Wednesday, August 25, 2004
The time I seem to have trouble finding to post...
...isn't actual time (whatever that is), it's mental time. My mind is doing this furious Dance of the Review of Every Single Moment of the Past Few Weeks and doesn't seem to be close to a stop yet to allow me to organize what I'm thinking and post it. So, for those of you who are regular visitors and are wondering how Mom is doing...here's yet another excerpt from an e to MFASRF that tells that tale in a slightly cracked nutshell:
8/24/04 21:04
...I thought you might want to know...
...in short, how everything is shaking out now that my mother is home.
She was released Saturday and is doing better than fine. She's experiencing yet another spectacular revival of health and alertness. She's up and moving, once again considers the wheel chair a personal affrontery, is having a little trouble grasping the concept that, just like the idea that you don't drive the car, you correct it, you don't push the walker, you move it forward with the momentum of walking, and, of course, correct it, but she's walkering all over the place anyway. At home, she's moving very well, thank you, under her own steam. She is much less dependent on oxygen. I'm continuing all her exercises from physical therapy at the SNF every day, well, except today. Sunday she walkered all over Costco, raising her blood sugar on samples. Monday I could barely get her out of the grocery store and she had no intention of resting here and there while I gathered what we needed. Today she was tired and I gave her that. I'd planned on at least going through her exercises in the evening but she decided to go to bed at 2000, not because she was bored but because, as she said, "Ahm taard," in her worst cowboy accent. I'd be tired, too, if I was 87, fresh out of a skilled nursing facility where, although they keep you somewhat busy, it's easy to nap between therapy sessions, they get anxious every time you get out of bed without an aide nearby and "the food's just so-so and there's never enough" (she lost 3 pounds there and she's getting down to the place where she really doesn't need to lose any more) then my daughter runs me around the whole goddamn town for two days after my release and makes me do my therapy exercises, to boot.
I'm doing very well, too. My SC costume arrived on time but I've decided to turn in the com badge/beamer thing for a cape. I realized, just like with my refusal to get a cell phone, I really don't want to be THAT available to anyone but Mom and I don't have to beam or use a cell phone, to be available to her. The intensity of attention hasn't changed but it makes an enormous difference that I don't have to pick her up off the floor, don't have to keep my eye on her every time she looks like she wants to move, don't have to be her complete body support and don't have to try to wheel that damned chair all over this very small house. As well, she's no longer in a mental slump. That makes a delightful difference. I'm not worrying about her, either, again. That's very, very nice.
Well, I was thrilled when she decided to go to bed at 2000 because, I thought, great, I can write for awhile in my online journal. But, you know what, I think I only have the energy to enter dinner stats, comment on some medication changes and then I might go to bed, too, after starting the second drying cycle. We have to go to Costco again tomorrow because she thought the last bag of her Depends were disposable towels and decided to clean the sink in her bathroom with them. She'd gone through all but three in our last bag by the time I decided to check on why she was taking so long in the bathroom. I wasn't upset. It's been a good year, maybe more, since she's had the energy to even think about cleaning a sink.
And, again, I find myself more prone to thinking than writing, more prone to, well, thinking prone than sitting. Once again, as a reminder, if a day or two or even more goes by through which I don't post much, or at all, check in at Mom's Daily Tests and Meds. Chances are, in reviewing her stats, I've probably also entered personal information that will give you a taste of her day and/or her state. Certainly, that is true of the last couple-more-than-a-few days. If you've been curious about how she's doing and you haven't been going there, you've been missing out.
One thing I did record on Sunday in the small, thick notebook I call "My Life", that goes everywhere with me and in which I record everything, absolutely everything, including to-do lists, grocery lists, reminders, phone numbers, notes about things or people I encounter, appointments, information from others that I need to remember about everything under the sun, recommendations, notes to people that sometimes don't get delivered, curious thoughts...and more: "My mother continues to triumph without being aware she's in a fight." That is the gist of everything, right now.
Later. I promise. Somentaltime later.
8/24/04 21:04
...I thought you might want to know...
...in short, how everything is shaking out now that my mother is home.
She was released Saturday and is doing better than fine. She's experiencing yet another spectacular revival of health and alertness. She's up and moving, once again considers the wheel chair a personal affrontery, is having a little trouble grasping the concept that, just like the idea that you don't drive the car, you correct it, you don't push the walker, you move it forward with the momentum of walking, and, of course, correct it, but she's walkering all over the place anyway. At home, she's moving very well, thank you, under her own steam. She is much less dependent on oxygen. I'm continuing all her exercises from physical therapy at the SNF every day, well, except today. Sunday she walkered all over Costco, raising her blood sugar on samples. Monday I could barely get her out of the grocery store and she had no intention of resting here and there while I gathered what we needed. Today she was tired and I gave her that. I'd planned on at least going through her exercises in the evening but she decided to go to bed at 2000, not because she was bored but because, as she said, "Ahm taard," in her worst cowboy accent. I'd be tired, too, if I was 87, fresh out of a skilled nursing facility where, although they keep you somewhat busy, it's easy to nap between therapy sessions, they get anxious every time you get out of bed without an aide nearby and "the food's just so-so and there's never enough" (she lost 3 pounds there and she's getting down to the place where she really doesn't need to lose any more) then my daughter runs me around the whole goddamn town for two days after my release and makes me do my therapy exercises, to boot.
I'm doing very well, too. My SC costume arrived on time but I've decided to turn in the com badge/beamer thing for a cape. I realized, just like with my refusal to get a cell phone, I really don't want to be THAT available to anyone but Mom and I don't have to beam or use a cell phone, to be available to her. The intensity of attention hasn't changed but it makes an enormous difference that I don't have to pick her up off the floor, don't have to keep my eye on her every time she looks like she wants to move, don't have to be her complete body support and don't have to try to wheel that damned chair all over this very small house. As well, she's no longer in a mental slump. That makes a delightful difference. I'm not worrying about her, either, again. That's very, very nice.
Well, I was thrilled when she decided to go to bed at 2000 because, I thought, great, I can write for awhile in my online journal. But, you know what, I think I only have the energy to enter dinner stats, comment on some medication changes and then I might go to bed, too, after starting the second drying cycle. We have to go to Costco again tomorrow because she thought the last bag of her Depends were disposable towels and decided to clean the sink in her bathroom with them. She'd gone through all but three in our last bag by the time I decided to check on why she was taking so long in the bathroom. I wasn't upset. It's been a good year, maybe more, since she's had the energy to even think about cleaning a sink.
And, again, I find myself more prone to thinking than writing, more prone to, well, thinking prone than sitting. Once again, as a reminder, if a day or two or even more goes by through which I don't post much, or at all, check in at Mom's Daily Tests and Meds. Chances are, in reviewing her stats, I've probably also entered personal information that will give you a taste of her day and/or her state. Certainly, that is true of the last couple-more-than-a-few days. If you've been curious about how she's doing and you haven't been going there, you've been missing out.
One thing I did record on Sunday in the small, thick notebook I call "My Life", that goes everywhere with me and in which I record everything, absolutely everything, including to-do lists, grocery lists, reminders, phone numbers, notes about things or people I encounter, appointments, information from others that I need to remember about everything under the sun, recommendations, notes to people that sometimes don't get delivered, curious thoughts...and more: "My mother continues to triumph without being aware she's in a fight." That is the gist of everything, right now.
Later. I promise. Somentaltime later.
