By the time I finish this post...
...it will appear as though I've missed a few days and I have. I think I'll be posting thrice, tonight. This first post will be a general, "how's Mom" post.
    In the last few days Mom has taken a turn for the lethargic and it's been difficult to turn her back. Although one of the evenings included company her enthusiasm was unmoved and has not been up to par.
    The main problem has been the heat. Friday was hair day, we also took a short trip to Costco, and she had her Big Guns blood draw. Unfortunately the dank heat was so bad that each time she exited the house, the car or a place of business, its effect on her was visible...it was as though she was being slammed by it. Typically she doesn't react this way to the heat but it has been unbearable. Thus, I wasn't able to get her out at all on Saturday and Sunday and I had a devil of a time keeping her up, including when we had company.
    She is still looking a bit wan and losing water at night, although not nearly as much as the couple of days when water loss exhausted her. I've continued to pump her with liquids and high sodium, high potassium foods and her dehydration eases if I can keep her out of bed, which I'm having trouble doing. Otherwise it all goes right through her.
    I, again, gave her a second Detrol last night and the night before but it seems to make no difference so, since the effect of Detrol is also mild dehydration, I sent her to bed without the second pill tonight.
    A little over a year ago two of my sisters were visiting us in Prescott. I had an entire book to read in a week for a class and they decided to grant me some much needed time to accomplish the task by paying attention to Mom in my stead. I remember one morning they were attempting to get her up (just prior to her having a mini-health crisis and being pronounced anemic and after a long series of days in which she simply refused to move much) in order to usher her into her bath, feed her breakfast and take her out. The two of them worked on her, first trying to tease her out of bed, then becoming stern, then attempting to physically push her out of bed. I believe they finally succeeded but both were unpleasantly surprised by the effort it can sometimes take to get her up and mentioned their amazement to me. I remember mentioning something about how now they could see why I sometimes just give up.
    Well, today I had to physically push her out of bed. Yesterday the same thing happened. As well, both days, I had to become unusually stern with her to keep her up. It would have been nice if I could have interested her in doing something...I tried hard. I read to her and she chose to doze in the chair. I pulled out a deck of cards and she refused to pay attention to the game, continually letting her hand slip through her fingers. We had another record heat day with the dew point at 50% so I did not insist on her going out with me on the few errands I had to run. The memory of her experiencing the intense heat on Friday as a physical slam was much too fresh and I could not bring myself to put her through that, again. But toward evening today I broke down and became exasperated with her.
   I rarely become exasperated, although sternness is not unheard of, especially when I am explaining to her why she must do certain things. Exasperation, however, always takes on an hysteric tone into which I only fall only when everything else, first gentleness, then teasing, then humorous cajoling, then sternness, then ordering her (which usually involves physically leading her through whatever it is I want her to do or where ever it is I want her to go) doesn't work. My exasperation is always an out-of-control emotional reaction and as such it usually surprises my mother and, thus, it works, as it did tonight. It isn't a pretty picture, though. Today, in order to get her to stay up, when we were facing off in the hall as I blocked her way into her bedroom I reminded her that if she did this one more day she would be certain to have a fecal accident tomorrow, I was sure she wouldn't want that and neither did I. I don't mind, I explained, cleaning up after a surprise fecal accident but when I know it can be prevented but for her refusal to cooperate and stay up long enough for her body to work, I mind very much. This didn't phase her. So I began, in a higher, tighter tone, to relate to her all the ill effects her body and mind were now suffering from her refusal to get out of bed, including the catch-22 that sleeping this much when she is tired only increases her tiredness. Finally I challenged her, in a voice bordering on that of a drill sergeant: "Look," I said. "I can't seem to get you interested in anything and it's too hot to go out so I know you're going to bed out of boredom. Well, you can just as easily be bored in front of the television as you can in bed, and, at least you'll be sitting up so your body can function more normally. If you want to be bored you're going to have to be bored in front of the TV this afternoon."
    That worked. My mother is a woman of incredible will, regardless of whether she is lethargic or energetic. However, despite her will she cannot will her body to function properly when she spends as much time in bed as she has over the last few days. A not so gentle reminder of this usually manages to get her to stay up at least for awhile.
    The truth is, though, it is exhausting for me to do battle with her will when she is determined to sleep and I hate it when I fall into exasperation and find myself trying to shame her into staying up. When I do this I experience shame as well and find myself wondering for a good hour or so afterwards if being with me is a good situation for her and if she wouldn't be better off with one of my sisters where there would at least be the stimulation of others besides me on days when getting her out is either impossible or, for reasons of weather, unwise. I never resolve this issue nor the wondering that follows. And when her energy picks up it is easy for both of us to forgive me my lapses and forget the incidents.
    Tonight, though, I find I'm not letting go of the day so easily. Regardless of how unpleasant it is for us I'm going to have to get her moving again. This is why it is so important to me to get her up to Prescott right now. She never tires of people watching in the Square there but she tires easily of going to the mall here to people watch more than once every couple of weeks. She tires of Costco, although lately she's been going regularly simply because she's begun to imagine herself as being equally responsible for the household errands as me, which is good. But this weekend it didn't matter to her. She had plugged herself into her lethargy cycle and I simply couldn't get her out of it, not even for company.
    I'm going to try insisting that she take a bath every day instead of just on the days when something that has been planned is happening. This is an incredible chore, as, when she knows she doesn't "have to" take a bath she is as ornery as an angry child in the tub. Unless I take on my "stern" persona and literally order her through every step of her bath she'll stare me down in defiance and continually attempt to let the water out of the tub.
    I guess, too, I was expecting her revitalization to be hitch free and it isn't. Lesson being learned, with a certain amount of pain.
    So, that's what's been going on this weekend.
- posted by gail rae @ 00:42   email...this post