Sunday, July 11, 2004
It's not nice to fool mother's nature...
...at least that's been my code of caretaker honor up to yesterday. After yet again confronting Mom's intransigence about getting up yesterday, after once again yielding to the discouragement of spending any time at all, let alone what has become the usual 1/2 to 2 hour pleading (in which I remain in her room, at her bedside, verbally coaxing her, sometimes in not very nice tones, to get her ass out of bed), suddenly I decided I'd had it. I was not going to allow Mom's misplaced show of spirit and pride to ruin my day and her health anymore. In an instant and with determined fury I pried her fingers off the edge of the mattress, rolled her on her side, bent her legs at the knee and the hip, wrapped my arms around her urine soaked body and brought her upright to the edge of the bed. She sat there, pink and blinking, like a fetal bird whose parent has just broken its shell.
I just couldn't take these beginning-of-the-day battles anymore. They weren't doing me any good and were chipping away at my ability to be a willing and fully engaged caretaker. I was startled, once she was up on end, that it was that easy. I was so thrilled I practically did a happy dance in front of her. I spent an inordinate amount of time gloating about how, at least in this particular way, she wasn't going to be able to defy me anymore. I went so far as to announce, to an improvised melody with a few of my favorite song tags (like, "I feel good" [James Brown]) that I had such a renewed sense of my own physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual strength that there wasn't nothin' she was going to be able to put over on me anymore. I went on to inform her that from now on her getting up schedule was going to be on my well-considered terms, not on hers (I am a sore loser and a graceless winner; always have been, and cherish my right and ability to be so). This is exactly what happened this morning. She dug in almost immediately after I took her blood glucose and administered her iron and vitamin C with 8 oz of water. I gave her a few minutes of me pleading and her strengthening her defenses, then I went to work.
I was surprised I had the physical, spiritual and emotional strength to do this. After yesterday I wasn't sure I'd be able to repeat the feat from a calm center, seeing as how, yesterday, it came from desperation. Physically I knew I could assist her in getting up when she wanted to get up but was stuck. I didn't think I could actually lift her against her will. Spiritually and emotionally I was so tied into the idea of not breaking her will or her spirit that I was surprised that, suddenly, I pushed all those considerations aside in favor of just getting her the hell up to start her day.
I haven't lost sight of these considerations. Mom wasn't thrilled but her spirit wasn't broken, either. Once she realized, both yesterday and today, of what I was capable her eyes flashed with wily intent. I met her head on. I told her that I expected that, although doing what I was doing wasn't hurting her physically, it was probably wounding her dignity and I expected, after a few days of regularly having her dignity thus wounded, she'd figure out that the best way to protect her dignity was to get up herself when I told her it was time to get up. She has other ways to fight me and to preserve her spirit, I told her (and, she does), that aren't stepping stones toward her grave.
In most of those other ways, in fact, I often give in. Cigarettes, for instance. I've even devised a sort of "reward" system that allows her to feel that she's not being asked to give up the part of her identity linked to smoking. Her desire to eat without paying attention to what her body needs (and doesn't need) is a field in which we work our individual wills back and forth all the time. Movement is another area where I'll judiciously give in when I think it won't hurt her. And in the area of visitors who decide they need us to accomodate them, well, we aren't doing that anymore.
So it seems I've solved one of those problems that I can't pay someone to solve for me. I'm glad, now, I had no other way to solve it. Not only do I know that I no longer have to start her part of my day completely in thrall to her desire to fight me about getting out of bed, my sense of my strength in all areas has gotten a major boost, which it needed.
Sometimes, mother's nature doesn't know what's good for mother. That's when daughter's nature needs to step in, wrap its arms around recalcitrance and set it up on end where it can see through a more appropriate panoramic lens.
Well, off to the races.
Later.
I just couldn't take these beginning-of-the-day battles anymore. They weren't doing me any good and were chipping away at my ability to be a willing and fully engaged caretaker. I was startled, once she was up on end, that it was that easy. I was so thrilled I practically did a happy dance in front of her. I spent an inordinate amount of time gloating about how, at least in this particular way, she wasn't going to be able to defy me anymore. I went so far as to announce, to an improvised melody with a few of my favorite song tags (like, "I feel good" [James Brown]) that I had such a renewed sense of my own physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual strength that there wasn't nothin' she was going to be able to put over on me anymore. I went on to inform her that from now on her getting up schedule was going to be on my well-considered terms, not on hers (I am a sore loser and a graceless winner; always have been, and cherish my right and ability to be so). This is exactly what happened this morning. She dug in almost immediately after I took her blood glucose and administered her iron and vitamin C with 8 oz of water. I gave her a few minutes of me pleading and her strengthening her defenses, then I went to work.
I was surprised I had the physical, spiritual and emotional strength to do this. After yesterday I wasn't sure I'd be able to repeat the feat from a calm center, seeing as how, yesterday, it came from desperation. Physically I knew I could assist her in getting up when she wanted to get up but was stuck. I didn't think I could actually lift her against her will. Spiritually and emotionally I was so tied into the idea of not breaking her will or her spirit that I was surprised that, suddenly, I pushed all those considerations aside in favor of just getting her the hell up to start her day.
I haven't lost sight of these considerations. Mom wasn't thrilled but her spirit wasn't broken, either. Once she realized, both yesterday and today, of what I was capable her eyes flashed with wily intent. I met her head on. I told her that I expected that, although doing what I was doing wasn't hurting her physically, it was probably wounding her dignity and I expected, after a few days of regularly having her dignity thus wounded, she'd figure out that the best way to protect her dignity was to get up herself when I told her it was time to get up. She has other ways to fight me and to preserve her spirit, I told her (and, she does), that aren't stepping stones toward her grave.
In most of those other ways, in fact, I often give in. Cigarettes, for instance. I've even devised a sort of "reward" system that allows her to feel that she's not being asked to give up the part of her identity linked to smoking. Her desire to eat without paying attention to what her body needs (and doesn't need) is a field in which we work our individual wills back and forth all the time. Movement is another area where I'll judiciously give in when I think it won't hurt her. And in the area of visitors who decide they need us to accomodate them, well, we aren't doing that anymore.
So it seems I've solved one of those problems that I can't pay someone to solve for me. I'm glad, now, I had no other way to solve it. Not only do I know that I no longer have to start her part of my day completely in thrall to her desire to fight me about getting out of bed, my sense of my strength in all areas has gotten a major boost, which it needed.
Sometimes, mother's nature doesn't know what's good for mother. That's when daughter's nature needs to step in, wrap its arms around recalcitrance and set it up on end where it can see through a more appropriate panoramic lens.
Well, off to the races.
Later.
