I almost thought I wasn't going to make it, today.
    It's been busy; refreshingly so, although part of it involved a substantial bill for more a/c work. Some of it, though, I was able to knock off by doing some of the work, myself. The fan and fan housing for the blower needed cleaning. If it had been cleaned in the 22 year life of the unit, I'd be surprised. The company was going to charge extra to clean it and there were other things the serviceman needed to do to the unit so I offered to hose and brush it down. My mother really perked up at that. Do-it-yourself-if-you-can is definitely her style and, even though most of those things she can't do herself, anymore, she loves to be around people who can. I believe her witnessing of this event granted her a few more hours of being awake, today. Her spirit seems revived by having to confront money matters again, since they were taking place in front of her, which rarely happens, anymore. It is a pleasure to see her working out the detail of invoices and charges, questioning this and that, even though I know she won't remember anything she's doing; may not, at the end of this week, remember that our a/c was worked on again within the space of a little over a couple of weeks.
    I've had it in my mind, in the last 36 hours, to muse about a few things, but they all seem to have gotten shot down by reality. I noticed, for instance, a few nights ago, that I could practically hide my mother's cigarettes under her nose at night and it wouldn't matter, she wouldn't find them and accidentally combust herself in her veil of oxygen in the middle of the night. Well, yesterday morning I awoke to discover her cannula smartly draped over the back of a dining room chair and evidence that she'd indulged in a cigarette break during the night. At least she took the oxygen off, although waiting 20 minutes for the oxygen veil to dissipate is the best strategy, and I know she didn't practice that one. But, to me, the point was, the night after I'd decided hiding her cigarettes was fairly easy, especially since she often forgets, early in a search, what she's looking for, she found them.
    I thought I wouldn't be mentioning noticing her swelling, again, for another week or so, since that has been the schedule she's been keeping in the last month. But I'm mentioning it, less than 72 hours after giving her 10 mg of furosemide. If the foot rub doesn't work tonight I may be giving her another 10 mgs in the morning.
    Seems I thought a lot of things wrong in the last few days. My mother never said there'd be days like this, but someone's mother did.
    I have been, well, wandering mentally, lately, around the condition of dementia. I wonder, in regard to the extremely nebulous condition of what I recently heard described on a prime time family drama as "old-age dementia, not Alzheimer's", how much the urge to relax into dementia, versus the urge to fight it, plays in the quality and amount of dementia experienced by The Ancients. My mother is still capable of sounding completely competent to conduct business on her own behalf over the phone, and not just because she's good with the yeses and the noes. She listens, she asks questions, she repeats pieces of information, she sounds like she's writing things down, it is amazing to behold. Then, with equal dispatch, immediately after taking a phone call, she can sink into a demented reverie that has been known to drive relatives wild. The key word, though, is "sink". She relaxes into it, as though relaxing into a bath. I sometimes wonder how her dementia keeps her occupied. I think of it as a kaleidoscope of her memories playing for her on her main screen, and a few others, as well, now. She used to say she was afraid of dementia, although, now that I think of it, she never really said she was afraid of losing what she thinks of as her mind; she has, however, indicated that she is afraid of losing herself. Losing oneself, I'm beginning to learn, is a different type of dementia than what my mother experiences. I don't think dementia necessarily means a loss of self, although it can, if it is a dementia peculiar to self-concept. Alzheimer's is one of those dementias, I understand.
    When I imagine my mother's dementia, though, I think of something I read nine months ago about the Hindu concept of the ages of a human being. The Age of (the) Old, is described very directly as an age in which one feels the need to release bonds and to ponder one's existence by, well, wandering, studying, etc. The description, although I can't remember it verbatim, mentions that this is also a time when one either should have provided for their livelihood ahead of time or it should be provided by relatives and the community. Whether or not this happens in actuality isn't my concern. Rather, I think of this as a description of what my mother is doing with her intellect, maybe her emotions, perhaps even her soul; loosening her bonds, not to earth, so much, but to earthly concerns, in order to see what perspective they offer when they are not driven by survival/nurturing.
    Sometimes, I think about this...
- posted by gail rae @ 23:08   email...this post