Thursday, November 25, 2004
Yes, we're having a Thanksgiving Dinner.
Although evening before last I'd considered skipping it I was provoked by an advertisement on one of her programs that featured a traditional Thanksgiving feast laden table. Upon viewing it Mom initiated a conversation about Thanksgiving dinner with, "I've never liked turkey. I don't know why everyone serves turkey on Thanksgiving. It has no flavor and neither do the leftovers."
"Well," I responded, "I know your preference is ham."
Her eyes lit, thus initiating a discussion of what we'd have for Thanksgiving if our preferences were addressed. From this it was a short skip to deciding to have Thanksgiving dinner.
Although my meat preference is for some sort of beef or pork roast I don't mind ham and I love Mom's delight in it so that's what we're having. No stuffing, thank you, no mashed potatoes, no gravy, just a baked yam apiece, not candied, not marshmallowed and not those huge spuds that leave no room on a plate for anything else. Lightly nuked peas mixed with sauteed onions, celery and green peppers, fresh bacon bits and a tart herb dressing. Maybe some home made Sweet Basil bread if the breadmaker works and the yeast doesn't fail. None of her traditional Raisin Mustard Sauce. I offered to make it (it's easy) but I guess her ham preferences have changed...she wants her slab neat this year. Definitely bake the ham with pineapple but, I said, I hope she doesn't mind that I'm not using marashino cherries which I detest. That's fine, she agreed, she's never liked them either, she put them on "for the kids". She suggested shrimp cocktail and deviled eggs, too, so I struck a bargain with her and we had the shrimp and the eggs last night for dinner.
No pumpkin pie. I didn't know this until a few years ago because my mother used to make The Best Pumpkin Pie in the Universe. It's like a highly spiced pecan pie held together with pumpkin instead of carmelized corn syrup; it is so loaded with pecans and so highly spiced that when it comes out of the oven it's brown instead of orange. It's so good that I hate everyone else's pumpkin pie. She confessed, though, that she's never liked pumpkin pie, not even her own. I left the dessert portion open and found a raspberry pie I thought might be an interesting experiment, especially since we still have some of the spectacular whole raspberry sauce I made with this summer's harvest in case Sara Lee's version of raspberry pie leaves something to be desired. Real whipped-on-demand cream, no sugar. Mom prefers dairy products untampered.
Instead of eating in the middle of the afternoon we'll follow our regular schedule which works best with her meds: Dinner at least seven hours after breakfast, whenever that occurs.
The wee hours of this morning hosted an interesting occurrence. At 0450 (I looked at the clock) I was awakened (probably out of a very light sleep) by the sound of Mom shuffling over the hall carpet. Figuring correctly that she was on her way to the bathroom I leapt out of bed to make sure that I changed what I knew would be her soaked underwear and manipulate the reattachment of her oxygen before she fell back to sleep. Amazingly, she had not yet leaked through to the sheets. This has happened very occasionally since she began copious night leakage. Normally, though, her bladder's needs don't awaken her and, as I joke to her, her bladder decides aw, what the hell, it's cold, she's comfortable, I'm full of warm liquid, let's forget the trip to the bathroom, Gail can handle the mess in the morning. The interesting thing about this occurrence at this time is that through the last several mornings every time Mom has awakened she's commented on how much she sweated the night previous. I always correct her, she is always shocked that she's leaking urine at night, usually takes some convincing to believe it, then I explain, once again, the trajectory of her incontinence since 10/25/03. It's become one of the funnier daily episodes in our life. Her sleep induced incontinence also causes easily negotiated but annoying rashes in the creases where her thighs meet her pelvic girdle. I've discussed this with her recently because lately we've been tending to them a lot throughout the day to keep the itching down so she doesn't scratch herself raw. This morning when I came to her urinary aid I wondered if maybe, somewhere in her tired, convoluted brain, she's registered our recent conversations and her bladder is changing its attitude because of her emotional shock at being a bedwetter. It will take a few more nights for me to discover if this is true. It may mean that I'll be waking in the middle of the night to make sure that she doesn't go back to bed with underwear loaded for leakage. I'd like to think that I can encourage her to change her underwear herself and I'll certainly try but I'm not going to count on this; she has a problem pulling the underwear tops past the tops of her thighs. I don't really care who changes her underwear if it means that she'll sleep in a dry bed and I'll have less laundry and fewer opportunities to smell her urine.
Last night we watched The West Wing and I took particular note of something a nurse character said to "Leo", the character recovering from heart surgery: "The body is predictable." The nurse went on to explain the difficulties he was having with recuperation in terms of his neo-post-operative heart. While I was deciding this morning whether to go back to bed or stay up (I stayed up) I thought about this in light of the fact that this particular month is not the time when I would expect my mother's body to be able to jog itself back to nightly continence since she's moved very little and slept much more than I usually allow since November 1st. I've further considered my observation that she is somewhat weaker than she was on 10/31/04. It appears that her body isn't as predictable as younger bodies. I wonder if this is typical of Ancient bodies. Maybe, because the Ancient physical condition often borders on frail if it isn't actually frail, physical determination and ability are no longer triggered in the muscles of movement and the autonomy of the spinal cord but coincide, instead, with mental determination and spark more obviously from the brain. Once this was studied, of course, it could be considered predictable, but I can attest that medical science is far from this eventuality. I cannot tell you how many times my mother's recoveries have amazed her health care providers, whose expectations are based on their assumptions about Ancient bodies and are typically slight. It's funny because it's not uncommon for me to be privy to stories of the amazing recoveries of other Ancient Ones but I don't hear them from health care providers, I hear them from the Ancient Ones' families.
Thanksgiving preparations call me to duty. I think I'll see if I can arouse her earlier than has been lately usual and give her the opportunity to enjoy my holiday fussing. Oh, yeah, but first, I need to get a paper. She mentioned that she wants to read the Thanksgiving paper this morning.
Later, again, probably much, I need to put in some dedicated project entry time now that we're approaching the end of My Month of Me.
"Well," I responded, "I know your preference is ham."
Her eyes lit, thus initiating a discussion of what we'd have for Thanksgiving if our preferences were addressed. From this it was a short skip to deciding to have Thanksgiving dinner.
Although my meat preference is for some sort of beef or pork roast I don't mind ham and I love Mom's delight in it so that's what we're having. No stuffing, thank you, no mashed potatoes, no gravy, just a baked yam apiece, not candied, not marshmallowed and not those huge spuds that leave no room on a plate for anything else. Lightly nuked peas mixed with sauteed onions, celery and green peppers, fresh bacon bits and a tart herb dressing. Maybe some home made Sweet Basil bread if the breadmaker works and the yeast doesn't fail. None of her traditional Raisin Mustard Sauce. I offered to make it (it's easy) but I guess her ham preferences have changed...she wants her slab neat this year. Definitely bake the ham with pineapple but, I said, I hope she doesn't mind that I'm not using marashino cherries which I detest. That's fine, she agreed, she's never liked them either, she put them on "for the kids". She suggested shrimp cocktail and deviled eggs, too, so I struck a bargain with her and we had the shrimp and the eggs last night for dinner.
No pumpkin pie. I didn't know this until a few years ago because my mother used to make The Best Pumpkin Pie in the Universe. It's like a highly spiced pecan pie held together with pumpkin instead of carmelized corn syrup; it is so loaded with pecans and so highly spiced that when it comes out of the oven it's brown instead of orange. It's so good that I hate everyone else's pumpkin pie. She confessed, though, that she's never liked pumpkin pie, not even her own. I left the dessert portion open and found a raspberry pie I thought might be an interesting experiment, especially since we still have some of the spectacular whole raspberry sauce I made with this summer's harvest in case Sara Lee's version of raspberry pie leaves something to be desired. Real whipped-on-demand cream, no sugar. Mom prefers dairy products untampered.
Instead of eating in the middle of the afternoon we'll follow our regular schedule which works best with her meds: Dinner at least seven hours after breakfast, whenever that occurs.
The wee hours of this morning hosted an interesting occurrence. At 0450 (I looked at the clock) I was awakened (probably out of a very light sleep) by the sound of Mom shuffling over the hall carpet. Figuring correctly that she was on her way to the bathroom I leapt out of bed to make sure that I changed what I knew would be her soaked underwear and manipulate the reattachment of her oxygen before she fell back to sleep. Amazingly, she had not yet leaked through to the sheets. This has happened very occasionally since she began copious night leakage. Normally, though, her bladder's needs don't awaken her and, as I joke to her, her bladder decides aw, what the hell, it's cold, she's comfortable, I'm full of warm liquid, let's forget the trip to the bathroom, Gail can handle the mess in the morning. The interesting thing about this occurrence at this time is that through the last several mornings every time Mom has awakened she's commented on how much she sweated the night previous. I always correct her, she is always shocked that she's leaking urine at night, usually takes some convincing to believe it, then I explain, once again, the trajectory of her incontinence since 10/25/03. It's become one of the funnier daily episodes in our life. Her sleep induced incontinence also causes easily negotiated but annoying rashes in the creases where her thighs meet her pelvic girdle. I've discussed this with her recently because lately we've been tending to them a lot throughout the day to keep the itching down so she doesn't scratch herself raw. This morning when I came to her urinary aid I wondered if maybe, somewhere in her tired, convoluted brain, she's registered our recent conversations and her bladder is changing its attitude because of her emotional shock at being a bedwetter. It will take a few more nights for me to discover if this is true. It may mean that I'll be waking in the middle of the night to make sure that she doesn't go back to bed with underwear loaded for leakage. I'd like to think that I can encourage her to change her underwear herself and I'll certainly try but I'm not going to count on this; she has a problem pulling the underwear tops past the tops of her thighs. I don't really care who changes her underwear if it means that she'll sleep in a dry bed and I'll have less laundry and fewer opportunities to smell her urine.
Last night we watched The West Wing and I took particular note of something a nurse character said to "Leo", the character recovering from heart surgery: "The body is predictable." The nurse went on to explain the difficulties he was having with recuperation in terms of his neo-post-operative heart. While I was deciding this morning whether to go back to bed or stay up (I stayed up) I thought about this in light of the fact that this particular month is not the time when I would expect my mother's body to be able to jog itself back to nightly continence since she's moved very little and slept much more than I usually allow since November 1st. I've further considered my observation that she is somewhat weaker than she was on 10/31/04. It appears that her body isn't as predictable as younger bodies. I wonder if this is typical of Ancient bodies. Maybe, because the Ancient physical condition often borders on frail if it isn't actually frail, physical determination and ability are no longer triggered in the muscles of movement and the autonomy of the spinal cord but coincide, instead, with mental determination and spark more obviously from the brain. Once this was studied, of course, it could be considered predictable, but I can attest that medical science is far from this eventuality. I cannot tell you how many times my mother's recoveries have amazed her health care providers, whose expectations are based on their assumptions about Ancient bodies and are typically slight. It's funny because it's not uncommon for me to be privy to stories of the amazing recoveries of other Ancient Ones but I don't hear them from health care providers, I hear them from the Ancient Ones' families.
Thanksgiving preparations call me to duty. I think I'll see if I can arouse her earlier than has been lately usual and give her the opportunity to enjoy my holiday fussing. Oh, yeah, but first, I need to get a paper. She mentioned that she wants to read the Thanksgiving paper this morning.
Later, again, probably much, I need to put in some dedicated project entry time now that we're approaching the end of My Month of Me.
