I'm still sort of wandering over here...
...so bear with me as I halt into starting.
    Although Mom awoke at a decent time of her own accord and looked peachy warming her back in the sun at the dining room table (our dining room is more like a large breakfast nook), I got the distinct impression that she was going to beg off our plans, which would entail a fairly busy day today. I can't tell you what my indicator was but I knew that she actually wanted to spend a fair amount of time in bed today.
    I did what I thought was heading her off at the pass. I announced that if she didn't want to go on the short, piddly errands I'd let her stay home through those but going to Costco and the grocery would be invigorating for her, we'd take the oxygen, blah, blah, blah...she's heard it all before and sometimes it's worked. She wasn't having any of it this morning but since I promised her extra bed time after breakfast (more or less, she stayed up for 2 hours after breakfast), she agreed to a long, oxygenated trip, later.
    Between the time Mom finished breakfast and I left alone for what turned out to be all the errands, A[dear]PF and I chatted on the phone a couple of times. She is always interested in how my mother is so I told her that I was trying to rev her up for a decently active afternoon but I could feel her physical resistance to anything but a day of sleep and she'd already had more than a few laconic days. My friend cut in and told me about one of her friends, a year or so over 90, who always complains that it takes her a month to acclimate to Prescott no matter how long she's been gone. During that month she spends "sometimes whole days and nights" sleeping.
    I rethought today's strategy. If she was going to be sleeping and I couldn't get her to do anything else and, one way or another, would give in to her, at least I could see to it that she was bathing herself in oxygen throughout the entire day. That should give her a fine start on tomorrow.
    When I left early in the afternoon Mom had been in bed for 30 minutes or so. I had told her I'd be back after the few short errands to see if she wanted to go to the grocery with me. Although she acknowledged what I'd said, her eyes had begun to roll blissfully back into her head. I replayed the scenario as I drove from errand to errand and finally decided to give her a treat and let her sleep. I knew I'd have to control for dehydration tonight and that wouldn't be fun for her, but I could feel, this morning, her need for sleep and after my discussions with A[dear]PF, I decided a day of morphic luxury for Mom was all right.
    She has been mentioning, as well, lately, that she wanted something sweet. I've been pretty good at gently dissuading her, since her blood glucose has been spiking without the benefit of refined sugar, thank you. But today I decided to get her some cheesecake and spring it on her if her blood sugar wasn't too far out of whack this evening, considering that she wouldn't have the benefit of 500 mg metformin in the afternoon. I needn't have worried. Her blood sugar was 71. So I gave her a second 500 mg metformin at dinner and a third two hours later during dessert. I expect her to read good in the morning. Although she'll be slow to move I think we'll manage to get out on our "adventure", the one we put off doing today.
- posted by gail rae @ 22:43   email...this post