Just another Day With Mom – Good Grief She is Driving Me Batty: So she got a slight fever and was very tired. This passed in two days and she was better yet still sleepy. This was my four day stint – Thursday, Friday Saturday Sunday with her solid. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday during work the Aid Vivian comes but only until I’m back home from work and then she is all mine again…ukk … well over the next two weeks she was tired I was told but she didn’t’ have a fever and I spoke to the doctor and he saw her and she was okay , we couldn’t figure it out and we decided to schedule blood work…then it hit me…the aide had taken another job in the evening hours where her sole job is too watch this old guy sleep and help him go to the bathroom if needed, she lays in a cot next to him and sleeps and watches tv all night. Well, mom was sleeping and sleeping and at night she was so weak she was trying to get up not sleeping but falling out of bed EVERY NIGHT…on the floor and not making it to the commode and an accident…the smack in the side of the head, the one that hit me came then…she isn’t doing PT anymore – we do it every day and over my days she was pushing through it like when she started and every day Vivian told me she was too tired to do it…then I finally realized what was happening – it was like an baby that has its’ hours mixed up sleeps all day and up all night – only she was getting weaker and weaker – I was so sleep deprived I have to admit I was not pleasant at all to either my mom and especially that good for nothing aide – I sat her down and told her I do not want mom sleeping more than forty-five minutes a day – I want her to do her PT and I want her to walk her walk up and down the street every day weather permitting – I want you to keep her awake – she tells me she can’t force her – she will loose her job – I tell her that forcing someone to do something that is physical and will hurt her is one thing, waking her up and persuading her is another – this was a Thursday – she says my mom is too hard – I tell her to re-evaluate her job and maybe she should find a different one because this isn’t about what she can and can’t do – it is about my mother’s health – her ability to continue to walk and do for herself and she should let me know by Tuesday her decision – that weekend I was like a tape recorder all day for two solid days – wake up wake up every ten minutes she was exhausted – PT was worthless but that second night she slept like a baby through the night – next day PT was easier – the aide called in sick that Tuesday and Wednesday so by the next Thursday when she came it was a solid week alone with her and I was going nuts and felt like I was in jail but mom was sleeping through the night and getting up occasionally to use the commode if needed – doing her PT with a vengeance first thing in the morning so she could see The Guiding Light at 10 am then doing her walk outside and walking up and down the hall twice every hour – picking up her coins for dexterity – this helping her feed herself easier – everything – brushing her teeth and yes – sleeping at night and she stills needs to be monitored but is  alot more self sufficient with eyes on her – and me – I was snoring like a baby with the intercom on and am very proud of her and myself for doing what we had to do…Vivian is a bit perturbed and I have put in a request for a replacement – this will take awhile since mom is state funded and we are at the end of the list here – so she uses a walker for about a year now but I have her cane – I always put her cane under the bed and lay cloth pads down in case she falls and place a plastic bench near her and tell her to use the cane and bang on the bench if she needs me – the intercom is on the wall and her voice is soft because the Parkinson’s has affected her vocal cords – she sings every day to make them stronger and that is incredible that when she does you hear her – well…last night I don’t’ here her banging with the cane on the bench like she fell but I hear scuffling and heavy breathing and I am concerned – it is like 4:15 – I come down the stairs to the first level where she sleeps and there she is on the floor – she says she is trying to reach her clean underwear – I help her up – she has none on – where are your panties – she wears depends – they are in the garbage says she – she slid off the bed – so I see now what is happening – she is too lazy to go to the commode so she sits on the end of the bed and slides off and now is stripping and changing on the pads on the floor making them soiled and then she is too lazy to get up again so she is using the cane as a fishing pole to reach the cleans pairs I have left on a tray next to the commode – I help her and help her in bed and I am furious and take the soiled laundry to the washer and start the load and go back to bed and the next day – today I try and explain to her she needs to go to the commode and call me if she needs help and the cane isn’t a fishing pole and blahblahblah and she smiles and says – shhh – my story is on …ratatatata…shit…….God knows what the lesson is I am learning here – but it is a hard one…back to work tomorrow – I love going to work – I know you think that is odd – but I get out of the house and don’t have to worry – unless that lazy aid is letting her sleep again….hhhmmm…no time to visit – miss everyone – I will visit soon – many huggs to all of you…Sassy

So sorry I haven’t found the time to post – thinking of all of you – been extremely tied up with mom then work – hugs to all…Sassy

What I find is that I don’t care so much about how I am perceived from the outside as much as I do from my inside.  I guess with age comes wisdom.  It is easy to say as long as I feel I am a good person, it doesn’t matter what others think, only what I think.  But it took me years to live that.  At first it was a step in understanding the statement, then it was a step in wanting to live it and then  it was forgotten and then a realization that I am living it and it really doesn’t mater how I am perceived from the outside.  I see me as I see me and I try hard to please me.  When I do things for myself, my family, my coworkers, I truly am doing it for the feelings I get from within, not the recognition from without.  I hear of a place in heaven for taking care of mom.  Though the intention of the remark coming toward me is heartfelt, that person doesn’t know this.  Is this supposed to give me a reason to continue.  Have they sent a note to heaven as a point a head of me.  I think not.  I take care of mom, simply because she is my mom and it is what I feel inside me I should do.  I am not always nice.  I am very human and sometimes run out of patients with her.  I know she is stiff from the Parkinson’s, but at 54 my shoulders are not what they used to be.  I am sore.  I can say outside and inside that the sisters have to lay their head down at night and do what they feel they must for her which is nothing or sometimes very close to nothing…but I too am human…am I a bit jealous they have the ability to say this is my life and I want to live it…yes…but she is my mom…I want them to please give me one weekend a month…that is two days of their lives every month.  It would afford them the privilege of spending time with a woman that loved and raised them.  It would afford her the opportunity of spending time with the families of those she loves very much and it would afford me the time to work on my own life or not work on it…to rest and sleep and heal my aching bones…it would…but it won’t they won’t I would love every other weekend…I would…but they won’t and on weekends like memorial day when it is more than difficult just to take her for an outing, which I do…I would love to run barefoot on the beach like them…to get up in the morning and have nothing more to do but to sit in the sunshine with a cup of coffee and read a magazine…then the guilt seeps in…I love her…she does well as she can…she asks not for much…a roof, food, a tender heart and a place to call home…with loved ones…we afford her this…but she had three, not just me…..I care not what others think of me…I care of what I think of me…yet…I have the human error of judging others..them…that doesn’t seem fair of me…they are probably very pleased as to who they are on their insides too…rotted tomatoes…sorry…couldn’t help it…lol…hugs, Sassy

I’ve been away so long and I really have no excuse.  I have had many changes in my job and my home life that I have had to come to terms with and I have found myself wanting to just be by me and think things out and react in a way I need to to survive.  I have done this and am doing this and feel it is doing  a world of good.  Life is funny…When you think things couldn’t get worse you ended up wishing they were as bad as they were when you were complaining and not the next platueau.  Then you stabilize and get used to things again…you get used to things and you just handle them because you have to.  Then I realized I am growing up when I didn’t expect others to react in what I would consider reasonable behavior.  I just knew that it was not realistic.  I feel no anger there anymore.  A little temporary sadness but then it passes and I think of me and what I need…what I must focus on…learning not to judge just knowing from way deep inside when someone is an idiot and I can’t change it.  LMAO…that is okay…I like the me I be… 

Someone in work let me borrow this book.  I read it over the past few weeks a little at night and I am so happy I did.  It is called Embraced by the Light.  It is a journal of the author’s experience with dieing and returning to life on earth. I have read other books on this subject but this was the most beautiful to date.  She is a wonderful author. 

I am trying to take “lotsayear’s” advice and learn that it isn’t a situation upon me but how I react to it.  Choices again…lessons…

It was a beautiful day today.  I spent the majority of it taking care of mom of course and also getting paperwork together for the accountant tomorrow.  Tere’ will sit with her until I return.  I just am hoping in a positive manner that she has a better night tonight than she has had the past three so I can get some well deserved rest.

I sat outside and sorted the papers in an effort to receive some fresh air and sunshine. it was nice. 

I have been looking so much on the negative of everything of late because, I know, I am so sleep deprived.  I am promising myself to look for the positive, along with maybe a free volunteer, as Jassmine suggested, to help me out a bit.

I have decided that even though I am experiencing some financial difficulties, it is imperative that I put aside a small amount of money, even $5 a week or every two weeks so that I can afford to take the certification course in past life regressions.  I think along with my Reiki (I took private lessons twice a month for five years in Tibetan Reiki) I can maybe generate some extra cash.  Having just the Reiki alone won’t pull people’s interest, they like past life regressions and I have always wanted to learn this.  So I will. I have room in my home to do this maybe on a Sunday would be good and it will also lead me in the direction I want to be.  I am hoping.  One can only try.  Some day I want to learn to “sign” too.  Always wanted to.

I just checked on mom and she is absolutely fine, very annoyed her shows aren’t on because of the cbs NBA going on for the fifth day she says.  She seems very aware tonight – God, please let her sleep without stiffness, uncontrolled movement or stupidity with not using the commode so we can both rest.  There you have me wiping my hands now, it’s yours’ God…

Bill is downstairs working on the family room we stopped using many years ago and want to turn it back into the family room again and turn the little one upstairs into a informal dining room because the kitchen is so small.  Tere’ wants to entertain and with mom having two rooms we are really on top of each other.  Once it is done I can do my Reiki down there I am thinking.

I miss my laughter, does that make sense, I discovered today that I haven’t laughed and I need to…maybe I’ll watch a comedy…

enjoy your Monday everyone, hugs…Sassy

Mom was sick again, feeling a bit better but she is sucking the life out of me…geesh…last night I went for a short dinner-it was nice to get out for a bit besides just for work and the food store. I looked at things like I was a different person after not going to a really loud restaurant for so very long. 

The more time I spend alone the more I see how I am confused what others get upset about.  I am talking about observation in the restaurant.  Waiters complaining about being too busy.  I guess they are tired but they have a job and can pay the bills.  We are having a hard time with this in my household.  I get a lot of plain “shitty” projects in work that I smile and paddle through being thankful I have a job. 

Conversations at tables next to me I am engaged in listening to even though I am not the least bit interested, like I can’t turn it off…all silly nonsense.  People annoyed over the slightest thing.  One girl was talking about getting ready to “live in” with her boyfriend and they were not just disagreeing, she was explaining to the others at the table (he wasn’t’ there) that they were actually fighting over the breed fo dog they were going to get.  He wanted a beagle, how dare him…I love beagles so I took personal offense on top of it.  She also gave no one else at the table a chance to talk and she had the type of voice that my friend Roe (Silky) referred to as tunnel hearing – you can’t stop listening and you don’t want to listen. I wanted to tell her to shut up.  I really did, I wanted to turn around and say, will you please zip it and give someone else a chance you pia (pain in ass)…

So many electronics going on.  Out to dinner and there is a tv in every friggin corner blasting – people are looking up in the air at the dopey boob tube instead of enjoying each others company.  Cell phones ringing, texting going on…why not just stay home.  Seems the whole world is covered in cell phones. 

I leave mine in an area where I can hear it if I get a call from lifeline that mom needs help or my daughter is stuck or something, but people are having very long conversations with a friend while another friend is at the table.  Talking and laughing, I find it rude. 

I have seemed to lost all tolerance for people as I get older. Why can’t they enjoy each other without texting, typing, interneting, checking their email, calling and complaining, I should talk I am complaining now…I guess I just don’t understand. 

Seeing my mom so ill and spending so much time with me I really appreciate each ounce of sleep I get, each chance I get to meditate and read and each chance I get to see a friend that I love.  It doesn’t happen often.  I also have a new respect for life.  How you should be honored to live it because it is so short and there are so many awful things.  My poor mom goes through episode after episode of stiffness that makes her feel like she is trapped in her body and can’t move.  I get upset.  I want to be able to make it stop and I can’t.  It isn’t fair to her.  It isn’t fair to me.  But that is the way life is.

I just wish that people would shut off the tv and keep the phones for emergency use just while they are out to dinner with someone, or at a movie or play or in a store or walking.  No one smells the roses anymore, they just listen to the ringtones…

oh what a sad sad state where in…

On Saturday, I called the doctor to see if mom was on the antibiotics long enough to not be contagious.  She was.  I, as difficult as it was and with the help of my daughter, got her ready and took a ride to her brother’s, my uncle’s house.  We had a nice visit and she smiled quite a bit.  She was happy.  I was out of the house. 

Of course coming home changed nothing but the good news is that she has only one antibiotic left and that means that she will hopefully get rid of this awful diarrhea.  It is difficult to deal with since she has Parkinson.  This morning at 6am was just as awful.  Funny though, she will be off the antibiotics just in time for the aide to come and take care of her…poop free I hope…but I had the worst of it and I am not proud of myself how upset I got.  I don’t do well with that at all. 

My niece got her own apartment and wants me to see it.  I am thinking not this Tues with mom still sick, but maybe the next Tuesday after work I will ask Tere to sit with her for an hour so I can stop in.  The weather is getting warm and with it the hope of spring and fresh air in my house.  We all need that.  I have to admit I am happily surprised that my daughter’s father, yes, my husband, has really been stepping up to the plate.  Yesterday he gave mom her 6am pills and told me to rest and he was helping her off the floor when she slid this morning when I came downstairs.  That was nice.  Of course I won’t tell you what happened after he left “lucky me” in the room and she was off the floor, you can guess…damned antibiotics.  It was nice to have someone help though. As minimal as it was.

 I was supposed to go to the accountant today and have Tere’ stay with mom but I am not feeling well and I canceled.  I need to rest as much as I can.  I have been exposed to germs for over a week now and not resting properly.  It is so nice to look outside and see the snow melted and it is 42 degrees already and only 8am.  Yippee…Spring is a comin…enjoy your day.  Hugs, Sassy

I am so done stick a fork in me…I am exhausted, she has a (mom) very bad bronchial infection and the peeruns and the runruns and four more meds on top of her six meds that she takes and she is so ornery.  yesterday at 4am she peed the bed so badly it went through all sheets including the rubber sheet and the pads and the nightie and all and a bath at 4am – then to the doctors and she was nervous and stiff and like a rhino to lift while he did a colon exam for bleeding hemorrhoids and today at 6am she got up to use the commode and decided to sit in my recliner and peed through the nightie, pad and chair and then looks at me while I am changing and helping and very very angry and says “oh stop – it is only a little bit of piss” is this why old people are abused – I screamed a lot more than I wanted to and woke up Tere and then went out side and breathed and I really need a break – she is so ungrateful and so very sick. I can’t wait until the meds kick in and she is just normal sick – I thought that was bad – but suppositories twice a day and four creams and two antibiotics along with all the other pills and blood pressure and than an ungrateful ornery bitchy mom and tells me to get off my soap box – I want to punch her I am so angry.  I didn’t and I won’t but can she ever say Oh my I am so sorry is the chair ruined – I feel badly.  I didn’t mean it.  No, it is only a little bit of (smelly old lady morning vitamin induced and medicine laced) PISS ukk…and I wanted to go back to sleep for once how dare I dream…and if i tell my two sisters they will tell me they are way too busy and if it is too much put her away.  she generally is not ready when she doesn’t’ have a bronchial infection to be put away and I know it will kill her and I don’t’ want that I really don’t just this bathroom stuff wears on me I am not a nurse and don’t like any of this.  rantrantrantrantSassy….

When one is forced to spend time alone it is a wonderful thing.  I have always enjoyed my own company and have always liked being alone.  I am not alone – alone – mom is here and I have my family about me but I have not had much of a social life with mom being ill. Her well being consumes any free time I have from work.

But I have learned a lot about me.  I have learned that I lie to me for many reasons.  Mostly as a veil from admitting those around me are possible of doing things I am not happy with.  This is okay. I don’t want to sound judgmental, I just live I guess in a world where those around me shouldn’t hurt me. I know now that being human makes this impossible but I do have a choice as to how much I want to let hurt me and how much I want not to.  Perception is a lesson within itself. I have learned to accept and I have also learned that the me within needs to express her unhappiness to go on.  Not saying people need to change, just accepting it is one thing, the way it is consumed within me is another.  The digestion of it so to speak. Knowing that I don’t like it and this can be done without a barrage of insults toward others while still letting myself address an issue I want to. I have learned.  I address, I speak my mind clearly and truthfully and openly and honestly and totally completely and then I go on. 

I know there are those that don’t speak out and don’t explain when asked.  Some just can’t do it and some use the non-speech thing with a fake veil of fear manifested that I can see very well through and most of us can and it is an excuse not to explain.  For me just admitting this to me was very hard. I took it personal. They don’t speak when they just choose not to admit and address.  That is their choice. 

I have experienced this new me I am speaking of with work and with friendships.  My feelings toward others have changed.  Love is there, acceptance is there but no longer do I feel guilty about accepting and not liking.  I accept and know it is okay not to like yet keep the words of “you’ve got to be kidding-why do you do that” to me and to me alone.  After addressing with a simple  ”I don’t like it and why I don’t like it” I don’t question it I just shut up because I really don’t care for the why anyway, I don’t like it and I know that it is easier for them that way.  I run a tight ship in my head and not many want to be on board there.  Their choice, I like my ship with clean decks. 

So out of every bad experience comes a good.  This taking care of mom is teaching me to forgive her and myself.  It is teaching me to be humble and teaching me to be sympathetic.  It is also teaching my that fear is anger turned around.  I show anger at her for being ill because the little girl is afraid that mommy is sick and she will eventually die. Also because I dont ‘want to do my chores, I want to go outside and play. Suck it up…deal with it Barbara…it is the stage of life you say you understand and believe in so practice what you preach…told you…I run a tight ship…no room for ninnies as dad would say your WHYMEEEED…that is his made up slang he used when we were little and upset and whining  whymewhymewhyme…he ran Hitler’s ship, he was a dick of a dad in plan english…he now has a body full of guilt and alcohol…

  Taking care of mom is also a lesson I am fighting and I miss having a “life” very much.  Very much. Yet enjoy my time alone with me very much.  Very much.  But out of this I have realized that I am not dad.  Maybe dad isn’t the dad I thought.  Maybe he just didn’t mature past the presentation part. 

Me, I am and I will.  I have learned that I really like the me I am and really don’t like many things about people in general.  I am learning tolerance.  I am growing.  I also don’t give a rat’s ass who likes the me I am anymore.  I am the one that has to be with me all the time so I have to make me happy.  That one was hard.

Two nights ago after a brief meditation and a prayer for God to get me through this journey in one mental and physical piece since I am both ways exhausted completely and letting myself cry for a bit.  I then cleared my chakras and Helen came to me. She is the mother of a childhood friend that I have always kept in contact with and loved very deeply knowing her for since I was in my mom’s womb and being 54.  I saw not her as a living soul.  I saw a very dark like a shadowed profile and she turned her face toward me and then it was very clear and bright and she said.  Be kind to your mom – her time is short.  I felt empty inside and exhausted after seeing her and slept. 

The next morning mom told me “I dreamt I was with Helen and funny thing, we were playing basketball of all things” and she laughed.  I smiled.  Will Helen come for her when the time comes I don’t know but her spirit is watching over me and my mom.  I miss you Helen.  You, I liked everything about.  You were a free spirit and a barrel of laughs with a beautiful smile and the brightest blue eyes I remember so well and you always told the truth and you always were open and I respect that. I love you very much and miss your humanbeing…Huggs to all…gotta get back to work, Sassy

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