Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Cigarettes as Medicine: Part 2
It didn't occur to me until just now as I set my mother up in the bathroom with a cigarette to stimulate a timely bowel movement in lieu of an accident while we're out, but the procedure I described yesterday is yet another example of using cigarettes as medicine with my mother.
I don't think this would work if her cigarette consumption wasn't drastically less than it used to be. My mother was the type of smoker who would smoke everywhere, including the bathroom and during meals. She'd be very comfortable in France. The only place or activity in which I've never seen her smoke is when she was walking for exercise (although I've seen her stroll for pleasure with a cigarette) or mowing one of the many lawns that have been under our family's care. I've even seen her smoke in bed, although soon after I moved in with her I stopped that.
At any rate, since I am noting, with pleasure, that the bowel movement stimulation strategy I started yesterday seems to be a strategy upon which I can count (even though using smoking to raise her blood pressure when she was tumbling into severe anemia didn't work) and that using cigarettes as a laxative is much more reliable, from the perspective of being able to time bowel movements, than using other laxatives, if you are taking care of a recalcitrant smoker whose consumption you've managed to diminish but you know you'll never stop, consider thinking of the positive duties a cigarette can perform as medicine. Doing this also heightens my mother's spirit and undergirds her sense of personal dignity, as she tends to think she's "getting away with something" when she's smoking in the bathroom.
Time to check on her cleansing progress and get her ready to venture out into the world.
Later.
I don't think this would work if her cigarette consumption wasn't drastically less than it used to be. My mother was the type of smoker who would smoke everywhere, including the bathroom and during meals. She'd be very comfortable in France. The only place or activity in which I've never seen her smoke is when she was walking for exercise (although I've seen her stroll for pleasure with a cigarette) or mowing one of the many lawns that have been under our family's care. I've even seen her smoke in bed, although soon after I moved in with her I stopped that.
At any rate, since I am noting, with pleasure, that the bowel movement stimulation strategy I started yesterday seems to be a strategy upon which I can count (even though using smoking to raise her blood pressure when she was tumbling into severe anemia didn't work) and that using cigarettes as a laxative is much more reliable, from the perspective of being able to time bowel movements, than using other laxatives, if you are taking care of a recalcitrant smoker whose consumption you've managed to diminish but you know you'll never stop, consider thinking of the positive duties a cigarette can perform as medicine. Doing this also heightens my mother's spirit and undergirds her sense of personal dignity, as she tends to think she's "getting away with something" when she's smoking in the bathroom.
Time to check on her cleansing progress and get her ready to venture out into the world.
Later.
