I predicted, to MPS, two hours before it happened...
..."she's going to decide to leave suddenly. One minute she'll act like she lives here and the next she'll need to be in her own home right now."
    I was talking to MPS about my mother. We had a slumber party with MPS and MPNC last night at their home. Their home is wonderful, they've had it a long time and Mom feels uniquely comfortable there, especially in the back yard, most notably in the dead of summer. As well, my mother has a long, strong relationship with both these women and is not prone to forget it. She forgets the updates of their lives, not their pasts, nor how their lives have been intermingled with hers. But, my mother has become dependent on "home", within the last year. When it's time to go home, she should have been home 45 minutes ago.
    Sure enough, one moment Mom was with us at the table, intent as MPNC ran her lines in her new role in a play, then she excused herself to the bathroom and when she returned she arrowed in on me with both her eyes and her index finger and stated, without self-consciousness, "It's time for us to go home."
    MPS looked at me and laughed. I laughed. MPNC laughed. The only one not laughing was Mom. We left within 10 minutes. Before we entered our mobile home park Mom was gripping the handle of her purse and had braced her legs for quick, easy exit from the car. She impatiently awaited my location of the keys.
    When I predicted this behavior to MPS earlier I realized that the only place my mother prefers, now, to home, whether it's MesaHome or PrescottHome, is a restaurant. Anywhere else we are, at some point the visit becomes interminable for her and she announces, "We've got to get home." At a restaurant, though, pulling her away from the human show laid out before her and the pleasure of being served, which is one of my mother's supreme pleasures, is like, well, I was going to say pulling teeth but she's a breeze at the dentist. She's fallen asleep during a root canal. I, on the other hand, become antsy in restaurants. I people watch in more autonomic ways, so restaurants don't interest me. I typically coax her every 15 minutes or so after she's eaten the last morsel of her meal, "So, are you ready?" and cringe when a wait person passes with a refill coffee pot.
    She always says, "Yes," to the refill. "No," she always, always responds to my subtle plea. "The only place to go is home [even though there are scores of other places she wouldn't consider]. We'll end up there eventually. Let's not rush it." We were not, though, at a restaurant for the slumber party, although she received plenty of attention and service.
    I think she may have missed the oxygen. She "went offline" [MPNP's code for his grandmother's/my mother's long famous habit of taking a little nap, usually sitting up, no matter where she is, if she's there for more than a few hours] once yesterday evening and once this morning, didn't arise until 0945, and we left MPS's at 1435, in a hurry. I yelled back to MPS and her family, from our theatre of the absurd, as we backed out of her driveway, "We're already behind schedule..." and got a laugh.
    We did not take oxygen or her nebulizer medication with us, at her insistence. I think, now, that may have been a mistake. I think she may have been a bit more lively if her lungs, and thus her body, had been internally bathed with oxygen throughout the sleep over night.
    I remember, several years ago, when I first came to live with my mother, one in our family cautioned against "getting her started on oxygen" because "once they go on, they never come off", as though it was somehow 'only' a method of delaying a death sentence, rather like dialysis. I've always rolled that logic around in my mind, balancing it against the added alertness and possible months or years oxygen therapy could extend one's life. It was her doctor who suggested it, and at the right time. My mother has been a very reluctant client, mostly because she is a smoker but not insignificantly because of the mechanics of the therapy.
    I am, now, glad that oxygen is at our disposal and that she is using it more frequently. Requesting it, autonomously, when she bathed, some days ago, was a coup. When her oxygen compressor was first delivered in October the tech asked me directly if she took baths and if she became breathless in the tub. I realized she did but tended to discount it because the 'common wisdom' is that a bath relaxes the bather. The heat, though, stimulates the vascular system and puts a burden on the heart, etc., which creates a need for oxygen and causes the bather (if they have a chronic low blood oxygen level) to pant.
    The cannula could use a makeover. I'm not sure whether it is the design or the construction material but, especially in sleep, it is easily dislodged and easy to tighten too tightly. I understand her annoyance with the mechanism because quality varies from cannula to cannula, thus one never really gets the chance to get used to the appliance.
    But, I am grateful oxygen therapy is available. It improves the quality of her life. I think it extends her life. It's okay with me if she "never comes off it." Totally okay. She's got a Living Will to cover extreme circumstances. In the meantime, yes, it is keeping her alive, with a minimum of fuss and, more, it is sharpening her alertness. In subtle ways my mother appreciates this. We all do.
- posted by gail rae @ 20:44   email...this post