Wednesday, July 7, 2004
The Firebug Incident
On Independence Day Mom and I spent the day watching a variety of movies on TV, the most spectacular and memorable of which was Yankee Doodle Dandy, a movie neither of us had yet seen, which played in the late afternoon. Mom's energy was low that day although she stayed up throughout without feeling the need to take a nap. She was on oxygen all day, never rummaging for cigarettes, never mentioning them, so I never brought them up.
Soon after the start of the movie I sprawled on the floor next to my mother's rocker, glued to the set, studying Cagney's surprisingly light-as-helium dancing and strong singing. Somewhere in the middle of the movie I smelled smoke. Knowing that there were no cigarettes or smoking paraphernalia around my mother I looked back and noticed her lighting a crumpled Kleenex with a lighter, one she had stowed, unbeknownst to me, in her nail care bag which she keeps on the coffee table next to her rocker.
I grabbed the Kleenex out of her hand, rushed it to the sink, nearly setting the house on fire, doused it and returned to the living room. I scolded her for lighting the Kleenex for all the reasons I could think of, all having to do with endangering the safety of our lives and our property, which she received with the insolence of one who is sure of what she was doing. I was beside myself, wondering why we were, once again, experiencing her firebug tendencies. Although she'd been in what I considered a bit of a fog all day, her blood sugar was not high, her color looked better than fair and her blood pressure was in the low area of her normal range but not unusually low. I remembered that I had e'd MFASRF about the first firebug incident. Hoping that this was one of the bits of e's I'd clipped and entered somewhere into the online history of our sojourn together, I ran a quick search and there it was The Peculiar Light of Inspiration.
I also consulted a blood test taken 2 weeks after the aforementioned incident which indicated that all Mom was suffering from, physically, was high blood sugar. After reading the entire description and taking into consideration Mom's physical state then and now I realized that, although foggy mentality might have something to do with her intermittent, faulty belief that lighting paper was not a dangerous activity, her firebugging always occurs when she is under the stress of not being able to smoke when she chooses. At the time of the first firebug incident the pressure was applied by visiting family and was obvious. This time, though, the pressure was applied by me in my attempt to make sure that she is receiving enough daily oxygen to allow the iron supplements to do their work to build up her hemoglobin.
I have not completely cut out her smoking. Even on days when she is mostly on oxygen I allow her cigarettes here and there (well away from the oxygen, of course). I'm meticulous about explaining, every time I put her back on oxygen (when she starts panting after smoking a few cigarettes) that I'm not making her quit, I'm trying to enhance her body's ability to bring her out of her anemia. She has, over the last few weeks, been very obliging and has appeared not to be experiencing stress over the greatly reduced number of cigarettes I'm allowing her. In fact, on July 4th I was surprised that from the time she awoke she did not ask or rummage for cigarettes so I, naturally, didn't bring them up and kept all cigarettes and smoking paraphernalia hidden, thinking that maybe she had "forgotten", in her fog that day, that she smoked.
No such luck. She may forget consciously that she smokes but her subconscious does not and apparently nudges her to express her frustration by igniting something, anything. Needless to say, when I realized this I also realized that I was going to have to strike a more accommodating compromise with her smoking habit whether or not she consciously asks or looks for cigarettes.
I immediately gave her a few cigarettes, let her smoke until she started panting, then continued to supply her with a cigarette here and there throughout the evening, assuring her each time I put her back on oxygen that this did not mean I was forcing her to quit, I was just making sure that her oxygen quota remained high during her recovery from anemia.
There are four lessons I learned from this:
Off to set up the house for Mom's arrival into the morning.
Later.
Soon after the start of the movie I sprawled on the floor next to my mother's rocker, glued to the set, studying Cagney's surprisingly light-as-helium dancing and strong singing. Somewhere in the middle of the movie I smelled smoke. Knowing that there were no cigarettes or smoking paraphernalia around my mother I looked back and noticed her lighting a crumpled Kleenex with a lighter, one she had stowed, unbeknownst to me, in her nail care bag which she keeps on the coffee table next to her rocker.
I grabbed the Kleenex out of her hand, rushed it to the sink, nearly setting the house on fire, doused it and returned to the living room. I scolded her for lighting the Kleenex for all the reasons I could think of, all having to do with endangering the safety of our lives and our property, which she received with the insolence of one who is sure of what she was doing. I was beside myself, wondering why we were, once again, experiencing her firebug tendencies. Although she'd been in what I considered a bit of a fog all day, her blood sugar was not high, her color looked better than fair and her blood pressure was in the low area of her normal range but not unusually low. I remembered that I had e'd MFASRF about the first firebug incident. Hoping that this was one of the bits of e's I'd clipped and entered somewhere into the online history of our sojourn together, I ran a quick search and there it was The Peculiar Light of Inspiration.
I also consulted a blood test taken 2 weeks after the aforementioned incident which indicated that all Mom was suffering from, physically, was high blood sugar. After reading the entire description and taking into consideration Mom's physical state then and now I realized that, although foggy mentality might have something to do with her intermittent, faulty belief that lighting paper was not a dangerous activity, her firebugging always occurs when she is under the stress of not being able to smoke when she chooses. At the time of the first firebug incident the pressure was applied by visiting family and was obvious. This time, though, the pressure was applied by me in my attempt to make sure that she is receiving enough daily oxygen to allow the iron supplements to do their work to build up her hemoglobin.
I have not completely cut out her smoking. Even on days when she is mostly on oxygen I allow her cigarettes here and there (well away from the oxygen, of course). I'm meticulous about explaining, every time I put her back on oxygen (when she starts panting after smoking a few cigarettes) that I'm not making her quit, I'm trying to enhance her body's ability to bring her out of her anemia. She has, over the last few weeks, been very obliging and has appeared not to be experiencing stress over the greatly reduced number of cigarettes I'm allowing her. In fact, on July 4th I was surprised that from the time she awoke she did not ask or rummage for cigarettes so I, naturally, didn't bring them up and kept all cigarettes and smoking paraphernalia hidden, thinking that maybe she had "forgotten", in her fog that day, that she smoked.
No such luck. She may forget consciously that she smokes but her subconscious does not and apparently nudges her to express her frustration by igniting something, anything. Needless to say, when I realized this I also realized that I was going to have to strike a more accommodating compromise with her smoking habit whether or not she consciously asks or looks for cigarettes.
I immediately gave her a few cigarettes, let her smoke until she started panting, then continued to supply her with a cigarette here and there throughout the evening, assuring her each time I put her back on oxygen that this did not mean I was forcing her to quit, I was just making sure that her oxygen quota remained high during her recovery from anemia.
There are four lessons I learned from this:
- Never underestimate the power of the subconscious that lies beneath what we blithely and disrepectfully label "senility".
- Although it has seemed (sometimes to me, probably often to others who occasionally read this web effort) that my meticulous recording of all aspects of Mom's and my journey through her Ancient One stage is little more than therapy for me and psychologically masturbatory, at that, in fact it is one of the most valuable things I do. I did not remember that the first firebug incident resulted from being pressured by others not to smoke until I looked it up. I needed to know this on Independence Day in order to take reasonable steps to insure the safety of our lives and our property.
- This lesson is a reaffirmation of something of which I am reminded on a daily basis: The definition of and need for healthy behavior is not nearly as clearcut as our need for The Absolute would prefer.
- The last lesson, as well, is not really a lesson but a reminder that, as MFASRF recently put it when I e'd him about all this, "having a dialogue with someone whose intellect and intentions you trust is amazingly helpful." What he wrote is a humble tribute to the one relationship in my life that, for as long as it's existed, has seemed to me to be the one in which I can say anything, absolutely anything, and not fear the consequences (despite the fact that, at one time, the consequences were harsh; still, no fear was involved). That, reader, is friendship par excellence.
Off to set up the house for Mom's arrival into the morning.
Later.
