Mom & Me Three Archive

Mom said when I noticed, this morning, that her urine was so cloudy it looked as though someone had sifted flour into it and commented, "I think I'll get that Levaquin prescription filled today and try to catch what is obviously a UTI before you bleed from the urinary tract."
    This isn't the first time we've experienced the, "It's about time for my period," phasing. Each time I notice blood in her urine she mentions this, or says, "I imagine it's my period. I haven't had one in awhile, you know."
    I always say, "Well, Mom, it can't be your period because you stopped having those before we left Guam."
    She always looks at me with genuine shock and says, "But, I just had one last month."
    Today, I said, "Well, Mom, nobody in this house should be having their period anymore, including me and The Little Girl. So, if one of us is having our period we'd better look for a star in the east."
    Anyway, for my own edification I've been wondering, over the last few days (as I believe I mentioned over at Tests & Meds), if she's been developing a UTI again. Yesterday and two days previous not only has her urine been a bit bubbly, which is usually a precursor to cloudiness for her and I thought it looked slightly cloudy yesterday, but it's had a distinctly medicinal odor, so much so that I mentioned it to her yesterday. This morning the smell had changed to strongly fishy. I noticed something else this morning, which I've occasionally noticed before and I believe happens regularly when she begins to expel pus and/or blood from a UTI: The urine stain on her sheets, which usually doesn't have anything more than a watered edge that disappears with evaporation, had a brownish edge where it had begun to dry.
    Now I know why her energy level has been rickety. Yesterday as I was shopping at Costco, a friend of mine into whom I bumped asked how my mother was. I mimed "going down" by waving my arms along my sides and moving them as though they were swimming downward while I bent my knees and dipped my body toward the floor. This was after she'd awakened full of perk at 0900 and I'd asked her to go back to sleep because I hadn't had any work-up time before her awakening and I needed it.
    I also noticed by accident when we were bathing her yesterday that she felt as though she had a slight fever. I chalked that up to the warm water.
    She's been napping since about 1445 this afternoon. She's still sleeping deeply. We'll start the antibiotics when she awakens. I'll be administering them to her at lunch at a dose of 500 mg/once a day for 7 days: two 250 mg tablets.
    Needless to say, we didn't go in for her blood draw today. I rethought my logic about taking her in if her urine was cloudy. The best strategy is to start the antibiotics. At any rate, getting her to the lab today would have been akin to pulling on a donkey determined to remain seated. She should be feeling significantly better by Monday, although the UTI may still show in her urine.
    So, our stovetop is working better than ever. ll I need to do now is locate some oven elements and a thermostat, change those out and we'll be good to go.
    Later.

...but I blew it. She and I both awoke a few minutes after nine. My reported ambition in the last post dated May 11th suddenly evaporated after I worked for a couple of hours on some sort of compendium form for reporting to her PCP after her blood draws and I headed for bed around midnight, exhausted. Although by 0900 the next morning I'd had 8 hours of sleep, I wasn't feeling like it. When I passed her bedroom on my way to the kitchen and noticed she was upright on her bed my spirits dropped through the floor. Despite the fact that she was perky and smiling, we've had several mornings in the last few weeks when she has arisen with or immediately after me. I've been dealing with it but yesterday morning I couldn't. I wasn't nasty or curt but I explained to her that didn't think I could deal with her for awhile and asked her if she thought she might be able to manage another hour or so of sleep. She never turns down an opportunity to sleep more and agreed.
    A little after 1000 I roused her and she asked me to let her sleep until she wanted to arise. I did. She awoke, ready to begin her day, at 1206.
    I don't like it when I send her back to bed. I try to avoid it but sometimes I need more time to gather myself before my day becomes hers. Although I've had a good stretch of good months lately, for some reason over the past couple of days I've been soul tired. I'm not expecting that I'll be "vacationing" on the job for a couple of months like I did last fall but I'll probably take a couple more days to revive myself.
    Today is blood draw day. Last night when I reminded her, Mom asked if we could put it off until Monday. I agreed, then noticed, as I reported over at the Tests & Meds site, that her urine appeared to be a little cloudy late at night. If it's still cloudy this morning or if she's bleeding we'll do the draw today. If not, we'll wait until Monday.
    I think she's reacting to two aspects of our life: The first, of course, being my in-need-of-reviving spirit; the second is that we've suddenly experiencing spring-warm weather and, when she's been up, she's been overdoing it a bit. She didn't consent to going to Home Depot with me yesterday afternoon to pick up replacement elements for our stove but she did move around a lot more between breakfast and her nap than she has in the last several months. She even shuffled outside to watch me snip a few more irises for our table. Although it seems like little enough exercise for her it was actually quite a bit more than she's been used to, despite the fact that we're continuing to do abbreviated therapy exercise sessions about twice a week.
    Except for a possible blood draw, I expect to be finishing the reporting I earlier intended today and over the weekend. If her urine remains clear over the weekend (it's entirely possible that it will look clear this morning but cloud this weekend) and/or she bleeds from the urinary tract I'll "cash in" the antibiotic prescription and get her started before Monday.
    This weekend will probably be our first spring-warm weekend. I'm hoping to get her out on at least one walkering trek, if only on our concrete driveway. We'll see how that goes.
    Later.

...Tests and Meds that turned into an extensive survey of my mother's urinary habits and our work with them. The previous link will take you directly to it.

...before I hit the sack.
    I will no longer be recording my mother's meals in the Tests & Meds journal. I've decided to move that reporting over to the Caring. About Food. site. Regular and much more frequent reportage will probably begin tomorrow. I will be doing some minor catching up, there, as well.
    I don't want to forget to mention the article I read in the recent AARP snail mail bulletin, either.
    At the Tests and Meds journal site I've performed stat ketchup. I've also decided to no longer report her daily med doses, since they remain the same. Thus, I've published her most recent med profile there this evening. Any changes, minor or major, will be reported by day. Bowel movements will also continue to be reported there, although there's been a huge gap, lately, in that reporting.
    As you have probably already guessed, Mother's Day became Mother's Weekend for Mom. We both had a great time. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and hit Linens 'n Things sale table for a few more colorful sheet sets and some lighter weight summer blankets. She was thrilled. I also bought her a box of artifically sweetened chocolate bars which I forgot to give to her...I had them hidden. That just leaves me with the opportunity to spring another surprise on her at a later date. I'll have to do it judiciously, as we all know what now happens to Mom's bowels when she consumes as much chocolate as she'd like.
    I intended to do more writing tonight than I have. I thought I'd be up later, as I collapsed in the middle of the day and took a nap of a little over an hour...unusual for me to nap at all. But I'm still tired and unusually achey all over for no reason of which I can think.
    Once again, today the southern end of a low passed through. It was cold and windy. But finally our typical summer high pressure is beginning to build. This weekend the temperature downtown is supposed to hit 80°, which means at least 75° where we are. Between now and the weekend the weather should become steadily warmer and the beginning of next week looks good, too, although tomorrow the temperature will probably only be about 60°, if that. It's been a long, cool spring and I've heard that we're in for a cool, wet summer. Hopefully, once the summer settles, "cool" will mean 75° to 80° up here with only occasional rain until the monsoon hits. I want a chance to get Mom in the habit of moving at least for awhile this year.
    My interest in reporting in the various journals centering around Mom is definitely making a resurgence, so expect more. Although I know I speculated why this happened in here, I'm not really sure why I took a vacation from reporting but I'm not worried about it, either. It just seemed like a good idea at the time and I think it was.
    I remain calm, healthy (I think, unless this achiness gives way to a minor cold) and optimistic, although my argumentative streak is intact.
    Ah, the local weather's on. Yep, the pressure is steadily rising. Good. Radar shows the low receding northward. Yeah, downtown the expected high is 66 so we'll probably be lucky if we hit 60 up here and the winds are not expected to die down until late tomorrow. Warmer weather is on its way, though, and will settle in over the next week. Good. I'm ready for Mom's summer energy surge.
    I'm sitting here thinking about how pleased I am to be here with my mother. It's been a long, sometimes convoluted haul but looking back over the last few years, despite, or maybe because of, my frequent freaking and feelings of inadequacy, I'm more often, now, feeling satisfied and in control of our conjoined lives, able to handle whatever the future may hold for each and both of us. Surprised? Well, no one is more surprised than me.
    Later.

...I went through a period of telling my mother, every night at bedtime, in a childish voice nasty with fright, "I hate you!" after which I'd pull the covers over my head.
    My mother would respond, "That's all right. I love you," kiss my head through my hastily fashioned shroud and finish me off with a gentle, "Good night, Gail." I'd simmer in confused fury for several minutes after she left the room.
    Many years later I received a frantic call from a friend whose young daughter acted out the need for separation from parental protection in the very same way and scared the living shit out of her. "What have I done?!?" my friend cried. "Have I been a terrible mother? How could she hate me?"
    I couldn't help it. I laughed. "No," I assured her, suddenly remembering my own childhood, "you haven't been a terrible mother. It's a sign that you're an excellent mother. She doesn't hate you, she's growing up, crawling out of her need for protection. It isn't you she hates, it's herself, for sensing her growing autonomy but knowing that she still wants some of the protection she thinks she should no longer need. Just tell her you love her anyway. It'll drive her crazy at the time but it'll also reassure her that you're looking out for her and no matter how far she decides to explore outside the boundaries of your protection you'll be there for her when she needs you, whether or not she can tell you she needs you."
    When the conversation with my friend ended I realized I would never have remembered my own awkward episode in the necessary serial of childhood separation from parents, nor would I have become consciously aware of its meaning and been able to use it to diagnose, prescribe and prognosticate my friend back into parental confidence if my mother hadn't had the wit and wisdom, when I was a child, to know exactly what I'd told my friend.
    My mother nurtured with a light, easy touch. She still does. She is the world's most unobtrusive mother-in-law: Not only her married daughters gratefully acknowledge this but so do her sons-in-law. When I think of her style of mothering I think of animal mothers; wolves, bears, cougars, who, without nonsense or unnecessary sentimentality, take the neophyte beings in their charge along with them as they live their lives, show them the world, carefully, at first, then less protectively as time passes, and finally release them into the world to add to its bounty under their own steam.
    She was and remains incapable of playing favorites. Each of her daughters was a wonder unto themselves. I remember her responding to our occasional questions about who she loved best by telling us, with absolute veracity which we all understood, that the love of one's children isn't apportioned, it expands and differentiates to include everyone.
    I remember times when I've thought she made mistakes:

• When I discovered in junior high that I'd been recommended for skipping in elementary school and my parents held me back for social reasons I believed that was a mistake.
• In high school I believed it was a mistake that she did not divorce my father when his alcoholism and his feelings of insecurity raged out of control and caused injury, sometimes insidious and long term injury, to one or another of the rest of us (including her).
• I believed, as a young adult female setting out on my own, that considering what I knew of her adventurous streak that lead her into the Navy she'd made a mistake when she married; I believed that she had subsumed a vital part of herself to marriage and having a family.
• As an older adult I believed that her mild mannered acceptance of everything that came her way and her refusal to turn her back when circumstances became messy and were clearly not her fault marked all of her daughters with a tragic "If it's happening to me, I must have asked for it so I've got to deal with it on my own" flaw.

    What do I now believe? I believe that my mother not only did the best she could under the circumstances, I believe she did much, much better than many parents ever hope to do. I believe, far from dooming any of us, she did us some tremendous favors:

• Rather than expecting anything in particular from us other than civilized, sympathetic behavior among other humans, by standing back and marveling at how we unfolded she encouraged us to design our own lives and make up our own minds about what we are willing to put up with and what we reject;
• By patiently allowing us to stumble around until we found our footing she allowed us to realize that we can find our own footing even if it takes a lot of stumbling time and even in the midst of personal or circumstantial disaster;
• By silently encouraging values, not only by living her own values but expecting us to live ours, she taught us that values aren't expressed in words, but in actions;
• By refusing to surrender her sense of herself to what those around her think of her and her choices, she allowed each of us to realize that at the end of the day, regardless of who you bring to your bed, you are the only one with whom you must sleep, thus, you are the only one who can disturb your sleep.

    There is one way in which my mother's style of mothering differs from the mothering of many other animals (as far as we as a species understand): She considers her children simultaneously miracles of reproduction in their own right and extensions of herself. Years ago she talked often about how, when she became old she wanted to live in the middle of a multi-home courtyard surrounded by her children and their families. Sometimes I ache that this didn't happen, especially when I think about how, when I am old, I would like to live in a similar set-up with my sisters. The catch, though, that snags me out of my ache is one final quality with which my mother imbued me: I have never missed anyone I love from whom I've been or am separated by distance, or time, or even lack of communication, because as those I know and love pursue their separate adventures, be those adventures exhilarating or terrifying, I feel as though their adventures enhance my life and my adventures enhance theirs.
    Only a person with a fundamental sense of and thirst for existence as a magnificent, beckoning, ultimately unifying mystery could have passed this quality on to me. That person, I am pleased and grateful to say, is my mother.