Busy and wonderful day!
    She's done so well today! Very alert, energetic (for her), no nap, oxygen all the way up. This time I used the excuse that there is no smoking when the cats are in the car, which is true, then added, "...so, why don't you go ahead and wear the oxygen all the way up?" I noticed something interesting. Her breathing was a bit less quick than it was on Wednesday. I also noticed, as the puffs of the OCD mimicked her breathing (it delivers oxygen only when the user breathes in, thus, it is an Oxygen Conserving Device), how slow and deep my breathing is in comparison to hers. I mean, hers couldn't be very deep if she is breathing as fast as she is. But today she breathed slower, about half as fast as Wednesday, which, while her breathing was still about an intake a second at times and not necessarily dependent on altitude, her breathing also seemed more relaxed. Maybe she's just getting used to breathing oxygen during the day. Good, I say.
    That's right. No nap, although she slept a good twelve hours (give or take a half hour, here and there, to eat cheese) last night. I know the oxygen is, at this time, largely responsible for this. That's okay with me. I intend to take advantage of the opportunity this will offer to expand her lung capacity.
    She is, again, as was once usual and is, in some ways, unusual this time, in love with this house in Prescott and the property, again. She's talking about letting go of the mobile home in Mesa. She asked me tonight how I'd feel about that.
    I laughed. "I'd be deliriously happy!"
    "I thought you might say that," her eyes focused, her eyebrows cocked as though she'd just revealed she'd learned something new and valuable about me that even I might not know.
    I love it when old age allows people to discover the people in their lives anew.
    She asked about the friends I have in Mesa.
    I told her they are mobile and have proven so many times.
    She asked, I think to test her own reactions, which she wasn't revealing, to these 'new' thoughts, what I'd miss.
    I was honest with her. I'll miss our mechanics. I'll miss her hair dresser and the community of women to which we belong by virtue of her being a regular client. I'll miss the orange and grapefruit trees. I will. "But," I added, "I'm not sure any of those are worth continuing to bleed ourselves by holding on to that mobile home."
    "I think you might be right," she said. Not, please note, "You may be right," which means "You are not right and you're being silly to boot, but I'm too genteel to point it out and, anyway, I'm sure you know you're being silly," but, "I think you might be right." That means she's considering the efficacy and truth of an idea from her typically optimistic perspective.
    Not that we wouldn't miss the Mesa place. But it would be so much more convenient to simply rent a room for a night to visit, then return to Prescott.
    So many possibilities. Pinch me, I feel as though I'm dreaming the beginning of my mother's ninth life, or one of the later ones, anyway.
- posted by gail rae @ 22:52   email...this post