We Are Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving!

Joe was determined that just because it was just the four of us for dinner like it is everyday, he wanted a turkey dinner. So he made one. He did a great job and it really was special for everyone. We sat at the dining room table, Mom at one end and Joe and the other. Joe carved the turkey and we passed the dishes of mashed potatoes, green beans etc. after prayer and each saying what we are thankful for. Mom was thankful that we were all here together. As we passed the dishes, Mom took what she wanted and passed it on. (we usually fix a plate and put it in front of her because she frequently refuses foods if we let her choose) However, she took a little of everything mostly. At the end of the meal I asked if she wanted anything else and she did say that no, she had had enough and that she had some of everything. I advised her that she had skipped the green beans and that she needed to have some. She was a good sport and offered to eat one. And she did! Now Mom had eaten a little of everything. I am sure Mom does not know the significance of Thanksgiving or the connection to having turkey, but because we did it all together and have pecan pie for dessert, she is having a good day. I know that Mom is bored, laying in her bed, sitting at the table, wandering around. But there is little to engage her in and I have to admit, I am the worst for sitting with her and doing nothing. Or even puttering with her on her stuff and listening to her mostly made up stories. It was easier to do the first hundred or so times.

It is also difficult to let her be independent and I know that the more I do for her, the less opportunity she has to connect sequential thoughts. But we almost always have mishaps. Spilled coffee, dropped jar of jelly, creamer in her water, clothes on over pajamas. For instance, this morning, when Mom got up from the table to put the jelly in the refrigerator and the peanut butter in the cupboard, I took them from her and told her that I was going to use them. I had prepared a cup of coffee and let it sit on the counter by the coffee pot, which is on the same counter as the sink. I turned to fix my toast and Mom got up to take her glass, knife and spoon to the sink. I let it go, seeing her out of the corner of my eye. I turned with my toast to pick up my coffee and found her dirty silver ware in my coffee! Joe and I got an exasperated giggle out of it and I had milk instead. Mostly what we got out of it as we talked, was how precious these times are and the regret we have that others are missing out on these day to day moments.

Like earlier, as I sat with Mom at breakfast and stretched my fingers out and one of them cracked. Mom asked "can you fly now?" I assured her that I could now fly and someday I might just fly away with her. Mom was good with that, and although we noted the moment with our eyes, did not dwell on how we got to flying when my finger made a cracking noise!

Moments of Joy and Thankfulness! We are thankful to have this time with Mom. I wouldn't/couldn't have it any other way. We love you all for sharing this time with us by keeping us in your thoughts and prayers!

Nothing is Something

I know, it has been awhile. Maybe because, I worked on a perfectly good post almost two weeks ago and as I finished up, I hit a mystery key and in less than a blink of an eye - GONE - nowhere to be found! No draft, no minimized version at the bottom of my screen, no record of it that I could find. I add "that I could find" because it is quite possible that one of my computer savvy daughters would have known where to look and I wouldn't have been so disheartened.

This week what I have to write about Mom is NOTHING. Nada. No change. No drama. I guess that's something after all. So here are a few updates.

1. We had a regularly scheduled appointment with Dr. Birdwell. Mom is healing well. No pain
pills for over a week.
2. 6 month check-up with ophthomologist - no change, come back in 6 months.
3. Occasional nights when we awake to the kitchen light shining in through our bedroom door
to find Mom sitting at the kitchen table. I put her back to bed.
4. Receptive and expressive language is challenging for all of us. She gets frustrated when she
can't tell us what she wants to say.
5. Still dressing herself but not well. Sometimes we have pajamas over clothes or vice versa.
Frequently the top is different from the pants and all are different from the socks. She likes
to be color coordinated and has even in the past hung her clothes according to color.
6. Is very bored. Mom sleeps or sits at the kitchen table. We have found that when we sit there
with her or work in the kitchen, she will sit there. Conversation is difficult because Mom does
not understand what we are saying and she has a difficult time responding if she does
understand us. The minute we leave the room to do something else, she is in bed. Crafty
activities have ceased. We try to give her little things to do to "help out" from her chair at the
table, but mostly she is unable to follow through.
7. Mom likes going places. She and Becky have been picking Julie up from work every day. Joe
takes her to the grocery store (to push the cart he says) but she tires easily. I am quite less
inclined to take Mom anywhere but church on Saturdays after I have personally watched her
shower and put on clean panties and pad. Otherwise, she quite frankly, can smell like a dirty
diaper. Unless I get in her face and stand right there with her, Mom will not change her
underwear or pad. The week before last, Becky let me know that when she told Mom to
change her pad and/panties, Mom had done so. But when I went to Mom's drawer one
morning, I found 3 opened pads that Becky had handed to her and a wadded up pair of
panties stashed under the socks. Becky and I chuckled and wondered how so much of her
thought process is lost, but the devious part is still in tact!
8. Some days it must seem to Mom that my only interaction with her is negative. You can't be
mean to the dog. You can't go outside now, it is dark and cold. You have to change your pad,
you don't smell very good. You have to have some dinner before you have ice cream. Stop
picking at your skin, you have sores and blood all over your arm. There are germs under
your fingernails. Please wash your hands again, you just went to the bathroom. It is NEVER
ending.
9. Joe is clearly not as rigid as I am. And, I don't know if any of you have ever noticed or put it
together, but Mom likes men. Not a newsflash, I know, but if there is a man in sight, she is
there, being sweet, touching, hugging, flirting...It's shameless! I know now that Mom has
always been like this, but it did not affect me. Given now that I know my parents were never
married, Mom was married before and has some mystery history there and some other stuff,
I have pretty much decided that our family was pretty much the "white trash" that Mom
called other people! (boy, I haven't heard that term in years)

So, I have rattled on long enough. Before I turn this into a dumping ground instead of an update on Mom, I'll say that we are all well and blessed and thankful this Thanksgiving week. I have been thinking of Thanksgiving as just a much needed long weekend for me. But Joe brought home a BIG turkey from Kroger's so I am thinking he has another agenda. We do love you ALL.

Here It Is!! The Lost Blog!!! (thankyoustacey)

It's another Sunday night. No church or IHOP this week. We have spent the weekend managing Mom's pain. It seems as though she is either sleeping from the pain pills or up sitting at the kitchen table holding her side and leaning over a little. It is difficult to determine just how much pain Mom is in. If I ask her if she is hurting and needing a pain pill, she says "no". But then she holds her side, wheezes and gives a pathetic cough. So I give her a Tramadol every 6 hours or so. It has only been a week since her fall and it could take a while for bruised ribs and sore muscles to heal. The doctor said to let her know if Mom showed signs of an altered mental state to let her know - right! Mom is confused and disoriented a lot these days. She has a routine doctor appointment on Thursday at which we will mention the fall. There isn't anything to do about the mental deterioration but will check out other health issues - which have remained very stable.



I just put Mom to bed. She slept in her clothes last night. I went to bed early but said Mom came out at 11:00 dressed still and her put her back to bed. Tonight Mom had her ice cream and pills and went to bed. I followed her in there and she was in bed in the same clothes. But she was open to the suggestion that I help her put her pajamas on. Mom has refused to change her pad since her shower yesterday so tonight I was able to get her into clean panties (after redirecting her when she tried to put them on without taking the others off) and pad. When she took the soiled ones off, she tossed them with the pad still in them, into the waste basket. Which, I confess, I have done before when - never mind, too much information I think. Anyway, with gloved hands I salvaged the underwear.



Mom has been picking at her skin again. Her left upper arm has a dozen or so scars from sores that have healed and now, more open sores. There is a spot on her right forearm that she picks at also, but it is healed again for now. So, I dressed the upper arm with band-aids and tucked her in.


The END

Fall Back - Chapter Two

Guess where I spent a good part of the day? Yep! The Emergency Room. When I checked on Mom this morning before I left for work, she was in tremendous pain and could barely move in the bed. Our initial assessment on Saturday saw no contusions, scrapes or bruises and although shaken, did fine at IHOP. Mom was more sore on Sunday and more on Monday, but that is how bruised ribs and muscles are - progressively painful for a few days and tender for a very long time. By this morning, I feared she might faint from the pain as I tried to help her up. And being in so much pain on the left side under her ribs, she could not cough and that is the thing we work on every day - getting her to cough up the congestion! Which she won't do anyway without protest! So now I thinking she could get pneumonia from not getting rid of all that gunk. I got Mom dressed in some easily removable clothing, fed her half of her PB&J and gave her morning pills with a Darvacet. By the time we got to the hospital, the Darvacet had not touched the pain, so after x-rays, she got a couple of injections, one being morphine. A CT scan, blood analysis and urine sample by catherization later, we got the news that nothing was broken, just bruised as we thought. We came home with a prescription for Tramadol for pain to go with the Darvacet. Mom slept comfortably all afternoon.

When she came out about 4:30 she had the other half of her PB&J and some 7 UP. By 6:00 I had her eating a bowl of chicken corn chowder. By 6:30 I was cleaning up PB&J, 7 UP and corn chowder and her bottom dentures that came out with it.

Mom is back in bed in flannel pajamas and has had her night time pills and another pain pill.

Tomorrow will be a better day. Oh, and I didn't mention that yesterday, Julie called me at noon to pick her up because she was sick. Last week she called me at work to say she needed a change of clothes and feminine supplies. Today, I got to work by 1:30 and she called me at 4 to say she was feeling icky, could I come and get her?

Things I am thankful for today: Mom had no further injuries. I have a VERY understanding boss. AND with enough notice, she'll approve time off for my nervous break down!

Now you get another chance to guess in case you didn't get the first one right. Guess where I am going now?

Did you guess "to bed"? If you did you are correct and your name will be put into the drawing for a week's vacation in Texas - while I take a week of vacation someplace else.

Winner will be notified after the nervous breakdown! You know I love and appreciate you all!!

Fall Back

Let's see...Sunday night again. Mom's clock, as messed as it is, did not "fall back" with the others. She was up today as I tried to engage her with activities. This morning we sang to the Alan Jackson CD that she likes and made cookies - the kind that come pre-formed and frozen that the neighborhood kids sell for fundraisers. So, I put the baking trays in front of her with a bowl of cookies and suggested she put them on the trays while I attended to the pretzels I was baking. I turned around and she had piled almost 4 dozen cookies on one tray. As tactfully as possible, I advised her that they would bake better if there were only 12 to a tray, three across and four down. And we counted to twelve. One tray of cookies at a time. But it never did connect. Nice, warm chocolate chunk and pecan cookies. If Mom asked me once, she asked me a dozen times, "what are you going to do with all these cookies?" Um...Julie and Joe will take them to work. Or, maybe Julie and Joe can take them to work. And Julie and Joe will take them to share at lunch this week. As it turns out, some went home with the guy who was here working on the ceiling, some were eaten before they got to a zip-loc bag, and what was left went into the bag and went home with Micah.

It was such a beautiful day that I scrubbed down the gazebo and Mom sat out there for some time. We even ate our hamburgers and hot dogs out there. Mom stayed out with us for quite some time. And later she sat in the patio room watching Joe work on the pool pump and then she sat outside the front door for awhile. Lots of fresh air.

We did have an incident last night as we left church and Mom was getting into the van. Having pushed both Joe and me away as she always does, and leans on the car to step down from the curb, I averted my eyes for a second and Joe turned to put the walker in the car and Mom lost her balance and fell backward on her bum. She did not fall all the way back but rolled onto her left side. We assessed and were able to get her up and into the van. Mom still wanted to go to IHOP across the street, so we continued assessing as we drove there. I knew she would be achy, so I gave her Tylenol with her pancakes. By the time we got home she was hurting, so we added a Darvaset to the evening pills. Mom is still complaining about pain under her left breast. She has a three month appointment with Dr. Birdwell, but I will try to get her in tomorrow to be checked out. We had to trust our judgement after the fall. Go to hospital to be checked out? I am wishing we had, just to be sure, but Mom wasn't hurting and was more interested in pancakes than in spending five or six hours in the ER. So, we went to IHOP - she with visibly went pants, but with no complaints.

The clock on the computer says 8:03. My clock says it is time for bed too. We love you all! Good-night!