Mom & Me Two Archive

    It surprised her, unpleasantly, when her knees refused to cooperate, and sobered her up a little about the importance of movement, even a little bit, every day, as well as sleeping a bit less. She tends to remember that she recovers quickly from physical disability, even though over the last 9 months I've learned better. Today she worried herself over why, when she was walkering pretty good at Costco on Saturday, her knees simply didn't have it in them to get her past the bench at the grocery three days later. I told her, "Mom, three days when you're going on 87 is like three months when you're going on 17. It's harder to retain what you refuse to use. Now will you get up when I ask you to? Now will you get out when I ask you to?"
    She said, "Yes." And nodded. That's a good sign. I'll have to remind her, of course, not just daily but, I'm sure, hourly. Tonight, though, while we were talking about her habit of asking me, sardonically, when I rouse her in the morning, "Why..." she needs to get up, I was inspired with the perfect answer, "To celebrate making it through the night, to celebrate the new day you get to live through."
    She didn't smile. Her eyes widened and she looked directly at me, sober as a startled judge. "I never thought of it that way."
    "Well," I said, "I'm going to be reminding you every morning to think of it that way."
    "Good," she said.
    For lots of people, 'cover elders" notwithstanding, old age is definitely a bitch. Nothing is the way you thought it would be and no one can give you any reliable advice. Every age has its mentors, except the age of the old. I think, if and when you make it into the regions of the Ancient, it's as much of a surprise as when you were born.
    Tomorrow we go in for a blood draw. I've already told her, in an effort to prepare her subconscious, that I'll be awakening her much earlier than normal so we can get in early enough to have the results either tomorrow afternoon or early Friday. I'm anxious to see if the mega doses of iron I've been giving her have helped. I hope so. I hate having to fend off doctors who want to continue to poke and prod her, who want to continue to try to talk me into allowing them to run scopes through her and needles (or borers, as in the case of the dream test) into her. Interestingly, one of the medical books I bought a little over a week ago talks about the needle aspiration bone marrow biopsy. It seems that it is the less reliable of the two types of bone marrow biopsy, the other being surgical removal of bone marrow matter, also done under local anesthetic. "Dry" aspirations are not uncommon for a couple of reasons, having to do with how the cells are packed in the particular region of bone being biopsied. There is a "contraindication" for both types of the procedure which is mentioned twice in the explanation: If the patient is unable to cooperate and lie still. This definitely covers Mom. This has been a concern of mine even before reading that it is a "contraindication". On the table she will not remember what is being done to her, even as she is being worked on and the procedure is being explained. This is typical of her in unfamiliar environments when she is the object of the environment, not a subject within the environment. Secondly, if she feels any pain she will react, instinctively and physically, even as she is being told not to, and the test explanation assures the reader that there will be "intense" pain when the bone is penetrated. I'm sure, in fact, that the reason the internist who did Mom's colonoscopy considered the procedure torture for Mom is that Mom was (to the internist's surprise; the doctor didn't do the necessary homework on Mom prior to the procedure and didn't believe anything I said about Mom) unable to remember where she was and what was being done to her, thus she was unable to cooperate. This lengthened the procedure by twice what it normally is and, as well, caused the internist to declare to me immediately after the procedure, among other things, that she never wanted to scope Mom again, not up or down. I don't blame her. I wonder, though, why it is that physicians choose not to believe one another's experiences and are so god damned fired up to scope and needle and cut into patients who have proven they are not able to cooperate. I wonder, as well, why physicians don't believe a patient's medical advocate on these issues. Oh well. I'm just sorry we haven't yet advanced beyond the "barbaric" practices of twentieth/early twenty-first century medicine, as they were so succinctly pronounced by Bones in that Star Trek movie where the crew of the Enterprise traveled back in time to snatch a whale into the future.
    I know that by refusing the bone marrow aspiration/biopsy (whichever the doctors have their hearts set on) and the endoscopy that I may be making it impossible for non-alternative medicine to ever discover and repair the source of her iron deficiency anemia...thus, I may be "condemning" her, for the rest of her life, to the metabolic injustices of mega-iron supplementation and the experiential drag of blood transfusions. But I'm willing to take on that responsibility.
    Within a few weeks we'll be able to continue her acupuncture treatments, which are directed toward correcting her blood chemistry through alternative means. I think that her first treatment was significantly helpful and simply needs a few more follow-ups. Once again, we'll see.
    Yes, I'm still wondering if she needs the stimulation of more family in her life on a daily basis and, yes, we're still talking about this. I don't expect any immediate decisions.
    The dryer just ended its first cycle. I can set it up on its second and go to bed.
    Later.