Mom & Me Three Archive

    That's "Mother Flower" day. Our irises sent up stalks almost a month ago and the pods have been developing since then. I've been concerned that the damned things weren't going to bloom, it's so late and been so cool and wet, but yesterday the first of the batch burst open. I'm nursing a white seven pointer and a purple four pointer on the dinette table with 7-Up. The third of the whites is unfolding this evening. So far only one of the purples is open but two more of the four look about ready to pop. These irises aren't the pansy florist irises. The blooms, when completely open, look like medium sized orchids, huge, frilly and inviting. Then, today, as you may have noted above, MFS, who is currently living in mystery (a mystery to us, not to her, I'm sure), sent my mother a batch of sunflowers, so fresh that they will probably peak on Mother's Day. I also know (and haven't divulged, unusual for me, as I typically can't keep a secret) that at least one other bouquet will be arriving tomorrow. My mother can never be surrounded by enough flowers and this appears to be the year that will prove this point.
    Today was a bizarre storm day. Periods of intense sun broken frequently by short, hard showers or short, hard, hail storms. Although the painfully slow encroaching low kept her down for a couple of days, she was up at 0850 this morning, earlier than me. The Little Girl awoke me to let me know Mom was in the bathroom. I cooked and baked all day to keep Mom up: A huge pot of ham and bean soup simmered on the stove for supper and I baked scones this afternoon, one lemon-blueberry-allspice batch and one orange-cranberry-nutmeg batch.
    Mom took a nap, a short one, but spent most of her time supervising my cooking and watching episodes from the first season of Murder, She Wrote. A couple of weeks ago, after having discovered that the Biography channel features the series every weekday afternoon about the time she awakens from her nap, during a commercial interrupting one of the episodes she turned to me and mentioned that if I ever notice that the series has been released "on tape", to please pick it up. A week later there it was on the video table at Costco. I'm almost sorry I purchased it for her. Although it's a pleasant enough series and I certainly appreciate its quality and unassuming uniqueness, I'm not devoted to it as I am to, say, Northern Exposure or Deep Space Nine. Now, though, not only does she insist on catching its run on television, when she can think of nothing better to do she remembers that we have the first season of the series! I noticed a few days ago that my mind is now captive to its theme. The damn thing runs through my head day and night!
    Oh, I forgot to mention, during the exam for the research study I discovered I have not yet begun to shrink, which is good news. My guess is that I am not, at the moment, at least, at risk for osteoporosis, since I certainly perform a fair amount of weight bearing exercise throughout any one week in my duties as caregiver and my calcium intake is sturdy.
    Before her next blood draw I'm going to draw up a simplified chart upon which to list and report, monthly, those areas of her life which would be of interest to her health care providers in Mesa. The purpose is to allow for condensed reportage, rather than the paragraph upon paragraph yak I faxed to Mesa last month. It'll include all the areas I mentioned in that letter as well as skin condition, sleep profile and anything unusual that's cropped up or a notation of an absence of such, if applicable. It should make it easier for them to compare, at a glance, her test results with her actual condition. I expect it will also be a valuable tool for me. Once I draw up the chart I'll publish a blank one with a link in the Special Posts links to the right, in case anyone want to print it out for their use. We've got a blood draw coming up next week, so it should be available soon.
    Without ado...
    ...later.

    Am I out of the habit? Yeah, I guess. I continue to put off journal entries not because my mother's and my conjoined lives are stressed but for exactly the opposite reason. Which probably underlines the fact that my primary habit is to use this journal as therapy. Lately I haven't needed therapy. I do, though, several times a day, find myself forming incidents and conversations in preparation for entry into this journal then, well, I find it more tantalizing to live our lives than to write about them.
    Finding the time to devote myself to journal entry hasn't been a problem. Our lives continue on a leisurely track. We've added some activities. We're reading again in the evenings. Not every evening and not always for very long, but reading, nonetheless. That began a few weeks ago when I decided to cart by the book section of Costco to see if anything looked interesting enough that I might decide to attempt reading on my own, again. I noticed a peculiar looking book with an equally peculiar title, only one copy on the table: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Since I've been out of the flow of book publication for some time I knew nothing about it. I picked it up, read the back cover, read the inside coverlets, noticed the enticing Dickensian illustrations throughout the book, spot read intriguing sentences as I leafed through the pages and decided this might be a good book for us to read aloud. Since, I've discovered that it has an apparently cultish following as evidenced by its web site, which it deserves, I might add. I'd describe it as Harry Potter for adults, which is a relief because, despite the fascination many adults have developed for the series, I couldn't get past the first half of the first book in the series. Despite the fact that I usually love juvenile literature, including a selection of books for very young children, I consider Harry Potter a bit too juvenile for me. Jonathan Strange, though, is wonderful, both in style and structure, and we're having great fun with it. I, of course, do all the reading. The reason we haven't got very far in it is that it is impossible for us to read this book aloud without frequent discussion of phrases, ideas and personalities in the book.
    Mom is still thawing. Our spring has been cool and wet this year, loaded with passing fronts. Mom prefers to weather lows low, so that's what we're doing. I still occasionally worry that I can't get her moving as much as I'd like but I've (almost completely) stopped harassing her. Maybe once a week, on a warm day, I manage to get her to do an abbreviated therapy routine. I've gotten her in the car to the store twice in the last month (which means she walkers in, sits on the front bench to do some intense people watching, then walkers out with me when I've completed transactions), which is an improvement over winter. She is sleeping, right now, maybe 14 hours a day including napping, sometimes more if a low is directly on top of us and I'm not baking (so I've been baking a lot, lately). She is happy and satisfied, though, awake or asleep. Her attitude and appetite remain hearty. As well, I've been so much less stressed and stressful that although it appears as though little has changed, much, in fact, has changed.

Miscellaneous Observations:

• Although I've noticed this before as I check in on her while she sleeps, today I stopped and thought about my observation that when she's sleeping she looks rather as I imagine she will look when she dies: Not asleep, but gone. Her face looks like a sturdy, vacant husk. Today, when I gazed contemplatively upon her, I realized that she looks like the father of MCF when he died. An unexpected peace came over me. Good, I thought. This means I'm ready. I also realized that when I say my final good bye to her, which will no doubt be soon after she dies, I will not feel the need to look at her but will most likely look straight ahead, as though we are facing each other.
• Sometime a couple of weeks ago while we were sitting quietly in the living room involved in our individual endeavors, out of the blue I blurted to her, "Mom, if there is such a thing as reincarnation, when we come back, lets come back as twins, imperious, fabulous women who travel the world together seeking out amazing, risky adventures."
      "What a thought!" she said. "Let's plan on it!" So we now have a plan.
• If you, the reader, get a chance, check out the following recent Medscape article: Physical Diagnosis in Elderly People [Update 11/8/08: According to Medscape, since this was a "CME activity", the article has "expired" and is no longer available, which is fine because I quoted the most important line in the article, below.]. It is an important article that defines the beginning of the revolution in elder health care. Although it is directed toward physicians it is an important article for caregivers to the elderly and Ancient to read. Perhaps the most important insight in the article is one I've been discovering and writing about all along in this journal: "As we age we become more unique and differentiated and less like one another." Yes, as you can tell from that sentence, the writing is a bit redundant, but only a bit.
      I've already established, by experience and reportage here, that if you are a caregiver to an Ancient One you are also the Primary Health Care Provider, regardless of what any attending physicians or other professional health care providers think. For this reason alone, whether or not you recognize yourself as your Ancient One's PCP, you should consider this article required reading. You'll have to register on the site for access. I don't know if you have to register as a physician for access to this particular article, as it is contributed through their CME series for physicians and there are more than a few ways to register, including as a "consumer". If physician access is required, take heart...I am registered as a physician (my specialty is, of course, geriatrics) and have been registered as such for several years. I did so initially to ensure maximum access and have not been sorry that I did. I now consider that I am my mother's Primary Care Provider, anyway. There are, occasionally, perks to being registered as a physician. At one point, a few years ago, my "office" received a free DVD of Moulin Rouge!
• By way of reminder to myself and you, when we have more time ask me about our latest "time out of time" phase, the one where I asked Mom, "So, are you planning on announcing, next, that it's time for you to have a baby?" This led to a very interesting conversation about her phasing in which I explained to her how I handle it, why I sometimes "go" with her and sometimes don't, how I feel about her phasing and how she feels about it.
• I have very recently discovered, as a result of being a part of a research study (not medication related), that I am in amazingly good health...lower than normal blood pressure, normal cholesterol, low pulse rate, normal glucose tolerance, etc. This came as a complete surprise to me. Those of you who know me know that I've never lived my life based on the ever changing definition of a "healthy lifestyle". As well, I've had almost no contact with physicians throughout my life, tend to prefer to treat and heal myself if I am ill or injured [unless it's something like blood poisoning, a severe allergic reaction to something (which has been a rare occurrence) or a procedure I can't perform on myself; I must qualify this by saying that I've performed minor procedures on myself such as digging a toothpick out of my foot that broke off a quarter inch into my sole; treated and healed a severe foot slicing that, in an emergency room, would have required stitches and did it so well I have no scar; removed a bothersome wart from my face without suffering scarring; have managed to heal my "compassion cricked" thumb with my own brand of therapy]. Too, as you know, although for my mother our diet is excellent, contains lots of vegetables, unrefined grains and olives (monosaturated fat) and very little refined sugar and carbohydrates, it is also high in meat (primarily red meat) and dairy products, thus, saturated fat. As well, I figured that my periods of stressing over the management of my mother's life had probably taken their toll, too. But, well, as I announced to a local friend of mine a day after I received this news, "I'm in much better health than I probably deserve to be. Someone's looking out for me and it isn't me!" I'm pretty thrilled, actually, because I'm feeling that the chances are excellent that, from an internal health perspective, there's no reason why I shouldn't live and be fully functional as my mother's caregiver to the end of her days. As you may remember, I've stressed about this occasionally.
• Recently I overheard a health factoid on a news program: It seems someone's discovered that chocolate lowers blood pressure. I find this interesting, considering that my mother has a history of low blood pressure, except for the last few years, which coincides with her no longer eating bag after bag of Hershey's Almond Kisses. Even so, it tends to run lower than professional health care providers expect. So I've been thinking of ways to reincorporate at least a little regular chocolate into her diet without running the risk of its accidentally purgative effect on her bowels.

    And, yes, I continue taking stats on an abbreviated basis but haven't gotten around to entering them. Anyway, I'd continue writing but being up at this hour is uncharacteristically late for me anymore. Lately I've been getting up much earlier (which I love) than previously; thus, I've been retiring earlier, often at the same time as my mother, usually pleasantly exhausted from our full, easy days. My intention has been, through these breaks, to report more than I have been but there always seems to be something else to do...and now that item is sleep...to the rhythm of yet another somnolent rain storm...
    ...later.