Phone Calls From Mom

The part of this post that is in regular type, is a post I wrote two years ago, on my old blog.  The paragraphs at the end that are in italics, are a new addition to the tale.

Backstory 1:

I walked into the living room. Mom was sitting in her chair.
Says I: “We are heading out for a bit.”
Says She: “Where are you going?”
I: “We are going to go get my new glasses, and then run to Kohl’s to return some things. We’ll be back in awhile. Maybe an hour-and-a-half?”
She: “Ok.”

Story 1:

We have arrived at the optical store, which is about a 5 minute drive from the house.
I think we’d only been at the store less than 10 minutes when the phone rang. It was mom.
I: “Hi mom”
She: “Will you bring me a danish and some tea.”
I: “I can’t right now.”
She: “Why not?”
I: “Because I’m not home.”
She: “Where are you?”
I: “Did you forget that I told you we were going to get my glasses and then to Kohl’s?”
She: “Yeah. I guess I did forget.”
I: “I’ll be home soon, and get your tea and danish.”
She: “Ok. Bye.”

As I hang up the phone, I am annoyed with myself that I said “Did you forget?” Obviously she had. I didn’t really need to point it out. Seems rather mean of me to have said that.  Mostly, I think, it’s that thing we do when we get scared, like a parent yelling at a child for running out into the street, then giving them a big hug.  My mentioning she forgot seems to be the same: an expression of fear, but not knowing how to express it in any other way.  Does that make any sense?  Maybe that’s a poor analogy.

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Backstory 2:

I walked into the living room. Mom was sitting in her chair.
Says I: “We are heading out. I’m going to the grocery store to pick up a couple things for dinner.”
Says She: “Ok. You won’t be gone long?”
I: “Shouldn’t be. Just need to run in and out. We’ll be gone half hour, forty-five minutes maybe.”
She: “Ok.”

Story 2:

We are at the grocery store, which is less than a ten minute drive from home.
We’ve been at the store no more than 15 minutes. Maybe only 10.I picked up some produce, onion rolls, pork chops, chips, soda and diet tonic water. So, it couldn’t have taken all that long. Then, we walked right up to the check-out; there was no line. We checked out, paid, and just as I was walking out to the car, the phone rang.
I: “Hi mom.”
She: “I have some mail for you to put out on the box before the postman comes.”
I: “Ok. I’ll put it out when I get home.”
She: (short pause) “Where are you.”
I: “The grocery store. Picking up the stuff I need to make for dinner.”
She: (long pause) “You’re not back yet?”
I: “No. We are just leaving now.”
She: “Oh.”
I: “I’ll be home soon, ok?”
She: “I’ll go put it out. See you. Bye.”

So, I’m not annoyed with myself, as I didn’t mention that she forgot. What doesn’t translate in the story is that she did forget — the pause and her tone of voice, along with the hesitant way she said “You’re not back yet?” all gave me reason to believe she forgot. At least I didn’t point it out this time.

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These calls happened today and yesterday. Though they aren’t the first calls of their kind, each one brings pain to my heart. She’s 87, so I know that there’s a certain amount of age-related memory-loss to expect. It doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve always thought of my mom as one of the smartest people I know. She was never one to forget things — even the most trivial of things were things to be remembered.

To see those trivial things forgotten just breaks my heart.

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Time moves on, as time does.  We experience life. Hopefully, we learn a thing or two along the way.

Sometimes we notice our mistakes, and try to change them, as I tried to do when answering one of mom’s phone calls when we were  out and about — trying not to say “don’t you remember I told you….?”

Two years, and a couple of months have passed since I wrote that blog post, and I noticed my mistake.  I wish I could make the claim that I’ve been perfect, that I’ve not made that mistake again.  But, no.  I can’t claim perfection.  Mom still calls when I’m out, and I’ve asked “…but don’t’ you remember I told you….?”  The words fly out — no thought involved.  And, as soon as the words have flown from my tongue, I’m left standing there, wanting to rip my tongue out, throw it on the floor, and stamp it dead in the same freaked out way I stamp out a big, ugly bug crawling rapidly in my direction.  I’m left wondering why it was important for me to say “….don’t you remember?”  It’s not as if saying it makes a difference.  Obviously she didn’t remember, or she wouldn’t be calling, so why the need for me to point it out? 

If this were happening with a friend, or a roommate, or even my partner, I might feel a little sorry that I questioned their memory, but, I don’t think any of us would really be bothered by it.  We might even laugh it off with a “Well, you know, the memory is the first thing to go.”

But, when it’s my mom, who is fast approaching her 90th birthday, it’s different.  It’s not easily dismissed, or even laughed off.  Ok, I’ll admit, I laugh a little about it, that she gets so focused on what she needs, that she forgets I’m gone.  But, this need to point it out to her.  No, no, I don’t say it every time.  I’ve gotten better.  But, sometimes I still ask, “…don’t you remember?”  Sometimes, there’s even a tone in my voice, an exasperation in my voice, a tone that reminds me of an exchange between a parent and child: “…don’t you remember I told you that we were going to Aunt Sally’s tonight?  You’ll just have to tell your friends you can’t go to the movies.”  And, then the plaintive wail, “But mom….”

When I use that tone with my mom, there’s no “But mom…” wail from her.  Usually just silence, as she remembers that yes, I had told her I was out, and that, yes, she had forgotten.  And, in that moment when she’s silent, the pain wells up inside me, then the accusing guilt: why am I so stupid? why am I so thoughtless? why does it even matter?

Finally, I’ve realized why it matters, why I call out her forgetfulness, or why I sound exasperated.  It’s because I need her not to forget.  I need her to remember.  Not just that I’ve left the house for awhile.  That’s not really the issue, is it?  Forgetting I’m gone is trivial.  But, if she forgets that, what else is she going to start forgetting?   She’s already forgotten stories, mixing them up, adding people into stories who weren’t actually a part of the story, leaving people out of other stories, placing them in the wrong time and place.  Is the time going to come when she forgets where she is? Forgets who I am?  Forgets who she is?

So, you see, the questioning, the tone — they are not directed at her.  They are directed at time, at age, at the erosion of our mind and body.  At the cycle of life.  

photo by Philip Bitnar

I think I can honestly claim that I’ve never expected my mother to be immortal — my father dying when I was fourteen taught me that lesson.  And, I’ve seen enough people age, grow less vital, begin to lose memories and thoughts.  I’ve never denied that those times were coming. I’ve watched the calendar turn its pages, from day, to month, to year, another year, and another.

I knew that this time was coming, these days that are often politely called The Twilight Years.  I had no starry-eyed illusions that it would be easy to watch.

What I had no idea of was how angry and hopeless it makes me feel to watch the vital, active woman who was my mother slowly fade away.  No, I’m not burying her just yet.  She’s still got life left in her.  But, there are the forgotten things, her being easily tired by spending an hour or two taking a friend shopping (my mom could, once upon a time, when we were working on all the mountain property, spend a Saturday running from hardware store, to lumber yard, to department store, then still have the energy to go to dinner and a play with friends); now, and hour of driving her friend to the store, riding around on an electric cart, and taking her friend home, is enough to tire her out. 

I need her to remember because she’s the only family I have left.  My dad is gone.  My brother is gone.  She knows stories about them, stories I’ve still not learned.  She cannot forget, because then I’m left being the only one who’ll remember the stories of my family.  I try to write them down, but, how can you capture the stories of the lives of three people, and still try to hold onto your own story?  

How can I carry the weight of the stories of my mom, my dad, my brother?  I haven’t gotten the stories all stitched into my brain yet.  I need her to at least remember until I’ve finished sewing the quilt of their stories into the fabric of my soul.

I’m weaving their tales as fast as I can.  But, I cannot stop time from moving on.

An Old Story, And An Armadillo Tale

I wrote a post the other day, about watching my mom grow older, how frustrating it can be to watch, and, how, sometimes I get a bit snippy.  Then, yesterday I made a long, rambling video talking about the same thing.  It got me thinking that I’d sort of written something similar, on my old blog, so I was brwosing around for it, and came across the post, and thought I’d share it — not so much for repeating some of the same theme, but, to share the bit about the armadillos.

The unspoken motto here at Johnbalaya is: entertain, and provide random trivia.

So, reprinted, with kindly permission from me (as copywright holder of the old blog, I had to ask permission for reprinting… you know how publishing is), is an old blog post from August, 2, 2011

The original title was:  Mom, Armadillos And Being Snippy 

I’ve not written much about my mother over the past few months.  It’s certainly not because I’ve not got anything to write about.

Take, for example, mom’s rather touching concern about the extinction of the armadillo.

The setting: the dinner table.

Along with her pork chop sandwich, mom was drinking a Snapple, and, on the bottle top there was the usual trivia, this one informing us that the litter of an armadillo is always only one gender – all male, or all female.  This piece of information caused mom to wonder what would happen if they only gave birth to males: if all the armadillos, everywhere, only gave birth to male armadillos, they’d become extinct.  The statistical probability of this happening didn’t seem to occur to her.  Just that if they all had male babies, they couldn’t reproduce, and would die out.  There was a pause while she considered this further, and I waited for more, but, she turned to another topic, and I found myself strangely caught up in this armadillo extinction scenario.  How long would it take for them to die off?  Would there be a chance to save them?  Would there be…what the hell was I thinking?!

No, I seem to always have something to write about my mother.  The issue comes from wanting to be sure that I write about her (and me) in the right way: I don’t wish to tell stories about my mom in a way that makes her seem silly or foolish, nor do I wish to sound as if I’m making fun of her; and, on the other end of the spectrum, I wish to write about her with the respect she deserves, and I don’t wish to make myself sound like a whiny, complaining, ungrateful son.  Frustration can make a person write without thinking, and that is not my intent.  Writing can be a way of expressing feelings, of giving voice to those thoughts that run around our minds, and can be a way of venting those thoughts.  I don’t want my writing to be like that.  I would rather it be thoughtful, as a way to help me make sense of it all – and, maybe it will even help me to grow.

Of course, that all sounds as if I’m ranting and frustrated all the time.  I’m not.  Just sometimes.

Like this evening.

Mom called and asked me to come help her find something.  For most people, this would be no big deal – we all lose things, right?  For me, it’s an almost daily occurrence. Today’s item: an envelope, addressed to the bank, with a blank check inside.  “I put it in the holder with all the other bills,” says she to me. A five-minute search found it tucked away in a desk drawer.  Last week it was a blank check that had been torn from her checkbook for some reason or another, and vanished, only to be found in the recycle bin.  Over the past year it’s been a wide variety of things that Julian and I have searched for, from pens, scissors and letter openers to checkbooks, keys, cash and credit cards.  Each search is accompanied by the same commentary from mom, “It should be right there, I always put my (pens, scissors, credit cards, etc.) in the same place (holder, drawer, wallet, purse, etc.) when I’m done with them so I can find them again.”

The frustration comes not from the obvious, frantic searching for the missing checks, but, rather, it comes from a sense of helplessness as I watch my mom growing older and more forgetful.  The frustration comes from having to stand here, watching, unable to do much of anything. Sometimes it makes me so angry that I get snippy, and the instant I get snippy, I get angry at myself for my tone.  When I get snippy, she tells me I sound just like her mother (my grandmother – who died when I was 9 months old, so I have to way of knowing if my tone is like hers).  Considering that my mother cared for her mom for most of her life, and didn’t really like her mom, being compared to my grandmother is not exactly the nicest thing I’ve been called.  I can’t claim that the words don’t hurt, but, I can’t claim that I didn’t deserve them.  I suspect that I am mothering my mother, and while mothering can be nice, mothers all have that certain tone that pushes our buttons.  I seem to have learned how to push my mom’s buttons.  This is both satisfying and horrifying.  Horrifying is the larger of the two feelings, which doesn’t make me feel any better.

Sometimes it’s tough writing about life with my mom because it means I have to write about myself, in as honest a way as I can.  It’s easy to write about my mom, mostly.  It’s the delving deep into my own being that makes it tough.

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Reading an old blog post has hidden dangers … like realizing that nearly two years ago I was writing about being snippy, and, two days ago, I was writing about having a tone in my voice…  seemingly, in two years, I’ve not learned to get rid of The Tone.

Maybe I need to work harder on fixing this particular fact….

In Which John Reveals His Big Bald Head

First off… don’t be scared.  My head is not quite as big as it appears in the video.

And, secondly… be forewarned ….  it is a bit lengthy.  So, you’ll need a few minutes.

Thirdly: Laughing at me is perfectly acceptable.

Then Why Are You Taking That Tone With Me?

Mom: “Why are you yelling at me?”

 

Me: “I’m not yelling.”

 

Mom: “Then why are you taking that tone with me?”

 

Instead, I am contrite. I apologize. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t realize I’d raised my voice.”

 

I want to say that I don’t yell, as in scream. It’s more of an excited raising of my voice.

 

At least I hope that’s what it is.

 

This is an exchange that mom and I seem to have on a regular basis. I can’t say I’m proud of the fact that I speak to my mom with That Tone. And, to add to my shame, I am aware of it the minute I start, yet I am unable to stop The Tone from leaving my mouth.

 

Perhaps if she were doing something that made me mad, it might be different, my shame might be less. But, typically, she’s not doing anything that makes me mad. Well, okay, there are some things like: ordering all kinds of flower bulbs to plant, without regard to the fact that she orders things that need full sun, and our yard is quite shady.  We go through this every Spring — a large box of things arrives: trees, bulbs, seeds.  They’re to be planted around the yard.  The only garden areas are against the house.  Here’s where it gets tricky, and where the “I get mad” part comes in. My parents bought this house in 1960, and once in the 1970s, and once in the 1990s, termites were discovered, and exterminated.  Now, termites like damp soil.  So, my mom has been a “Don’t water close to the house” advocate ever since.

Are you seeing where this is heading?

No water against the house.  Plants that are to be planted in the garden areas that are against the wall of the house.  So, the plants get planted, because I get yelled at if they sit around.  Then they die, because they can’t be watered, and she’s angry and swears to never order anything from such and such a place because they sell crappy product.  Then, the next Spring another box arrives, and the cycle repeats.  It’s a waste of time and money.  

 

So, yes, there are some things that she does that makes me mad.

 

Generally, though, I am more frustrated than mad; more frustrated at my own sense of helplessness.

 

I’m frustrated because it saddens me to watch my mother get old.

 

I’m really not mad when it takes her a long time to get dressed; I’m frustrated at seeing this once vital woman, who could be up, dressed and out of the house in less than 20 minutes taking 15 to 20 minutes just to get dressed. I’m not mad at her when she asks me to total up the numbers when she balances her check book, instead, I’m frustrated that the woman who always amazed me by being able to add lists of numbers in her head faster than most people could add them on a calculator now needs me to double check her numbers because she’s added them up four times and has come up with four different answers (this has happened to me, this coming up with multiple answers, so it should be no surprise to anyone when I get old).

 

My mother has lived an active life (not necessarily “active” in the physically athletic sense). She was in the Women’s Army Corps during WWII, working on the bombing range. She travelled all over with my father, every time he was stationed somewhere new. She taught high school for 30 years. She built all the cabinets in one of the bathrooms, and stained/antiqued them. She was constantly working on something at our mountain cabins when I was growing-up: painting, tearing down, building up. Mom took turns with Dad, mowing the lawn, until I was old enough to start doing it on my own. I think of these things, these images of my mom as a younger woman almost every day: mom with a paintbrush, a hammer, on a ladder, sledding down the hill, swimming in the ocean, going for long walks in the mountains. I don’t purposely think of them, but these images flash into my mind when I see her struggling to get her socks on, or trying to open a bag of chips with her arthritic hands, or having to stop and sit down to rest after walking from one room into the next.

 

Three-and-a-half ago, when she had her heart-valve repalcement surgery, her recovery was quite long and tough on us all. Yet, as tough as it was to see her that weak, there was not much sense of frustration, as there were things I could do to help: I sat up with her when she was suffering from anxiety attacks so bad she could barely sleep and was afraid to be left alone; I cleaned her when she went to the bathroom; I shouldered her weight as we made our way down the steps into her bedroom. It was a time where she needed specific help, needed me to perform specific actions, and I was able to be there and do all that needed to be done. Watching her age, watching her slow down, when all I can do is watch, helplessly–it’s the toughest thing I’ve ever done.

 

There are moments when I am watching her, when my heart just breaks: watching her shuffle across the room, needing help putting her coat on, or having to struggle to get up out of a chair, or asking for the fourth time what I’m making for dinner. I look and I see traces of the vital woman I knew as a child, but she gets harder and harder to find with each passing year. No, don’t get me wrong — mom is still quite mobile and active for an 89 year old woman. I’ve known people in their 60s who were older in mind and body than my mom is at 89. She gets out, she drives to church and goes to breakfast with the other church ladies, she goes to visit her friend Pat, when Pat is in town, she goes around with Julian and I. So please forgive me if I’m making her sound older than she is. I don’t mean to. It seems that I just have trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that she can’t do the things she once did, and that when she needs me to open the bag of chips, or carry her purse, it’s not the fact that she’s asked me to do something that I get mad at. I’m mad at the loss, at the years that have gone by, at the time that slowly breaks us down.

 

I’m mad at the fact that I stand next to her, powerless to stop her from getting any older.

 

When my mom says to me “Why are you taking that tone with me?” I want to say, it’s because I’m standing here seeing you grow old. It’s because I’m mad that I can’t slow down the time, and I’m mad at the fact that time will run its inevitable course, knowing that all I can do is hope that we still have years left, yet also knowing that hope alone can’t stop time.

 

I wonder: maybe I should actually say that.

 

But, how?

Take A Few Minutes And Get To Know Pearl

If you’ve followed me for more than a month, you’ll know I recently started a poetry blog.  The goal of which is to share my journey into the world of poetry, but, also, to encourage others to discover poetry — to recover from those high school English classes which, often, kill people’s desire to read and write.   Except for mentioning the blog here, I’ve been trying to keep the posts separate.

I think, though, that this is more appropriate to post here.  You’ll remember that my partner and I live with my nearly ninety year old mother.  My parents started parenting later in life, so many of the people I grew up around were my parents age or older.  And, over the years, I’ve watched them grow old, slow down, lose their memories, and, have watched most of them die. While my mother is still very much alive, and I’ve not had to tell anyone of her death, this poem resonates with me, and, I hope that you’ll find some of the magic and emotion in the poem resonates with you.

This poem, shared by my Poetry Guru, seems to fit better here, on the blog where I’ve shared the stories of an elderly mom, and have written about watching people grow old. The poem, the story of the poet’s drive to tell his mother’s childhood playmate and lifelong friend, that she had passed.  It’s a glimpse into the world of growing old, dying, treasuring those special moments, and the people who live in the shadows.

The poem is by Ted Kooser, and is about as fine a piece of contemporary poetry as one will hear.  Even if this doesn’t encourage you to give poetry another look, I hope at least you’ll enjoy the tale:

Weekend Fun With Mom In The Hospital

Mom has been sick with a stomach bug. It started Friday, seemed better during the day on Saturday, then got worse during the evening.

She is half-dehydrated most of the time. We argue about getting her to drink more. Most days I feel lucky if she drinks four or five glasses of water and/or tea.

When you aren’t well- hydrated to begin with, diarrhea and vomiting can dehydrate you extra fast.

At 3 a.m. she called me because she was having severe diarrhea and, was very weak. I ran down to her room, to discover her weak, confused, unable to stand; she was sitting on the edge of the bed in a puddle of shit. Every time she tried to stand, the watery stool just came pouring out.

I had to argue with her for a few minutes, but, ultimately, I prevailed, and the ambulance arrived in less than five minutes.

She has been given two bags of fluid, but they are keeping her in the hospital because her creatinine level is high (it is normally high, because she has kidney disease; creatinine is a measurement used to determine how efficient the kidneys are working, and her measurement is higher than her already high number.)

Currently, we are still in a room in the ER, awaiting an open bed in the senior acute care ward.

It is 11:15 a.m. here in Denver. We have been in the ER since 3:30 this morning. We won’t have an update on a room until around 1 p.m.

Mom is asleep, finally. Me, I had my typical insomniac night, and had 5 hours sleep last night, plus a ninety minute nap this evening. If you factor out the nap, I have been up almost 25 hours. So, forgive me the grammar errors. Plus, I am typing on an iPad, something I have not done before, and it is not all that fun to do.

I took mom’s photo with the iPad earlier, and, she made me promise to tell you she was ok, and that her hair looks so bad because she missed her hair appointment on Friday, to get it washed and set, because she was sick. And, I am also supposed to mention that it looks even worse because I forgot to bring her comb.

When Julian went home to check on the dogs, he brought the comb back, but she is sleeping, her head lolled over to the side, and her mouth open, though her hair is now combed. I think she would not be pleased if I retook the photo to show her hair looking nice, but her mouth hanging open.

The Missing Pills

So this happened:
The other day, mom’s doctors made some changes to her blood pressure medication.  One of the medications now requires a three-times-a-day dosage.  In order to to get all three doses in, and spaced at reasonable intervals, she needs to take her first dose of the day around 6-7 a.m.  Her alarm always goes off at 7 a.m.; it goes off this early, even though she doesn’t get always get up that early, in order to allow her time to decide if she wants to go to mass, and breakfast with the church ladies.  She usually wakes up somewhere around 5 a.m. to go to the bathroom.  I figured, between the 5 a.m. bathroom call, and the 7 a..m alarm, she could take her first dose of the blood pressure pills.  The first night, I set my alarm for 6 a.m., went and woke her up, and gave her the pills.  I then recalled that when she first started taking this pill, earlier in the year, she was having to take an early dose, so I’d placed several pills in a small bowl, and left them in her bathroom, so she could take the pill when she woke up.

I decided to do this again, even though the dosage was different from the original dose: two-and-a-half pill, instead of one.

I put a handful of pills in the bowl, then cut several tabs in half, and added them to the bowl as well.  I brought the bowl in to mom, told her what I was going to do, reminding her of how we’d done it earlier in the year, and repeated the new dosage to her several times.  I then asked her to repeat it back to me.  I put the small dish on her nightstand, as requested.

This morning, at 8 a.m. she called me: her heart was beating fast, and she had some chest pressure (symptoms she had during her recent hospital stay — more about this in another post).  I took her pressure, and discovered that, like in the hospital when she had the chest pressure, her heart rate was very high, and that her pressure was fairly low.  I decided since it was so low, I wouldn’t give her her other blood pressure pill, as 101/60 seemed low enough, and, that another dose of a pressure lowering medication might make her pressure too low.  I did, however, give her a dose of a pill she has that slows her heart rate, which the doctors took her off of a few days ago, when they made the changes.  Within a half-an-hour she was feeling much better.

Tonight, while I was helping her get ready for bed (she gets herself into her pajamas, I just make sure her phone is on the nightstand by the bed, that the TV is set to a station she likes, and that its timer is set for two hours), I reminded her to take her pills in the morning.  I looked around for the small bowl that contained the pills I had brought down last night.  I didn’t see it on the nightstand where I’d left it, and, I didn’t see it on the counter in her bathroom.

“Where’s the bowl of pills from last night?” I asked.

She: “I brought it up to the other room, and you took it out to the kitchen a while ago.”

“I didn’t take a bowl with pills in it to the kitchen.” I said.

She: “There weren’t any pills in it.  It was empty.”

“Oh.  Where did you put the pills then?” I asked.

She: “Nowhere.  There weren’t any left.  I took them all.”

As it was the end of the day, and she’d made it all day without being ill, and with her pressure being normal, I only panicked slightly.  “What do you mean, you took them all?”

“I thought I was supposed to take the whole  dish.  You should have told me.”

“I did.  I even had you repeat the instructions back to me.”

“No, you didn’t”, she said, angrily.

I had, but, arguing the point wasn’t going to get me anywhere.  So, I just said “I’ll just put out what you need to take in the morning then, daily, instead of several days at a time.”

We’ll see what happens in the morning, whether she takes all the pills, as she’s supposed to, or, if she only remembers that she took too many, and decides to only take one pill.

Mom’s On The iPhone: Photo One

After I posted this on my personal Facebook page, I had an idea: use my iPhone camera to document A Year In The Life of Mom.  I’ve always got the phone with me, so, the camera is easily accessible, and, I need the practice when it comes to photographing people.  Most people I don’t like well enough to photograph, so I haven’t spent much time pursuing that area of photography.  But, my mom… well, most days I like her well enough to take a photo of her, though I doubt this will be a daily posting, as we’re not always doing anything photo worthy: there are only so many photos of my mom sitting in her chair, doing word search puzzles, that one can take before being accused of being a boring photographer.

For those of you who already saw this on Facebook: consider it a treat to see it a second time.  :-)

In 2009, my mom had aortic heart-valve replacement surgery.  Her recovery was quite difficult, and there was a period of several months where getting her to eat was a challenge.  Slowly, her appetite began to return.  Around the same time as she began to eat more regularly, and with a little more enjoyment, a friend of mind recommended a place called Bender’s Brat Haus, a local restaurant that makes their own bratwursts.  I did a bit of research, and discovered that the restaurant also offered something called a Krautburger.  In various parts of the county, a krautbuger is called a runza or a bierock, but, they are all basically the same thing: a dough pocket, stuffed with beef, cabbage or sauerkraut, sometimes onions.  Years ago, there was a place down the street that made bierocks, and my mom enjoyed them so much, she would buy them by the dozen, keep them in the freezer, and pop them into the microwave anytime she needed a fix.  When the restaurant was going out of business, mom asked the guy to make her several dozen.  Mom’s friend Betty made them a time or two, and, mom always enjoyed them when she did, but, she missed not being able to have them whenever she wanted.  I’m a good cook, but, the mysteries of pastry dough elude me, and, we’ll just leave it at that fact that I can’t make them.  So, finding a restaurant nearby that made something that she’s long enjoyed was quite exciting, back in those days where she was still struggling to find food that she felt like eating.

Thankfully, the krautbuger was a hit, and, quite frankly, it was a gift: in those months after her surgery, she wanted to have a krautbuger almost daily.  We don’t go daily any longer, but, we can be found there a couple of times per week.  I’m grateful to my friend who, innocently remarked, in passing, “try a bratwurst at the brat haus”, and, I’m still thankful that I took mom there to check out the krautbuger, as I credit them with bringing the joy my mom had always felt about food before her surgery.  Which, I think is why I felt inspired by the quick iPhone picture I took of her today at lunch, enjoying, what else, but a krautburger, to start taking more photos of mom.

The Nightly Check-List

It’s varied a bit, over the past year or so, some things no longer need to be done, others get added in. This, then, is the current list of things to do to help mom get ready for bed:

1. Test her blood sugar level. This, because, as I’ve mentioned before, it helps eliminate those nighttime low-blood sugars. To do this requires a wet cloth, to wash her finger before doing the finger stick, then testing the blood, changing the needle so it’s clean next tim eshe has to do a finger stick, taking the fast-acting insulin if she needs it, and taking the slow-acting night insulin.

2. Test the blood-pressure. Good pressure is especially important when you have kidney disease.

3. There are two fingers being treated for a skin cancer — this involves a salve, a cream, then a bandaid.

4. There’s a bump on her toe. She has decided that she needs cream and a band-aid on that (no salve, though — that’s for the cancer.)

5. Taking a blood-pressure pill.

6. Cortisone ointment on a spot on her back. The dermatologist sees nothing there, but, it apparently itches, so it needs ointment, or it itches all night.

7. Changing the bandage on her face. She had two skin cancers burned off about 10 days ago, and these need to stay slathered in cream and covered with a bandage for two more weeks. The bandage is changed nightly, and the burned area is washed well, before being re-covered.

8. Placing salve in each eye, to help with the dryness that’s a result of the eye-lid surgery.

9. Putting Vitamin E oil on her eyelids, to help with the scars from the eye-lid surgery.

10. Making sure the phone is by the bed, in case she needs to call me during the night.

11. Making sure the tv is on, and the sleep-timer is set for 2 hours.

12. Saying “Good Night. I Love You.”

Mom, Make-up, Those Shoes, and Lonely Silence

My mother was 42 when I was born. My memories of her for the first few years of my life are rather vague and nebulous. It’s probably safe to say that I am unable to comment, with any firsthand knowledge, of the first 45 years of my mother’s life. But, for the 40-some odd years of mom memories that I do remeber, I can confidently claim that my mom is not a girly-girl. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing her. Just stating fact.

I can remember quite clearly how excited she was when the school district she taught for decided that it was alright for their female teachers to wear pants, rather than a dress every day. Ever since then, the only time mom wears a dress is for weddings, funerals, and certain special occasions.

Liberated she might have been, wearing those pantsuits, yet, she never got too liberated: she never burned a bra.

Now that she’s 88, she can’t do the things she once did, but, back in the day, my mom built and finished the cabinets in one of the bathrooms here in Chez Xanadu, she sanded and finished most of the built-ins in the house, she pounded nails, turned screws and sawed wood while the cabins in the mountains were being built, and she knows a few tricks about electrical wiring. She never wore her fingernails long, or painted them, as the paint would just chip, and the nails break during hard work. She wore a chipped nail, or a bandaged finger, as if it were a medal of honor.

And, let’s not forget this:

How many people can claim to have a photo, taken in the 1950s, of their mom on the rifle range, where she became a qualified marksman?

My mom’s never been into makeup — she had one tube of lipstick, and a couple of samples of other lipstick colors that she’d gotten at some Avon party, and that was all she owned for years. The tube of lipstick may have held the record for World’s Longest Living Lipstick — it resided in her top dresser drawer for my entire childhood, and was there when I moved out. She called me one day, I think I was in my early 20s, and told me she’d thrown out all her lipstick because she’d read an article that bacteria grew on the lipstick, and shouldn’t be used after a certain period of time. If it hadn’t been for that article, I have no doubt the tube of lipstick would still be there — only very special occasions warranted lipstick; being worn only once a year, a tube of lipstick can last a lifetime. Other than the lipstick, my mom has never worn any other makeup. I remember one time, she went to some makeup party, and came home with a new look. She showed us, we all made suitable noises of approval, then she went to the bathroom and washed it all off. “I’ve never had the patience to stand in front of

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Mom, Diets and Nutritionists

“I should have just told them not to replace the heart-valve, and to just let me die, then you wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced about anything.” This from my mom, who’s always lived by the rule “If you can’t be melodramatic, then why bother?”

Here’s some relevant information, to bring you up to speed:

In December 2009, about a month after her heart valve-replacement surgery, we had an appointment with her Nephrologist (translation: kidney doctor.) Mom’s been seeing him for almost a decade, as she has Chronic Kidney Disease. During this visit, her blood-work revealed that her Phosphorous levels were high, and the doctor gave her a list of foods to be careful of, to not eat too much of. On subsequent visits, I followed-up with the doctor about her Phosphorus level, and he would tell us that whatever she was doing was working — her levels were good. (In all honesty, we hadn’t changed much, since the doctor figured it had to do with the effects and aftereffects of her surgery).

Another piece of relevant information:

Over the past few months her blood pressure has been quite high, resulting in a 4-day stay in the hospital last month, various medication changes, one of which caused her to swell like a water balloon; the end result being a pill to help her get rid of all the fluid she was retaining (about 15 lbs, it turns out). The pill works by making you pee a lot, and, along the way, it depletes your potassium. During the most recent visit to the kidney doctor, he put her on a potassium supplement, because her potassium level was low. He felt it was temporary, due to the water pill, which she had stopped the day before, because the fluid had all been peed out. He suggested some foods that would help raise her potassium levels, requested a blood test in a month, and told her not to worry, it probably wasn’t a long-term issue, just an imbalance because of the water pill.

Yet another piece of relevant information:

Last month, while mom was in the hospital trying to get her blood-pressure under control, they discovered that she had atrial fibrillation. She’d had a-fib after her valve-replacement surgery, but, her heart beat regulated after a few months. It seems that it’s back, and, probably was there still after the surgery, just not as intense as it was after the surgery. A-fib is one of those conditions that, depending on the severity, and on the individual can be noticed by the patient when it happens, or the patient will never feel the fibrillations, so it can be hard to detect. Being hooked up to a heart monitor while she was in the hospital brought the condition to light. As a result, she’s on Coumadin, a blood-thinner, that will keep her blood from forming clots in the chambers of her heart. Blood pools a bit during an episode of a-fib, and, it can form clots, which can then be pumped out of the heart, and the clot can end up in the brain causing a stroke. The Coumadin responds to Vitamin K, which is present in green vegetables, and certain other fruits. So, you have to regulate your intake of these foods, because they can make your blood too thick or thin.

Final bit of relevant info:

My mom likes to be the center of attention. So, yes, it’s fair to say that we all have our moments where we desire to be in the spotlight, but, with mom, it’s more than our own basic need for recognition. My mom cannot bear to have a conversation that doesn’t somehow include her for very long. If people are talking about things she doesn’t know, she’ll change the subject back to her. If there’s a story being told, my mom will always have a better story about herself to share. She’s always been this way, but, as she’s gotten older, this tendency becomes more and more apparent. I suspect that part of it comes from having outlived most all of her friends and her generation of family, leaving her with few people to talk to regularly, so, now, when she gets the chance to talk, she can place herself firmly in the center. This has the unfortunate side-effect of impairing her listening abilities. She’s so focused on her part in the story, that she hears only selective parts of what anyone else is saying.

Yes, yes, I know… not the most exciting information in the world, but, it will add to the story, and, let’s be honest, when you’re writing, certain backstory information is always going to be mind-numbingly dull. Thank me for getting it out of the way at the beginning.

Now, onward to the story:

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The Vindication In The Low

Vindication, when it comes to us, brings with it a superfluous sense of self-righteousness which then manifests itself in a satisfyingly smug “I told you so” smirk.  When vindication does not favor you, but results in someone else directing that satisfyingly smug smirk at you, it seems as if said smug is in the worst possible taste.

Case in point:

My mom is a diabetic, has been since the 1980s.  It’s only been in the last decade that she’s been on insulin, rather than pills.  The insulin gave her much better control over her blood sugar levels. She was very serious, very diligent about testing her blood and taking her insulin until she had her aortic-valve replacement surgery two years ago.  Since then, she’s been fairly lax: testing her blood only once a day, only taking once a day the insulin that she’s supposed to take with every meal. We’ve gone round and round about it, and things finally came to a head last week.

She called me at 3:46 a.m.

I had not yet gone to bed.  I gave up sleep one year for Lent, and have yet to return to the regularity of a 7-8 hour a night rest.  The phone ringing was not as startling as it is when one is asleep.  Though, it should be said, that anytime an 88-year old parent calls in the middle of the night, it’s upsetting: there’s usually something wrong. On this particular night the news is that her blood-sugar level  is low, and she needs juice.

If you’re unfamiliar with diabetes, the only thing you need to know at this point is that a low blood-sugar level is not good, and,  if not rectified quickly, can result in serious consequences, and could even lead to death. I’m happy that my mom is aware of her lows; there are many diabetics who have no idea when their blood-sugar level is low, and this can make things much more complicated.

I made my way into the kitchen, poured her a half-a-cup of juice, adding half-a-packet of Equal sweetener to the juice, since fruit juice is never sweet enough for her, and brought the doctored-up juice to her room.

She was half-sitting up.  Not only did she look like someone who was abruptly awoken from a sound sleep, but, she also had The Look.  The Look is rather tough to describe in a few words.  The Look is what she gets when her blood-sugar goes below a certain level; it is a look of Differentness: her skin, while not pale, is not quite as colorful as usual; her eyes seem to just be slightly unable to focus, so she squints ever-so-slightly; her speech, while not slurred or jumbled, is just different — to someone who wasn’t familiar with her speech, they’d probably not notice, but, to me, who is so familiar with her voice, there is this slightly strange difference to its tone and cadence.  The Look seems almost as if she’s faded slightly.  When I see her with The Look, I know that her blood-sugar is going to be really low.

As she is drinking the juice, I get out her blood-testing kit, place a testing strip into the machine, give her a damp washcloth to wipe away any possible sugars on her finger, as these could add sugar to her blood and give a false reading. I hand her the needle to stick her finger, which she places it against her left ring finger, and then presses the release.  The needle shoots out, pricking a small hole in her finger, and a second later, a rich, red blood droplet appears on the tip of her finger.  I put the test strip up to the blood drop, the meter beeps, indicating it has enough blood to sample, and within a few seconds we have the result: 45.  A good blood-sugar level is 70-100, while less than 70 is considered low (the lower the number, the more serious the low).

I hate when the number is in the 40s, as that’s when bad things have happened.  She gets quite belligerent when her blood-glucose level is that low, resisting and arguing every step of the way (for many diabetics, this is a common side-effect of low sugar). When she gets belligerent, she likes to insult me and call me names — during these episodes, she’s called me queer, homely, stupid, fat, whore, and, more than once, she’s called me a fag. One example: she was being very belligerent with me, and was refusing to drink any juice.  An argument ensued, with her telling me “I’m 85 years old, dammit, and I don’t need my fag son telling me what to do.  I got to be this age without any help from you!” I, in turn, told her that if she didn’t take the juice, I was going to call the ambulance, and that all of the neighbors would see her being carried out on a stretcher.  Even though mom loves to be the center of any and all attention, the thought of being carried out of the house, on a stretcher, in her night clothes proved to be too much.  She drank the juice. After, she had no recollection of the argument (this also seems to be common to many diabetics when they are having lows, this forgetfulness of what has happened. According to her doctor, I’m not supposed to take these words seriously, though, I cannot help but wonder if she is giving voice to thoughts she keeps buried, or if they truly are meaningless thoughts brought on by her condition).  Another time, when her blood-sugar dropped to 40, she couldn’t keep the juice down, and she had moved her emergency glucose needle (a syringe full of glucose, to be injected in just such an instance) and it was not in the place where it is usually kept.  The ambulance had to come that time.  Another time (though, this time her low was caused by her accidentally taking 20 units of the fast-acting, daytime insulin, instead of the 20 units of the slow-acting night insulin) we were up most of the night,feeding her toast, juice, and several other things, and testing her blood every 30 minutes, until….I’m not sure what the “until” was.  I just know that it was daylight by the time she was stable and we were able to sleep.