Monday, March 8, 2004
I forgot to mention the Cinnamon Experiment yesterday...
...although it's been continuing and I've been taking notes which I intended to post here daily but never found the time. Here's the review: I've been continuing to see to it that she gets at least 1/2 tsp cinnamon a day, usually on her toast in the morning and in her V-8 juice at lunch or dinner. Occasionally she gets an extra 1/4 tsp depending on what she's eating and how her blood sugar numbers look, although they've been looking quite good on 1/2 tsp. Using cinnamon has allowed her dose of metformin to most often come in at 1,000 mg per day, 500 mg at her morning and evening meals, although I'm having to administer an extra 500 every 3 days or so depending on how much and what she eats. Lately I've been feeding her a lot more meat than we usually eat, especially beef since that is the highest and most easily absorbed source of iron naturally available. I've been experimenting with supplements, too, trying to keep her bowel movements regular without laxatives. Except for the last few days, it seems to be working. She's been moving so much, though, over the last few days that she may be using more of the food she eats than previously.
She knows I'm adding straight cinnamon to her diet. She's mentioned, since I've been putting it in her V-8 juice, that she likes the flavor of the juice better. The second day I used it, a day I recorded here, she asked if I was using a different brand of vegetable juice and said she liked it. I purchased cinnamon sticks to use in tea but since I've purchased them we've had tea only once.
I expect that we'll be having tea more and more. Her smoking has become personally dangerous externally: Interpreted, this means that she is becoming somewhat more careless when handling cigarettes. She's singed her hair twice in the last 3 weeks and almost lit her bathrobe (thank god it is flame retardant) once. She is also dropping ashes and embers more than before and is holding her cigarettes so long that they burn down to the filter and threaten to burn her fingers.
I don't think it's the nicotine that's the attraction for her anymore but rather the activity of holding the cigarette. I believe I mentioned once before that she holds her cigarette in exactly the manner portrayed in movies produced during the late 1930's through the mid 1940's. She picked up smoking when she was in the Navy as near as I can determine and she can remember so this figures. The activity is most likely a psychological cue for her, allowing her to feel the way she felt during some of the best, most exciting years of her life. I was stunned when we watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and her cigarette behavior was portrayed exactly by the female lead.
MCS surmised that replacing her cigarette behavior might help and suggested daily, frequent Tea Times, which is a good idea although I haven't yet been able to implement these regularly because she is still working on the carton she had when I decided to initiate The Quitting Sequence. She is smoking quite a bit less than before, in part because I have also instituted a type of aversion therapy when she lights a cigarette. I hound her mercilessly to place her cigarette in the ashtray between puffs. Since a lot of her smoking occurs when we are watching programs on TV or movies, this hounding is usually accompanied by muting a show or pausing a movie. It's terribly distracting for me, but not for Mom. When she has trouble activating a lighter I tell her, "If you're too weak to work the lighter you shouldn't be smoking." This particular strategy seems to be having an ambivalent effect: Once in awhile she gives up but mostly she keeps working until she gets the lighter activated, which, in a sense, is good...the exercise is increasing the strength of her fingers. I'm hoping that, although this is a slow road, it will be a road leading to a successful destination. Although I do believe that if she wants to compromise her internal health by smoking she has that right, at the same time I have been informing her constantly, and in no uncertain terms, that her external behavior is immediately dangerous to our property and the four lives housed within. Thus, I no longer allow her to smoke when I am not in the room monitoring her. She accepts this with equanimity even when I have to leave the room while she is in the middle of a cigarette and I take it from her. I've also been talking up the specific benefits to her of not smoking: Being able to use oxygen less, not being bothered by congestion nearly as much as now, an overall improvement in all her internal health indicators. I don't know if this is working but I do know that every time I start on her she automatically extinguishes the cigarette she's smoking. None of this is causing her any irritation. I seem to be the only one exhibiting agitation when I find myself spending hours during the day monitoring her smoking in order to keep us all safe.
On my own plus side, it was brought to my attention last Friday when we visited the Valley that all the exercise I've been getting since Mom injured her back has tightened and firmed me in ways I am now beginning to appreciate. Because I decided to practice the back exercises she was unable to perform a few months ago in order to avoid the chronic back problems which seem to plague the women in our family, my back is stronger than it's been in a long time. My arms, chest and abdominals have fallen into line as well and heavy lifting and supporting Mom (which I still need to do at least a few times a day) have become a breeze. My legs don't ever tire anymore. Everyone we met on Friday commented on how toned I appeared. Our divine Mesa next door neighbor mentioned that she was surprised at my energy level. "I didn't think you could be more energetic than you were, but you are." She confirmed that the same thing happened to her when she was taking care of her husband. "I know what you mean," I responded. "I can crouch and stand, crouch and stand, either flat-footed or on toe, forever, now," an exercise I've been forced to practice every morning during my mother's 20 minute complete body wash, sometimes twice a day, depending on how much liquid she sheds during her afternoon nap (if she takes one...she's been eschewing these more often, lately). On Saturday I spent some morning time pulling dead weeds in the back of our property and was surprised to discover that I was waddling quickly from weed to weed without needing to stand. As I did some months ago, I murmured a heartfelt, psychic thanks to my mother for the opportunity her back injury has granted me to become stronger in several ways, not the least of which is physically. As one of my mother's Mesa PCP nurses said on Friday, "You never know whether a tragedy is an opportunity in disguise."
Time to get my mother moving. It's going to be a beautiful day, high in the low 70's. It will be our 3rd day of completely opening up the house until after sundown. The cats are thrilled and my mother is enjoying this home even more than before. And me? Well, as I mentioned to my mother yesterday, "Now, we'll be able to have the house open almost constantly until the end of October." We were lucky if we were able to have the house in Mesa completely open, day and night, three months out of the year.
"Wonderful," she enthused as she spied on our neighbors across the street and strained to hear their conversation through our screened windows. She's a natural voyeur and loves the variety of activity that takes place in the yards around us up here. Interestingly, despite the fact that her nostalgia for our Mesa home was activated by our brief visit there last Friday, while we were relaxing between appointments she mentioned that there wasn't "as much to see" there as here. If all goes well, our spring, summer and fall in this snug, perfectly placed home on this inviting, energizing section of earth will be one of her best Ancient years, yet.
She knows I'm adding straight cinnamon to her diet. She's mentioned, since I've been putting it in her V-8 juice, that she likes the flavor of the juice better. The second day I used it, a day I recorded here, she asked if I was using a different brand of vegetable juice and said she liked it. I purchased cinnamon sticks to use in tea but since I've purchased them we've had tea only once.
I expect that we'll be having tea more and more. Her smoking has become personally dangerous externally: Interpreted, this means that she is becoming somewhat more careless when handling cigarettes. She's singed her hair twice in the last 3 weeks and almost lit her bathrobe (thank god it is flame retardant) once. She is also dropping ashes and embers more than before and is holding her cigarettes so long that they burn down to the filter and threaten to burn her fingers.
I don't think it's the nicotine that's the attraction for her anymore but rather the activity of holding the cigarette. I believe I mentioned once before that she holds her cigarette in exactly the manner portrayed in movies produced during the late 1930's through the mid 1940's. She picked up smoking when she was in the Navy as near as I can determine and she can remember so this figures. The activity is most likely a psychological cue for her, allowing her to feel the way she felt during some of the best, most exciting years of her life. I was stunned when we watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and her cigarette behavior was portrayed exactly by the female lead.
MCS surmised that replacing her cigarette behavior might help and suggested daily, frequent Tea Times, which is a good idea although I haven't yet been able to implement these regularly because she is still working on the carton she had when I decided to initiate The Quitting Sequence. She is smoking quite a bit less than before, in part because I have also instituted a type of aversion therapy when she lights a cigarette. I hound her mercilessly to place her cigarette in the ashtray between puffs. Since a lot of her smoking occurs when we are watching programs on TV or movies, this hounding is usually accompanied by muting a show or pausing a movie. It's terribly distracting for me, but not for Mom. When she has trouble activating a lighter I tell her, "If you're too weak to work the lighter you shouldn't be smoking." This particular strategy seems to be having an ambivalent effect: Once in awhile she gives up but mostly she keeps working until she gets the lighter activated, which, in a sense, is good...the exercise is increasing the strength of her fingers. I'm hoping that, although this is a slow road, it will be a road leading to a successful destination. Although I do believe that if she wants to compromise her internal health by smoking she has that right, at the same time I have been informing her constantly, and in no uncertain terms, that her external behavior is immediately dangerous to our property and the four lives housed within. Thus, I no longer allow her to smoke when I am not in the room monitoring her. She accepts this with equanimity even when I have to leave the room while she is in the middle of a cigarette and I take it from her. I've also been talking up the specific benefits to her of not smoking: Being able to use oxygen less, not being bothered by congestion nearly as much as now, an overall improvement in all her internal health indicators. I don't know if this is working but I do know that every time I start on her she automatically extinguishes the cigarette she's smoking. None of this is causing her any irritation. I seem to be the only one exhibiting agitation when I find myself spending hours during the day monitoring her smoking in order to keep us all safe.
On my own plus side, it was brought to my attention last Friday when we visited the Valley that all the exercise I've been getting since Mom injured her back has tightened and firmed me in ways I am now beginning to appreciate. Because I decided to practice the back exercises she was unable to perform a few months ago in order to avoid the chronic back problems which seem to plague the women in our family, my back is stronger than it's been in a long time. My arms, chest and abdominals have fallen into line as well and heavy lifting and supporting Mom (which I still need to do at least a few times a day) have become a breeze. My legs don't ever tire anymore. Everyone we met on Friday commented on how toned I appeared. Our divine Mesa next door neighbor mentioned that she was surprised at my energy level. "I didn't think you could be more energetic than you were, but you are." She confirmed that the same thing happened to her when she was taking care of her husband. "I know what you mean," I responded. "I can crouch and stand, crouch and stand, either flat-footed or on toe, forever, now," an exercise I've been forced to practice every morning during my mother's 20 minute complete body wash, sometimes twice a day, depending on how much liquid she sheds during her afternoon nap (if she takes one...she's been eschewing these more often, lately). On Saturday I spent some morning time pulling dead weeds in the back of our property and was surprised to discover that I was waddling quickly from weed to weed without needing to stand. As I did some months ago, I murmured a heartfelt, psychic thanks to my mother for the opportunity her back injury has granted me to become stronger in several ways, not the least of which is physically. As one of my mother's Mesa PCP nurses said on Friday, "You never know whether a tragedy is an opportunity in disguise."
Time to get my mother moving. It's going to be a beautiful day, high in the low 70's. It will be our 3rd day of completely opening up the house until after sundown. The cats are thrilled and my mother is enjoying this home even more than before. And me? Well, as I mentioned to my mother yesterday, "Now, we'll be able to have the house open almost constantly until the end of October." We were lucky if we were able to have the house in Mesa completely open, day and night, three months out of the year.
"Wonderful," she enthused as she spied on our neighbors across the street and strained to hear their conversation through our screened windows. She's a natural voyeur and loves the variety of activity that takes place in the yards around us up here. Interestingly, despite the fact that her nostalgia for our Mesa home was activated by our brief visit there last Friday, while we were relaxing between appointments she mentioned that there wasn't "as much to see" there as here. If all goes well, our spring, summer and fall in this snug, perfectly placed home on this inviting, energizing section of earth will be one of her best Ancient years, yet.
