Friday, March 12, 2004
I just noticed (which I should have noticed immediately after publishing)...
...that the url for the blood test in the previous post was wrong. My mistake. I forgot to add "http" to the address and the publishing facility added an incorrect guess as to where the test was located. That has been corrected.
Mom is still sleeping but if last Friday/Saturday/Sunday is any indication she'll be much more energetic today. In anticipation I spent a lot of our conversational time last night talking up a shopping trip to pick up the makings for a huge, hearty chef's salad to feed our guests tomorrow evening. Last Sunday was the day she trotted the entire inside perimeter of Costco without a hitch so I'm hoping today will be similar for her.
As we've played Sorry, lately, I've been focusing on her hands as a result of viewing a short animated film on one of our recent DVD purchases: Pixar's Geri's Game. In contrast to Dürer's Praying Hands, the hands portrayed in this film, while obviously the hands of An Ancient One, are not timid, submissive hands. When I watch my mother's hands I am only peripherally reminded of Praying Hands, and then in an argumentative fashion. Although my mother does pray at night in bed, folding her hands before her, the more I notice her hands the more that famous picture becomes an overly and unpleasantly sentimentalized view of the hands of the old. I am more impressed by the lightness and sureness of her touch when she uses them in everyday activity, which is in striking contrast to their "ancient" appearance. They do not seem soft or sentimental. Rather they appear to be defiant in both their appearance and their activity. While it is true that when she is performing automatic movements to which she gives little thought she is likely to use such a light touch that she may drop what she is holding, when her determination manipulates her hands her grasp is tight and her movements are forthright. She continues to exercise a lifelong tendency, when she touches people, to touch and hold so lightly (except when she clasps me for support...sometimes, in fact, she has squeezed so hard that she hurts me) that I wonder if she thinks others will be offended that she deigned to touch them. Other than this, her hands continue to reach for and lock around life as though she is determined to hold on. I think when we allow ourselves to remain distant and unfamiliar with the old we are likely to sentimentalize them out of recognition.
Something else I've noticed within the last two weeks: The smell of her urine has become much more pungent. I was surprised at first but, in combination with her improving color and energy level, I think this is an indication that her body is again working again the way it's "supposed to". I hadn't really considered it before as, except for the period in 2000 when she was extremely incontinent due to a runaway bladder infection previous to beginning treatment for her diabetes, I'd not been in a position to be exposed to or notice the odor of her urine. Since her back injury I've become so familiar with its smell that I take quick note of it with every whiff and use it as an extra calculation of what might be going on inside her. I'm beginning to realize that the milder it smells the more likely some systemic something may be out of whack inside her.
I've also been playing with comparing the warehousing of the elderly in nursing homes and assisted living facilities to orphanages and foster homes for parentless children. As a prelude to my wonderings I'm considering why it is we are so careful to avoid alternative placement outside the primary home for our children yet are acutely inclined to consider full time elder care facilities "the right thing to do", to the point of constructing elaborate propaganda regarding how beneficial this practice is for "everyone involved". Funny how we go to extraordinary lengths to care for our children in a home of relations but are often self-righteously reluctant to make similar adjustments in our lives so our elderly can expect the accompaniment of family through their last hurrah. I know that this is not a "new" phenomenon. I have vivid, years-ago memories of Mom indicating that "when the time comes" she intended to put herself into a nursing home so she wouldn't "be a burden" to her children. This idea didn't begin with her generation in our family. Her parents expressed the same view. Despite this, my mother's sister and her family took on the care of both her parents within their home. My grandfather died a permanent resident of this household. My grandmother's care, due to advanced senility (which may or may not have been Alzheimer's; we'll never know) became so intense and detailed that she spent the last months of her life in a nursing home, most of it in a fetal position. Moving her there was probably a good idea since the medical aspect of her care was extreme and it was impossible to administer much of it in a home environment. I can remember, though, accompanying my mother on her frequent visits to the nursing home and noticing that a surprising majority of the clients appeared to simply be housed there because of a lack of family willing to adjust their lives to include their elderly. This is an issue I'm still pondering. As far as my mother's travel through The Land of the Ancients is concerned, it was, frankly, luck that she gave birth to a daughter who would be available in middle age to come to and home with her as she entered Alpine Territory. None of us planned this, nor did she. It was not a part of our generational or societal expectations. I'm heartened, though, to know that even without societal preparation many of my generation are choosing to do what I'm doing. It's not easy. Most of the societal support we get is skewed toward the corporate dollar rather than toward our parents and the peculiar needs of a household that includes the elderly. But we're doing it anyway. This speaks well of my generation. May we always be grateful that, one by one, we are deciding to care for our Ancients in our homes and choosing to directly impact their lives as well as allowing them to directly impact ours.
Reconnaissance coughing detected. Later.
Mom is still sleeping but if last Friday/Saturday/Sunday is any indication she'll be much more energetic today. In anticipation I spent a lot of our conversational time last night talking up a shopping trip to pick up the makings for a huge, hearty chef's salad to feed our guests tomorrow evening. Last Sunday was the day she trotted the entire inside perimeter of Costco without a hitch so I'm hoping today will be similar for her.
As we've played Sorry, lately, I've been focusing on her hands as a result of viewing a short animated film on one of our recent DVD purchases: Pixar's Geri's Game. In contrast to Dürer's Praying Hands, the hands portrayed in this film, while obviously the hands of An Ancient One, are not timid, submissive hands. When I watch my mother's hands I am only peripherally reminded of Praying Hands, and then in an argumentative fashion. Although my mother does pray at night in bed, folding her hands before her, the more I notice her hands the more that famous picture becomes an overly and unpleasantly sentimentalized view of the hands of the old. I am more impressed by the lightness and sureness of her touch when she uses them in everyday activity, which is in striking contrast to their "ancient" appearance. They do not seem soft or sentimental. Rather they appear to be defiant in both their appearance and their activity. While it is true that when she is performing automatic movements to which she gives little thought she is likely to use such a light touch that she may drop what she is holding, when her determination manipulates her hands her grasp is tight and her movements are forthright. She continues to exercise a lifelong tendency, when she touches people, to touch and hold so lightly (except when she clasps me for support...sometimes, in fact, she has squeezed so hard that she hurts me) that I wonder if she thinks others will be offended that she deigned to touch them. Other than this, her hands continue to reach for and lock around life as though she is determined to hold on. I think when we allow ourselves to remain distant and unfamiliar with the old we are likely to sentimentalize them out of recognition.
Something else I've noticed within the last two weeks: The smell of her urine has become much more pungent. I was surprised at first but, in combination with her improving color and energy level, I think this is an indication that her body is again working again the way it's "supposed to". I hadn't really considered it before as, except for the period in 2000 when she was extremely incontinent due to a runaway bladder infection previous to beginning treatment for her diabetes, I'd not been in a position to be exposed to or notice the odor of her urine. Since her back injury I've become so familiar with its smell that I take quick note of it with every whiff and use it as an extra calculation of what might be going on inside her. I'm beginning to realize that the milder it smells the more likely some systemic something may be out of whack inside her.
I've also been playing with comparing the warehousing of the elderly in nursing homes and assisted living facilities to orphanages and foster homes for parentless children. As a prelude to my wonderings I'm considering why it is we are so careful to avoid alternative placement outside the primary home for our children yet are acutely inclined to consider full time elder care facilities "the right thing to do", to the point of constructing elaborate propaganda regarding how beneficial this practice is for "everyone involved". Funny how we go to extraordinary lengths to care for our children in a home of relations but are often self-righteously reluctant to make similar adjustments in our lives so our elderly can expect the accompaniment of family through their last hurrah. I know that this is not a "new" phenomenon. I have vivid, years-ago memories of Mom indicating that "when the time comes" she intended to put herself into a nursing home so she wouldn't "be a burden" to her children. This idea didn't begin with her generation in our family. Her parents expressed the same view. Despite this, my mother's sister and her family took on the care of both her parents within their home. My grandfather died a permanent resident of this household. My grandmother's care, due to advanced senility (which may or may not have been Alzheimer's; we'll never know) became so intense and detailed that she spent the last months of her life in a nursing home, most of it in a fetal position. Moving her there was probably a good idea since the medical aspect of her care was extreme and it was impossible to administer much of it in a home environment. I can remember, though, accompanying my mother on her frequent visits to the nursing home and noticing that a surprising majority of the clients appeared to simply be housed there because of a lack of family willing to adjust their lives to include their elderly. This is an issue I'm still pondering. As far as my mother's travel through The Land of the Ancients is concerned, it was, frankly, luck that she gave birth to a daughter who would be available in middle age to come to and home with her as she entered Alpine Territory. None of us planned this, nor did she. It was not a part of our generational or societal expectations. I'm heartened, though, to know that even without societal preparation many of my generation are choosing to do what I'm doing. It's not easy. Most of the societal support we get is skewed toward the corporate dollar rather than toward our parents and the peculiar needs of a household that includes the elderly. But we're doing it anyway. This speaks well of my generation. May we always be grateful that, one by one, we are deciding to care for our Ancients in our homes and choosing to directly impact their lives as well as allowing them to directly impact ours.
Reconnaissance coughing detected. Later.
