Friday, February 20, 2004
Cinnamon Steak
In line with my decisions regarding my mother's anemia, aside from giving her 45 ml of Floradix (a total of 45 mg of elemental iron from ferrous gluconate) a day I have, of course, been making sure my mother's diet includes lots of foods containing iron. Since my mother is a happy carnivore this has meant more meat than we used to eat. Yesterday I decided, faced with a sale that worked out to 2 bone in beef rib-eyes for the price of one, I served her tender, marinated (in Worcestershire garlic and cracked black pepper) grilled steak. The cuts were hefty. Normally she and I will share a cut the size of the smallest I could find (13.6 ounces). Yesterday though, as I hung over the meat counter looking for a steak that was lean on the sides and marbled in the middle it occurred to me that this time, considering her body's need for iron and the blood test indications that her body is becoming not only active but vocal on behalf of its drive toward health, I decided not to determine from past experience how much she might eat but give her a full steak and let her have at it to her stomach's content. I was sure this would mean we'd have meat left over in a portion equal to what each of us had eaten but I figured we could make an improvisational beef stroganoff with the left overs. She likes my surprise stroganoffs.
I served the steak with tantalizingly quick-pickled beets and artisan bread chunks oven toasted with garlic butter and freshly grated Parmesan. Because her sweet tooth has been screaming lately, a change of tune, actually, except for the chocolate on Valentine's Day (which initiated a 2.5 day bowel self-cleansing) and she's been talking cake I meandered through the gourmet desserts aisle and selected a small, decadent "Chocolate Confusion" cake filled with Bavarian cream.
She slept a fair amount yesterday although each time she arose she seemed progressively perkier. Good. She must be needing the rest. She's been fairly sedentary lately, although she's getting around the house very well and only remembers her back in the late evening when she throws herself down on her bed. I'm trying to break her of this but she does it anyway. Every time she does this her back grabs in protest.
Her appetite has been a bit fey lately so I assumed that, despite her unusually enthusiastic reception of my recital of the dinner menu, even at her hungriest, because she hasn't moved much in the last two days, she'd probably eat a bit less than half of what I served but I'd serve it anyway just in case. I'll be damned if she didn't clean her plate. She didn't even stop to slather the steak, done perfectly to her preference, with A-1 sauce and/or ketchup. She ate all her beets and asked for more so I gave her what I had left on my plate. She polished off a hunk of garlic cheese bread. Her last masticatory act was to gnaw every last bit of flavor off the side bone from her steak.
I didn't serve the cake. We both ate so much meat that the cake didn't even sound good. No matter. My mother's sweet tooth will scream again this evening and we'll plan dinner around dessert. I'm not concerned about the possible purgative effect of the chocolate in the cake. My mother prefers her chocolate in candy, the richer the better. She's been known to polish off blocks of German baking chocolate before she gets to the part of the recipe that calls for the chocolate she ate. A few years ago some well meaning friends decided to introduce her to sugar free (but not refined carbohydrate free) candy. She ate so much of it over the holiday that it raised her blood sugar. She's famous for that one. At one time her body handled what was a daily deluge while she rationalized her consumption of chocolate by telling about an aunt who swore that her good health was due to chocolate, at least a pound a day. No more, though. She's doing okay without it I think, despite the fact that she used to refer to her daily bag of Hershey's Almond Kisses (in the gold tin wrap) as her "vitamins". As well, meagerly administered, it is the best natural purgative I've found in which she'll willingly indulge.
It was a delight for me to behold her gusto over dinner. She surprised not only me but herself. As she ate she commented, bite after bite, how good everything tasted. How "exactly right" the selection was. "I guess I needed this," she said a few times. Her lack of attention to condiments told me that her appreciation was coming from a deep cellular hunger, not a superficial (and, sometimes, at her age, annoyingly supercilious) tastebud hunger.
She remained awake through the weather part of the 2200 news last night. She'd arisen from a 2.5 hour nap a little after 1800 and we were eating before 1900, as she'd earlier nodded off during the time when she normally would have eaten lunch, having arisen at 1000 and eaten a lackadaisical breakfast around 1100. Her blood sugar was 68 (low normal) upon arising in the evening although I'd forgotten to take it in the morning before giving her glipizide. As per her Mesa PCP's and my observations, we don't worry about her blood sugar until it dips closer to 60. At any rate, I prefer to manage my mother's blood sugar from the high end, controlling for upward rather than downward spikes. My mother's vitality is shaky on a good day anymore (although her spirit usually disallows her from realizing this, which is good) and I'd rather work her down from speedy rather than up from lethargic.
I've been having very tender feelings toward my mother lately, specifically from the day of our appointment trip to Mesa, Tuesday of this week. She is such a cheerful trooper. I mean this in a good and personal way. I believe the military was like the nunnery for my mother. She was convicted to be there. If she'd been born just a little later she could have stayed in not only through pregnancy but single or married motherhood if she chose and she probably would have chosen this. Her entire attitude toward life is not so much military as it is strategic. Although she'd been moving very little for a few days previous to our visit, during the visit she walked a lot, took it well, was not even interested in using the wheelchair as a walker. She ate well, enjoyed herself, was alert, never took a nap, never even dozed. She retired early, about 2130 that night. She had arisen at 0500 without complaint. The day following our trip she was "on end" (which is to say, her rear end) for most of the day. She took a two hour nap. Yesterday, she was extremely tired. Although she assented while eating breakfast to the idea of a driveway therapy walk, it was cold and windy and she was obviously tired. She ultimately refused the opportunity. I worried for a moment but I find that if I trust her somatic sense and keep a close eye on her, her days, whatever their character, work for her.
I've had so many opportunities to observe this within the last few days. I can only admire her stamina and good disposition. She does not like being old, as I recently told a friend. Despite the fact that there have been a few times in the last three years when I've thought my mother was finally feeling her mortality, the truth is that even at her worst my mother thinks she is somehow going to get out of old age in some way other than by dying out of it. The first time I realized this, a few weeks ago, my immediate audio/visual image was of my mother using one of her favorite allusions to the life and "death" of Methuselah. It was through her that I learned, so early that I cannot remember the initial lesson, of the lives of men of the Abrahamic God who did not die but were absorbed into their God. It never occurred to me, as her youngster, that these stories may have been her favorites because this is how she intends to leave the earth. As well, I didn't, until my middle and her late adulthood, understand that her delight in and curiosity about being alive as well as her willing spirit to try anything (well, in my mother's case, almost anything and much of that well into her "elderly" phase) are her trademarks. Another trademark is her willingness to trust her sense of what is right and wrong for her and discard anything that gets in her way, including prescribed medications.
Speaking of which, the reference to cinnamon. A few weeks ago I ran across a reference in a book nestled in the bookshelf of the acupuncturist's office that mentioned cinnamon as a regulator of cellular insulin sensitivity for all bodies that could be a valuable treatment for type 2 diabetics. Last night I searched cinnamon/insulin and came up with some interesting research. One article recommended 1/2 teaspoon per day for diabetics and non-diabetics alike. Since I'd heard about this I've been sprinkling our toast with pure cinnamon every morning. One article, which I'm pleased to advertise here, suggested using cinnamon sticks in tea. I discussed and read parts of the article with my mother last night. She was intrigued. Not being absolutely sure of my mother's taste for cinnamon (although noting her long ago preference for Dentyne gum), I thought it best to run the idea of including cinnamon in our diet, at least half a teaspoon a day, by her. I suggested not only cinnamon on toast but in juice if appropriate (somehow I think it would ruin pure orange juice) and in our hot liquids, primarily her and my coffee and tea. She was enthusiastic. Today if I get a chance certainly no later than tomorrow, I'll be looking for bulk cinnamon sticks. I'm hoping I'll be able to reduce at least her metformin intake. I continue to consider it suspect in her bouts with anemia.
I followed the cinnamon/insulin search with what turned out to be an awkwardly worded search for information on the dynamics of cinnamon with typical type 2 diabetic medications but so far have found none. I expect my failure has to do with my clumsy search terms.
I can't help but remember that despite her ruddiness she seemed underlined in white on Tuesday in Mesa. She doesn't seem so now and I'm not sure if the difference might be in the angle, intensity and lack of atmospheric filtering of the light here or if since Tuesday she's regained the peach undertone that signals a return to iron sufficiency. Her appetite for red meat last night, lots of it, allayed most of my concerns.
I continue a close vigil. I expect to continue this vigil through the rest of her life. I know that at some point her lack of ability to imagine her own death will make no difference. I think I'll notice this when the time comes. In the meantime I watch, I take note, I tell her the truth about everything, I include her in decisions even when her mentality is more creative than normal and I use what I know and what I see to tilt her in favor of her robust spirit.
Often, while reviewing what I know and what I see in my active vigil over my mother's life, I think about the "value" of protecting Ancient Ones, extending their lives, working to enhance the quality of their lives. I'm familiar with the vague apologias about "wisdom" and "valuable contrasts that prove the rule". I also know that Ancient Ones as a large scale segment of the population is a relatively new human phenomenon. We don't quite know what to do with our elderly nor what to expect from them. We often don't know why we are keeping them alive except for vague personal reasons that sometimes have less than felicitous nativities. I have difficulty forming, let alone lingualizing, any reason to do what I'm doing: Preserving the life of one who is so "elderly, frail and physically weak" that if she had been left to handle her life herself she would be long ago dead. It would have been an easy death because she doesn't know death and she loves sleep. She would have gone into it with her eyes blissfully closed but a myriad of things would have done her in years ago if she'd been living alone: Her dehydration, her lack of appetite awareness except under extraordinary circumstances, her belief that "nothing is new under the sun" including ways to treat dis-ease due to age, etc. I sometimes have flashes of her death mask under these circumstances. I think it would have been, well, expressionless. This death will not happen to her now and I'm glad it won't. I could not countenance anything but the diligent attention it takes to allow her life and her love of life to continue as long as she choses. I can't tell you why I know that what I'm doing with her is a good thing but I know it is. As well, to quote Elton John, it truly is "no sacrifice".
Last Wednesday I took my mother's acupuncture appointment. Both the acupuncturist and I felt that Mom could handle a week or two without treatment and I need to have my thumbs addressed. During the history taking segment of the appointment, which was quite informal between the acupuncturist and me, she acknowledged my care of my mother, especially the intensity, and launched a direct probe: "It must be hard."
Hmmm...now that I'm thinking about it, I guess it depends on how you define "hard". That's exactly what I said. I continued, telling her that I considered that I was actually in an enviable position as a nurturer. I briefly related how I had decided early to eschew all nurturing behavior with which I was uncomfortable including becoming a wife/significant sexual other, a mother or a roommate, for that matter. I lived like this by choice and with much enthusiasm and satisfaction for decades. I was proud of the fact that I had not been able to tolerate same place living arrangements with a long-time lover. By the time I got to the point in my life where one-on-one nurturing was asked of me by my mother there was no danger of me losing the opportunity to "know" or "be" myself, to feel cheated by whatever nurturing my mother required of me. I considered the danger that I might not be up to it. I discussed this with my mother prior to agreeing to come live with her. As it turns out, it is precisely my independence and sense of self that has allowed the arrangement to work for both of us. "And," I added, "besides, this way I don't worry about her."
The acupuncturist was patting down the treatment table and confirmed me with a heartfelt grunt.
Almost everyone, I thought, has an elderly parent. Everyone knows what I mean. I'm lucky to be able to do this. Even, and maybe especially, in my weaknesses I am lucky. So is my mother. We are both lucky that I didn't start out life as the nurturing type, didn't even pretend to it. When serious nurturing was asked of me I wasn't burnt out from decades of nurturing others and neglecting myself. Both my mother and I were blessed by her perspicacious ability to determine that she needed a companion while she was still negotiating her life independently. This allowed both of us the chance to get used to each other before we had to get used to how old age was planning on overtaking my mother. She, as well, had reveled in her independence after my father had died. So had all her daughters. It was not easy, I think, for her to ask for companionship but, lucky for her, who better to ask than her obnoxiously independent daughter?
I'm often the victim of extemporaneous speeches regarding the virtues of "taking care of oneself" so one can "take care of others". Except for one subtle instance, I invariably hear this from women who have spent their lives nurturing. I even got the "mothers are cautioned in airplanes, in case of emergency, to secure their own oxygen mask before their children's" speech. I am often not quick enough on my feet to counter so I usually let a chance at response go. These people, the women, anyway, are always well meaning (the man, interestingly, was not) but I have to remind myself that they speak from lives devoted to nurturing often taken on without thought, facing exactly what I'm doing but from the perspective of one who is tired of doing it. Their need to take care of themselves, to nurture themselves (actually, to be nurtured, but often this is out of the question) is so much and has been so long a part of their lives it doesn't seem like a hunger anymore. I agree, they need to first put the oxygen on themselves. I'm not sure whether I've just always been wearing oxygen or whether I developed my independent lung capacity early and securely enough so that I am not at this time in need of emergency oxygen. I do believe there is a potent connection between my ability to immerse myself in my mother's care with little complaint and without debilitation and my previous years of immersing myself in my own care.
It's in the way I massage my mother's legs in the evening. It's in the way I wash her as we sink bathe her in the morning. I don't just intellectualize what would feel good to her, what her body might need in the way of touch. I take advantage of somatic thought. I contact my toes, ask them what they sense from my mother's and apply massage until my toes tell me her toes feel better. I do the same up and down her legs. Sometimes I am so intensely involved that I get shiver chills as my mother does. By somatically thinking about how to massage her as my hands work her extremities I perform a subtle massage on myself from the inside out. I find that the more I approach every activity involved in nurturing my mother from this perspective, the more likely I am to be revived by what I do for her, including the extremely intense activity of vigiling.
I'm not saying that women shouldn't be nurturers early in their lives. Some many of us must choose to be nurturers early as well as later. Like that young man at the Sharing Wisdom Caregiver's Conference said, "If you're not taking care of someone, you're not alive." I'm just saying...things that make you go "hmmmm"...
Later.
I served the steak with tantalizingly quick-pickled beets and artisan bread chunks oven toasted with garlic butter and freshly grated Parmesan. Because her sweet tooth has been screaming lately, a change of tune, actually, except for the chocolate on Valentine's Day (which initiated a 2.5 day bowel self-cleansing) and she's been talking cake I meandered through the gourmet desserts aisle and selected a small, decadent "Chocolate Confusion" cake filled with Bavarian cream.
She slept a fair amount yesterday although each time she arose she seemed progressively perkier. Good. She must be needing the rest. She's been fairly sedentary lately, although she's getting around the house very well and only remembers her back in the late evening when she throws herself down on her bed. I'm trying to break her of this but she does it anyway. Every time she does this her back grabs in protest.
Her appetite has been a bit fey lately so I assumed that, despite her unusually enthusiastic reception of my recital of the dinner menu, even at her hungriest, because she hasn't moved much in the last two days, she'd probably eat a bit less than half of what I served but I'd serve it anyway just in case. I'll be damned if she didn't clean her plate. She didn't even stop to slather the steak, done perfectly to her preference, with A-1 sauce and/or ketchup. She ate all her beets and asked for more so I gave her what I had left on my plate. She polished off a hunk of garlic cheese bread. Her last masticatory act was to gnaw every last bit of flavor off the side bone from her steak.
I didn't serve the cake. We both ate so much meat that the cake didn't even sound good. No matter. My mother's sweet tooth will scream again this evening and we'll plan dinner around dessert. I'm not concerned about the possible purgative effect of the chocolate in the cake. My mother prefers her chocolate in candy, the richer the better. She's been known to polish off blocks of German baking chocolate before she gets to the part of the recipe that calls for the chocolate she ate. A few years ago some well meaning friends decided to introduce her to sugar free (but not refined carbohydrate free) candy. She ate so much of it over the holiday that it raised her blood sugar. She's famous for that one. At one time her body handled what was a daily deluge while she rationalized her consumption of chocolate by telling about an aunt who swore that her good health was due to chocolate, at least a pound a day. No more, though. She's doing okay without it I think, despite the fact that she used to refer to her daily bag of Hershey's Almond Kisses (in the gold tin wrap) as her "vitamins". As well, meagerly administered, it is the best natural purgative I've found in which she'll willingly indulge.
It was a delight for me to behold her gusto over dinner. She surprised not only me but herself. As she ate she commented, bite after bite, how good everything tasted. How "exactly right" the selection was. "I guess I needed this," she said a few times. Her lack of attention to condiments told me that her appreciation was coming from a deep cellular hunger, not a superficial (and, sometimes, at her age, annoyingly supercilious) tastebud hunger.
She remained awake through the weather part of the 2200 news last night. She'd arisen from a 2.5 hour nap a little after 1800 and we were eating before 1900, as she'd earlier nodded off during the time when she normally would have eaten lunch, having arisen at 1000 and eaten a lackadaisical breakfast around 1100. Her blood sugar was 68 (low normal) upon arising in the evening although I'd forgotten to take it in the morning before giving her glipizide. As per her Mesa PCP's and my observations, we don't worry about her blood sugar until it dips closer to 60. At any rate, I prefer to manage my mother's blood sugar from the high end, controlling for upward rather than downward spikes. My mother's vitality is shaky on a good day anymore (although her spirit usually disallows her from realizing this, which is good) and I'd rather work her down from speedy rather than up from lethargic.
I've been having very tender feelings toward my mother lately, specifically from the day of our appointment trip to Mesa, Tuesday of this week. She is such a cheerful trooper. I mean this in a good and personal way. I believe the military was like the nunnery for my mother. She was convicted to be there. If she'd been born just a little later she could have stayed in not only through pregnancy but single or married motherhood if she chose and she probably would have chosen this. Her entire attitude toward life is not so much military as it is strategic. Although she'd been moving very little for a few days previous to our visit, during the visit she walked a lot, took it well, was not even interested in using the wheelchair as a walker. She ate well, enjoyed herself, was alert, never took a nap, never even dozed. She retired early, about 2130 that night. She had arisen at 0500 without complaint. The day following our trip she was "on end" (which is to say, her rear end) for most of the day. She took a two hour nap. Yesterday, she was extremely tired. Although she assented while eating breakfast to the idea of a driveway therapy walk, it was cold and windy and she was obviously tired. She ultimately refused the opportunity. I worried for a moment but I find that if I trust her somatic sense and keep a close eye on her, her days, whatever their character, work for her.
I've had so many opportunities to observe this within the last few days. I can only admire her stamina and good disposition. She does not like being old, as I recently told a friend. Despite the fact that there have been a few times in the last three years when I've thought my mother was finally feeling her mortality, the truth is that even at her worst my mother thinks she is somehow going to get out of old age in some way other than by dying out of it. The first time I realized this, a few weeks ago, my immediate audio/visual image was of my mother using one of her favorite allusions to the life and "death" of Methuselah. It was through her that I learned, so early that I cannot remember the initial lesson, of the lives of men of the Abrahamic God who did not die but were absorbed into their God. It never occurred to me, as her youngster, that these stories may have been her favorites because this is how she intends to leave the earth. As well, I didn't, until my middle and her late adulthood, understand that her delight in and curiosity about being alive as well as her willing spirit to try anything (well, in my mother's case, almost anything and much of that well into her "elderly" phase) are her trademarks. Another trademark is her willingness to trust her sense of what is right and wrong for her and discard anything that gets in her way, including prescribed medications.
Speaking of which, the reference to cinnamon. A few weeks ago I ran across a reference in a book nestled in the bookshelf of the acupuncturist's office that mentioned cinnamon as a regulator of cellular insulin sensitivity for all bodies that could be a valuable treatment for type 2 diabetics. Last night I searched cinnamon/insulin and came up with some interesting research. One article recommended 1/2 teaspoon per day for diabetics and non-diabetics alike. Since I'd heard about this I've been sprinkling our toast with pure cinnamon every morning. One article, which I'm pleased to advertise here, suggested using cinnamon sticks in tea. I discussed and read parts of the article with my mother last night. She was intrigued. Not being absolutely sure of my mother's taste for cinnamon (although noting her long ago preference for Dentyne gum), I thought it best to run the idea of including cinnamon in our diet, at least half a teaspoon a day, by her. I suggested not only cinnamon on toast but in juice if appropriate (somehow I think it would ruin pure orange juice) and in our hot liquids, primarily her and my coffee and tea. She was enthusiastic. Today if I get a chance certainly no later than tomorrow, I'll be looking for bulk cinnamon sticks. I'm hoping I'll be able to reduce at least her metformin intake. I continue to consider it suspect in her bouts with anemia.
I followed the cinnamon/insulin search with what turned out to be an awkwardly worded search for information on the dynamics of cinnamon with typical type 2 diabetic medications but so far have found none. I expect my failure has to do with my clumsy search terms.
I can't help but remember that despite her ruddiness she seemed underlined in white on Tuesday in Mesa. She doesn't seem so now and I'm not sure if the difference might be in the angle, intensity and lack of atmospheric filtering of the light here or if since Tuesday she's regained the peach undertone that signals a return to iron sufficiency. Her appetite for red meat last night, lots of it, allayed most of my concerns.
I continue a close vigil. I expect to continue this vigil through the rest of her life. I know that at some point her lack of ability to imagine her own death will make no difference. I think I'll notice this when the time comes. In the meantime I watch, I take note, I tell her the truth about everything, I include her in decisions even when her mentality is more creative than normal and I use what I know and what I see to tilt her in favor of her robust spirit.
Often, while reviewing what I know and what I see in my active vigil over my mother's life, I think about the "value" of protecting Ancient Ones, extending their lives, working to enhance the quality of their lives. I'm familiar with the vague apologias about "wisdom" and "valuable contrasts that prove the rule". I also know that Ancient Ones as a large scale segment of the population is a relatively new human phenomenon. We don't quite know what to do with our elderly nor what to expect from them. We often don't know why we are keeping them alive except for vague personal reasons that sometimes have less than felicitous nativities. I have difficulty forming, let alone lingualizing, any reason to do what I'm doing: Preserving the life of one who is so "elderly, frail and physically weak" that if she had been left to handle her life herself she would be long ago dead. It would have been an easy death because she doesn't know death and she loves sleep. She would have gone into it with her eyes blissfully closed but a myriad of things would have done her in years ago if she'd been living alone: Her dehydration, her lack of appetite awareness except under extraordinary circumstances, her belief that "nothing is new under the sun" including ways to treat dis-ease due to age, etc. I sometimes have flashes of her death mask under these circumstances. I think it would have been, well, expressionless. This death will not happen to her now and I'm glad it won't. I could not countenance anything but the diligent attention it takes to allow her life and her love of life to continue as long as she choses. I can't tell you why I know that what I'm doing with her is a good thing but I know it is. As well, to quote Elton John, it truly is "no sacrifice".
Last Wednesday I took my mother's acupuncture appointment. Both the acupuncturist and I felt that Mom could handle a week or two without treatment and I need to have my thumbs addressed. During the history taking segment of the appointment, which was quite informal between the acupuncturist and me, she acknowledged my care of my mother, especially the intensity, and launched a direct probe: "It must be hard."
Hmmm...now that I'm thinking about it, I guess it depends on how you define "hard". That's exactly what I said. I continued, telling her that I considered that I was actually in an enviable position as a nurturer. I briefly related how I had decided early to eschew all nurturing behavior with which I was uncomfortable including becoming a wife/significant sexual other, a mother or a roommate, for that matter. I lived like this by choice and with much enthusiasm and satisfaction for decades. I was proud of the fact that I had not been able to tolerate same place living arrangements with a long-time lover. By the time I got to the point in my life where one-on-one nurturing was asked of me by my mother there was no danger of me losing the opportunity to "know" or "be" myself, to feel cheated by whatever nurturing my mother required of me. I considered the danger that I might not be up to it. I discussed this with my mother prior to agreeing to come live with her. As it turns out, it is precisely my independence and sense of self that has allowed the arrangement to work for both of us. "And," I added, "besides, this way I don't worry about her."
The acupuncturist was patting down the treatment table and confirmed me with a heartfelt grunt.
Almost everyone, I thought, has an elderly parent. Everyone knows what I mean. I'm lucky to be able to do this. Even, and maybe especially, in my weaknesses I am lucky. So is my mother. We are both lucky that I didn't start out life as the nurturing type, didn't even pretend to it. When serious nurturing was asked of me I wasn't burnt out from decades of nurturing others and neglecting myself. Both my mother and I were blessed by her perspicacious ability to determine that she needed a companion while she was still negotiating her life independently. This allowed both of us the chance to get used to each other before we had to get used to how old age was planning on overtaking my mother. She, as well, had reveled in her independence after my father had died. So had all her daughters. It was not easy, I think, for her to ask for companionship but, lucky for her, who better to ask than her obnoxiously independent daughter?
I'm often the victim of extemporaneous speeches regarding the virtues of "taking care of oneself" so one can "take care of others". Except for one subtle instance, I invariably hear this from women who have spent their lives nurturing. I even got the "mothers are cautioned in airplanes, in case of emergency, to secure their own oxygen mask before their children's" speech. I am often not quick enough on my feet to counter so I usually let a chance at response go. These people, the women, anyway, are always well meaning (the man, interestingly, was not) but I have to remind myself that they speak from lives devoted to nurturing often taken on without thought, facing exactly what I'm doing but from the perspective of one who is tired of doing it. Their need to take care of themselves, to nurture themselves (actually, to be nurtured, but often this is out of the question) is so much and has been so long a part of their lives it doesn't seem like a hunger anymore. I agree, they need to first put the oxygen on themselves. I'm not sure whether I've just always been wearing oxygen or whether I developed my independent lung capacity early and securely enough so that I am not at this time in need of emergency oxygen. I do believe there is a potent connection between my ability to immerse myself in my mother's care with little complaint and without debilitation and my previous years of immersing myself in my own care.
It's in the way I massage my mother's legs in the evening. It's in the way I wash her as we sink bathe her in the morning. I don't just intellectualize what would feel good to her, what her body might need in the way of touch. I take advantage of somatic thought. I contact my toes, ask them what they sense from my mother's and apply massage until my toes tell me her toes feel better. I do the same up and down her legs. Sometimes I am so intensely involved that I get shiver chills as my mother does. By somatically thinking about how to massage her as my hands work her extremities I perform a subtle massage on myself from the inside out. I find that the more I approach every activity involved in nurturing my mother from this perspective, the more likely I am to be revived by what I do for her, including the extremely intense activity of vigiling.
I'm not saying that women shouldn't be nurturers early in their lives. Some many of us must choose to be nurturers early as well as later. Like that young man at the Sharing Wisdom Caregiver's Conference said, "If you're not taking care of someone, you're not alive." I'm just saying...things that make you go "hmmmm"...
Later.
