and distribute pills, hers and mine (all of which are supplements). As I dole out pills I tick the following through my mind:
Over the last few days I've put her back on a morning dose of Siberian Ginseng so I'm giving her 5 mg lisinopril in the morning again; Detrol to keep her incontinence at bay and encourage her retention of some water; since her blood sugar was a little high [141] I'll give her 500 mg of Glucophage this morning and some at her midday meal regardless of what she eats. Definitely ibuprofen, three 200 mg tablets this morning; a Tums immediately after her meal and keep an eye out for hiccups.As soon as the breathing treatment is out of her mouth I hand her a cup of decaf coffee and busy myself with breakfast preparations. Depending on how she feels she can go anywhere from less than a minute to hours before she starts looking for cigarettes. This morning she began to look immediately; a sign to me of both high alertness and nagging pain.
At 1230 she has swallowed most of her pills and breakfast has begun. I remind her several times to drink her orange juice, once to finish taking her pills and we talk about the day, the view from the window and The Girls, who are sprawled in the livingroom in full sun.
I have asked her several times how her back feels. Her responses have ranged from a mildly surprised, "Fine, so far," to an ironic, "It's still there," the last of which she expressed just as she swallowed the ibuprofen. I figure, this morning, from the length of time it took to get her to the edge of her bed, that it was going to take a strong shot of anti-inflammatories to get her walking and walking is imperative today.
Sometime between 1230 and 1315 we both finish breakfast (well, what is actually my lunch) and I beat her in a quick game of Sorry. I don't always win. In fact over the past week I've been losing regularly even when I become frustrated and refuse to help her remember what to do as the game progresses. As we play I notic that she is moving somewhat more gracefully than yesterday from the waist, which is a good sign, but get the impression from the molasses quality of her mental reflexes that she is going to beg her way into a nap within 4 or 5 hours after getting up so, I figure, I'll steer us into the walk now.
It takes about 15 minutes to get Mom and all the equipment set up for the walk, which consists of three laps of our driveway as she pushes the wheelchair and I talk her through maintaining correct posture and "push with your legs and arms, not your back; imagine that you are a marionette being held and moved by a puppet master; contract your abdomen, contract your buttocks, there, see, that straightens you up, you're doing excellent, you're walking so smoothly; remember, the chair should move from the momentum of your legs, not the tensing of your back..."
She does well, today. Slow and well. We do three and a half laps. I notice as we end the trek that her right leg is turning ragged. This is a good time to stop. We're back in the house and she is catching her breath on oxygen, away from cigarettes, by 1415. Although she's a little winded she's recovering quickly. Her color is good. I heave a sigh of relief. Yet another day without iron supplements. Good. This is why she's been so colonically regular (for her) lately: She hasn't been quite so anemic. I recall the three ibuprofen administered this morning though, and tick off a mental reminder to keep a close eye out over the next several hours for signs that she might need an iron pill.
I have to go on a short, maybe 20 minute, errand to the grocery but she is relaxing and seems pain free so I don't suggest that she accompany me. I gently order her to remain upright while I'm gone, repeating several times that I will be home in 20 minutes or less. She decides she wants to watch the Animal Planet channel. Good. Instead of waiting for her to look for her cigarettes this time, in case this happens after I leave and she falls trying to locate them, I put them out for her. She may have gone a while without smoking if I hadn't but if I'm not in the house she is still too unsteady for me to risk another fall.
Upon my return she is completely engrossed in a documentary about training military K-9s. I notice that she has gotten herself a glass of water although she hasn't drunk much. The fact that she recognized and was motivated by her thirst is a plus. She isn't nodding off, she isn't hungry, she's not interested in playing a game so I decide to do some housework while she continues to watch dog training shows. I continue checking on her.
At about 1515 while I'm folding a load of clothes to her left she decides she'll take a nap.
I tell her, "Fine." Ask her how her back is doing. She winces and I tell her that, unfortunately, she still has three hours to go before I can give her any more ibuprofen. She knows what that is now and hardly ever refuses it although sometimes allows only one.
I guide her into the bathroom. We take off her slacks (she removed her own shoes earlier while I was gone, a good sign) and check her paper underwear. "I think we can get away with just putting a second one over this one. Do you want to sleep in your slacks?"
"No," she says, which tells me she's planning on a long, hard sleep.
This is fine considering the circumstances. "I'll wake you up no later than 1800 if you aren't up before that (I know she won't be; she does, too, I see a wry glint flash across her face). Remember, Sex and the City is on tonight. The first episode of the last season."
"Oh, yes. I don't want to miss that. Yes. Wake me up at six."
So here I am now, finishing up this post, part of what will, again, for me, be a typical day. It's about 1630, I've folded, washed and started the dryer on another load of wash in the meantime and done a few other minor chores that would have taken me out of the immediate vicinity of Mom when she was awake. Certain rooms are, at the moment, very uncomfortable for her because they are crammed with stuff and cold, to boot. The master bedroom, for instance. So I only do chores in that room when Mom is sleeping. I only do heavy chores, anymore, when Mom is sleeping. I sometimes worry that the convenience of her interest in sleep might be too much of an advantage for me. I don't know. It's hard to tell. If I wasn't worrying about her sleeping I'd be worrying her to stay awake.
Oh. The "nursing home behavior" thing. I should explain that. I've got some things to do that would fit perfectly between now and 1800 though, so I'm going to close here, check this over, post and publish.
What was my purpose in doing a running tally of today as "A Typical Day" for you? Good question. I'm not sure. Let me think about that and get back to you.
Later.
