Hello, Mom. You seem so small and far away.

Off the oxygen and forgetting how to walk.  I'm now unable to toilet mom when Henry's around because she's too wobbly and he's too unpredictable.   I started getting her up out of her comfy chair on our last visit and H darted to the door, starting to go out into the zombie-filled unit.  I actually raised my voice to him saying, "Close the door, Henry, right now" and locked my 'mean mommy' eyes on him for emphasis.  He shut the door and waited.  Once H was no longer a flight risk I focused on coaching mom to stand.  She needs a lot of help now.  I count to three, my forearm under her armpit and I lift and she struggles.  First one hand on the walker then I coach her into putting her other hand on the walker.  This can take some time.  She seems nervous about moving so her motions are slow and unsteady.  I can see her hand gripping the chair arm, waiting for direction from an unreliable brain.  After her hands are on the walker grips then I tell her to stand up straight and strong.  I ask her how her legs feel and if she feels confident enough to move and once she says yes, we start our journey around the bed, past the bathroom and out her door.  By the time we are twenty paces down the way, with frequent stops and gentle reminders about putting one foot in front of the other, she is winded and weary.  I get her settled into a chair between her friends and she looks at me like she just climbed a mountain.  I get real close to her, look her in the eyes and ask her how she feels. Mom starts searching for words in that look I've learned to recognize so I ask, "Do you feel pain or do you feel weak?"  She looks right back at me and says quietly, "I feel weak."  I pat her leg and hold her hand and say I'm sorry.  Another couple moments of silence and I tell her that Henry and I have to go now and we'll be back soon.  We drift away, Henry running ahead and me lagging behind, looking back and waving good bye.  Mom waves back and smiles and so do I.

Oops! I nearly killed my mother.

My mom nearly choked to death last week on a teaspoon of water that I gave her through a bendy straw and a tiny plastic cup.  Of course, Henry was there blithely playing with his cache of toys that the staff gives to him every time he visits.  And there I was giving mom a sip of water that she asked for.  She was in bed and upright and slowly sipped and swallowed her first drink of water.  The next drink and her mouth opened in that horrifying way, her tongue out and her face turning beet red.  I struggled to get her sitting even more upright, hit the emergency call button and ran out the door looking for a nurse.  One was right there, I told her what was happening and she sprinted in and I started crying and Henry kept playing.  We thumped on her back, she was beginning to turn ashen and blue, then she took a breath.  The fear and panic left her face within a minute, she had already forgotten  what happened.  She settled back down and Henry commented, "Grandma was choking" without too much concern.  A couple nurses were milling around the room, everyone was trying to remain calm and I just cried as I looked at my mom and held her hand.  When she noticed that I was crying she looked at me like every mother looks at their grieving child, with worry and concern and she leaned in a little to provide some comfort. Which, of course, made me cry some more at the irony of it all.

Oxygen and other Annoying Elements

I'm getting crabby that my mom's room is becoming cluttered with apparatus.  There is a giant, lumbering oxygen tank on wheels, a nebulizer with excessive tubing dominating her dresser, too many towels and mountains of mouth swabs in her bathroom.  A portable oxygen tank has taken over her walker basket   The feng shui is all wrecked now and I am beginning to hate oxygen, portable or otherwise.  

Bright and Beautiful

Almost as an afterthought, I picked some tulips out of my backyard to bring to mom today.  Lots of yellow ones, a few purples and reds.  They sat, without water, on the passenger seat in my car as I delivered some metal project across town.  By the time I got them in a vase with fresh water and on mom's dresser they were getting wilted.  The desert-like conditions at the nursing home will surely do them in by Thursday.

Something struck me about cutting nearly all the tulips out of my yard so that they will die in a vase in a hot room a few miles away.  I looked out my back window this afternoon and saw the shaggy bunches of ugly tulip leaves without their bright flowers to justify their existence.

As mom continues to dwindle and I struggle to deal with it all I found something so peaceful about taking my few treasured tulips and bringing them to her.  

Here mom, I've grown something bright and beautiful just for you.

Walking Feet

Since my last post mom developed pneumonia and an upper respiratory infection.  She's on oxygen now and nearly landed in the hospital.  I met the nurse practitioner at 10a today with Henry in tow.  I brought an enormous amount of snacks, toys, a book or two and beverages because I had no idea what the day would hold. Fortunately mom rallied after 3 days but she's still not great.  

Today, our job was to give her fluids and keep her moving.  Henry was going about 100 miles an hour and mom was -2 mph.  I hadn't felt this schizophrenic in a long while. I watched H tear down the halls, reminding him to use his 'walking feet', a term I despise and only use under duress.  Meanwhile mom was huffing and shuffling and struggling with her oxygen tube and looking pretty weak.  After a couple laps around the unit the three of us settled in the front dining room in view of a beautiful bird cage.  It's large with little finches flitting around and chirping.  It's a favorite spot for us.  I got some juice for mom and Henry and we sat and looked at the birds and chatted peacefully.  I knew it was too good to be true.

The zombies started moving in once they tracked on H.  One kept demanding to find a place to sit even though there were chairs everywhere and the staff kept directing her.  She would get up after 45 seconds then try to sit on the arm of another identical chair and get even angrier.  Another man, gentle enough, kept pushing chairs in and smoothing them out in a slow deliberate fashion.  A baby crazy woman locked in on Henry while she was cradling her own baby doll.  Trouble was brewing.  So, with swift determination I got mom to stand, shaky as she was, got her hands on the walker and she had a supreme moment of centeredness and strength.  Then the baby crazy lady started chasing Henry around a table and the eternally chairless woman started growling at mom.  I saw all the momentum slip away as mom fell back into her chair.  I scooped up my boy and walked away leaving mom beached and wheezing in her chair.  I told the nurse that the zombies started circling like sharks and we had to leave before someone broke a hip.  She smiled and laughed and got mom back to her room within ten minutes for the steamy nebulizer mask and a deep shot of antibiotics in the butt. Henry witnessed it all: the shot, the nebulizer(we all joked that grandma was a dragon), the oxygen tubes and the zombies. And mommy just trying to stay glued together with scotch tape and spit.