Stroke Time

Raym ribbed me the other day about not blogging, I acknowledge that my entries are lagging.  I have nothing to say that I am interested in sharing publicly.  This is the most profound time in my life to date and I need my own time to process all that is happening.

It is my pleasure and my honor to care for Mom, she deserves the Sundays spent juicing, the power juice concoctions I create every couple of days, and every single feeding. She deserves the poop watches, nightly pee checks every couple of hours and every change of her britches. She deserves all the hemp balm massages, the soft words of love and the hours of hand holding. She deserves every tooth and hair brushing.  I begrudge her none of this time, none of this effort to keep her healthy and comfortable. She is my mother and I love her on a level so deep there are no words of adequate description, yet I cannot help her and this for me, is devastating.

I do not want to discuss this devastation, I have too much to do, and if I dwell on it for any length of time, I lose my shit, and I do not have time to be distracted. I have assumed responsibility for the care of my mother, who is falling into death as fast as I will allow her to go.  She rolls her eyes every time I feed  her, she refuses to get out of bed, and is, in fact, curling into the fetal position to her right side.  I massage her straight or sort of straight and I come back in an hour later and she has curled herself up to her right side tucked position. I sleep knowing at least she is being well taken care of.

She hardly tries to talk anymore, and if she makes noise, it is this god awful moaning cry in varying levels.  I listen for the moaning over the ever present droning on of the game show network and would like to put a gun to my head every time I hear the Family Feud theme song. Very much akin to the sound of Mario Brothers in the 90s.

There is no doubt in my mind that Mom wants to die.  She tolerates my efforts to inspire her, but rarely smiles, and in her effort to escape, she sleeps most of the time. I let her.  Who am I to tell her she shouldn't? I know if I was living her existence right now, I would want out. I can't let her out,  because I'll go to jail, so I let her sleep, as she curses me for breaking my promise.

Stroke time is long and slow.  My hope for any form of  recovery is hanging on by a thread, and I won't be writing about it in this form anymore, quit checking for something new. There's nothing new. If you want to know what's going on you can text me, otherwise, I'm signing off.

October 2014 vs February 2015

 

 

Peace

I love it when Mom is sleeping peacefully.  Sometimes she has what I call stroke nightmares.  I wake her up and calm her down, but, yikes, the sounds she makes are heart wrenching.  Peaceful slumber is what I hope for her every day. Send lots of love for Mom's sleep, she needs her rest.

Sunday Morning Notes

Mom is sleeping peacefully, Kathleen is on her way home, I just changed the laundry from this morning's poop, Floetry is playing, Willie is out helping a friend pick up a car and the house is quiet but for the slight chatter of the game show network on the baby monitor.

Mom likes the Game Show Network.  If she insists on having the TV on, and most nights in the middle of the  night she does not want the TV on, but if she does, I try to find a channel that does not feed into 4am infomercials.  Game Show Network is one of these channels along with Nick at Night, or Law and Order, right now we have all the bells and whistles of new service, so I will check the movie channels too.  Lately, if I change the channel, the next time I come in the room the channel has been changed back to Game Show Network, which makes me laugh, and really, who doesn't love a good Family Feud Marathon with Steve Harvey hosting. On the DVR list there were lots of episodes of a show called Baggage.  I had no idea what it was, I figured it was something Willie recorded.  Last night went I went in the TV was still on GSN with this game show hosted by Jerry Springer.  There are lots of game shows I don't know so I wasn't really paying attention except to notice it was Jerry Springer on the TV until I heard him say Baggage will be right back, and I realized Mom had recorded the game show while working the remote. I checked with Willie and Mom is adding to the DVR library quite a bit, I'll have to get in there and delete the stuff like Baggage.

While I am on the subject of TV and the remote...Mom manages her way around that remote better than you might expect.  Sometimes she gets stuck on a menu she can't get out of, or gets the volume to zero and either can't or just hasn't yet figured it out when I come in the room.  I do not know this remote very well myself, so sometimes me helping Mom is a moment for laughter. This morning I was showing her to put it on the bed where she could see it and push the buttons with her fingers, rather than hold it and try to get the left thumb to reach everything correctly.  We shall see. Luckily, it does not seem to get her overly frustrated.  Occasionally, I will walk in the room and she will hold the remote out to me and roll her eyes, with the techno stress face, but she still finds humor in it...oh wait, maybe that's me.



 

On the ever important poop report, sorry, no photos, lol, Mom is pooping an appropriate amount in acceptable textures. However,  she did have a night time expression last week after the night person left and before I got home.  So now we've faced my second worst fear after a bed sore, Mom sitting hours in shit. She released around 11:30p and I got home around 1:30a.  Willie was a wreck because he wanted to change her,  but was afraid to freak her out.  I grabbed a bucket of warm water and towels and went right in.  Bless her heart, the relief on her face when she saw me tore me up. She had really worked hard to get her britches off by herself. She made a decent mess, but all I could think of as I cleaned her up was how much of her body she had to use to accomplish the level of disrobe she had achieved. These moments give me hope and heartbreak all at the same time. Mom was exhausted by the time we finished and I waited till morning to talk to her about the whole thing. She agreed that Willie could assist her in these matters if absolutely necessary. I showed him how, and he already helps move her several times a day, so it's not like he's never touched her. We are all greatly relieved. Fear two:  addressed. resolved. nice.

 

And while we are talking about Mom's butt, I am happy to report all the love and good wishes must have contributed to the healing of Fear Number One: Mom's bedsore. It was completely gone by last Wednesday, barely a speck of red on her white skin.  I have to give Mom huge credit for moving around so much and also allowing the pillow propping that eases the pressure.  Unfortunately, the Tuesday night poop fiasco ignited a nasty rash, that is further irritated by the elastic on her britches right at the crease of her leg. The rash is much worse on her left side, which I am sure is because that's the leg she moves back and forth.  Last night I put a soft clean cloth between the elastic and her leg creases, plus I added Foille to the treatment plan.  Since I am home today, I will leave her commando all day on the waterproof mats.  She is in heaven without her britches.  

 

It has been an action packed revolving door of visitors since Monday, so Mom is enjoying a sleepy Sunday and so am I.  Hope your Sunday is filled with love too.

 

Happy Birthday Kathleen!

Kathleen visited this week, landing in Reno on her birthday, and she will be going home in the morning.  I was on the ball enough to get out my camera and catch this moment between the two of them upon Kathleen's arrival.  It's always a good day when Mom smiles to the point of teeth showing.

For Jennifer

One of the nice things about the family support in Reno is that each person has their own obsessions. For example,  Monica is in charge of spa activities and keeps Mom's nails and skin tended when she comes 3-4 times a week. She always cleans Mom's fingernails and lotions her skin, things I do not do on a daily basis.

When Jenn visited, she reminded us about Mom's oral health and the importance of keeping Mom's teeth brushed.  And while brushing Mom's teeth in the morning is something I do.  The reason is because all of my life, Mom got up peed then brushed her teeth first thing.  We could not go out to the living room at Christmas till Mom brushed her teeth.  I wanted to establish a regular morning routine for her as close to her normal life as possible.  I now know that there is nothing close to Mom's pre-stroke life happening, so the fantasy of Mom finding old normal has dissipated, and each day we do the best we can to find a new normal.  So sometime in the morning hours Mom brushes her teeth.  I do guide her a bit and remind her to brush the upper teeth, and the front of her teeth, but for the most part she brushes her own teeth while I clean her partial. 

In the hospital, Mom refused to allow her partial to be removed, but as soon as we got home, she let me have it without complaint.  That sucker was super gross and stinky for not being out of her mouth in who knows how long.  The first day, after soaking in the denture cleaner and being well scrubbed by me, when I put her teeth back in her mouth, she made an audible happy sound.  Ever since, she lets me have them each morning willingly.

However, I was not good about the evening brushing everyday, or following up with those who tended those duties in my absence.  After Jenn visited, David reported that he received quite the lecture from her regarding evening brushing.  I didn't hear the words, but felt the guilt when he told me about it, because I was bad about making sure she brushed at night too.  The photo above was last Sunday morning, and David had to snap a photo to send to Jennifer, lol.  We are all much better about brushing now. I also told our helper girls they need to do this too.  While much of Mom's oral health problems started long before her stroke, no sense in letting them get worse. 

So, thank you, Jenn, for the kick in the butt we needed on behalf of Mom's Teeth.

Bonding

One of my concerns about moving Mom home was that Willie would drive her crazy.  One month in and there is one less thing that I have to worry about.  He is great with her and even on her worst day, he can usually coax a smile out of her. He helps me move her up on the bed or to the chair and he makes it easy because he is so strong.  Mom likes easy. The sun was shining in the other day and they were trying on sunglasses together. Too funny.  He has a good heart and he loves her, so all is well.