These entries are always off the cuff...
...although not always stream of consciousness. I take mental notes throughout the day of things that happen as I care for my mother that I think might be of interest to another caregiver, or someone interested in studying the caregiving relationship. When I next make it here I include these things, second mental draft, first paper draft.
    I read my entry earlier today and noticed I was bordering on profound stream of consciousness, so it is no surprise to me, tonight, that I have the urge to do something, here that I haven't felt like doing since I began this journal, which was begun to a purpose: I feel like wander-writing, tonight.
    I am thinking about my mother...who did, indeed, have a slow day, today. Although she was up a fair amount of time she sat in her chair so long this evening that, as she arose to go to bed, she complained of stiffness. Now, at 85 going on 86, stiffness doesn't need a night to settle in. She usually never complains about it. Tonight, she did. Her appetite was low so I followed it, since she was soooo sedentary. I considered giving her only 850 mg metformin this evening but, instead, I allowed her to eat light but tempted her to the things she needed with spices, serving her a small garlic and artichoke sausage and making sure that she drank 8 ounces of cranberry juice mixed with 8 ounces of carbonated water. A few hours after taking her medication she voluntarily made herself one of her nasty sharp cheddar cheese sandwiches with sandwich spread, which told me that, at least on a somatic level, she was alert and working smoothly, since she was regulating her blood sugar herself. Usually, when she's this tired and this stiff, it's easy for her to drift away from appetite.
    Although today has been a mellow day with no overt or subversive conflict, I am, for some reason, overwhelmed with a feeling of not quite doing all I could be doing, somehow being a bit stupid about how to stimulate her. I know people-watching is a favorite activity of hers. So is riding around in the wheel chair, which allows her to people watch in a sort of video form. Getting her out of the house to do these things, though, is overwhelming. I have, occasionally, followed more stalwart caregivers' advice to just do it, "tell them they're going then see to it that they go." Oh, how exhausting the resistance can be, though, for both of us. Sometimes, she loses herself and has a good time on these occasions. Sometimes, though, she is right about feeling as though she "shouldn't" go, as she usually goes offline at whatever the event is, but sleeps so restlessly that she has to recover from a bad sleep.
    I hear about NPH and I think, that could present possibilities, then read more about it and realize that those possibilities probably don't apply to my mother, and, maybe she's lucky they don't.
    I read those passages from Death Comes to the Archbishop and I think, let her teach me what it is she needs. And then she becomes pale and anemic and I think, no, if she wants to stay alive, I can't let her teach me, or, at least, I can't let her direct me.
    This is a foreign country, one that we can't visit, even as we take care of it's residents. How, I wonder, will medical science change these conditions?
    I'm done rambling. I'm going to bed.
- posted by gail rae @ 22:51   email...this post