Saturday, February 21, 2004
45 minutes ago I checked in on my mother's first reconnaissance cough of the morning.
It was emitted from deep sleep. She looked good: Pink and relaxed. Just a few minutes ago I checked her again. She was dreaming, eyelids cracked, the lower rim of her blue, blue iris hoizontally agitated. I don't like to disturb these dreams she concocts in the morning sun while she's warming herself into wakefulness. They're, without exception, good dreams: Dreams of moving into ever larger and older homes; dreams of making cookies; dreams of ordinary moments of excitement in the company of extraordinary loved ones. Sometimes I'm in the dreams, sometimes I'm not because I haven't been born yet. Sometimes in these dreams I was born long before my time.
I expect her blood sugar to be high this morning. Mom snacked lightly but regularly yesterday and there was never a time when she had "fasted" long enough to properly administer an evening dose of glipizide. I decided not to take her blood sugar last night. I didn't want to know and neither did she. One dose of metformin mid-day without a glipizide chaser works well on my mother but two doesn't do a thing so I figure, considering its side effects, best not to administer it at all. I saw to it that she had the equivalent of 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon yesterday (not cinnamon oil, by the way), so, perhaps this morning will be normal. As I sniffed the air around her bed I didn't notice the unmistakable smell of excess sugar in the urine. Her normal-blood-sugar urine smell, when she hasn't been eating something else that challenges (and, sometimes, delights) her digestive system, is very mild, not completely unpleasant and probably wouldn't be unpleasant at all to me if I didn't know it was urine. It is pervasive, though light, rather like the smell in a front room from a backroom wherein incense is burned. When I'm feeling good I barely notice it. When I am feeling irritated I notice it in places that have never been exposed to her urine. She, of course, does not smell it.
I think the phenomenon of her mild urine smell may be related to an experiment conducted in one of the Northern European countries sometime in the mid to late 1990's. Someone got the idea to determine what organic odors smelled least offensive and most pleasing to a broad cross section of the population. The sweetest, most pleasant smell turned out to be the smell of underarm sweat from grandmothers. Although no reason was given, I've wondered if it could be the lack of hormones that is responsible for the sweetness. This could also explain the mild odor of elderly urine.
Rain has been promised though only lightly delivered as yet. I've already done light cleaning. We have two movies left to watch. Mom liked Runaway Jury but didn't care for A Mighty Wind. I think she might not have gotten it, although she does remember our collection of 60's folk music which included: The New Christy Minstrels; Peter, Paul and Mary; Judy Collins; Joan Baez; The Chad Mitchell Trio The Kingston Trio; Bob Dylan; Arlo Guthrie; Pete Seeger; Woody Guthrie; with a smattering of indigenous folk stuff. She remembered us singing a lot of these songs, both profound and pastiche, in the car and around the house, harmonizing then playing havoc with the lyrics, singing in pidgin, our voices approaching shriek pitch, until one or both of our parents would yell at us to quiet down. She even remembered the blues song about the cemetery we made up on a long distance trip across the U.S. during one summer vacation. She didn't, however, get the movie and complained that there wasn't enough music.
These days, I am consistently (and pleasantly) surprised by her expanding interests. I think, for instance, that she likes Sex and the City because she identifies with at least one of the women, not Charlotte. She followed Miranda closely, I noticed, until Miranda got married, then switched her attention to Carrie. She always keeps an eye on Samantha, though. We tried The L Word but were neither amused nor provoked. She expressed interest in The Passion until she realized it is a theater experience so far, so we'll wait until it's in DVD. She's decided, though, that she wants to catch up on "the Bible movies" before the DVD is released. We watched The Ten Commandments twice in one weekend about a month ago. That was a trip. She always thinks she wants to see The Last Temptation of Christ until it starts, then she gets bored, which is unfortunate, because with each showing I am increasingly fasincated with this film and insist, when we get it, that we see it through. She does, however, prefer the more realistic portrayals of biblical characters and events. One of her perennial comments, when watching one that captures her interest, is, "...life was violent, back then." I think she revels in the adventure, more so now that she's in a position to reevaluate and redefine her life in terms of adventure.
Early this morning I ran errands to make sure that we could spend the day snug at home enjoying the rain (hopefully). My energy is always high on rain and snow days. Although Mom enjoys mugging her disgust for precipitation, she loves my wet-and-cloudy-day buzzes. So I'm expecting a good day. I'm curious about her blood sugar level this morning.
I just heard a second reconnaissance cough. Time to see what she's up to. I'll report her blood sugar level...
...later.
I expect her blood sugar to be high this morning. Mom snacked lightly but regularly yesterday and there was never a time when she had "fasted" long enough to properly administer an evening dose of glipizide. I decided not to take her blood sugar last night. I didn't want to know and neither did she. One dose of metformin mid-day without a glipizide chaser works well on my mother but two doesn't do a thing so I figure, considering its side effects, best not to administer it at all. I saw to it that she had the equivalent of 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon yesterday (not cinnamon oil, by the way), so, perhaps this morning will be normal. As I sniffed the air around her bed I didn't notice the unmistakable smell of excess sugar in the urine. Her normal-blood-sugar urine smell, when she hasn't been eating something else that challenges (and, sometimes, delights) her digestive system, is very mild, not completely unpleasant and probably wouldn't be unpleasant at all to me if I didn't know it was urine. It is pervasive, though light, rather like the smell in a front room from a backroom wherein incense is burned. When I'm feeling good I barely notice it. When I am feeling irritated I notice it in places that have never been exposed to her urine. She, of course, does not smell it.
I think the phenomenon of her mild urine smell may be related to an experiment conducted in one of the Northern European countries sometime in the mid to late 1990's. Someone got the idea to determine what organic odors smelled least offensive and most pleasing to a broad cross section of the population. The sweetest, most pleasant smell turned out to be the smell of underarm sweat from grandmothers. Although no reason was given, I've wondered if it could be the lack of hormones that is responsible for the sweetness. This could also explain the mild odor of elderly urine.
Rain has been promised though only lightly delivered as yet. I've already done light cleaning. We have two movies left to watch. Mom liked Runaway Jury but didn't care for A Mighty Wind. I think she might not have gotten it, although she does remember our collection of 60's folk music which included: The New Christy Minstrels; Peter, Paul and Mary; Judy Collins; Joan Baez; The Chad Mitchell Trio The Kingston Trio; Bob Dylan; Arlo Guthrie; Pete Seeger; Woody Guthrie; with a smattering of indigenous folk stuff. She remembered us singing a lot of these songs, both profound and pastiche, in the car and around the house, harmonizing then playing havoc with the lyrics, singing in pidgin, our voices approaching shriek pitch, until one or both of our parents would yell at us to quiet down. She even remembered the blues song about the cemetery we made up on a long distance trip across the U.S. during one summer vacation. She didn't, however, get the movie and complained that there wasn't enough music.
These days, I am consistently (and pleasantly) surprised by her expanding interests. I think, for instance, that she likes Sex and the City because she identifies with at least one of the women, not Charlotte. She followed Miranda closely, I noticed, until Miranda got married, then switched her attention to Carrie. She always keeps an eye on Samantha, though. We tried The L Word but were neither amused nor provoked. She expressed interest in The Passion until she realized it is a theater experience so far, so we'll wait until it's in DVD. She's decided, though, that she wants to catch up on "the Bible movies" before the DVD is released. We watched The Ten Commandments twice in one weekend about a month ago. That was a trip. She always thinks she wants to see The Last Temptation of Christ until it starts, then she gets bored, which is unfortunate, because with each showing I am increasingly fasincated with this film and insist, when we get it, that we see it through. She does, however, prefer the more realistic portrayals of biblical characters and events. One of her perennial comments, when watching one that captures her interest, is, "...life was violent, back then." I think she revels in the adventure, more so now that she's in a position to reevaluate and redefine her life in terms of adventure.
Early this morning I ran errands to make sure that we could spend the day snug at home enjoying the rain (hopefully). My energy is always high on rain and snow days. Although Mom enjoys mugging her disgust for precipitation, she loves my wet-and-cloudy-day buzzes. So I'm expecting a good day. I'm curious about her blood sugar level this morning.
I just heard a second reconnaissance cough. Time to see what she's up to. I'll report her blood sugar level...
...later.
