February 21, 2009

• I am falling in the hole…

  For the weak of stomach – don’t go here – while not too graphic the subject matter is kind of ukk…Mom lives with us.  She was at a rehabilitation after her bout with pnuemonia last May and then that awful medication mix up at the hospital and having mismanaged meds to begin with.  She was there until Septmenber.  In some ways, like the medication clean up and change, she is much better.  She is on mostly vitamins and a very few amount of control meds now.  So she is much more “aware” and it is like actually having a conversation after many years with her and laughing over silly things. This comes after so many years of being so “out of it” from mismanaged meds, but she is also much weaker after the ordeal she went through so she now has a walker instead of a cane.  Sometimes she gets a bit confused beginning of dimensia I would think plus the meds. So being alone for great periods of time is not an option for her.  She also has a lifeline now when I do have to go someplace breifly and the aide isn’t here.  Okay off track here.

  So she has this addiction to chocolate and all sweets for that matter.  My cousin comes to visit and brings a 2lb box of chocolate for her.  I am upset and told “it is the only pleasure she has, leave her be, isn’t like she is diabetic”…no but she is stiff a lot from her disease and also overweight…like 4’10″ and weighing in at 160 lbs.  Now couple that with a Parkinson FREEZE that is where they become rigid as if nailed to the floor and start to fall over and must be helped or broken hip time and they become, as the doctor puts it, three times their body weight at that time.  So lets lift 480 lbs.  Not a fun thing to do.  I try and explain and am looked at like I am exagerating so I stop the explanation and decide to hide the candy and dole it out in tidbits for her.  She of course finds it every night no matter where I hide it and I find chocolate stained pillowcases.  God, she takes her teeth out at night how on earth is she gumming that?  

  The next lovely thing coupled the chocolate mouth stained pillow cases and tremendous weight gain is, yes, you guessed it, constipation.  After a week of “hard times” so to speak I try lots and lots of water, fruit, spinach, not wanting to load her liver up with yet more meds and believing in “natural remedies” where deemed a possibility, I go for the gusto.  I send Tere’ for a DunkinDonuts Coolata.  She wolfs down the sweet flavor having such a craving for sweets at all times.

  Within an hour it kicks in.  What is that I hear, rolling of the wheels, scuffing of the feet ”help me – I gotta go quick and can’t get my pants down”.  And we’re off.  Afterward she goes back to her little den and watches the boobtube for about an hour.  Again…roll, roll, roll…scuff, scuff, scuff…this goes on for two more times.  Tere’s dad arrives home after this and “uses” the bathroom.  This consists of him having to “remove” and “replace” the commode.  I must admit he does this without complaint and on a scale of one to ten he is a 9 on the “replace” side.  Well, tonight was part of the “1″.  She goes in for a last “hoorah” and I go in and she holds the towel bar because she is, OF COURSE, having a “freeze” which is her word for that rigid stiffness she experiences with the disease.  Finally we get her pants down and start moving her big and unbelievably very large indeed, butt back to the seat. The back up lights are on and the beepbeepbeep of the reverse truck like butt is moving along backward just fine and boom she falls down and shakes the tank in usual fashion (that poor toilet).  I flip on the vent button and say call me when your done.  WAIT…I AM FALLING IN THE HOLE.  Mom, your not falling, you couldn’t fall if you wanted to.  Your butt is much bigger than the toilet seat so just go…don’t worry.  “IT HURTS” and I respond “give me a break okay, I am tired and this is one stinky job”.  I leave and a few minutes later, “Mom are you done”, and she replies “I am falling in the hole help”.  I open the door.  GeezeLouise I have to lift you off the toilet now, this is ridiculous your going on a diet.  I grab her under the arms and lift and the hole commode comes up.  She is buttstuck in the metal bars that are supposed to be “under” the commode seat and the seat is in the up position behind her and I failed to see that when we backed “mount buttarist” up before.  I know that is an awful thing to call it, but try doing this on a regular basis and you’d have some descriptive titles yourself, believe me. So, now I have to wrench her ass out and guess what happens as soon as the bars come off her butt? You guessed it…eruptopoopus…what the hell did I ever do in life to have to deserve this.  I don’t like this whole bathroom thing.  It isn’t my bag.  Maybe I killed a country in a past life and now I am being shitted…geeze…and I clean her up and she rolls/scuffs down the hall and I am stuck in stinkville cleaning up the mess and hoping upon hope that some day I get to enjoy a Saturday night.  but I love her, she is my mom…Sassy

  • 11:33 pm
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