Mom & Me Two Archive

...especially an Ancient One whose mind has decided to enjoy a bit of wandering, is that one is forced to take life a day at a time. As one does, 24 hours opens up like 48 or 72 or more. Sometimes in the afternoon, if the tenor of the day has changed drastically as it often does, I will "remember" something that happened that morning as having happened a few days ago.
    True to form, today was a stunning turn around from yesterday. As I passed my mother's bedroom at 0900, she was on her elbows, looking around, her eyes wide and clear. "Ready to get up?" I asked.
    "May as well. Can't dance."
    "Well, you can," I said, "but not here."
    With that she was pulling herself toward the edge of the bed.
    By 0945 she was clean, dressed and popping her "important" pills of the morning (her metformin, lisinopril, aspirin and whatever ibuprofen we've decided she's going to take...she can scatter her supplements throughout breakfast) with her first mouthful of breakfast. Despite our new washing routine this is record time.
    Her new washing routine: It's about two weeks old. When her back began to show enough improvement so that she was no longer using her arms to hold herself up even in a sitting position, I decided it was time for her to begin washing herself again even though she isn't yet ready to get herself in and out of a bathtub. So, while I wash those parts of her that she either can't get to or for some reason has never washed particularly well, she washes her face, arms and front upper torso with stringent direction. She still has a marked tendency to simply swab the wash cloth over skin as though she's trying to set a record. I discovered by accident that when I remind her we are cleaning her because she's been sleeping for the last few hours in her own urine and suggest that she pay attention to cleaning herself the way she would clean a baby who just woke up from a watershed nap, she's inspired. She did so well today, standing up "free hand" (I call it) and washing her torso without having to support herself on the towel rack and/or the shower stall handle that I told her I thought soon she'd be able to shower on her own.
    "No showering. I don't like to shower," she said with a recalcitrant edge.
    "I know, but I don't think you're ready to sit in a bathtub yet, let alone stand up out of it afterwards. Do you?"
    "Well, no, you have a point."
    "And you aren't all that happy with being washed by me."
    "It's not that bad."
    "Not as bad as taking a shower, you mean?"
    We both laughed.
    "Well, I don't blame you, Mom. That's how I feel about baths. I'd rather have someone bathe me than take a bath in a tub. We'll just continue this way for awhile and see what happens."
    And See What Happens: What's happening is that the dramatic improvement I've been hesitantly and optimistically reporting earlier continued today in unusual ways that seem to cement that she really is reviving physically and this time pushing the limit a bit beyond what she did this summer when she cured (or was cured of) her anemia. It has been at least three years since I haven't taken concerned notice of the regular irregularity of her bowel movements and the startling difference between her demeanor hours after she empties her bowels versus days after not emptying her bowels. I have no idea why, within the last 2 weeks, she's become regular again; not only regular but she senses when she has to evacuate and isn't having accidents. This in itself is amazing. It's as though she had a bit more neuropathy than I thought and all of it is reversing itself.
    She was significantly more energetic this morning than this afternoon ("energetic" is a relative term when used in regards to my mother; it may indicate, as it did this morning, simply her interest in staying up and observing the world around her). At breakfast we made plans to get out but these didn't materialize, called on account of unexpected snow. The errant, picturesque snow captivated her. She insisted on eating breakfast in the living room so she could watch the it fall. It's been only recently that she's been expressing an interest in what goes on outside except for the level of sunlight. I can remember a time not too long ago when she would have been scandalized if she'd caught herself considering enjoying a snowfall. She's letting more things in, again. I'm not sure how this healing has come about, but it has.

    Which brings me to the acupuncturist's appointment. Yesterday, for the first time, I did not chaperone my mother in the treatment room. I used the time to wander around on my own: Directed wandering, yes, errand filled, but alone. I used to do this blissfully when she had her hair appointments. We both enjoyed the respite. It's interesting because I would have been doing this sooner with the acupuncturist appointments if I'd thought I wasn't needed. Except for last week's appointment, the acupuncturist has been using me to muscle test my mother.
    When we arrived the sweet, compassionate assistant to the acupuncturist took me aside and delicately asked me if I would mind if she offered me "some perceptions".
    Intrigued, I encouraged her.
    Please take into consideration, as I continue, that the clinic to which I take my mother is highly reputable, highly technical and, as well, steeped in the arts that tend to carry with them a New Age jargon. I will try to convey the conversation to the best of my ability, while paraphrasing it. I'm in no way making fun of the Alternative Healing Arts patois used in this clinic but I'm concerned that it will seem so. Concepts are understood and expressed in a myriad of ways. The same is true of difficult conversations. It was clear that the assistant thought she might be initiating a difficult conversation.
    In an understandable backtracking in which the point came first and then the evolution of the point, she asked me if I would have a problem with leaving my mother alone yesterday to be treated by the acupuncturist. It seems that my rather strong presence might be interfering with my mother's and the acupuncturist's ability to cooperate in her healing.
    It is true that the acupuncturist and I had been wondering why my mother was healing so slowly from her perspective. Wonder had, at least a month ago, turned into concern. It's also true that in a second appointment with another of the clinic's healers, although my mother was given the choice of my presence or not and chose my presence at the first appointment, I declined entry into the second because I felt strongly that my presence had interfered with the potential for treatment.
    Anyway, I was pretty thrilled that I was being released and completely confident, after this long an observation, that my mother was in capable and caring hands. The assistant felt it necessary to explain that this information, the suggestion that my presence might be interfering with my mother's healing, had been passed on to her through a type of channeling (although she didn't say this, she implied it by referring directly to "Spirit") and she hoped I didn't mind. She was especially gentle and sensitive about the whole issue.
    Good Lord! Did I mind?!? Do I ever mind the chance to snatch some alone time and leave my mother in more than competent hands and allow her the possibility of extended socialization with people other than me who love her and see her and relate to her differently than I do? I smiled, not just internally, while the assistant was apologizing for bringing up so delicate a matter, taking care that I please not infer anything from it. I remembered when MPS offered to stay with Mom last year in February over a day and a half while I got away to the other house: I was out of there so fast I forgot to give her pertinent information. But I also knew I was leaving Mom in loving, competent, innovative hands and I was right. All was well. And so were Mom and me.
    Mom's healing has taken several unexplained (because she's been unusually and crankily sedentary, lately) dramatic steps in the last week and a half. While I've reported these, I've also been reluctant to believe that they were indicative of anything that might not reverse itself if she doesn't get up and moving soon. I've told her this. But she's persisted. Other evidence of reliable healing has been that despite her therapeutic walks with the wheel chair being few and far between lately, with each one she exhibits remarkably more smoothness, strength and stamina as well as aerobic ability, which is a pleasant surprise. We had planned a walk for today but will probably do it tomorrow. We've got an errand to run as well. She seemed hale and hearty, though tired, tonight. I'm looking forward to what she'll be like in the morning.
    Since I wasn't present I don't know what sort of treatment the acupuncturist performed yesterday, although she referred to it as a "new treatment". The help that the acupuncturist is rendering to Mom is so subtle that it's hard to say that it "worked" any more or less than any other treatments. This ambiguity of response has been perplexing both the acupuncturist and me (although not my mother) for a while. What I can state with conviction is that the acupuncturist is one of only three health providers, only one of which is an M.D., who: number one have not harmed her at all and number two have visibly helped her by both relieving her suffering and giving her better access to her native energy. These three people have also, by both direct and indirect suggestion, given me many tips for treating my mother and guiding her through a day that has the best chance to promote healing. They have also made themselves available to discuss any concerns I've had. Most, yes, most of her health providers, including two of her previous PCPs, have rated negative on every single one of the above issues. One of them has the "...and do no harm..." citation prominently displayed in her lobby. And yet....
    Well, I've certainly learned a lot about medicine and healing. And it looks, hallelujah, like I'll be learning a lot more.
    In case you're wondering, yes, I'm pulling extended days. Today I managed to get in a two hour nap, which is amazing, while Mom was napping. The more she's up, though, the less work she generates. As it turns out, much to her and my surprise, during a mere three hour nap Mom's body went through a major flush. I did, however, throughout the day, really push fluids, as last night she seemed a little dehydrated and this morning was definitely dehydrated.
    While it's on my mind I did yet another extended, worded-several-ways search, of 'dehydration' and 'elderly' and 'causes', etc. I'm still not finding anything about why dehydration is an aspect of old-aging. What is it about the aged body that causes it, for instance, to carry, on average, 7 liters less of water than a body half its age? I haven't found the answer. And, is this out-of-the-gate condition deleterious or do we even know, yet?
    One thing I do know: By the time the last of us baby boomers has died the world will know a lot more about aging than it does and will probably have redefined it, simply because there are so many of us and medicine will do almost all its geriatric experimentation on us. Does that give you the willies?!?
    Don't mean to be abrupt, but it's time.
    Later.

...although I'm too mellow to report much right now. I'm remembering, though, why I liked practicing the daily habit of journaling about Mom & Me. It was therapeutic, gently and cryptically, yes, but therapeutic.
    Today's been close to a roller coaster day, which I haven't had in ages, tempered at the last minute this morning when I remembered to stoke myself with herbs. I've been so focused over the last few days on needing to pull myself away [that natural and voracious need of mine for alone time, which, technically, hasn't been satisfied since, hmmm, 1997] and trying to figure out how to do that without leaving my mother unprotected or feeling rejected. Regarding the herbs: I still feel the need for alone time but on the herbs it doesn't drive me crazy and I don't become anxious about the possibility of never having any alone time again in my life. Off the herbs, though, the need can quickly surface to the point of becoming consuming. My menopausal status dramatizes whatever I am going through. I'm not bothered that it does. I've learned a lot from this. But there are times when a caregiver needs to pull back on personal drama, sometimes for long periods of time. Today, though, began flat, rough around the edges, then began to fray toward the middle. At one point right after I remembered and took my pills I tearfully (for less than a minute) confessed to my mother that I had, over the last few days, found myself ravenous for alone time. I explained that knowing there is no way to secure true alone time, I've been pulling back into myself in order to approximate alone time. I confessed to her that this was why I'd finally given up a few days ago and let her sleep [almost] all she wanted (making sure I maintained safe hydration, nutrition, blood glucose, iron, oxygen, anti-inflammatory and cleanliness levels): Because, although I have grave fears about the possibly deleterious effects on her back's healing curve if she stays in bed for, yet again, three more days out of seven, I so desperately needed something like alone time that I stopped fighting her desire to sleep. I apologized, too, for having been only a perfunctory companion, both as a caregiver and a relative, to someone who is featured in my entire history and is someone for whom I have a profound and unspeakable love. Within an hour the herbs took effect and the intermittent sobbing stopped. An hour later I was suggesting we finish off a hotly wagered game of Sorry we'd preserved from two days ago when it was interrupted by a phone call or a visit or something. I relaxed as I did her hair (today was the full meal deal: Wash, set and style). For reasons I will mention later, her appointment went very well for both of us.
    I began to feel a bit of a tug for alone time this afternoon but was so elated that she didn't want a nap and was walking around so independently it seemed as though it was, once again, autonomic, that I ignored my pang, sucked it in and vowed to enjoy her company, which I did. We had another Sorry tournament which we froze at a four game tie. It will continue tomorrow.
    It's interesting: My mother was not surprised by what probably sounds to most people like an extravagantly emotional confession. I could see from her expression that she was taking it in stride, maybe wondering why I hadn't had a problem until now. She is the one who saw to it that of all her children I had a bedroom of my own: "Because [I] needed it," she told me when I asked her, deep into a lustily solitarily-lived adulthood. Her explanation made sense to me. I'll bet I exhibited my need for alone time early and awkwardly. Anyway, I noticed throughout the today that she began to naturally pick up some of the slack for entertaining herself, knowing that I was parched for a chance to entertain myself alone. My mother is better than average at entertaining herself but not nearly as good at it as I am. She certainly does not prefer to entertain herself. So, watching her look for things to do, voice opinions, read with obvious concentration, make decisions about when she was hungry and when she needed to go to the bathroom, I was blown away realizing that simply by admitting the difficulty I was having (and remembering to take my herbs) it diminished, not only at my hands but with the help of someone else.
    Over the last few days I've given up in so many ways, many of which I have not been proud. I finally lost the energy on some of the issues on which I thought I'd never lose energy, the most important of which is sleeping, which is so akin to death as to seem dangerous at my mother's age in the amounts in which she's lately been indulging it. Today, in a strangely convoluted way, I'm beginning to see that me giving up was a good thing: One of those lessons that caregivers are taught by circumstance over and over again. It's a good thing because none of us goes gentle into that good giving up night.
    My mother fucking amazes me. I fucking amaze myself, doing what I'm doing and doing it as well as I am. I can't believe how well I've adapted to this. At the same time I was not thrown into an advanced level of caregiving with someone who is virtually a stranger. I had 9+ years to work myself up to being able to take care of my mother under the excrutiatingly (not always unpleasantly so) intense circumstances since October 25, 2003. I've faltered lately...it's been a long haul. And the smell of pee...oh well. At least she's hydrated enough to pee prodigiously. But today went from grim to gracious and satisfying. I've never not been glad I am here but, tonight, I'm thinking, in words, "I'm glad I'm doing this. I'm glad I'm here."
    Later.

    I'm in the process of rousing Mom and will be running a short errand. While I was uploading pages and doing search engine indexing I realized that there are many, many broken links, especially in Mom & Me One Archive, that I will not be able to fix since they exist in the section of the archives holding all messages past the most recent 20. I thought I'd better mention: If a link is wrong or broken, check out the name I assigned to the link and search that name. I usually quote the names of pages exactly so they'll show up in a search with a correct link; email me if you can't find what you're looking for but you know it exists; if you're sufficiently annoyed, let me know about broken links. Some of those you find I will be able to fix. As I run across them I'll attend to them but I doubt that I'll hit them all.
    Later.

...so I've unplugged the phone, left the paper on the driveway to pick up during Mom's walk today, I'M letting Mom sleep in for awhile although not past noon and I don't think I'll be going to Costco so we'll have to make do with what we have, today. This is the way I take breaks from caregiving...I huddle away from the world and simply attend to our den.
    I hope to be doing some polishing on the sites today and maybe some more posting depending on what strikes me. I do have one short errand to run. Once Mom is up, of course, a lot goes into keeping her interested in being up. I'm not avoiding that part. What I'm avoiding is the initial clean-up-pill-feed part. I've got it down to a routine. I usually don't perform it as a routine but am fully present. Lately though, as you know, as I've mentioned before, the smell of urine is getting to me. I notice this is not distracting me from attending to my mother's body and noticing it well enough to be able to detect any changes. I usually look forward to this part of the morning ritual. So does my mother because it involves a lot of light to medium massage. She's soooooo easy!
    I've established search engines and search pages for all the Mom & Me partitions. There are many pages whose navigation menus need to be augmented with these three pages, many many many, so in the meantime I'm posting them on all index pages, all main pages (blogs, tables of contents) and all search pages. After I do this I will index all the search engines to include all the navigation menus.
    I've completed adding/renewing stat counters to to all pages that previously had them. I've included individual test pages in the stat count. I have not yet included individual history pages. I may never do that. I don't think those are often visited. Although it would be interesting...
    ...I wonder when "all though" became "although"...must remember to look that up.
    Mom's doing well. I've checked on her a couple of times since I arose (late, I haven't yet taken my own walk). Yesterday, by the way, was a good example of meticulous diabetic medication dispensation. She arose late. Arising from "night-sleep" always implies break-fast, so she gets the same stuff regardless of her arising time: 10 mg glipizide, 500 mg metformin (unless her blood glucose is below 70, which sometimes happens; then I give her 425 mg metformin). At lunch, whether or not I take her blood glucose, I adjust her dose according to what she's eating. Lunch can vary from a light meal between full meals or the full meal before a light dinner-snack. Yesterday, although she remained up until retiring at midnight, she only ate two full meals: A hefty breakfast at 1400 at which she took all her break-fast pills and a meal dinner consisting of a hearty dinner soup, half a bag of popcorn (I try to give her some popcorn every day; it keeps her regular, and I imagine it scrubbing her out), a requested 12 oz can of V-8 juice ("the spicy kind") and a 5.5 oz. can of mandarin orange sections in light syrup. I was glad to see that she her appetite was hearty. This was "lunch", though, so I held off the glipizide. Her back has been feeling better. Although she asked for two ibuprofen at "lunch", she wasn't sure that she'd want ibuprofen before she went to bed. If she didn't I knew she wouldn't eat. Throughout the evening I plied her with fluids to keep her hydrated.
    Sure enough, at bedtime she didn't want ibuprofen, which I honor. I know it causes at least a little stomach bleeding and I also know that she's gotten used, now, to asking for something if she's in pain. She also more readily shows pain, which is good. Back pain is a whole different experience for her.
    The upshot was, since she had only two meals (and since they were hearty and her day was filled with lots of fluids) she didn't receive an evening dose of glipizide with or without metformin. I'm sure she didn't need it.
    Which reminds me, I need to restart posting her blood glucose levels. They've been quite good over the last several months. Although I'm not sure what the technical stuff means to her, even Mom is pleased when her blood glucose readings are under control.
    Well, I've got a few more main pages to do and I think I'll check in on Mom again. I may not get back around to the Updates page for a couple of days so expect any current news about the site to be posted at this location for the time being.
    Later.

and publishing in order to make sure they are secure on the pages.
    Mom's been awake since about 1300. She's been on her ass since 1345, interspersed with intervals of being on her feet. It's cold and windy outside despite the blasts of sunshine. She stuck her nose out and said, "No walk, today." I didn't fight her.
    She's catching up on her magazine reading. I extended her usual foolscap tabloids to include a couple of the glossies: People, US and the ultimate slick tabloid, Biography. There are a few others with which I hadn't been familiar but figured she'd like them. Curiously, her preference is for the low rent ones with the horrible reputations. She also likes O too, for the eye candy and Woman's World, which is a low rent combination of People, Family Circle and The National Enquirer.
    Despite the 3 to 4 hours of chores that immediately follow my mother's initial arising it's been very low key. She mentioned of her own accord that her back feels "much better", indicating that she's also alert enough to remember that it hasn't been feeling good, although she may not remember why or for how long. It isn't important that I determine her level of alertness to that detail.
    I'm really relaxing...having an almost completely on-the-computer day, which hasn't happened for well over a year, maybe closer to two. I'm savoring it. It's delicious.
    Well, back to the technical side of producing this.
    Later.

for Adult Onset Type 2 Diabetics, especially those who developed it for age related reasons rather than lifestyle reasons: Even a tiny little bit of movement helps keep one's blood sugar in optimum balance. My mother is an excellent example of this, especially lately, since movement, for her, has come in fits and starts and I've had to be extra meticulous about monitoring her diabetic medication.
    Some days, for instance, if the pain is bad and she is particularly stiff or she's had a dramatic acupuncture treatment she may only eat two meals and may only receive the absolute minimum amount of liquids to keep her optimally hydrated, about two quarts. On these days she usually spends 16 out of 24 hours sleeping, not necessarily all at once. Typically I can get in a glipizide meal twice on those days. But yesterday for instance, her last meal was a non-glipizide meal (too soon since her last meal and she hadn't 'fasted' long enough for the medication to be effective), high, though on metformin in order to take advantage of the extended release effect of the glipizide. I already knew when she had 'lunch' at 1900, which was a hearty helping of some of her sour favorites: Sauerkraut and polish sausage cooked together; tart, fast-pickled beets with cinnamon; a dish of day old popcorn; 12 oz. of picante V-8 juice; that even if she remained up until midnight and thus qualified for more ibuprofen I very likely would not be able to get her to eat and would have to send her to bed without. That was fine with her and her earlier trashing tissue walk underscored as much.
    Last night was good proof that a little goes a long way relating movement and blood glucose levels. Yesterday, although her sleep was prodigious, when she was up so was her incidental movement. She went to the bathroom a lot (thus I tried to feed her foods high in sodium as well as pumping her with liquids), wandered about looking for magazines to read (amazing that she remembered she might want to read; she's been forgetting this lately), cats to pet, etc. Her blood glucose readings were very nicely controlled, for her, despite the amount of sleep she stashed under her belt. We were both surprised. Yes, I feed her technical information about her blood sugar, we talk about it and during her clearer passages she remembers and uses the information to figure things out. It is not uncommon for her to ask me to remind her what her medications are and what they do as she's taking them. Some of the excellent control is due, of course, to her limited food intake dictated by eating only two meals. Some of it is that we've been very successful at keeping her blood sugar under control lately even though it's often meant giving her the limit of her prescribed medicines more often than I like. I'm sure, too, that she's somewhat anemic, considering the ibuprofen and the increased dosages of metformin. She looks good, though. When she begins to blanch around the edges I give her an iron pill. Her energy level is certainly higher when she's awake than it was when she was battling anemia all the time.
    I believe she may be stirring.
    Later.

...and a stream of consciousness posting day.
    It started snowing as I headed out on my one small errand. By the time I turned around at the other edge of town and looked toward our area in the elevated Thumb Butte foothills I was in a snow flurry watching an angry cloud encase the side of town where we live. It's certainly cold enough to stick and had begun to do so by the time I got home.
    I headed in to wake up Mom but she was dreaming. I hate to disturb her dreams. I'll check her again in a bit. I rationalize that I'm doing her no harm because she was up until midnight last night. At any rate, I'm sure she won't be napping once she's up. We're doing her hair today. This will be an all day pleasure trip for her. Me bathing her and lotioning her in the morning also feels good to her. We're set for the day.
    I'd love it if she awoke to a winter wonderland. That happened once last week. She'd just begun the sleep cycle of a nap as a snow storm came on and crystalized our anyway-magnificent view. I was compelled by the beauty to awaken her even though she'd been down less than half an hour. Daylight was fading and I wasn't sure how visible the transformation would be through windows into the dark. It was fine. She was thrilled and remained awake from that point on. She says she's not a fan of snow but in a truly picturesque area like Prescott even snow is a treat.
    Excuse me. The sun just "came out" in force. I can't see my screen and need to change my position. Damn. Maybe our weather is going to clear. Too bad.

...I did some general maintenance on the original Mom & Me site...adding updated, convenient menus for the entire site, cleaning up coloring a little, stuff you may not notice. The search engine still only searches Mom & Me One Archive, which includes the histories but nothing else. I will soon be setting search engines up on individual sites but I don't think I can set up an 'interdisciplinary' search engine.
    Looks like it's going to rain. I've got one errand to run before it does and Mom's still asleep. If I go now I can be back by 1100. I'll check in with her before I go and plant a suggestion in her sleeping consciousness not to arise before I return. So far, that seems to always have worked. When I plant the suggestion, I always tell her where I'm going, why, and about how long I'll be gone. I guess, the first time it doesn't work, we'll know that, well, at the very least, I'm not practicing hypnotic suggestion successfully.
    Later.

    Last night, after an amount of bed rest I was feeling guilty about not battling (it isn't just a matter of "allowing" her to go to bed, believe me) over the last few days, one very successful walk and what appeared to me to be very good coloring, right after we finished watching...hmmm...what was it...oh, yeah, Sister Act 2, one of my mother's perennial favorites...anyway, without any to do, so little, in fact, that I almost didn't take note of the miracle unfolding before me, she arose from her stabilized rocking chair, her left hand full of tissue trash and walked to the two stairs that lift one out of the living room area (or, I guess, what would be called a mini great room) and took the steps one after the other, foot by foot. Suddenly I realized, she's walking like she used to walk before she fell! She's doing it without thinking.
    So, without thinking that I might spoil the moment I yelled her attention to what she's doing. She was unfazed. She looked at me as though I was crazy. She splayed her hands in genuine ingenuousity. "I'm just walking," she said, "may I continue to the bathroom?" she asked in mock obeisance.
    I laughed. "That's the beauty of it! Go in peace!"
    I tell you, sometimes I am in awe of the convenience of a faulty short term memory. It is very convenient that, as one's body is forgetting to move in order to compensate for injury the mind has already forgotten the injury. I will always treasure the times during this convalescence when, after a few hours without pain or twinges (usually sedentary hours, but who's counting, at least she's awake), I ask her how her back is feeling and she looks at me like I just got back from a time warp or another quantum signature reality. She shrugs. Gets that look in her eye she always gets that says, "Oh yeah, that's right, she's the peculiar one, I have to be careful with her." She responds, "It's fine," with an implied, "why the fuck shouldn't it be?!?"
    At times like these I love not only my mother but my mother's take on old age. It's funny because earlier in the day I had a short mini-breakdown. One of the reasons I allowed my mother to sleep in until after noon (which I won't be doing today) is that suddenly, after days and weeks and months of it not making any difference, I was revolting at the thought of spending the next 45 minutes to an hour and a half smelling and cleaning my mother's urine. This daily morning task, into which I've gracefully fallen, has even allowed me to objectively rate the scent of my mother's urine: Not objectionably strong, not sweet (which is good), very mild, not concentrated, a little like the smell of the blackening flower petals on a flower left too long in an unrefreshed vase (a smell with which I'm very familiar). I now autonomically seek out sniffs to try to detect changes in her body chemistry which might be significant.
    But yesterday morning it took me a long time to face the smell of her urine. When I was finally able to enter her room to rouse her the first thing I did, in a desperately apologetic voice, was ask her not to touch me because I didn't want to have to deal with the smell of her urine on me that morning. She did a double take but complied without a loss of short term memory.
    We discussed it once more when she was washing her arms and I was washing her legs. My voice was sharper than usual as I directed her over all the parts of her arm and admonished her to scrub: "Remember, you're washing off your pee. You've been laying in it, rolling around in it, all night. Get it off."
    She looked at me like I was exaggerating.
    "I mean it, Mom! I don't care whether or not you remember. We do this every goddamn morning. This morning I'm just having a hard time dealing with it."
    She gave me a nominally sympathetic, "Yeah, well, that's you're problem," look and started on the opposite arm before she finished with the one she was working on.

    I truly do not understand the way she heals. She will go for months carrying, nursing an illness, then suddenly overnight as in the case of the accidental colonic, she'll noticeably improve or recover. I know this will not continue forever. I was beginning to wonder if this lower back sprain was going to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. But she's doing it again. She's getting tired of being sick so she's releasing the memory of not only the dis-ease but the condition that lead up to the trauma surrounding this dis-ease.
    I continue to recall, in response to the acupunturist's statement that contrary to my memory of no previous back injuries she'd obviously suffered a previous injury, small instances of falls from which she seemed not to need to recover but which apparently, coupled with her increasingly compensatory walking habits, weakened her back and set her up for a fall.

• There was the fall where she broke her hand.
• There was the one, when I wasn't home, where, in the middle of last summer in Mesa in the middle of the day she decided to go get the mail. Barefoot. She "lost her balance", according to our dear neighbor to the north who happened to be out (my mother is well protected in the area of needed witnesses) and was immediately restored and ushered in by another neighbor passing in a car. I didn't find out about that one until a few days later. My mother didn't remember it and didn't harbor any ill effects. I remember coming home the evening of the incident. She was sitting upright at the table drinking watered down coffee, reading tabloids, looking chipper, suggesting that we go out to eat, which we did, to Chili's.

She has been regularly x-rayed for this and that throughout the past year and a half so any breaks would have been and have been noticed. Her Mesa PCP was meticulous about this aspect of her care. Muscular and ligamental weakness is hard to detect in an x-ray, though. Easier in observation but sometimes the compensations fool you.
    Intense, directed 'prayer' (for me, this is what amounts to deep, directed meditation; my mother has a traditional relationship with god/God/All and prays in the traditional manner) on her and my behalves seemed to have only a slightly ameliorative affect. Faulty short term memory seems to have a more immediate affect.
    I have in the past few days been in a caregiver's funk. A touch of burnout, I guess. I'm not any less grateful, just tired. I look for moments of respite that I know will allow me, as well as my mother, to recharge. I'm grateful that it would be, at this time, ridiculous to take my mother on trips that involve me wielding a grocery basket while she's in a wheel chair. I take grocery trips during her naps and take full advantage of the sociality involved in these trips and the opportunity to run into people I know, which Prescott allows with generosity. Doing yardwork helps, too, but I have to be careful with this, as well. It's been too cold for her to sit out and watch me if she's awake. If she's sleeping I need to keep an eye on her to make sure I anticipate her attempts to arise so she doesn't lose her balance in the wooze of awaking and fall off the bed. Oh. Wow. That's right. About a year ago, in Mesa, she fell off the bed in the middle of the night. I heard it, immediately awoke, rushed in and by that time she was back on the bed. One cat was standing by, fluffed for battle. We never mentioned the incident again but later that afternoon the back of her left hand swelled into an egg and we had her x-rayed for breakage, of which there was none. It took a couple of months for the egg to dissolve. The discoloration still exists. The fact that she probably received this contusion by falling out of bed was not mention nor addressed. As I recall, she and I both attributed the injury to her habit of occasionally flinging her hands against the wall at the head of her bed at night, when she's rolling over in her sleep. Hmmmm.
    So, a lot of details set one up for a fall.
    An observation: It's hell to be old and heal from a fall. It's true. Old age is not for sissies. I haven't yet decided whether I'm a sissy.