Mom & Me Two Archive

...out of which I just awoke! This is the second night in a row I've awakened from extremely vivid dreams, so vivid I thought I wasn't dreaming (I usually am aware, at some level, that I'm dreaming). Yesterday morning's dream was altogether delightful, although confused, contained some very funny elements and united me with MFASRF, a very dear long time friend with whom I've been trying to get together for a visit for a couple of years, but either his or my circumstances haven't allowed this.
    This morning's dream, though, was frightening. I'm reviewing it here in order to have a record of it and because I believe it is related to some major tension I'm definitely experiencing from what's been going on in my and my mother's lives since late July and possibly some minor tension over how well I will be able to direct our lives to my mother's maximum benefit when she returns tomorrow. The elements of the dream that express the tension are subtle, so I'll explain them at the end of recording the dream which, by the way, is so vivid I'm not losing memory of any of it as the minutes tick away. It was so personally frightening that as I was making coffee this morning I thought I saw a stranger's arm reaching around me to grab me and I gasped and flailed as though I was being captured by force.
    I should, as a preamble, explain that after retiring relatively early last night, completely relaxed and satisfied with my day, I awoke at 1235 out of a dream in which I had been chewing a green, scratchy, waxy substance, similar to those scrub sponges for non-stick cook ware and was trying to remove it from my mouth. The more I removed, the more appeared in my mouth. Once I awoke I realized I was congested and had an extremely sore throat. "So, that's why I was feeling so punk yesterday afternoon," I thought. I took 3 ibuprofen, drank a large mug of Celestial Seasonings Black Cherry Berry tea, a large glass of bubble water, both of which soothed my throat, spent a half hour blowing out my congestion and re-retired, seemingly even more relaxed that earlier.
Sidebar:In case you're wondering, I don't advertise products (including, for instance, television shows and movies) because I receive kickbacks. The companies aren't even aware I'm advertising them. I do it because there have been so many times when I've read mention in personal web sites of products that sound interesting but there is so little information that I can't locate them. I provide specific locations on the web of products I mention if such a location exists so that I don't participate in the same web confusion that so irritates me.
    The dream took place in the present and featured myself and a former, decades ago very good friend of mine in the guise of Rosie O'Donnell (there's a reason this friend appeared as Rosie O'Donnell which I'll explain after recounting the dream). She and I were window shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square in Scottsdale, Arizona. We were detained by police and transported to a woman's prison facility that, in the dream, was located where Motorola in Scottsdale has sat for years, between Hayden and North Granite Reef longitudinally and McDowell and Roosevelt latitudinally. We were detained without expressed cause and without being read our rights. Neither of us had any idea why we had been arrested and "put away". The warden of our cell block was the head nurse who evaluated my mother when she first arrived at the SNF two weeks ago today. In the dream, instead of wearing a nursing uniform, she was wearing a prison gray jump suit. She explained that we were allowed to leave the cell block to "visit" other areas of the prison complex three times a day, which visits could include meeting with any outside visitors we might have.
    While we were mulling over why we'd been arrested my parents (both, including my dead father, both of whom lived in Scottsdale in my dream) arrived for a visit. Although they'd been notified of my arrest and simultaneous assignment to a women's prison facility, they hadn't any idea why I'd been arrested. They assumed that, whatever the reason was, I must be guilty, otherwise why would I have been arrested. I expressed deep disappointment that they had no faith in me, upon which they and their dog (which suddenly appeared, a black lab/rottweiler mix) left.
    While my "Rosie" friend and I were meeting and greeting our fellow inmates and discovering that the community shower stall was permanently flooded, which didn't seem to bother any of the other inmates, someone produced two black and white pictures which explained why we'd been arrested. The first picture showed us relaxing on a raised portion of a cement canal beneath the city in which we'd been swimming and canoeing. The second picture showed us in the canoe navigating the canal. There were many, many others appearing in the picture, so many that it was hard for us to recognize ourselves. We realized that the reason we'd been picked out for attention was that we were adults, as evidenced by our choice of clothing, and most of the others were teenagers. We also expressed surprise that playing in the undercity canal was illegal, as there were no signs along the canal that indicated this and, as well, it was such a popular activity in this part of Arizona, rather like tubing the Salt River, that everyone did in the summer to cool off and relax.
    Soon after we discovered that we would be detained for a period of two to three years with 6 months off for good behavior. My "Rosie" friend decided immediately that we needed to stick together on this "travesty", lie our way out of it by denying we were there or ever had been in the canal and disputing the identity of our photographs. I informed her that I would not lie. I felt, considering that common knowledge ascribed no illegality to what we did, so much so that not only did everyone do it but the pictures showed that on the day in question recreational traffic in the canal was particularly heavy, we had a good chance of "beating" this "rap" which was definitely a "miscarriage of poorly designed and poorly applied law and justice". She decided to go her way. I decided to go mine.
    My decision included calling my parents' stockbroker (whose identity in the dream was the same as my mother's stockbroker in reality) to inform him of what had happened and solicit the name of a lawyer who could quickly and resolutely negotiate me through this legal morass. An interminably long line of individuals sitting on a bench, the end of which I could not see, waiting for their chance at a five minute phone call discouraged me from attempting to use the phones. By this time it was evening of our first day of incarceration and "lights out" was a mere hour and a half due.
    I decided to break out of the facility and walk to my parents' residence to use their phone. I used the pretext that I had one visit outside my cell block coming to me that day. It was very easy to escape, as there were no fences or walls. I simply walked across some agriculture fields (which no longer bind the Motorola facility but did many years ago) and quickly arrived at my parent's apartment complex (which was in reality a complex in which our reduced-by-daughter-marriage family lived for a short period after we returned to the States from Guam, a complex on the southwest corner of Thomas and Hayden in Scottsdale which is now condominiums, which I discovered two days ago).
    Half the complex had converted to concrete, underground slums, almost unlivable in their disrepair. I negotiated my way through these. After a few failed attempts I made my way through the maze of stairs and landings to my parents' apartment, all the way hoping that they would allow me to at least enter and use their phone to call for a lawyer. Although I was afraid that they would not allow me entrance I was also hopeful about my situation, knowing that the facts of the case as I understood them would surely get me and my "Rosie" friend released as soon as a competent lawyer was able to approach the judicial establishment on our behalf and show that the law was obscure, existed in a "reasonable and prudent" state, thus the arrest could be fought on the grounds that nobody knew that a law against recreational use of this particular canal existed and the law was disobeyed thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of times a day during the summer by almost everyone living within the Valley.
    At this point I awoke.

1. The feeling that I had been trapped out of my ability to maneuver through life by people willfully attempting to keep me in ignorance has been a major concern of mine as I've been negotiating my mother's health care. In reality, yesterday and the day before I momentarily wondered if I was being lied to about the existence of a CBC that might have been taken sometime after August 12th with a hemoglobin count so low that it would cause me to question whether she was getting the proper amount of supplemental iron at the SNF.
2. The appearance of my long ago friend also figures into the feeling of being lied to and being asked to participate in lying. She is one of two sociopathic liars I've encountered in my life with whom I've become involved in close, finally disastrous relationships. The reason my relationship with this friend ended was because I discovered that she had lied to me and her entire coterie of friends and some relatives about certain serious circumstances in her life. The lies were such that they could be considered pathological and her exercise of lying could without hesitation be considered sociopathic. The circumstances about which she lied we so involving that she would go out of her way to disappear at times when she was supposedly traveling for purposes related to the lie. The lies also allowed her to solicit unusually large amounts of energy and time from all her friends/relatives and her lover to her own purposes without regard for other people's circumstances and ability to produce results for her when she needed help. She went so far as to criticize and abandon people who found themselves unable to accommodate her requests on behalf of the lie. All of us discovered the lie about her life at the same time. Most of us confronted her within a matter of days. Once confronted, she quickly procured a job in her profession (at which, I might add, she was exceptional) outside the state and once again disappeared, this time for good. The reason she appeared as Rosie O'Donnell in my dream is that, although she did not look at all like Rosie O'Donnell she sounded and acted quite a bit like her, so much so that, many years later, when I first glimpsed Rosie O'Donnell during her rise to fame I immediately thought of this long-ago close friend, in part because this friend had an addiction to talk shows and often fantasized, hilariously about having a talk show of her own, who she would interview and what she would say.
       I am positive that the reason she appeared in my dream is that I continue to experience a lot of tension about my perception that the non-alternative medical establishment engages, willfully and self-confidently, in a number of lies, illusions and misdirective strategies in order to try to keep me (not personally; certainly medicine does this with all laymen at some point) from negotiating with, through and around it on behalf of my mother's health issues. The reason this particular friend appeared as "the non-alternative medical establishment" is that she had a doctorate in her field which was not medicine but was related to medical research.
3. The reason that a "friend" of mine appeared as temptress, so to speak, toward a collusive lie about the activities for which we'd been arrested and incarcerated is because, on a daily basis, I have been and continue to be counseled by friends and sometimes relatives to lie about my mother's health circumstances in order to obtain or deny-without-ridiculous-consequences treatment prescribed for my mother or information I need to evaluate suggested medical treatments in order to make decisions on the need for and the administration of such treatments.
       The reason I don't lie isn't because I'm afraid of getting caught. It's because I'm afraid, while lying, I will inadvertently lose a valuable though tricky resource or endanger my mother's health by making it even more difficult for me to access the information I need before making medical decisions on her behalf.
4. My father appearing alive in my dream relates to my accelerated thoughts about him lately, wondering if he exists in some form and is aware of what I'm doing on behalf of my mother, whether he approves of my refusal to accept-as-law (thus, the appearance of the law in my dream) everything the non-alternative medical community wants to do to her and my insistence on striking out on my own to manage her health care, often in defiance of "medical law", which, of course, is synonymous with "doctor's orders". In reality, I most often suspect that he would be very pleased with what he would probably consider my rebel's stance. I'm never quite sure of his possible judgment though, especially when medical situations become tight and I have to make a decision that is not clear cut.
5. As for such elements as window shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square, the "reasonable and prudent" take on the legal dilemma, the site of the prison being the Motorola complex in Scottsdale, my parents living at a complex we previously, as a family, inhabited and the necessity of me doing something illegal (escaping from prison) to accomplish a legal goal, all of these hark back to random thoughts I've had throughout the past few weeks of my mother's stay in the hospital and at the SNF, usually thoughts triggered by something happening around me as I am driving to or from visiting with her.
6. I'm not sure about the canal business, the slum area of what appeared in the dream as my parents' apartment complex (although this could be the mental up-chuck of some scenes in a movie I recently viewed, Unconditional Love), the sudden appearance of a dog at my parents' side as they were closing their visit with me at the prison, the difficultly of using the phone bank at the prison which provoked my escape, why I didn't escape with plans for not returning (in the dream I clearly intended on returning to the prison, the dream just didn't last long enough for me to return), the permanent flooding of the community shower stall at the prison, the three-excursion out of the cell block limit and the appearance of a specific nurse at the SNF as warden at the prison (especially since I have an extremely high regard for this nurse and treasure her as one of the few in the medical field who trusts the information and efforts of intense caregivers). It could be that she has seemed distant over the last week. This has set me to wondering if my rambunctiousness at the SNF has somehow offended her. As for the other elements, they may have been random picks floating up as my brain processed and filed or dumped bits of data that have been remaining on the shelf over the last few weeks. I simply can't trace them to anything in particular.

    This has taken a long time to enter, as I've been doing it while accomplishing cleaning chores throughout the house, paying attention to The Girls and calling my mother to see how she's doing. She is, by the way, doing well, as usual, looking forward to release. She told me that she had been out of the room for awhile to "attend a meeting" that "wasn't very entertaining". My guess is that she went for her group occupational therapy. I told her about finding a pair of 1 lb. weights for her so we could continue her therapy at home. She groaned comically and I laughed. I also told her about locating "the perfect toilet riser", to which she made a joke about being the only people on the block with a high-rise toilet, perhaps we should advertise and charge admission, at which I groaned, comically, and she laughed.
    I probably won't do as much cleaning as I'd planned. I am naturally inclined to find any excuse not to clean legitimate. I consider awakening a bit physically under the gorgeous weather we're having here today a good excuse to just clear paths through the house, put away obvious obstacles to my mother's movement and vacuum. Luckily, I have a co-conspirator in my mother. I got my lack of interest in cleaning and my lack of ability to recognize dirt and disorder from her. Evidentially: When she asked why I didn't sound like myself I told her I had a bit of a cold, a sore throat and congestion and was "a little tired". She encouraged me to "take it easy, if you clean too much I won't recognize the place." That's my Mom, and my dear life companion. We're a perfect match, in deed and misdeed.
    Tomorrow after her release I'll be taking her to lunch in the Valley, one of her favorite activities. She's been complaining more and more about the "boring" food at the SNF, which I consider indicative that her taste buds are continuing to recover their on-alert status after four weeks of not smoking. I thought it might be a fitting experience to give them a treat for lunch in celebration of her release.
    Despite my low energy level, my cold, my concern over new tensions we might experience when she returns and some of the dream elements, I'm excited about her release and return. Oddly, for me, a dyed-in-the-wool Solitaire, I'm uncomfortable here without her, uncomfortable as I travel knowing she won't be home when I arrive, uncomfortable not being able to monitor at will her state of life and mood. I think this is a good development, although very strange for me to experience.
    The sun is beginning its incremental journey back to the position where it floods our living and dining areas with light and heat during the winter. The Little Girl just discovered a patch of it and is settling into the light for a bath and a Sacred Nap. I've got two car-based errands to run, both related to Mom's homecoming tomorrow, then I can relax and perhaps take a Sacred Nap myself before finishing the cleaning chores I feel up to managing. Mom had better return before I morph into a confirmed nap taker.

...having spent the day trying to keep track of my comings and goings. When I returned at home for the day late this afternoon I was exhausted, too, and hurt all over. I took a 1.5 hour nap, both Girls snugged close to me to make sure, I imagine, I didn't trot out again.
    I just finished entering the results of the BMP for which blood was drawn yesterday. If you're interested, you can access it at Blood Test Draw Date: 8/18/04. Nothing spectacular about this one. It indicates Mom is stable and doing well within her own parameters. Her BUN and BUN/Creat ratio are "high", but normal, for her, as I discovered a few days ago when I did an abbreviated comparison of her CBC and BMP results from 2000 forward.
    Mom's release date has been moved to Saturday at 1100, for which I am both pleased and grateful. I was gnawing my mental fingers to the bone wondering how I was going to negotiate rush hour traffic, either going or coming or both, and try to schedule the Valley visits to people Mom wants to see before we head back up the mountain. All these people are working on Friday, which meant our schedule was beginning to look like an episode of The Twilight Zone, and I was wondering how and where we were going to be able to land in case she had a bowel accident, needed to stop and hydrate before continuing, needed to eat, needed a nap, etc.
    It has taken a great deal more effort on my part than I imagined to get her toilet fitted with a riser that will suit her shrunken frame and short legs. Finding one pound hand dumb bells in a rural town was also a challenge. None of the typical chain stores (Target, Walmart and K-Mart) had them. One of the in-town sporting goods stores told me there was no such thing (yes, I corrected him). I finally found them in Prescott Valley. I found the perfect toilet riser at the location I should have thought to try in the first place, Prescott's long time independent pharmacy, the one place where I've been able to get all kinds of obscure supplements, products and equipment when all the other pharmacies (all of them chain pharmacies) were unable and/or unwilling to accomodate us. On Tuesday I began the odyssey of finding the right riser at "official" medical supply businesses. Through that day and today I purchased and returned three, one to each of the medical supply businesses, two of them recommended by the hospital here in Prescott (figures, doesn't it). The pharmacy at which I was finally successful today had the perfect style, secure and exactly the right height, out on the floor ready to go, allowed me to open the box and inspect and measure the equipment, volunteered to come out to the house and help me install it for free if I had trouble (it was very easy to install so this wasn't necessary, but their offer was in direct contrast to the other three businesses specializing in medical supplies who offered installation "for a fee") and assured me they would take it back under any conditions if it didn't fit my mother (the others all waffled on this, saying they would take it back as long as it wasn't used, which, considering the type of equipment, isn't unreasonable except that the local, independent pharmacy didn't consider prior use an automatic cancellation of return policy). It was, as well, the least expensive of all the risers I tried. Luckily, I can tell from how it sits for me whether it's going to sit well for my mother.
    I also spent some time laying in food staples that have either spoiled or through which I've eaten my way since August 1st, the day I took her down the mountain to the hospital. I bought interesting gifts and cards for the two staffs at the nursing home who have been Mom's excellent recuperative team within which she has flourished, and for her roommate who looked after Mom, as she was able, and turned out to be a wry delight with whom to share a room.
    It is with much pleasure that I contemplate having an extra day to clean (which, of course, I put off, not being the world's most enthusiastic cleaner) and move things around for Mom's convenience. The nursing home is going to issue a prescription for continued out-patient physical therapy and is doing the research into Home Health Care here in Prescott, thank the gods. Their discharge representative is extremely helpful in all aspects of discharge and, much to my surprise, anticipated and had already negotiated filling most of my requests. The few I had which aren't typical (i.e., blood test results since the last I received) are being handled with enthusiasm.
    Even after the nap (before which I should have probably dosed myself with ibuprofen but was so tired I forgot) I still ached. I suspect this is unresolved tension from the last three weeks settling in all those odd areas of my body, including my brain, that have been moving at top speed without any relaxation since Mom and I took this turn in the path of our shared lives. I'm sure it will resolve itself once we settle in to our old/new routine back here at home.
    Despite the enormous tension of having her primary medical care based 2.5 hours away, I've made a firm decision not to alter this situation. I'm not at all interested anymore in trying to find suitable medical management up here. The non-alternative medical community in Prescott is much too full of itself and its "seller's market" status to be respectful, wise and helpful to us (and, as I understand, to lots of other people).
    I'm seriously considering writing a letter to the hospital here detailing exactly how much money this community denied itself, in my mother's case, by puffing out its chest, refusing to factor in my mother and exercising its asshole "seller's market" status. Right off the bat, they denied the money from what could have been a lucrative emergency room visit, a three day hospital stay, three neurologist salaries, one PCP salary, numerous radiologic, electronic and blood tests, hospital staff salaries, nursing home profit and salaries for a two week stay, food service profit, the city services I would have used up here running our home which I didn't use during the days I was in the Valley, half of all my gas bills, almost all my coffee-and-food-on-the-run bills, pharmacy profit, I probably would have rented some movies up here if I had been staying up here, I certainly would have gone to the theater to see a couple of first run movies during Mom's in-house hospital and skilled nursing facility stays, I haven't been to our typical grocery or Costco in three weeks where I certainly would have been spending money if all Mom's recent medical care had taken place up here, I even had the oil changed and some routine maintenance done on our cars in the Valley during the last three weeks because it was more convenient since I was leaving here so early and arriving back so late. On the days I was here I was busy making up for the days I wasn't here, including zoning out from the constant up-and-down of the last three weeks. How incredibly foolish Prescott's non-alternative medical community is, thinking they've got it made. Their hubris cost them and the surrounding community close to, I imagine, a couple tens of thousands of dollars over the last three weeks. Yep, they definitely need to receive a letter from me and, I think, the local paper needs to receive a copy.
    Tonight I'm sitting back and taking stock of what's been happening over the last three weeks in our conjoined lives. I'll probably stop taking stock shortly, watch a movie on TV and drink some hot chocolate to relax and settle me into an unalarmed sleep.
    I can't say that I haven't enjoyed the trips up and down the mountain. Last night I rode up with the rain and it was glorious. Tuesday I was accompanied by the most spectacular sunrise and sunset. Every driving morning, heading out before sunrise, I've reveled in the courteous, professional skills of the bulk of my fellow companions on the road at those hours, the suppliers and distributors in their delivery trucks and semis. In opposition to what most commuters and non-professional travelers think, these paid, attentive drivers are the safest on the road.
    I'm such a lucky one, living this life with my mother, and I've been especially lucky within the last three weeks. All there is left to say, to the Essence of All, to every spec and string of existence definitely within and seemingly without myself, is thank you, thank you, thank you. My spirit is zinging and singing with gratitude and appreciation.
    Later.

...Tuesday night about the efforts of cigarette manufacturers to produce a "safer" cigarette. At the beginning of the program was a short profile on exactly what chemicals cigarettes deposit into the body and what the effects of these chemicals are on body chemistry. Although the profile did not specifically mention that anemia could have its cause in smoking, the explanation of what happens to the body, especially in relation to hemoglobin, got me thinking that cigarette smoking may very well have something to do with Mom's anemia.
    This morning, I did an initial search involving web documents mentioning both "anemia" and "cigarette". It seems that there appears to be a link between iron deficiency anemia, which is the type my mother has, and cigarette smoking, which doesn't surprise me. Smoking definitely has an effect on hemoglobin production and the ability of existent hemoglobin to distribute oxygen to cells. In order to compensate for the effects of cigarette smoking on hemoglobin production and productivity, the recommended "normal range" of hemoglobin for smokers is supposed to be elevated by a fair number of tenths. Some of the significant links I found which explore the relationship of cigarette smoking to iron deficiency anemia are as follows:

• Anemia - Heart Canada
  "Conversely, tea, coffee, and cigarette smoking reduce iron absorption."
• MoonDragon's Health & Wellness: Cadmium Toxicity
  Cites cadmium toxicity, of which the cadmium filters into the body from cigarette smoking, as a cause of iron deficiency anemia.
• McVitamins
  A tract on smoking which heavily implicates cigarette smoking in "severe anemia".
• Anemia is risk factor for physical decline in older adults
  "The researchers also adjusted for other factors that might affect the results, such as age, sex, cigarette smoking and blood pressure, and found that anemia is an independent risk factor."

    What surprises me is that alternative health sources are more willing to recognize this link than non-alternative health sources, which is why I included the last link above.
    I do not intend to take these suggestions lightly. My intent is to do everything possible to try and nip Mom's anemia in the bud, especially considering the effects of anemia cited in the article connected to the last link above, even though that article considers anemia a risk factor "independent" of cigarette smoking.
    Blood was drawn yesterday for a BMP. I was told a CBC was not ordered. This surprised me and I'm it sorry wasn't ordered, as that is the test which analyzes for hemoglobin and hematocrit. I'm going to enter the results of the BMP at the Mom's Tests site later. In review: Her BUN and BUN/Creat Ratio are still high but I confirmed with both her facility doctor and the director of nursing that, considering that Mom's readings tend to run high, I don't need to get excited until she begins to show reading of 35 and above. I'm now thinking that if we are able to bring her hemoglobin back into what would be considered a normal range for her, her BUN and BUN/Creat ratio readings will probably settle down.
    I've just made an appointment for her to see her PCP on the afternoon of September 8th. Thus, I'll wait until the week previous to have her standing blood draw taken. At the same time I'll have the raft of tests ordered by her hematologist done. I'm hoping for and expecting very good results although I'm not going to rely on luck. Effort will be involved in raising her health profile by modifying our routines at home, specifically her movement and awake routines, since her dietary routine here is already topnotch. And, of course I'm going to see to it that she does not take up smoking, again. I don't anticipate this to be difficult as I'm thinking she may have almost completely forgotten that she smokes since she is no longer displaying any of her typical habits that surround the smoking of cigarettes.
    The more I think about it, the more I realize that allowing certain long term, destructive habits to continue just because a person is, "old, give her/him a break" is akin to giving up on the amazing recuperative powers of the bodies of Ancient Ones, and, for that matter, their spirit. While I believe it's true that it is my mother's amazing spirit and will that have kept her alive and in fairly decent health with protracted problems developing only over the last few years, I also believe that giving into our societal tendency to underestimate the regenerative capabilities of Ancient Ones and the recuperative powers that breaking long standing bad habits can have sells Ancient Ones severely short and may, as well, shorten their lives. At the very least it can seriously lower their quality of life. I have come to believe that a relaxed attitude toward Ancient One status, including our readiness to allow Ancient Ones to have their way even if that way is obviously damaging, shows an unexamined lack of respect toward life in its Ancient Years. Yes, Ancient One status is, in part, about physical decline. But it is also about life. Life always does better when it is aided by healthy habits, regardless of how old one lives to be. While I believe that people should be allowed to (and will, anyway) kill themselves in whatever way they choose and dictate their own health status, I'm coming to consider that when someone begins to falter in their ability to judge what they want and don't want to do to pursue either goal of keeping themselves as healthy and active as possible or pursuing a steady decline out of life, those caring for that person need to take over and make judicious decisions about what the person in question is going to do.
    For instance, my mother often talks about wanting to pursue "interesting" activities, but her former routine put her in such a position, health-wise, that she didn't have the energy or the ability to pursue them. So she'd sit in her rocking chair (or lay in her bed) and decide that whatever she had wanted to do wasn't worth doing. I could, I know, allow my mother to come back to the life she was leading with extreme stubbornness prior to this episode of tottering health. It would be no more stressful for her in the short run, despite the fact that having to endure the certain hospital and skilled nursing facility stays that would result is, in the long run, not something she enjoys doing. As well, some of the routines from her skilled nursing facility stay that I intend to continue do, indeed, provoke a certain level of personal stress for her. On Monday when my visit began early but she still wasn't dressed and ready for therapy, I delivered some good humored prods.
    She glared at me from her semi-reclined position on the bed and asked defiantly, "Why!?!" as though she expected me to be able to come up with an answer.
    "I'm surprised you're continuing to ask that question, Mom," I responded. "Don't you feel better than you've felt in a long time?"
    "Well, yes," she begrudged me.
    "Don't you have more energy?"
    "Maybe. I'm not sure."
    "Well," I confirmed for her, "I can see that you do. And part of that is because you've been forced to get out of bed and move around. Wouldn't you agree that the proof is in the pudding?"
    "That's what they say," she said.
    "Well, I can see from the evidence that 'what they say' certainly applies to your stay here. So I think we just need to go with it and continue to make and eat the pudding you've been served here since you're doing so well on it."
    She mumbled and grumbled and shot me dirty looks but when I moved to "whup her up" she rose under her own steam in defiance of my arms wrapped around her. "I can do it myself," she said, as though she was settling an argument in her favor.
    "Good. That makes my job a lot easier."
    Well, I've got places to go, things to do and people to see to get everything ready for Mom's arrival, tomorrow. I'll check in...
    ...later.

August 19, 2004 - 0722
    By the way, my mother is being released tomorrow...She's doing incredibly well, is ready to come home and I am more than ready to have her home again. I've decided I'm not going to give in to her desire to sleep all day and all night or sit in her rocker when she's upright and her eyes are open. Since she's gotten used to the routine at the nursing home of arising at a decent hour and doing something that involves movement every morning and afternoon and she's doing really, really well on that routine I'm not going to change it. I'm very pleased that I discovered, pre-nursing home, that I can "whup" her up when she refuses to arise. I think it's going to come in handy until she realizes that going home doesn't also mean going back to bed for the rest of her life.
    ...one of the...nurses told me that Mom thinks I'm her sister. That's cool. She and MS tried hard to take advantage of their proximity in the last years of MS's life and enjoyed a bond they'd never had a chance to develop during the first part of their lives. It was incredibly frustrating for Mom when MS developed serious health problems and dementia. I've been a lot of people to Mom since she and I began living together and she became "less intellectually agile". It's not only an honor to me that she thinks, somewhere in the recesses of her mind, that I'm MS but I believe this bodes well for our future. I could ask nothing more than to be thought of as the sister
Mom has always wished she could know better and with whom she could enjoy more time.
    So, I don't know, MFASRF. It's possible that my mother will live to be 120, or, like Methuselah, of whom she has talked and joked ever since I was a kid, she won't die, she'll be "gathered up", in which case I guess I'd better plan on becoming immortal. Which means The Girls will have to become immortal. Not that I've wanted to live forever, I don't even want to live to be old, but if my mother lives forever and The Girls cooperate, being immortal would have its compensations.
    It is so cool to accompany her walkering around the nursing home like a human dust devil, this tiny, old woman with her hair teased and piled on her head (I've insisted on keeping her hair done while she's been in the nursing home...having her hair done is one of the "secrets" to her continued existence and energy), her mouth tight with determination, stopping here and there to snoop into other people's lives through the doors of their rooms, making astute, funny comments about each resident as she wheels to the next door and the next discovery.

...with another resident at the SNF, barely able to contain my excitement. My mother is going to be released on Friday, August 20, 2004, at 1100! She has been doing very, very well here. This morning I found out that last night, out of a combination of curiosity, boredom and adventure-seeking, I'm sure, she decided to pad down the hall from her room to the nurses' station to see what was going on there. She did this without aid of wheelchair or walker. "She's a very independent lady," the Director of Nursing commented when she told me about my mother's night adventure. That she is.
    She did all three of her therapy sessions for the day this morning. She's napping now. I'll style her hair later (earlier I washed and set it), and I'll take her on one more walk today (this time with the walker; insurance prohibits me from encouraging her to walk on her own while at the facility) to the living area so she can fill her popcorn bowl. She is surprised that everyone considers it amazing that she took a leisurely walk on her own last night.
    While I was washing and setting her hair I asked her if she remembered anything about how it is she came to be admitted to this SNF. She did not. So I told her the story of her debilitation. She gazed back at my image in the mirror, rapt as I related her accelerating collapse of three weeks ago, then said, "Oh, my! That certainly isn't worth remembering!"
    She's right. It's not. Whether or not this attitude is a touch dangerous she can't see any reason why she shouldn't be able to stand up and move at will. Although this means I'll have to keep an eagle eye on her it also means that she is not going to assume that she might not be able to go where she wants and do what she wants. I prefer that she have this attitude. This means she'll do more and go more.
    She has amazing recuperative powers and I am pleased I am genetically related to such a woman. I hope, if I make it to her age (and, actually, considering everything I've learned about being Ancient, it wouldn't bother me if I didn't), I'm at least as adventurous as she is and as assumptive that I can do whatever I god damn well feel like doing.

...my mother is doing admirably well in her recovery at the SNF. I was with her yesterday and decided that "sitting in" on her therapy sessions (she received three, yesterday, two back to back in the morning, one for concentration on negotiating steps in the afternoon) wouldn't hurt. She performed, according to one of the therapists, slightly less vigorously with me there, but still with a good level of effort. I performed all her exercises with her, both in her group and individually, obtained some hand outs as reminders and took notes on other exercises. I expect to have to battle her intransigence once she returns home simply because I'm her daughter, I "don't know what I'm talking about" (although the therapists have confirmed for me that I have, indeed, known what I was talking about in regard to her using her walker and doing therapeutic exercises), and it is common for Ancient Ones (and, as MCS confirms for me, Very Young Ones, as well) to not feel the necessity to perform for their caregivers. This isn't a new battle for me. Although it is frustrating and sometimes exhausting I now know that I have inexhaustible energy reserves as far as continuing the battle and seeing to it that I win (and, thus, so does my mother), most of the time, for as long as my mother lives and her desire to relax to the point of debilitation in my presence continues.
    My mother is now, by the way, capable of walkering all over the facility without a gait belt. She's still a little iffy but it's not a physically based problem anymore. It has to do with her level of confidence in her body, which is something we can work on at home. She is having no problem negotiating steps (she never has; even a few weeks ago when she was collapsing after a few minutes of standing she was able to negotiate steps, which is weird,but true; steps were about the only place she didn't collapse). She is more than capable of understanding by sight exactly how to do both her upper and lower body exercises and is capable of noticing when she isn't performing the way the therapist performs. She is capable of correcting herself, whether or not she is made aware, by the therapist, that she needs to correct her method on a particular exercise. She is also good at walking herself in a wheel chair and feels confident enough to believe that she can go short distances unaided by a walker or wheelchair or someone in assistance, like to the bathroom, which she has done several times at the facility and continues to do. Of course, if I am there or a nurse or CNA or therapist she receives help but she believes she doesn't need it and she probably doesn't need much. She just needs someone to keep an eye on her progress. She is using very little oxygen and often takes therapy without oxygen. She no longer takes breathing treatments. Her appetite continues to be healthy enough so that she complains vigorously about the food and portions. Her blood sugar is under control without metformin, staying below the "200" level I was quoted. She continues on high doses of iron and on twice-a-day glipizide. She is not more mentally debilitated than she was before she began this episode. Her spirit remains incredibly strong and the strength of her will has been completely renewed.
    I talked to MCS earlier this morning, giving her the same rundown as appears above. She said, "You know, don't take this the wrong way, I'm sorry that this happened, but it seems to be a good thing that it did."
    "MCS," I responded, "I'm not sorry it happened. We both needed a push in this direction and I'm glad we got it." I know that what she meant was, it would have been nice if we'd never needed a push like this, but, you know, inertia is a powerful force regardless of what age one is. It never hurts to be challenged to test the possibility of movement against the inevitability of inertia.
    Later.

...yesterday I obtained the pending results for Mom's BMP from the blood draw taken on 8/12/04. It was these results that caused the SNF to decide that she is now dehydrating and should be taken off fluid restriction. The specific indicators are her BUN and BUN/Creatinine ratio, which are quite high, although, in fairness, not as high as they were on 8/9/04. So, as it turns out, these high readings were not, as the medical director of the facility told me (and which I recorded in an earlier post), due to her draw being left to sit before being analyzed.
    These readings have come down about 10 points apiece since having been taken on 8/9/04. They are still serious, though, and so is her dehydration. Hydration is not an easy issue to work on with Ancient Ones, especially when medical personnel are involved in the mix.
    I think this issue deserves an off the cuff essay like the one I wrote earlier in a post which disappeared when I attempted to publish it and never got around to rewriting, which I'll probably produce over the next few days and enter into the new off-the-cuff essay section.

...affecting her. She was on fluid restriction at the hospital because I had accidentally over hydrated her and thrown her into a low sodium level. Now, the SNF, following instructions from the hospital, thus, keeping her on fluid restriction and not worrying about her habit of not drinking fluids and not wanting them, has managed to move her into critical dehydration. I worked on this yesterday with Mom, while I was there, but, of course, I've become used to having to stand over her and practically pour fluids down her throat. I'm not sure that I can expect this from a SNF. I did, however, talk to her day nurse, the one health care provider in all these years who recognized, immediately, that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to the condition of my mother's body, medically and personally, about my mother's hydration profile, and enlisted her help in rallying the staff to remind my mother, ad infinitum, to drink water. I called my mother, immediately, as I told the nurse I would, after talking to the nurse and, sure enough, the nurse was in there "threatening" her in much the same way I do, so I am relieved, somewhat. I'll be all over my mother tomorrow, as I always tell her, "like a bad suit", getting her to drink but, today, I need to enlist the help of staff and visitors.
    I'm in the process of beginning yet another journaled section to this effort. It will be an informal essay area where I will be addressing issues that I normally address here but that get lost in the morass of everything else I am addressing. Setting the essay area up as a journal will also make it easier for me to write my informal essays on caregiving topics. Up to now I've felt as though I had to format separate pages for them. Now I don't have to. That should work, better, and the separation of material, with what I hope to be an index, should help make some critical material more accessible to those who visit with particular aspects of caregiving for Ancient Ones in mind.
    I've got a call to make, and then another, and then, I suppose, it might be a good idea if I finally eat breakfast.
    Later.