Deep thoughts

Yes, in this thing called retirement I have enough time to have deep thoughts, but not always enough time to record them. I spend most of my time contemplating mortality and old age. My mother has become just like Granny, and I still (again) live in the same house where I first knew both of them. All my working life I wondered what it would be like to be them: to be in this house all day, taking care of things and people and just being a part of life at home. Now I know, and it is good. Every once in a while, usually in the early mornings when Bob is gone and my mother is still sleeping, I get a glimpse into the past. It is usually a sound. With the windows open, I enjoy leisure with my breakfast and somehow the sounds that emanate from the yard are still the same. Of course, the mill sounds are missing and with them the heavy river, railroad and truck traffic. But there are enough of those to make a background. The birds are the same birds, and somehow when they sing, they bring it all back.

Is it good to be in the same place you were? Sometimes not, but mostly yes. Today I pick up a 90 year old to get her nails done and take her and my mother out to lunch. Tomorrow, I take a garden spade and dig the same ground my grandmother dug to coax tomatoes and squash. I sleep in the room where my parents slept.

Back to reality

Well, packing (and unpacking) have been accomplished. We enjoyed the cruise and made some new friends, but unfortunately the Mamá came home with bronchitis. We have so far managed to prevent it from becoming pneumonia by administering her breathing treatments around the clock every four hours. She sees the cardiologist this week and goes back to the PCP on Friday. She coughs almost constantly, but they don't want to suppress the cough, since that is what helps prevent it from becoming pneumonia.

We just spent a long weekend in NY. My sister kindly insisted on taking mom to her house for the weekend so that we could take advantage of Bob's days off. We had a great time, eating dinner on Carolyn's terrace the first night, cycling the northern part of Manhattan and visiting the Cloisters on Saturday, going to Carolyn's choral concert on Saturday night. Sunday was spent as Sundays should be in New York: at the Met and then relaxing in Central Park. We reluctantly came home yesterday, but feeling refreshed and renewed.

Drama and Trauma

Yesterday started out with me unable to find my wedding ring. I had been in a hurry the night before and could remember putting it into my pocket before heading upstairs, but not what happened afterwards. (Turns out I had thrown it into my change jar with my change.) I had to fast for a blood test, and in order to avoid having to go to the Quest lab twice, waited until after our 1:00 appts. to eat. So it was a starving and edgy me who showed up with the Mamá in tow to get blood drawn, something I hate anyway.

When the scruffy man started babbling about why he shouldn't have to pay for his testing, even though no one in the waiting room had made eye contact, I knew he was trouble. Sure enough, when the tech came out to call us back, he made his fuss complete with threats and profanity at many decibels. As if getting a needle stuck in your vein wasn't troubling enough. It upset the Mamá, and was a little unsettling to me.

Afterwards, because of another annoying idiot, I had to go to Pitt to get my photo id. They have started to require them to enter buildings because of the bomb threats. The Med school has not yet been involved, but with my luck they'll start Monday and I will be stuck for Tuesday's training.

All of this said, I did get my packing done for the cruise and plan to do my mother's today. That is my main goal, and to set up some time to spend with Bob this weekend. And so life goes on. It occurs to me that although I have now experienced August and September without having to start school, this will be the first time that I make it through the warm spring months with no obligations to sweat all day with teenagers. How lovely! I continue to savor the joys of being released from all that. It hasn't gotten old yet.

Maintenance

today we try to get mom's new partial denture fixed. The dentist who made it insists it's perfectly fine, but she has trouble getting it in and out and now one of the teeth has begun to work its way loose. Yeesh!

Trying to figure out how to fit in all the tasks before the cruise and balance time with Bob. I have taken an inordinate amount of pride in cleaning the house, but lately have had trouble keeping up. Next week brings a meeting with Bill Roth, an appt. for Mom with Dr. Knupp, training at Pitt and packing.

Randy returned yesterday and finished the back door before and after dinner. It's always nice to have someone around to provide a distraction for my mom and I think she is slowly starting to feel better after her most recent hospital stay. She does seem sad and scared a lot of the time. I'm never sure just how to deal with it, but we manage to get through the days. Trying to balance it all at times seems impossible.

Slowly in this life I am beginning to see how to manage things without expecting the impossible of myself. We'll see if that sticks.

A scare

So, oxygen issues have been settled. I knew that once we saw the pulmonary specialist, no one would continue to talk about taking away nocturnal oxygen. The sidebar on the bed is back where it belongs, by mom's request. :) But Easter was another story. We were scheduled to have Easter dinner and the egg hunt here. She really, really, really looks forward to this, mostly I think because my sister shines and she is so proud. So we got through the Good Friday party with the volleyball crew and the Saturday dinner with the ski trip group. Mom really enjoyed that especially, since she stayed with us the whole time and loved the conversation and being included with the group.

Sunday morning was another matter. She complained of chest pains when she woke up and said she'd been having them since 5:00 a.m. I knew if we took her to the ER, they would keep her, an 85-year-old with chest pains. And they did, complete with an IV line which never had to be used. They did all the requisite tests, including another echocardiogram, and blood tests. Nothing indicated another heart attack and they said her echo actually showed some improvement over December. My sister called it: they had taken her off Imdur, which was controlling her angina pain for a decade or more, and substituted Coreg, a beta blocker which has actually made her heart a little stronger but done nothing for angina.

So now we readjust. It really does take a village, as my friend Bob once pointed out to me. Marianne kept asking about why they'd made the change, but I didn't know enough about each drug at the time to ask. And the fact is that if her own cardiologist hadn't been on vacation in December, it might not have occurred that way. She'll be back on Imdur and Coreg and we'll watch her blood pressure. I have a feeling I'll be learning that long before November when I'm hoping to train for the Normal Physical Exam at Pitt. It will feel good to go in there at that time with that already under my belt.

We need to keep in mind that none of this means she is totally out of the woods. She still has a weak heart and lungs, and still the balance issues. My plan is to hit the balance stuff hard when we return to Keystone Rehab. If she felt more confident walking, she'd feel more confident all the way around. So that's the plan.

We continue to get ready for the cruise. We'll have to finish her packing next weekend, so we may be working around our friends from Queens, who are staying in her house right now. People come and go so quickly here!

Moving along

Today I don't feel like the good caretaker. An argument with my mother first thing, about the rail on the bed. She insisted it be moved down, closer to her waist, which necessitates her scooting up on the pillow. It makes no sense, which is why I had it situated where it was, but my sister moved it for her one Friday night. Now she struggles to get into bed, all the while insisting it's better.

In the meantime, there has been yet another nocturnal pulse-ox test ordered. I believe the one in November is the one they're looking at and it shows she does not qualify for oxygen. I think she actually mistakenly used the oxygen that night. There was a test run in December, but nobody seems to have the results of that one. Steve won't let her exercise without her tank, so I don't see how she doesn't qualify for oxygen.

In the meantime, we are trying, trying, trying to keep things on an even keel.

January 13, 2012 New Year, new situations

I just reread my last post and it's incredible how much has happened. My mother's knee surgery went very well. I had my first case portrayal and it was a lot of fun and I got compliments from the preceptor who attended. My next portrayal won't be until next week, because of all that's happened in between.

To summarize: about a week after my mom came here to recover, she ended up back in the hospital with pneumonia. During that stay the doctors discovered that she had a heart attack sometime in November between her pre-op testing and her surgery. They probably would have canceled the surgery if they'd know, which is probably why she didn't tell anyone that she had the awful chest pains in the middle of the night. I remember a point at which she became too tired to do much of anything and we quit PT until after her knee replacement. Her energy level is very low at times, which makes sense considering that she lost a third of her heart function, and we need to monitor sodium intake and fluids more than before, but otherwise she is doing pretty well. There were a couple of weeks when she had no energy, but that is to be expected after pneumonia and with her heart issues. Her therapists are very please with her physical progress so far, and after another week or so, we will start again at Keystone Rehab. 

Bob's eye is coming along. His vision hasn't stabilized yet, so his glasses are not helping much in that eye. That is frustrating because it affects most everything. He returned to volleyball this week with limited success, but is going to try again tonight. He and Bob John have been trying to get out skiing at least once before Holiday Valley, but opted out of this weekend because of the low temperatures and the wind. 

I am holding my own. I have a Case Portrayal next week, which will get me out of the house and back into the swing of that. I was quite confined for a while, sometimes not leaving the house at all for almost a week. Different for me, that's for sure. I am trying to strike a balance between making sure my mom is doing the right things for herself and letting an 85-year-old indulge herself in some of the things she loves. (Her favorite snacks of olives and cheese are high on the sodium spectrum!)

Holiday Valley is coming up, and Roxann is going to stay here. My mom is actually a little more independent than she has been, able to use the bathroom by herself and get up and down more easily, so that will work.

In the meantime, the other big event was the death of Bob John's mother, Peg John. She had been in the nursing home since last March when she had a stroke. After a stint in a rehab facility, she went to a memory care place. She fell and broke her hip October and really never made it out of bed after that. He is at peace with the ending, since he knows he did everything he could and that her life wasn't really much fun for the past year.

So, we've begun a new year with new challenges. We've been pretty philosophical about all the changes and obligations, and I think ultimately we'll feel some satisfaction that we did things the right way.