She lives with me now.

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The day I went back to work after my mom died, I had a lot of emails to go through.  There were so many things to catch up on, I did not get to my voicemail until the end of the day.  The very last voicemail was from 2 days before my mom had gone in the hospital.  And there she was on my phone telling me she didn't feel very well and didn't know if she would feel well when I came to see her that night.  Gave me a start for a second.  Had to wonder if it was like that joke you see carved on a tombstone - "I told you I was sick!!"


Here at home - a couple days before Thanksgiving my daughter asked me for a recipe so I got down my old recipe box and pulled a note out of it that basically advised me to get recipes from friends and my new MIL, keep them all and one day they would be memories as well as recipes.  And many of those cards - were written in my Mom's hand.
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.

Got a pension check for her today, put away the backpack I had brought to the hospital with me - only yesterday.  And today I signed up for a teleconference offered at work on grief and bereavement over the holidays.  I mean, I'm doing okay but - little things keep popping up I'm not expecting so it certainly can't hurt, right?


And .. I'm trying to keep Mom in the spirit of the Christmas season.  I'm sure that as Christmas gets closer there may be more things keeping her company than a kiss and a dark chocolate candy bar in a stocking, but who knows.  I wonder if my brothers would think posting this picture is in poor taste. But hey, they left Mom with me and I know - she always did like attention.  :)


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It's a new day

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Thank you to all of you who expressed your sympathies on my mothers passing.  It's a wonderful place this blog land, isn't it?  I do appreciate all the kind words.  It makes a difference, truly.

Feeling a bit like I've been submerged under the sea for 15 days and am now coming up to the surface a little at a time, adjusting to each small distance as I slowly move through it.

The last time I was at work was on October 21st, and will not be going back until November 11th.  In 23 years that is the longest I have ever been away and I'm a bit nervous about going back.  Feeling a bit fragile I guess, worried about the stress.

While Mom was in the nursing home and even in the hospital I was thinking about her.  Making sure she had what she needed, visiting, keeping her company, and sitting on an ottoman next to her bed (in the hospital) holding her hand still felt like I was doing something.  Even after she was gone I felt a need to circle the wagons and close the circle around her so no one not intimately involved in her life would wander into our small group of family as we grieved. 

This morning my brothers went home.  One to New Jersey, one to Washington state.  There is no nursing home to go to now, no hospital to hurry to, Mom doesn't need me to care for her anymore.  No laundry to do other than my own, no copious amounts of chocolate to buy.

It's done.

And honestly?  I'm not sure how to start again, where to go from here.  If anyone knows where my reset button is, please let me know.  Because I'm a little freaked out.

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There is no stillness like it.

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Mom passed at around 5:00 a.m. this morning.  The rest of the journey is hers alone.

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She is not struggling anymore and for that I am grateful, but I will miss her.

I love you Mom.

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I had the need.

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I am on so many distribution lists at work it makes me want to scream.  But sometimes a distribution list in your email is actually needed. Or in your smart phone.  Like when you have an ill family member who you need to send updates out on.

I love Google.  I typed in "distribution list for iphone" and came up with this.  Downloaded it and 5 minutes later had a family distribution list called Mom/Grandma.

So yeah, she's on her way to the hospital as I type.  Going to get ready to meet her over there.  Again.  Try the app though if you have the need, it's super easy.

** Edited to add - just got back, Mom is back at the nursing home.  Even the doc and the nurse I spoke to at the hospital aren't sure why she was sent there.  I'd better check to see who owns that ambulance service!

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Meds! More Meds!!

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Took the crabby old man cat to the vet today and let them drain as much blood as they wanted as long as they only charged me for the tests he really needed.  $112.00 later and that included 2 catnip (guilt) toys later we were on our way home.  You ever notice how doctors (and that includes vets) hold your medication hostage if you don’t go see them often enough?  Yeah.  Have to visit and have the right tests before you get one. more. pill.  What.ever.  So he’s up to date now.

Later I went to see my mom.  They’ve been messing with her breathing treatments lately which I don’t get.  She has emphy-freaking-sema for gosh sakes!  IT IS NOT CURABLE.  So lets not try to wean her off her breathing meds, okay?  Before I left she was coughing quite a bit so on my way out I spoke to the nurse, Andrew. I let him know about the cough and I was a bit concerned, and we discussed giving her cough meds before bed so she would be able to sleep.

Almost home and my phone rang.  It was Mom, anxious about not having her night meds yet (it wasn’t time yet) and wanting me to talk to her to distract her from her anxiety.  I pulled into the Walgreen’s parking lot and turned the car off, listening to my mom try to tell me something one word at a time.  Difficult.  I reached into my purse and took out an Ambien.  It WAS time for MY meds.  I took one and went into the store.

 

During the call Mom started coughing so badly and for so long that I hung up on her and called the nurses station and asked Andrew to run down the hall and check on her.  About 10 minutes later (at check out) Andrew called back, they were going to take her to the hospital.

My thought was “Crap, I’ve already taken my Ambien!”

 

I asked him to let me know when the ambulance got there to get her, then I would meet her at the hospital.  Instead of that call – I got the call saying they changed their minds, Mom was more calm, breathing better, and not coughing so much.  The doctor gave the nurses a standing order for the night – to call an ambulance to take her if need be, but she doesn’t seem to need it now.

Thank God! 

I’m not going to have to fight the Ambien or drive under the influence of it, or fall asleep in the emergency room showing just what a concerned daughter I am!

She’ll go back to the hospital again, I know.  I’m just glad it wasn’t this time.  Nite Ya’ll!

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Shopping quirks

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Grocery shopping. I. Hate. It. Never go until the cupboards are bare and the fridge is empty. Hate it hate it hate it. But when I was a kid I used to beg my mom to let me go. I could never understand why it was such a big deal to let me go but every once in a while she would relent and let me tag along. And of course I did what every kid does "oh Mom can we have this? Can we buy that?" until I drove her crazy.

Frequently one of the first things my mom would do after getting into the grocery store was go straight to the candy aisle and pick up a box of Brachs candy. It comes in bags now but then it was a movie sized box. She would buy bridge mix usually, or sometimes chocolate stars. And buy the time she got to the check-out, she would be paying for the empty box.

Never thought much about it as a kid but as an adult I realized it was a little weird. Most people don't do that. Doing my own shopping now, I would never think of doing that although I can understand why people do it when they have their kids along! But my mom did it because she was a chocoholic. She didn't share much of it with me. For the record, I didn't like chocolate covered nuts as a kid. Probably why that was usually her choice.

Tonight was the first time I ever considered doing that. Shopping on an empty stomach and realizing my sugar had dropped, I was sweating, getting light headed and I needed something. I normally have something in my purse but of course this time, I didn't. But I could not bring myself to grab a box of bridge mix so I grabbed a bottle of pop from one of those coolers near the check-out. I only drink diet pop these days so sugared pop would be a quick sugar fix.

But now I'm wondering if a lot of people do this - because when I handed the bottle to the checker saying "careful, it's open" she didn't blink, scanned it - stuck a sticker on it and handed it back to me.

Is this a common thing? Because all these years I thought it was my mom's particular chocolate quirk. I had to pay for a half empty bottle tonight if I didn't want to take a header in the canned goods aisle, but it won't become a habit. And I suspect I will always think of it as being a bit weird.

Do you have a shopping quirk?
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The garden off the patio

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. . . at the nursing home.

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They even grow some vegetables - those are leaves from a squash plant in the left foreground. It's a nice place to sit when the whether is good.
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Blurring the tenses

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It's no secret that my mom has an eye for the men. Young men, preferably. The first day at the nursing home a strapping young guy came into the room and announced he was there to take her for a shower. Me? I would have cringed. Her? Grabbed her nightgown off the bed, gave him a big smile and said "Okay! Let's go." And off they went.

Last night one of the young guys spotted a picture of her on the digital picture frame in her room. It was when she was young enough to still be a redhead but old enough to be a grandma. Actually she was in her early 50's.

The young guy stopped pushing her wheelchair halfway to the bathroom when the photo caught his eye.

"Is that you?!" Somewhat in awe ..

"Yeah, good lookin' gal I was, huh?" Big smile, beaming actually.

"Wow!!" He meant it too.

I'm sure that made her day. Because the one thing she always says is "The thing that's wrong with all these guys in the nursing home is ... ... they're all SO-O-O .. O-O-L-D!"

So a bit of admiration (even in past tense) from one of the young guys always brings the color back to her cheeks.

Can't blame her there!

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The next challenge

^
3 Hospital stays, just for the hospital. Haven't even gotten the one where she spent most of the time in the ICU! $69880.26. Wow. Glad they aren't actually asking for this amount!




But they ARE all asking for this. Pain Management Physicians, Physical Therapy, Ambulance Service, The Fire Department, E.R. Physicians, nursing home physicians .... sigh ...



Believe or not, all these bills were much scarier inside their envelopes. I will bring all this to work tomorrow and during my lunch I will make some phone calls to get actual totals owed so I can bring just one bill from each service to the nursing home tomorrow evening. Mom has asked me to bring the bills. She delegates everything to me - but I'm not sure if she'll listen to me if I tell her not to pay the total to each one. We will see how well she does the money/bill balancing act. Wish me luck!

** I have to admit I am starting to feel like a grownup. I had to be 51 years old and be responsible for my mother before I felt like a grown up. I wonder if other people feel that way.
^

Want some cheese with that whine?

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Embroidery projects brought to the nursing home have been untouched. Crochet projects, undone. The knitting needles and yarn sit unused. Even the silly little paint by numbers kit hasn't been attempted.

For over a month I collected photos, family photos, scanned then, sized them, put over a hundred and thirty of them on different backgrounds, added some landscapes and flowers and loaded them on a 12" digital picture frame and brought that to my mom.

My daughter and her fiance' visit regularly and read to her, bring her black jelly beans, ice cream, and even freeze dried space ice cream which she loves.

I do her laundry and bring her grape juice, take her downstairs to the little aviary to see the birds and wheel her outside to the patio when the weather is good. I clean the jello from the floor, pick up the peas and the other food she drops. I charge her phone, download apps and
help her listen to her voicemail. I advocate for her, talk to the doctors and nurses and aids, search through the nursing home laundry in the basement for missing clothes.

My brothers and my nephew came in to visit from out of state, brought her chocolate, stuffed animals and hugs and kisses.

But ...

NONE OF US CAN GIVE HER WHAT SHE WANTS.

She talks about going to Target to find a pot for a plant. Or going to the bank to open a new account. She asks when she can go to visit my brother in New Jersey to see the plants around his house. She wants to go and do the things other people do.

I'm afraid to take her out.

She is too weak to walk more than a few feet without losing her breath. She has a huge oxygen tank attached to the back of the wheelchair she uses and the logistics terrify me.

I can't do it. The one thing she wants, and I cannot give it to her.

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Room with a view

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Tonight's sunset from my Mom's hospital window.



Mom's doing well, although she does have pneumonia which can take a really long time to get rid of for an elderly person. Still plying her with antibiotics and fluids and her roommate is a retired nurse which is a bonus. Eating seems to have become her newest best activity - it's like in the last couple of months at age 82 - she finally decided she doesn't need to worry about her weight anymore and is enjoying her meals for the first time in her adult life! She's a whopping 117 pounds!

Anyway, I'm going to work and the hospital and no one is making meals for me. Feel sorry for ME day. Okay, don't. I'm fine, just perpetually tired. Oh and get this - with the heat index (heat + humidity) today it felt like 103. And the air conditioning in my car crapped out. :)

Trade lives, anyone?

*crickets*

Buehler?

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When the time comes ...

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So is an angiogram advisable for a woman with advanced lung disease? If they find a blockage and put in a stent, will it make a difference? Is it time to talk about comfort, dignity and unfortunately - reality?

Today someone said "end of life issues" and "end stage COPD". I don't think they meant Mom isn't going to graduate from this hospital stay, but were suggesting a different view, a different approach to her illness and acute episodes. It can't be fixed. COPD is incurable, the lungs just don't work after a while. And as much as I miss smoking, watching my mother basically suffocating to death is a real good reason to never start again.

I wish I knew what to expect. Will her heart give out during an acute breathing episode? Will a breathing episode become so acute she passes out and then needs to be kept sedated? What happens when someone dies from COPD, emphysema type? Does it have to be violent?

Morbid, yes. Not something pretty or blog fodder for that matter. But I have to think about it. I have to know what I am preparing myself for. If any family will be there with her when it happens it will be me, and probably my daughter. Is there a peaceful way for her to go? Is there a way for her to pass gently without gasping for breath and straining for air? Because I would want to choose that for her.

She doesn't want to die. But if she must, I want to choose the easiest route for her. Do I get to pick?

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Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to .. the hospital we go?

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Another weekend, another trip to the hospital with Mom. She had a really bad breathing episode that all the iphone photos or breathing treatments weren't helping so in came the paramedics while my daughter, my mom's roommate and I kind of huddled in the hallway fighting the tears. All very scary, I might add. I've never been there when a horde of medical people with cases and gurneys crowd into a room and surround someone and start asking questions and taking vitals.

Can you say helpless feeling?

One day she's fine (relatively speaking) and the next she's in the hospital, really struggling. Today - she's struggling.

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Train is still on the tracks .. sort of ..

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Spent about 10 hours in the hospital with my mom last night. Apparently she fell and smacked her back against the night table in her bedroom sometime during Sunday night/Monday morning. Did I know about it? No.

Monday morning before work I gave my mom her breathing treatment, as well as moving her nebulizer from the bedroom into the living room as has been my practice so she can do her daytime treatments there. She sat on the edge of her bed and spoke to me. I called home halfway through the day and she didn't mention anything. "Everything is fine."

When I got home from work Monday at about 5:30 - she was in her bed in a ton of pain.

Hospital did x-rays and took a ton of blood, I think they were more worried about why she fell as opposed to the actual fall that caused the hospital visit. They didn't say so but I think they thought she had had a stroke. Cat scan on her brain was good - blood tests good - but she has a small fracture of one of her vertebra in her back. Doc says it's stable, not really treatable, kind of like when someone breaks their tailbone. But - she is still in a lot of pain so they decided to keep her overnight. Or maybe it was the fact that she kept saying "Percocet. Percocet works really well." Sounded like a drug seeker, I swear.

Neurologist saw her today - ordered an MRI on her back, we will see what that shows. Off to shower and get back to the hospital.

Good news? This may fast track her placement in a nursing home since Illinois requires an evaluation for care, first. Not the way I wanted it to happen, however.

**Update - They are keeping her for another day for sure, MRI is not until about 8:30 tonight. Pain management is a big concern and they may do some kind of "plasty" - okay I forgot what it's called, don't judge. It would be a minor procedure to fuse the bone that is fractured but that's a maybe. Long days here!

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Member? Do ya?

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Member when your kids were born? Member how you didn't sleep because they didn't sleep and you spent all your time restocking diapers and making bottles and oh - yeah - working a full-time job? A stressful one at that?

My life. Except the baby is an elderly woman and the bottles are breathing treatments and the diapers are .. well .. let's move on.

I'm tired. 2 falls and 1 bump on the head later, Mom is actually doing quite well. She carries her bag of Hersey's dark chocolate kisses from room to room leaving little purple pieces of foil behind her. But she's using the bathroom by herself and gaining some strength in her legs. I keep threatening to get her on the treadmill and I'm only half kidding. We've gotten the nebulizer routine down, when to prepare them ahead and where to put them so they are easily accessible.

The job of putting all her contacts in her cell phone fell to me. Woo hoo. Wasn't that fun? I made the doctor's appointment and the eye doctor's appointment, I called the nursing home in NJ for some records and a hospital that wanted my first born in trade for an EKG. There has been a lot. Of everything.

Monday when I went to work I was terrified leaving her home alone. I was so on edge that when I called a nursing home nearby that was my first choice for her and they explained the cost - I hung up the phone, put my face in my hands and started to cry. BUT - I ran home at lunch and checked on her and when I went back - I was a bit better.

Not sure where we are going from here but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be damn tired until we
get there.

Still - I feel a lightness - and if I look behind me I'll bet there are big boulders of guilt lying in my path for all the time my brother took care of my mom. It feels good to do the right thing.

I didn't expect it to be easy.

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Tag, I'm it!

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She's on her way.




After one last argument with my brother over reconciling FOUR CENTS with the bank, she got on the plane. It's my turn now! I have been instructed to pick up chocolate on the way to the airport.

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Let the games begin! Or not ..

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Did I mention that my mom is coming? Tomorrow? I was very freaked out at work today. I received a call from a nursing home I had inquired about a while back. The girl I talked to was so nice and so helpful, I almost cried. It's a nonprofit place which from everything I've read, is usually better than a for-profit facility. Trying to learn these things. But today was not the day for it.

Have you ever felt so emotional or so on the verge - that you just don't want anyone to be too nice to you because you know it will push you over the edge of whatever composure you're holding onto? Yeah, like that. And my office mate kept babbling on about things that I had no interest in, not trying to distract me but because she was oblivious. She's one of those people who does not have the ability to see things through anyone else's eyes. If you spell it out to her she will express sympathy and I think it's heartfelt but I also think she doesn't naturally feel empathy. And I wasn't in the mood to fill her in, so everything she did today annoyed me.

Not fair to her I suppose, but - oh well.

It's kind of funny too because I came home from work and immediately started doing things like cleaning the smudges from the front of the fridge and the dishwasher. Like my mom is going to notice that stuff. Cause she won't. She's the one who dropped something on my carpet when she was living here a while back and instead of telling me or trying to clean it up, she rubbed it into the rug with the heel of her foot.

Omg.

I saw her do it out of the corner of my eye and I was astounded. This is the woman who spent half my childhood bent at the waist because she was always picking lint off the carpet. It's hard to see that she's not the same anymore.

I always thought that when people get old they either stay the same personality wise, or they change because of dementia. My mom gets confused sometimes, but she does not have dementia. Still - she is not the same woman. Hard to explain but like I said to the girl on the phone today, her maturity is gone. It's like she wants to stamp her feet and hold her breath like a child when she gets angry or frustrated. She said her mom was the same way when she got older. It's that full circle thing I guess. Some people lose some of their cognitive abilities and the filters people normally have, as they age. Art Linkletter (dating myself BIG here) should have said "kids and old people say the darnedest things" and it would have been absolutely comparable and true.

Okay, so I'm terrified right now. Not sure of what. But you know I'll tell you.

I'm-m-m Ba-a-a-a-c-k...!!!!

So. Am I back? I guess. Just overwhelmed with all the blog posts out there I can't possibly read. Over a thousand, literally. And my Mom never discovered during her visit that I have blogs. That's a good thing.

The visit was good and I think it was good for my Mom. We went shoe shopping and to Michaels and Hobby Lobby and the grocery store - we even made it to Ihop. . . . so she got out of the house. We moved slowly and took our time and made sure we timed the shopping in-between nebulizer treatments.

We had moments in our underwear at 4:00 in the morning when there were breathing crisis's and nebulizer treatments were administered in the semi-darkness. Before I got better at it I handed my Mom her nebulizer when she was literally gasping for breath - and then realized it was empty. The medicine was in the little component sitting next to the one I actually connected to the machine. FAIL!

Mom spent a lot of time playing Solitaire on my computer or embroidering pillow cases like the ones my Grandma used to do, and I did a lot of knitting, something to keep my fingers busy while I wasn't on the Internet.

She also did things like driving her 3-wheeled walker straight through a paper-plate filled with canned cat food and rolled it from the kitchen to the foyer to the living room carpet. And didn't notice. She ate numerous bowls of chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup, and inevitably got chocolate fingerprints on the touch pad of my laptop - and on the refrigerator and freezer doors. She played Hansel and Gretal with a granola bar - eating it from the kitchen to her bedroom.

I told her "Ma, don't leave any clothes on the floor in your room. Riley likes to pee on clothing left on the floor." She said okay. A day later I gave her a laundry basket to put the clothes in --- --- --- that she had piled on the floor. No pee though, thank goodness.

It was good to have her here for Thanksgiving - pants at the table or no. My "vegetarian" Mother ate stuffed peppers with beef, pepperoni pizza, barbecued pork and turkey while she was here. Funniest vegetarian diet I've ever seen! My brother is right when he says the whole bottom of the food pyramid is chocolate for her. Especially dark chocolate because "You KNOW how good that is for you!"

The shower chair and hand held shower head were a hit, they were appreciated and there were no falls in the bathroom. But the squishy toilet booster seat? When I told my son Grandma was leaving his first question was "You mean I get to pee standing up?" That seat was just icky. And even ickier when I took if off the toilet. Ugh-h-h-h.

My daughter and fiancee' swooped in for a quick visit for part of a day which I was grateful for. My family rarely visits each other, I don't know when my kids might see my mom again. Or if - if I'm being truthful.

I'm not sure the cats ever quite figured out what that walker was, and one of them would usually wait outside the bathroom door for her - keeping the walker company.

So, she's gone back. I found her visit emotionally exhausting and I do not know how my brother does it. I really don't. She needs more care and we are going to have to start thinking about moving forward with some other arrangements. What those will be and how we will pay for them - I don't know yet.

...is coming to to-o-o-w-w-w-n-n-n . .

You better watch out
you better not cry
better not pout I'm telling you why
Mother mine is coming to town!

Okay, she'll be here on Thursday. She will be staying through early December. I'm not sure what I'll be doing as far as posting is concerned since my Mom doesn't know I have a blog, much less more than one. And I don't want her to know.

Unfortunately she likes to come up behind me when I'm on the computer and say "what are you doing?" as she tries to read the screen over my shoulder. I guess at 81 she can be forgiven for not knowing proper computer etiquette.

The option of taking the laptop with me to my bedroom would be cruel and unusual punishment for her. She can't always sleep so she's up at all hours and she likes to do puzzles on the computer in the middle of the night.

I've created a new Guest user so she won't be getting into my desktop and folders and uncover any bloggy secrets. I can't write knowing my mom might be reading it!

But I am cringing because my Mom is the one who in talking about computers uttered the now famous "People say you can't break these things. But I think you can!" Yes, you can break computers Ma. I just have to remember she's my Mom and she's more important than my computer. Wish me luck!

Dietary restrictions

Mom called today. She called to tell me she's on her way to see me. Yeah, on November 19th! She scared me for a second there. First thing she asked me was
"Will Dani be home?"

I answered, "I don't know Mom, she doesn't live at home anymore, and she's in school y'know."

"Oh." Disappointed.

"Well, I asked her if she wants to come home for Thanksgiving, but y'know she and Dan are both vegetarian so I'm not sure what we would make."

Mom informed me "Well I'm a partial vegetarian."

"Okay Mom, what's a partial vegetarian?"

"I don't eat beef."

I was surprised. I mean I knew she was never a big meat eater, period. But she never really showed a preference for one kind over another. And she's always liked Burger King!

"You don't eat beef? At all? Don't you like steak?"

"No, I don't like steak. Well, I like medium rare ... um ... rib eye?"

"That's a type of steak Mom. Roast beef?"

"No, I don't eat beef."

I tried again. "What about pot roast? You used to love pot roast. That's beef."

"No. I don't like pot roast. I like chicken."

"Okay Mom, well when you get here we'll go shopping and decide what to buy. What do you like to eat?"

"Stouffers. If it's on sale. That's good."

"Uh . . I haven't been eating much frozen food at all lately, Mom."

*crickets*

"Well what DO you eat?"

I answered "Well, I've been eating a lot of salads and fruit . . . "

*crickets*

"You mean ... you cook REAL food?"

Oh good Lord.