Saturday, October 23, 2004
The marginally good news is that tonight I rubbed down my mother's legs and feet.
It's been over a month since I've been motivated to do this. I'm not sure why I did it, tonight, as, when I began, despite a 3.5 hour nap this afternoon which I sorely needed, I was still running at the low end of "short tempered and mean", which I've been, pretty much without let up, since, oh, I don't know, around the first of October.
I thought I'd take all the endings well, giving myself some leeway to work through my grief over The Big Girl's death. But, that hasn't been the case. It's been very difficult for me to work through much of anything here, even (and maybe especially) with the four day visit from relatives. The visit, as I pronounced it, was, indeed, excellent for my mother. Visits from relatives always do her good. For me, well, it had its moments but, overall, it was torture.
First, my mother lapsed into her typical "Let's Make Fun of Gail's Meticulous Concern About Me" routine and kept it up throughout the entire visit. Normally I take this well, even find it funny, as the visiting observers do, and I magnanimously understand that this outlet allows her to retain an important portion of her personal pride and dignity. Last weekend, even though I, at one time, tried hard to agree with my sister that my mother's routine was funny, cute and personally important, my irritation with it and hurt from it finally built to the point where, on Saturday night, when my mother joked to MPS, after I had, as usual, followed her to the bathroom to make sure she was personally clean and her underwear was changed, that she wanted to go home with MPS, I shot back, "Good idea. Please go home with her. I need a rest, both from taking care of you and enduring you playing my care of you for laughs when we have visitors." Everyone quickly dispersed from the dinner table. Including Mom and me.
The worst series of distractions happened Saturday afternoon. I can't remember exactly what I was doing when the debacle began but, while I was distracted my mother headed into the bathroom to have a bowel movement. She had used a good half a roll of toilet paper to "clean" herself, which actually was an exercise in distributing shit even more profusely about her nether regions than her body manages to do without her help. She had, then, flushed the toilet, which clogged and overflowed as I ran into her exiting her bathroom, naked from the waist down and oblivious to the rush of shit infused water spilling onto the floor. I ushered her into the second bathroom and cleaned and redressed her, telling her that toilet paper was now banned from her bathroom, to which, having forgotten the disaster in the other bathroom, shocked and angered her. Once I dismissed her I started cleaning the soiled bathroom. Within minutes my niece appeared at the door to inform me that "Grandma" was "making herself something to eat". It was barely two hours after breakfast. I had informed both visitors several different times in a multitude of ways that, while they were free to eat whenever and whatever they wanted, "Grandma's" diet was under strict control, since I was now controlling her blood sugar chiefly by diet and I needed a certain amount of cooperation from them to make sure this worked. It seems that my niece had decided to make herself a sandwich and my mother, watching the fixings, decided this was a good idea, so she began preparing herself a mayonnaise sandwich. When my niece mentioned this to me I was on my knees on the bathroom floor up to my eyeballs (literally), in shitty water. I turned and snapped at her, "Then stop her! I obviously can't!" Within seconds I heard MPS climb down off her perch on the ladder, where she was kindly installing vertical blinds for us, and intervene. When I finally emerged from the bathroom I threw the offending sandwich away and reminded everyone (including my mother) that eating out of boredom was no longer an option for my mother.
Company, it seems, is no longer an evenly mixed blessing for me. While I am always grateful for house renovations and for the lift in my mother's spirits from visitors, somehow or another, for the last couple of years, each visit ends with me being so exhausted from distraction that I inevitably end up offending someone in some way, sometimes even my mother.
This particular visit came at an emotionally inopportune time for me, anyway. I was sure, when I assented to it, that, despite everything, including the personal difficulty I was having taking care of my mother and trying to soothe myself into a modicum of acceptance and closure over everything that took place throughout most of September and the first week of October, this visit would "work". I was wrong.
Being the only caregiver to an Ancient One throws the caregiver into a touchy area with both family and friends. It is very diffcult to love people deeply and, at the same time, resent their presence when they visit, despite the benefits you know will accrue from the visit. It is even more difficult when you feel the heat from our society's WASP oriented women who wordlessly manage to communicate to you that, being parents, they understand perfectly what you're going through (they don't, unless they've taken close care of an Ancient One, but they won't believe this until they've taken care of an Ancient One). As well, if you're one of the caregivers to Ancient Ones who didn't marry or have children, that snide undercurrent is mixed with a smug backwash of "See, thought you'd escape it but you couldn't, could you?"
Caregiving of all types, at least in this country among WASPs (and, maybe, other subcultures), exists in such an entrenched nasty atmosphere that we don't even realize how much it contributes to our relational problems as a society. We actually think much of our inability to relate to one another in mutually edifying ways is "natural". What a fucking sorry state we've gotten ourselves into.
I'm going to bed.
Later.
I thought I'd take all the endings well, giving myself some leeway to work through my grief over The Big Girl's death. But, that hasn't been the case. It's been very difficult for me to work through much of anything here, even (and maybe especially) with the four day visit from relatives. The visit, as I pronounced it, was, indeed, excellent for my mother. Visits from relatives always do her good. For me, well, it had its moments but, overall, it was torture.
First, my mother lapsed into her typical "Let's Make Fun of Gail's Meticulous Concern About Me" routine and kept it up throughout the entire visit. Normally I take this well, even find it funny, as the visiting observers do, and I magnanimously understand that this outlet allows her to retain an important portion of her personal pride and dignity. Last weekend, even though I, at one time, tried hard to agree with my sister that my mother's routine was funny, cute and personally important, my irritation with it and hurt from it finally built to the point where, on Saturday night, when my mother joked to MPS, after I had, as usual, followed her to the bathroom to make sure she was personally clean and her underwear was changed, that she wanted to go home with MPS, I shot back, "Good idea. Please go home with her. I need a rest, both from taking care of you and enduring you playing my care of you for laughs when we have visitors." Everyone quickly dispersed from the dinner table. Including Mom and me.
The worst series of distractions happened Saturday afternoon. I can't remember exactly what I was doing when the debacle began but, while I was distracted my mother headed into the bathroom to have a bowel movement. She had used a good half a roll of toilet paper to "clean" herself, which actually was an exercise in distributing shit even more profusely about her nether regions than her body manages to do without her help. She had, then, flushed the toilet, which clogged and overflowed as I ran into her exiting her bathroom, naked from the waist down and oblivious to the rush of shit infused water spilling onto the floor. I ushered her into the second bathroom and cleaned and redressed her, telling her that toilet paper was now banned from her bathroom, to which, having forgotten the disaster in the other bathroom, shocked and angered her. Once I dismissed her I started cleaning the soiled bathroom. Within minutes my niece appeared at the door to inform me that "Grandma" was "making herself something to eat". It was barely two hours after breakfast. I had informed both visitors several different times in a multitude of ways that, while they were free to eat whenever and whatever they wanted, "Grandma's" diet was under strict control, since I was now controlling her blood sugar chiefly by diet and I needed a certain amount of cooperation from them to make sure this worked. It seems that my niece had decided to make herself a sandwich and my mother, watching the fixings, decided this was a good idea, so she began preparing herself a mayonnaise sandwich. When my niece mentioned this to me I was on my knees on the bathroom floor up to my eyeballs (literally), in shitty water. I turned and snapped at her, "Then stop her! I obviously can't!" Within seconds I heard MPS climb down off her perch on the ladder, where she was kindly installing vertical blinds for us, and intervene. When I finally emerged from the bathroom I threw the offending sandwich away and reminded everyone (including my mother) that eating out of boredom was no longer an option for my mother.
Company, it seems, is no longer an evenly mixed blessing for me. While I am always grateful for house renovations and for the lift in my mother's spirits from visitors, somehow or another, for the last couple of years, each visit ends with me being so exhausted from distraction that I inevitably end up offending someone in some way, sometimes even my mother.
This particular visit came at an emotionally inopportune time for me, anyway. I was sure, when I assented to it, that, despite everything, including the personal difficulty I was having taking care of my mother and trying to soothe myself into a modicum of acceptance and closure over everything that took place throughout most of September and the first week of October, this visit would "work". I was wrong.
Being the only caregiver to an Ancient One throws the caregiver into a touchy area with both family and friends. It is very diffcult to love people deeply and, at the same time, resent their presence when they visit, despite the benefits you know will accrue from the visit. It is even more difficult when you feel the heat from our society's WASP oriented women who wordlessly manage to communicate to you that, being parents, they understand perfectly what you're going through (they don't, unless they've taken close care of an Ancient One, but they won't believe this until they've taken care of an Ancient One). As well, if you're one of the caregivers to Ancient Ones who didn't marry or have children, that snide undercurrent is mixed with a smug backwash of "See, thought you'd escape it but you couldn't, could you?"
Caregiving of all types, at least in this country among WASPs (and, maybe, other subcultures), exists in such an entrenched nasty atmosphere that we don't even realize how much it contributes to our relational problems as a society. We actually think much of our inability to relate to one another in mutually edifying ways is "natural". What a fucking sorry state we've gotten ourselves into.
I'm going to bed.
Later.
Monday, October 18, 2004
It's cold and cloudy today.
Although The Weather Channel is, as I write, pegging the current local temperature at 51, the thermometer posted outside our home at the coldest corner is showing 40. I was just outside retracking a screen door at the north side of our house. At our out-of-town elevation, t's considerably colder than 51.
Yesterday ended a four day visit from MPS and her daughter. I'll write more about that later. Right now, I just want to restart my posting self. It's been awhile since I've posted regularly; over a month, I believe, since I've done anything with stats, both testing/food stats or exercise stats. I've been taking fairly regular testing stats, but the exercise sessions have gone by the wayside, for awhile, although an event on Saturday evening which I'll describe later alleviated some personal guilt in this area. We need to get back on track, though, of this I'm sure. Today will probably be an Ease Into It day because, although my mother didn't find it necessary to spend any more than a couple of hours recovering from the visit (which was an excellent visit but, in our household, all visits require recovery of some type), I'm still a little on edge and am needing a bit more time to wind down. Posting, today, I think, will help.
No eggnog, yet, much to my dismay. I'm hoping someone will have it before my birthday on Halloween.
I think it's going to be pretty much a stay at home day. The gray light may send Mom back to bed for several naps (once I rouse her, which will happen immediately after I post). I'm not going to fight this. I need some alone time, and I'm going to go ahead and take it.
Later.
Yesterday ended a four day visit from MPS and her daughter. I'll write more about that later. Right now, I just want to restart my posting self. It's been awhile since I've posted regularly; over a month, I believe, since I've done anything with stats, both testing/food stats or exercise stats. I've been taking fairly regular testing stats, but the exercise sessions have gone by the wayside, for awhile, although an event on Saturday evening which I'll describe later alleviated some personal guilt in this area. We need to get back on track, though, of this I'm sure. Today will probably be an Ease Into It day because, although my mother didn't find it necessary to spend any more than a couple of hours recovering from the visit (which was an excellent visit but, in our household, all visits require recovery of some type), I'm still a little on edge and am needing a bit more time to wind down. Posting, today, I think, will help.
No eggnog, yet, much to my dismay. I'm hoping someone will have it before my birthday on Halloween.
I think it's going to be pretty much a stay at home day. The gray light may send Mom back to bed for several naps (once I rouse her, which will happen immediately after I post). I'm not going to fight this. I need some alone time, and I'm going to go ahead and take it.
Later.
