Friday, March 26, 2004
She awoke, surprisingly, sometime before 1130.
When I walked into her bedroom at this time she was on her elbows sighting the room, which means she'd been rocking her way out of sleep for a good quarter hour. So we hit the ground running. We didn't go out of the house so we have much running around to do tomorrow but Mom was up all day from 1115 or so on, didn't even consider a nap and we kept busy although I can't remember everything we did. We spent four hours watching two more old movies, one neither of us had seen, Sabrina and one both of us have seen more than once but only I) remember, Mildred Pierce. She was shocked at the emotional violence in Mildred Pierce. She had a hard time remembering who Humphrey Bogart was, so out of character was his role opposite Audrey Hepburn's Sabrina.
It hit me today that Mom is balking about going "out" because she hasn't been officially out in so long that she's shy, again. It's not because she's hurting or tired from her dis-ease anymore. It's time to force it. Those days, of which I expect tomorrow to be one always contain the worst of mornings and the best of evenings. They also usually lead to a spurt of active days for her. Good, because I've been putting things off and I, which means we, need to get busy very quickly.
I think this weekend is going to be a company weekend again, including a birthday celebration. We'll both enjoy this although I am feeling a little stressed about it right now. I had plenty of advance notice, two weeks exactly, yet I seem to have frittered time away doing...something else. Jesus. Oh well.
Mom wanted ice cream tonight. What happened is that she was searching the refrigerator for "just a taste of something" this afternoon (although her eating was somewhat more regimented today) and found a six-or-more month old jar of hot chocolate fudge that we'd purchased when someone visited and requested ice cream. So I put on a pot of chili beans with some beef and lots of MPBIL's Southwestern Fire and went to the store to get ice cream, "not chocolate, something that would be good with chocolate". I also shot her full of the daily limit of metformin, 2000 mg, especially since she had an unexplained hike over 200 at "lunch". I gave her the last two 500 mg doses during dinner and during the ice cream. Her pre-dinner reading was eighty-something which is excellent. I'm not too worried. Luckily, her glipizide doses were able to be administered correctly in terms of time and food. I would love to be able to skip forward to morning to see what her blood sugar is going to be.
I've been preparing her all day for a busy tomorrow out. She seems up for it. Perhaps by staying in and staying up she put herself in training for it.
I jokingly called her "Old Woman" today, knowing it would get a rise out of her. It did. Today her reaction allowed me to see that she is back to believing that "old woman" is not, yet, a reality for her.
I'm having to be careful about making sure I separate those lotions and scents I love from those I use with my mother. I've lost the ability to enjoy anything with a Ginger/Lemon combination, a very light scent that was kind of ethereal, and a rose lotion that I absolutely adored and used one morning on her just because I love it so much and I knew she'd love it. She peed all over herself right after I put the lotion on her.I lost my nose for that lotion as I cleaned her off that day. The Ginger/Lemon scent was spoiled for me when I was assaulted with it mixed with shit during her accidental colonic previous to the colonoscopy: The emetic we used was Ginger/Lemon. Sometimes within a particular scent there is a range of scents and mixes so that if there is something she and I both love, say, lavender, I can find one to keep for me and one to use on her, both of which differ significantly from one another. I prefer an English and French lavender and she prefers a strong, essential lavender. I'm happy to let her have all the peaches, most of the fruits and the florals except for gardenia, which is a problem because she loves gardenia and introduced me to it. We haven't yet crossed the honeysuckle bridge; that one may create a problem. There is one brand lotion, a mixture of scents, that is so strong and signifies on each of our bodies so differently that she can defecate through it and I still like it and want to wear it. There was one recently, though, to which my Chandler niece introduced me that I will not let within a 20 foot radius of my mother. I feel the same way about sandalwood and, to a lesser extent, patchouli. I work hard at preserving these distinctions for two reasons: Secondarily, I am too used to asserting my own identity not to; primarily, after my mother dies I do not want my nasal memory to be conjuring up the smell of her eliminations with everything I own and love. Perhaps if she were my child I would feel differently, but she is my parent and I had a large hand in shaping my identity before I came to live with her. I'm grateful to know her so intensely. I also know that if I not as present as possible in this adventure its ability to enrich my life would be diminished by as much as I back off.
Later. Unless I think of something else before I go to bed.
It hit me today that Mom is balking about going "out" because she hasn't been officially out in so long that she's shy, again. It's not because she's hurting or tired from her dis-ease anymore. It's time to force it. Those days, of which I expect tomorrow to be one always contain the worst of mornings and the best of evenings. They also usually lead to a spurt of active days for her. Good, because I've been putting things off and I, which means we, need to get busy very quickly.
I think this weekend is going to be a company weekend again, including a birthday celebration. We'll both enjoy this although I am feeling a little stressed about it right now. I had plenty of advance notice, two weeks exactly, yet I seem to have frittered time away doing...something else. Jesus. Oh well.
Mom wanted ice cream tonight. What happened is that she was searching the refrigerator for "just a taste of something" this afternoon (although her eating was somewhat more regimented today) and found a six-or-more month old jar of hot chocolate fudge that we'd purchased when someone visited and requested ice cream. So I put on a pot of chili beans with some beef and lots of MPBIL's Southwestern Fire and went to the store to get ice cream, "not chocolate, something that would be good with chocolate". I also shot her full of the daily limit of metformin, 2000 mg, especially since she had an unexplained hike over 200 at "lunch". I gave her the last two 500 mg doses during dinner and during the ice cream. Her pre-dinner reading was eighty-something which is excellent. I'm not too worried. Luckily, her glipizide doses were able to be administered correctly in terms of time and food. I would love to be able to skip forward to morning to see what her blood sugar is going to be.
I've been preparing her all day for a busy tomorrow out. She seems up for it. Perhaps by staying in and staying up she put herself in training for it.
I jokingly called her "Old Woman" today, knowing it would get a rise out of her. It did. Today her reaction allowed me to see that she is back to believing that "old woman" is not, yet, a reality for her.
I'm having to be careful about making sure I separate those lotions and scents I love from those I use with my mother. I've lost the ability to enjoy anything with a Ginger/Lemon combination, a very light scent that was kind of ethereal, and a rose lotion that I absolutely adored and used one morning on her just because I love it so much and I knew she'd love it. She peed all over herself right after I put the lotion on her.I lost my nose for that lotion as I cleaned her off that day. The Ginger/Lemon scent was spoiled for me when I was assaulted with it mixed with shit during her accidental colonic previous to the colonoscopy: The emetic we used was Ginger/Lemon. Sometimes within a particular scent there is a range of scents and mixes so that if there is something she and I both love, say, lavender, I can find one to keep for me and one to use on her, both of which differ significantly from one another. I prefer an English and French lavender and she prefers a strong, essential lavender. I'm happy to let her have all the peaches, most of the fruits and the florals except for gardenia, which is a problem because she loves gardenia and introduced me to it. We haven't yet crossed the honeysuckle bridge; that one may create a problem. There is one brand lotion, a mixture of scents, that is so strong and signifies on each of our bodies so differently that she can defecate through it and I still like it and want to wear it. There was one recently, though, to which my Chandler niece introduced me that I will not let within a 20 foot radius of my mother. I feel the same way about sandalwood and, to a lesser extent, patchouli. I work hard at preserving these distinctions for two reasons: Secondarily, I am too used to asserting my own identity not to; primarily, after my mother dies I do not want my nasal memory to be conjuring up the smell of her eliminations with everything I own and love. Perhaps if she were my child I would feel differently, but she is my parent and I had a large hand in shaping my identity before I came to live with her. I'm grateful to know her so intensely. I also know that if I not as present as possible in this adventure its ability to enrich my life would be diminished by as much as I back off.
Later. Unless I think of something else before I go to bed.
