That's "birthday", not "bathday"...
...and so it was that my mother decided bathdays and birthdays are not compatible. She took, under much protest and with much coaching, a thorough bath yesterday afternoon anyway and had moved little and shed water not at all since, so her birthday was all hers today.
    I am about to begin a short series of birthday postings but wanted to get the first one in on her actual birthday. Here it is. In the sequence of this journaling software, all others will precede this one.
- posted by gail rae @ 23:58  0 comments   email...this post

 
Last night was my mother's first night back on oxygen...
...since the concentrator broke down Saturday night. Yesterday was half way between a classically slow day (which we haven't had since the Colonoscopy procedure) and a "new" slow day. Her appetite, though, regulated itself, she remained awake about as much as used to be typical for an active day and her blood sugar remained within her normal zone, 120 in the morning, 109 at night.
    Today, her wedding anniversary, will be the first of two birthday celebrations (if everything goes according to plan). Yesterday when my mother was talking to MCS I overheard her say something that sounded as though she was telling MCS that this would be her 16th birthday. After the conversation I joked about this and, from her response, surmised that she may not have been joking. Later I mentioned something about me being thrilled that, after the last six months, we made it to her 86th birthday. She looked at me as though my attempt at a joke had gone bad and said, disgusted, "I can't possibly be that old."
    Although I laughed and did the math for her (which she followed but didn't believe), I also told her, "That's probably why you are turning 86, Mom, because you don't believe it's possible that you are 'that old'!"
    In our society, we tend to think that a "young" attitude at an "old" age is indicated by such conditions as the desire and ability to play tennis or some other sport in one's 80's or beyond; personal dedication to a "healthy life-style" (whatever that is), despite the fact that it is against the nature of healthy youth to be concerned about health; one's desire to actively seek out and enter into society at large; whether or not one "looks one's age". In my mother, none of these significators applies but two others, I think, do: she seems to find it impossible to care or believe that she is an octogenarian and, after all these years, although she knows that everyone dies, she still does not believe that she will ever die. She has not faced her own mortality despite having come mighty close to it a couple of times.
    She may have times when she would like to spend the rest of her life in sleep. She may find much of what goes on "out there" silly and not worth her attention unless she can attend to it by sitting on the sidelines and watching it. She may so sorely miss those of her family and friends who have died that she does not always remember they are dead. This week, in fact, she spent most of an entire day repeatedly asking me to get in touch with one of her nephews and his wife so she could find out where her sister and brother-in-law are, despite reminders to her that they are dead (in fact, I did try to find out how to locate her nephew and his wife but discovered that both their last phone number and email address have changed without any forwarding information, so it will take a bit longer for us to reach them). None of this matters because she knows, with absolute certainty, that she will wake up from every night-sleep and every nap in her body and in this world. If she has an ailment it will, without much effort, either quickly "run its course" or she'll adjust to the point of the ailment being of no consequence. Most importantly, she always believes that everything, absolutely everything, will always "turn out all right." It's hard to determine how much of her optimism is due to the accidental luck of the circumstances of her life and how much can be attributed to sheer emotional determination to remain above water despite the depths in which she finds herself.
    Although I'm grateful for her attitude, I'm not recommending it as an antidote to either aging or impending death. I don't believe there is anything inherently debilitating or dangerous or wrong with the opposite attitude or any attitude in between. I know of people who have embraced this life fully and have died untimely deaths. I know of people who literally count on the possibility of dying "soon", yet continue for years, their distaste for life and desire for death remaining securely intact. I don't even believe that life is a classroom within which we learn self- or other-prescribed lessons. I think that everyone develops the attitude that suits their experience and there is nothing wrong with an attitude that appears to constrict a particular life, unless a particular person decides they want to change their particular attitude. We are, after all, playing, here, with what life can be, each of us in our unique way with our unique make-up within our own unique circumstances. I'm just very pleased that my mother is not only still playing, but isn't yet contemplating an end to her play.
    Happy, happy birthday, Mom, whatever age you think you are! What would you like to play, today?
- posted by gail rae @ 07:19  0 comments   email...this post

 
I'm wandering, today...
...unexpectedly, but gratefully wandering. We aren't going to Prescott today, not because of Mom but because of me. Last night, early in the evening, I suddenly felt as though I'd been standing in the Salt River bed just south of McDowell and west of the Beeline while several tons of river rock were dumped on me. I went to bed much earlier than my mother, thinking I simply couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, then tossed and turned and finally gave up and arose.
    I realized I simply couldn't negotiate another very busy day, so I asked her if she would be terribly disappointed if we didn't go to Prescott today.
    "No," she said, "I only wanted to go because you wanted to go."
    Although my overall intention is to work her out of the habit of associating Prescott with her parents and, thus, wishing we didn't live there, I was grateful to hear this last night.
    I'm surprised that I'm in need of a slow day, although I understand, intellectually, anyway, why this has happened. I've been so keenly focused on my mother's surprising recovery since last Wednesday and so dedicated to making sure that it does not reverse that I guess the tension finally snapped me silly. I'm beginning to feel, although the level of physical effort involved in catering to and enhancing her alertness and her desire to move has been negligible, certainly nothing more than my usual level of activity, that I've spent the last week pushing, shoulders first, against a granite edifice and I have to stop and rest.
    Somehow I'll find some way to activate her. Maybe we'll begin the process of sorting through everything here, deciding what to take with us to Prescott this year and what to leave. Cleaning wouldn't hurt and there are certain chores requiring physical activity in which my mother can join me. The appointments (switching of the oxygen concentrator, delivery of her breathing medications) that I'd arranged to have continue in Prescott, I'll handle.
    Last night as I fell into bed a second time I felt as though it would be completely okay with me if I died in my sleep. This morning, I'm just this side of refreshed and feeling hopeful. It's becoming apparent that crisis time is over and I need to return to the habit of regulating my energy so that I can rely on it unfailingly. That shouldn't be hard, especially with a day to reestablish my bearings.
    Once Mom finally headed for bed it was late (it took me awhile longer to collapse). She's sleeping in this morning, although as of this moment she hasn't been down for 8 hours so I'm not going to rouse her.
    Tomorrow and Saturday will be devoted to celebrating her birthday; two parties in a row away from home. She's excited about both and about the preparations I'll be doing here to enhance the festivities.
    About a half hour ago I looked in on her. The Little Girl, one of our cats, was trying to rouse her. Mom looked good, was breathing evenly and deeply and, as I administered a full body pet to The Little Girl to settle her down and convince her to leave Mom alone, Mom snuggled more deeply into her pillow, closed her eyes and slipped back into sleep. I think I'll take my cue from her today, relax, do a little here and a little there, as necessary, and concentrate on allowing our lives to normalize.
- posted by gail rae @ 09:49  0 comments   email...this post

 
I lost a little piece of heart, yesterday...
...as a result of my mother's much anticipated (by me) colonoscopy follow up visit with her PCP. I was very excited about the visit. If you've been following our colonoscopy adventure you'll recall that as a result of her unanticipated and spectacular revival immediately after the procedure I decided to take a few steps to keep the revival going, including not continuing the metformin or her iron supplements.
    She was in prime condition for the appointment. Throughout the morning she repeatedly questioned me as to why we were going at all, considering how good she felt. [When I say that since the procedure the clock was turned back on my mother by two and half years, it is important to keep in mind that my mother's mental creativity began long before then, so being in excellent shape continues to include an eccentric memory, although somewhat less so than previous to the colonoscopy.]
    The appointment so bewildered me that I haven't been able to write about it, although I have been able to think of little else since. To begin with, although her PCP noted that she looked good, her lungs were clear, she sounded good, all her stats were nicely normal (except her blood sugar, which is running a bit on the high side, although always below 200, usually below 170, and when I can get her moving for a bit during the day, which has been possible about every other day since the procedure, it snaps right back to normal) and her blood oxygen level was 93 (which, I noted, shocking the doctor, "...is amazing, considering that she's been without oxygen since her concentrator went on the fritz Saturday night"), once all the physical nitpicking was out of the way he lit into me for taking her off metformin and iron. Then, after acknowledging the results of the colonoscopy and agreeing that it had been unnecessary and that he had no problem with never scoping her again, he refused to speculate on what accounted for her recovery, dismissed my ideas that a combination of the bowel cleansing and keeping her off metformin and iron had anything to do with her recovery, continued to insist that she is still bleeding inside somewhere although, "...it must have stopped, again, like it did before; it's probably a valve or something...", also dismissed the possibility that medications could have been suppressing her bone marrow function (MCS warned me about this) by telling me that if this were true her hemoglobin would not have been so low, bartered like a kiosk trader to get me to put her back on iron (two tablets a day; he wanted three, I wanted one, we compromised at two) at least until the hematologist gets a chance to review everything, seemed to not be able to remember throughout our 15 minute appointment my severally mentioned vow that I would not put her back on metformin, not at any dosage, although I would be amenable to trying other medications until my mother had securely embraced lifestyle habits that would keep her blood sugar normal, said that, yes, indeed, there were other medications that could be administered but dismissed doing anything about this yesterday and his last words to me were, ironically, "Well, if her blood sugar goes a little high, you can always give her half a tablet of metformin," despite me having scrapped this medication for my mother. Added to this, in order to try to get me back in line he used the veiled threat of the possibility of blood transfusions if her hemoglobin didn't recover; using this to underline what he felt is the necessity of keeping her on iron.
    Whew! Big breath! I'm boggled. It is as though he gave absolutely no thought to anything I conveyed to him before the appointment, nor the numbers and his in-the-flesh observation during her appointment. I hope he was just having a bad day. I hope that it was one of those days for him (which we all have) where one gets stuck in a rut and simply can't get out until that day fades into the next. His reactions seemed to be completely out of character for him, almost as though he was feeling threatened (thus, he passed the 'favor' along to me). I went out of my way to assure him that I do trust him, but that my fundamental trust resides in my observations of my mother.
    In the meantime, I ran the information about hemoglobin past MCS this morning and she was stunned, telling me it isn't necessarily true. As well, because my mother is clear enough, now, to remember his threat, she's insisting on taking the iron, even though her history, pre-old age, has been that she does not do well on iron supplements.
    Although I was feeling defeated and disgusted yesterday, I'm not today. I will administer iron to my mother, although I'll take her off it, again, if her vitality sags and her color dims (which sometimes happens to her on iron if she's overdosed). It is only two weeks until we see the hematologist, so I'm hoping that the iron, while I don't expect it to do her any good, won't do her any harm, either.
    In the second meantime, although my mother awoke this morning a bit on the slow side, I gently but firmly maneuvered her into going to Costco with me and getting her out, once again. As was true on Monday, walking around pushing a cart greatly improved her spirits and her energy level. She had a fecal accident toward the end of our trek, although she was unaware of it and, since she was wearing paper underwear, the accident was not visible (although it was detectable by smell). Since I hadn't thought to bring supplies with us I didn't address it until we got home. Interestingly, her spirits improved even more once she'd eliminated, so my guess is that her bowels are just getting used to functioning normally, again. We'd had two relatively slow days in a row, especially yesterday. Although we went to the doctor, she was up and moving around very little. Today's accident provided a lesson for me that I need to get her moving at least once a day, just to allow her body to function properly. Sitting up will no longer do the trick now that she is recovering to a higher level of somatic functioning.
    Her sense of thirst and hunger have both returned and I only occasionally, and not even every day, need to remind her to drink something. I haven't had to tempt (or, sometimes, badger) her to eat since the colonoscopy. I've been noticing the last few mornings, as well, that she is getting up at night and eating, which is fine. It throws her blood sugar out of whack a bit but I know she is responding to genuine hunger and what we need to do, now, is adjust both medication and habits to take into account the fact that my mother has always been a much more enthusiastic snacker than meal eater, despite her love of the restaurant experience.
    Tomorrow we are planning an overnight trip to Prescott. She is enthusiastic about this, especially since it involves a book club meeting. She is looking forward to the social activity and, as she says, "the change of scenery".
    The most heartwarming part of the day occurred as we left Costco. The employees there have become so used to me shopping alone that a few of them mentioned their surprise that I even had a mother. When the woman at the door checking people's receipts as they left noticed my mother she commented that I must have visitors. "No," I said, proudly, "this is my mother. She's been under the weather for a long time, but she's back in the sun, again, so she'll be accompanying me, now."
   "Good for you!" she said to my mother, and drew a smiley face on the back of our receipt for her. When we arrived home, after I'd unloaded everything, cleaned her and her slacks and started putting things away my mother asked, "Where's that receipt?"
    "Oh," I said, "it's right here. I was going to throw it away."
    "Don't do that, give it here."
    Welcome back, Mom!
- posted by gail rae @ 17:05  0 comments   email...this post

 
Mom and I were mall rats today!
    Hair day is always a good day to get Mom going, at least it was two and a half years ago. I decided to take a chance that she might be feeling a bit more energetic and suggested before we left home that I throw the wheelchair in the car (she could use it either as a walker or a sitter) and consider a trip to the mall to peruse the department stores for a new bathrobe for her birthday. We'd already determined that she wanted a long, terry cloth, tie robe in lemon yellow. I wasn't sure we'd be able to find exactly what she wanted but my mother considers looking 99% of the fun of buying.
    When I reminded her of the idea, in question form, as she rose from the salon chair, she said, "I don't think it's necessary, let's just go home." From her color, though, and her level of alertness, it occurred to me that she was simply exercising her prerogative (which is one of her many facets that hasn't had much exercise in a long time). Once in the car, I cajoled her into a "quick trip" to check out the sleepwear sale at Mervyn's and got the nod. Off we went.
    Once at the mall, her spirits lifted. My mother is a born shopper. Up until medicine began insidiously sapping her strength, her ability to window and money shop rivaled that of the most materialistic teenager. I have never shared this particular interest with my mother but I'm also easy and when I have a chance to lure her back into the world I'll shop with the best of them.
    Before I hoisted the chair out of the car I made a deal with her. She could sit in the chair when we were in stores, but I thought she should wheel the chair when we were between stores, using it as a shopping cart. She needs the movement, I explained, and she agreed. I said all this knowing that her newly raised energy might flag before the trip was done but I was confident that either I'd be able to tell when she needed to sit or she'd tell me.
    I was right on both counts, but her energy surprised me. We made the round of the entire upper level of the mall, finally finding exactly the bathrobe she had envisioned and described in the third department store. Along the way we wandered into a Hallmark store in which she insisted on wheeling instead of sitting (her pride is one of the sturdier and more amusing of her characteristics), wandered into a store having a shirt sale but didn't find anything she liked after rifling through the entire sale table and gazed at end-of-summer displays. About halfway around the mall she decided to sit. As we passed the food court she eyed the Paradise Bakery and decided it was time for a sandwich. We lunched and people-watched for 45 minutes and she was ready to head for home. "You can stay in the chair, Mom, and I'll wheel you the rest of the way."
    "No, I think I can manage all right," she responded. Up she got and off we went. I noticed she was panting a bit by the time we arrived just outside Mervyn's (no doubt caused by her body trying to digest and move simultaneously, something she hasn't tried in a long time) so I suggested she ride the rest of the way. She didn't argue.
    She just awoke from an hour and a half nap. She looked a little confused as she entered the living room. "Is anything wrong?" I asked.
    "Don't I have an appointment with the doctor today?" she asked.
    She slept so hard that she thought it 0600 instead of 1800, I realized. "No, Mom, I said, "it's still Monday, in the evening. Your appointment's tomorrow. You slept pretty hard, didn't you?"
    "I guess so."
    "Well, I'm not surprised," I observed. "You moved a lot more today than you have in a long time."
    "I know," she said, ironically.
    I was immediately concerned. "Do you hurt anyplace? Do your muscles hurt?"
    "No. Are you sure my birthday wasn't yesterday?" This is a debate we had earlier today. She is sure that we forgot to celebrate her birthday "yesterday."
    "Yes, Mom, I'm sure. We've got a party to go to for you and MCF on Friday and a family party Saturday. Believe me, I'm not going to let you miss your birthday celebrations!"
    "See to it that you don't!" she declared, and we both laughed. The Original Party Lady is back.
    I'm scouring my resources now, coming up with ideas for more day trips that are interesting enough to keep her going until we move back to Prescott, where it is easy to devise indoor and outdoor adventures every day. Mesa, with its incredible heat and ho-hum cultural venue, is less than adequate for our purposes now. I can't wait to get her up the mountain after August 12th.
- posted by gail rae @ 18:24  0 comments   email...this post

 
My mother's recovery is not a miracle.
    This is an important realization. Although the word "miraculous" has been pushing its way into the more conscious regions of my brain within the past few days, the more I consider its meaning the more I realize that it is important that all involved with my mother and anyone reading this who is taking care of An Ancient One understand that what happened to my mother is completely understandable and repeatable in the mundane area of life.
    Why is this important? When we attribute reversals of fortune to the miraculous, we surrender the ability we have to understand, produce and reproduce what we are calling "miraculous". In the case of my mother and her astounding reaction to submitting to a bowel cleansing and having her medication cut by more than half, although the cause and cure of her ailing were discovered by accident, everything about her release from those ailments addressed by Tuesday's and Wednesday's procedures is clearly understandable, repeatable and suggest explicit instructions, able to be followed by anyone in unmiraculous circumstances, for how to keep her from falling victim to these ailments, again, for awhile, anyway, until Life decides to take her life.
    This is not to say that any prayers offered on her behalf did not work. This is not to say that I did not pray that this procedure, which I did not feel good about, would be successful. My attitude toward prayer is such that it would not be inappropriate to state that I exist in a state of constant prayer: I have made it a decades-long habit to always remain aware of and open to the mysterious and, on a moment to moment basis, imagine that everything I think, do and am is being projected out toward all of which I incapable of clearly thinking, reasonably doing and obviously being. This activity includes the constant forming and projecting of questions, needs and requests. I don't stop there, though. I continue using every ounce of my being to discover reasonable explanations for problems and repeatable solutions to events. I assume that the force we call "God" (and imagine, individually, in a myriad of ways) is shot throughout existence and available to us in an infinite number of ways, including as a being conjured in our image (note the reversal of the supposition that a god made us in its image). Nor do I doubt that miracles happen. I believe, though, that the miraculous is always a manifestation of something we don't yet understand and thus cannot yet attribute to our own devices, or the devices of other units and/or forces of existence.
    This being said, I have entered into a continual state of expressible and inexpressible gratitude to All That I Do and Don't Understand in regards to the change taking place in my mother. A large part of this gratitude is toward the gift of the inclination I have to search inexhaustibly for explanations and solutions.
    Regarding the entire Colonoscopy Experience, the only part of it that I now consider miraculous (in the sense of not having an explanation for it) is the gastro-enterologist's reversal of her fall position of scoping in regards to my mother. Granted, she was solicited to scope her anyway, but her previous position was so completely pro-scoping for anyone, if, for no other reason than "the history" of it, that for her to announce, after performing a procedure that appeared to me (and on papaer) to be well tolerated by my mother, that it had been "torture" and she did not want to be party to that type of torture again, was completely unexpected, no doubt not only by me but by her, as well.
    And now, back to the business of life, which I have begun to consider is, through the process of evolution of which problem solving is the fundament, the process of learning how to understand (at any level, whether conscious awareness is involved or not) and repeat the "miraculous", thus allowing for the development of even more curious levels of Miracle Play.
- posted by gail rae @ 09:07  0 comments   email...this post

 
Today has been a serene and slow day,
giving Mom a chance to completely recover from the week. Tomorrow is hair day, so she'll be up and moving again. It should be interesting to see if her energy revival of last week continues. I'll keep you posted.
- posted by gail rae @ 19:52  0 comments   email...this post

 
The entire, detailed story...
...of my mother's recovery from the colonoscopy and, apparently, from a few problems for which she was being unsuccessfully treated before the colonoscopy, is now posted on the Post Colonoscopy Instructions & Comments page. My guess is that it will be as surprising for you to read as it was for me to experience.
    I have a relatively busy afternoon, phone calls to make, people to reassure, an oxygen concentrator to report, and my mother is up, so I may not be back, again, until later. In the meantime know that our felicitous days are continuing, much to my surprised pleasure, and both my mother's and my optimism is high.
- posted by gail rae @ 13:40  0 comments   email...this post