Red Nose

I Love The Love List

It's Friday, and I missed last week's listing of love-ly things, so I must make up for it, even though I got a bit of a shock today at the nursing home, which is that Mom may get discharged as soon as next Wednesday.

Oh. God. Now what?

But I can't quite bring myself to think about that now. I'd rather think about things I love. So here are some of them.

• I love my new shoes, which I totally and completely bought because Melinda bought them and they were way too cute not to buy immediately.

  

• I love the smell of Joe when he gets home from new job as a purveyor of fine tobacco products. Yep -- Joe's working at a local upscale cigar and tobacco shop. Last night he came home and smelled of sweet, musky, fresh tobacco.

• I love real whipped cream, the kind you whip yourself.

• I love hot rolls and butter.

• I love fried eggs, crisp bacon, grits, fresh-squeezed orange juice, hot coffee, and milkshake for breakfast.

• I love checking out The Daily Oliver.

• When I have a sore throat, I love sipping on crushed ice with vanilla and sugar. My Pop used to make it for us when we were kids.

• I love Ron White -- his joke about his van versus his prick brother-in-law's Mercedes is priceless: "Ron, I don't think you understand the intricacies of Mercedes-Benz engineering. I've got the three-in wipers that keep my headlights clean in a rainstorm!" (Pause.) "I've got a place to fuck your sister."

• I  love the circus. Any circus; all circus.

• I love this sign, which is posted in the stairwells in the hospital parking garage. Nice to know where to go to get some refuge.

Need A Proofreader?

painersign
Originally uploaded by Bozoette

Actually, we finished all the paining we were going to do already, so we don't need a painer. We used mostly white pain, although we did choose a pretty green pain for the bathroom and bright blue pain for the guest room.

(Phone number purposely smudged to protect the painer; otherwise, this sign is untouched.)

The Summer Of Suck

Many people are lamenting the fact that September starts this week, that the days are getting shorter, that fall is imminent and summer is fading away.

I am not. I am very happy to see the turn of the seasons this year, because this summer has mostly sucked shit through a rag.

Okay, I'm not totally happy to see the days get shorter, but it's a small price to pay for overall improvement.

Let's review the reasons why 2007 was The Summer of Suck:

• Job uncertainty -- from the initial announcement of the reorganization to the revelation of the new structure to the applying for jobs to the decisions made, the whole process sucked. It's like a Law of Corporate Life. No matter how hard the organization tries to do this type of thing right, it will suck.

• No real vacation, as in a week off doing nothin'. A week of lolling and sipping cool drinks; a week of reading trashy novels and indulging in naps -- whatever, it didn't happen.

• Got fired from the paid blogging gig. Just not mommybloggish enough, evidently.

• I did not juggle or write much of anything, two of the things I most like to do. Why? Eh. I don't know. Depression, tiredness, lack of motivation... I can come up with plenty of excuses.

• And, of course, the biggest reason of all -- Mom's illness and decline has totally thrown all of us for a loop. I don't care how nice a nursing home is, it's still a sad place.

Of course it hasn't been all bad. There have bright flashes of fun and happiness and light: a weekend with friends, two weddings, our anniversary, Memoranza. Joe has been my rock. I got my job.

Best of all, Mom stayed with us, and may even get to go home.

So bring on fall! It's gotta be better than this summer.

And There's A Kitty

Mom will spend the next few weeks in the nursing home, getting physical therapy and other help. Her own favorite doctor will visit her there and make sure her meds are right.

Thank God.

I'm meeting with the admissions director (I think) tomorrow morning to get all of the details surrounding her stay, how long she can with full Medicare coverage, how long she can stay with 80% coverage, how much the 20% translates to in dollars, and what services are covered.

It's a very nice place, as these places go, much nicer than the one In Ocean City. For one thing, there are no huge gilt mirrors, and the furniture is colonial-style dark wood, and the bed is comfortable, and the nurses aren't on strike.

Heh.

The grounds are lovely -- you drive through a beautiful woods to get there -- and there are porches and gazebos and paths. Then there are the housepets: several cages of lovely bright parakeets, a shaggy black dog as big as a pony, and a sweet tortoiseshell cat. I scooped up the cat and showed him to Mom; she was delighted and gave him a nice skritch behind the ears.

And yes, I asked; it's not the Nursing Home Death Cat.

This morning she insisted that she had to have some bras, so off I went to Target to see if could find some front-loading, soft-cup, wide-strap bras in 40C.

No such luck. But I did find some nice ones that only had three hooks in the back, so I grabbed some of them. I was showing them to Mom when I realized that they were nursing bras.

Oh well. I doubt that Mom will notice, if she ever gets one of them on.

Because we also realized that she really can't wear any bra, because the strap will go right over the incision they made for her pacemaker, irritate the hell out of it, and hurt.

So she's braless for the nonce.

But at least there's a kitty.

Pacemaker

I'm exhausted. I've done nothing but sit in hospital rooms for the last two days, but I'm exhausted.

Mom had a pacemaker implanted in her chest this morning. She came through the minimally invasive surgery beautifully, according to the doctors. I'm not so sure, but I'll take their word for it. I must admit that she seemed a bit more grounded in this reality this morning, even though she couldn't remember my name and even though she claimed she had three fights in the night with various hospital staff.

Sometimes I think she's playing with us.

No, I really don't.

Anyway.

We did panic when it seemed that she would not be approved for residential rehabilitation care -- in other words, she would not be able to spend the next couple of weeks in a nursing home and have Medicare pay for it.

I mean, COME. ON. She's 96. She can't fix her own meals, bathe herself, or manage her meds. She can barely walk with a walker. And now she's had surgery and has to keep her left arm in a sling for two weeks! Tell me how anyone can walk with a walker or cane with an arm in a sling, much less take care of the rest of her activities of daily living.

Please? Anyone?

I thought not. Thank you.

At any rate, sanity prevailed. We'll have short period when we'll have to determine what comes next. Does she come home? Do we hire home health care? Do we sell her house and move her into assisted living? And the biggest question of all -- how do we pay for it? Liquidate her CD, max out her credit card, sell her home, somehow get her qualified for Medicaid...

But you know what? She's my mom. I love her. I thought I was going to lose her on Monday, and I didn't. And I'm glad, and we'll figure it out.

I Don't Know A Thing About It

Yesterday Mom was convinced that there was a big nurses strike occurring in front of the hospital. She told us that her doctor had a terrible time crossing the picket line; as a result, she didn't get her pills!

When her doctor visited her, he asked her about the people surrounding her. He pointed to my older sister and asked, "Who is that?"

"That's my... oldest daughter."

"What's her name?"

Mom hesitated, thinking hard, and then said, "Joanne."

Doc pointed to Joe. "And who is that?"

"He belongs to Mary," said Mom.

"Okay, who's that?" Doc pointed to my brother's ex-wife.

"Oh -- she used to belong to my son," she said.

"What's her name?"

More thinking. "Sandy," she finally said.

In the evening, when I was there alone with her, she started picking at her IV port. I kept telling her to stop, but she'd get very petulant and tell me that I didn't know anything about it, and she wanted it out. I finally had to get very firm. Then she switched her attention to the many hospital bracelets on her other arm. She asked me to cut them off; she didn't need them anymore. Again, I told her that she had to leave them on; the nurses needed to scan them whenever they took her vital signs. Again, she snapped at me, telling me that I didn't know anything and she did. Finally, she gave up and started to drift off to sleep.

I told her I was leaving, but she told me I couldn't leave her alone, just stay with her. I tried to tell her that it wasn't allowed, and she said, "No, you can stay. You can't leave me alone. I don't want to argue. Just stay here."

And my heart broke again, and I waited until she was asleep, curled up like a question mark, and quietly left.

Today She Was In China

I took today off to be at the hospital with Mom. Joe and I got there a bit before noon -- she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, Country Living magazine open in her hand and the television on. The IV whispered beside her high-tech bed.

I gently placed my hand on her thin, bruised arm.

"Mom?"

Her eyes flew open and she saw me, saw both of us, and grabbed for our hands.

"Oh, you're here! You're finally here!"

She actually started shaking, whether in relief or fright I really don't know.

"Just hold my hands!" she said, clear as a bell. She began to calm down, breathing hard and looking all around, trying to make sense of her surroundings.

"Are we in China?" she asked.

"No, we're in Olney, Mom."

"OLNEY?!" she was shocked. "We're not in China?"

"No, you're in the hospital, in Olney," I said. "Remember? You came here Sunday night, with a bad nosebleed."

"Oh, yes, yes -- I remember that! I've never seen so much blood in my life!" Now I began to calm down.

"What made you think you were in China?" I asked.

"I woke up and thought I should get up, so I started to get up, and then this Chinese girl came and made me get back in bed. She wouldn't let me get up!"

Ah, that explains it. Her daytime nurse is Asian.

As she woke up more, she talked more about this vivid dream. She was in China, there were Chinese people all around her, they wouldn't let her go home. Then, suddenly, she was in Philadelphia. She didn't know how she got to Philly from China, but somehow there she was.

The whole day reminded me of a chapter in Oliver Sachs' book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, in which a terminally ill young woman spent her days living, in her mind, in her home country of India. She would participate consciously in her care, but when those tasks were done, she slipped back into her mind and went back to India.

My Mom goes to China and Philadephia.

Then she turned to me and looked me dead in the eye and said, "Is my mother still alive?"

My heart broke into a thousand pieces.

"No, Mom, your mother's not alive anymore."

"Ohhhh." She looked so sad. "How long has she been gone?"

"A long time, Mom. Since 1971."

"1971? Really?"

"Yes, really. I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "I really thought I was in China."

"No, I think it was a dream."

"Of course. Of course it was. But it was so real!"

She ate a few bites of lunch -- grilled cheese sandwich and chocolate pudding -- and sipped some milk, and seemed to come back into our reality more.

Later she told us about how she got lost in the hospital the night she got there. She's absolutely convinced that she was put in a room, but no one knew where she was supposed to be. So she walked up and down the corridors, looking for where she was supposed to be. She kept meeting up with a woman who led her back to the same room; one time she saw a couple in the room and told me that they had been making out. After all, there was a bed in the room, so you know what they were up to.

The mind is a strange thing, isn't it? I didn't even try to dissuade her from her "lost in the hospital" story. I just listened, and commented on how strange it was. She's convinced it happened; why should I upset her by telling her she dreamed it?

I wonder about this phenomenon. Certainly some of the meds she's on cause vivid dreams, but it seems like it's more than a simple side effect. Maybe, as the veil between life and death thins out, your mind takes flight and reality isn't confined to the physical life on this plane.

Or maybe I'm just nuts.

Preparation

Mom had been doing pretty well until last night. My brother and his fiance went out to pick up some dinner. When they got back, 20 minutes later, she was standing over the sink, her nose bleeding like mad. My brother (who is a physician's assistant) could not get the bleeding stopped, and called 911.

Her blood pressure went through the roof. She was admitted, ostensibly just overnight.

Today the news is not good. She went into atrial fibrillation this morning, a speeding heartbeat, and was confused and slurring her words. Now her heartbeat has slowed into the 30s. It's not a stroke; there is no sign of that. It's more likely a brain stem malfunction.

As her doctor said to me today: "The wheels are coming off the cart." He has a way with words. We are talking about hospice, about DNR, about last rites.

Seven of us were in her hospital room this evening. She ate a little dinner -- broccoli and peaches, and spoke clearly a few times. She dozed off, then she opened her eyes and she spread her hands apart, just like the Blessed Mother, and said, "I love you all so much." I thought we'd hear the heavenly hosts and watch her rise into heaven right then, but not yet. Not quite yet.

It happens so fast, and yet it takes so long. Now we prepare, and now we wait.

Lord, She Was Lovey-Dovey

Meg's making the Love List a Friday must-do. And I always do what I must do, doo-be-doo-be-do.

So here, without further a-do, are More Things I Love.

• My Mom, who asked me this morning if she should give her lunchtime pill to Gramma.
• Louis Jordan's music, especially Knock Me A Kiss and Saturday Night Fish Fry.
• Betty Boop as Minne the Moocher.
• Early Popeye cartoons, especially this one.
• The Political Punditry podcast with Brick Hawke and Attacus Dove
• The state of ultimate warmness, which is achieved by having exactly the right amount of covers on you, just at dawn, when you're mostly asleep but awake enough to realize that you are in the state of ultimate warmness.
• Lindt white chocolate truffles.
• Vanilla frozen custard with chocolate sprinkles.
• Playing in the salty ocean.
• Waking up to the smell of coffee, preferably while in the state of ultimate warmness.
• Rescue Me.
• Warm socks.
• Watching it snow, especially when I'm in the state of ultimate warmness, wearing socks, and smelling coffee brewing.
• Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America: Part 1, The Early Years.
• Bacon.
• Yellow roses.
• The amazing quiet of Red Rock Canyon.
• Going to the Sun Road.
• Watching spectacular lightning from a covered porch.
• Candlelight.

What do you love just now? And who sang the lyric (okay, more like a spoken line) that is the title of this entry, and what was the song it's in? Two pats on the head if you know!

You Heard Me

Here it is.

When I die, I want my body to be burned up and my ashes scattered on the beach. Save a few grains of my remains in an envelope or a Glad Bag if you must have a souvenir of my person, but I don't want the majority of the corporeal ex-me to be cooped up in a plastic container or a fancy urn or a handcarved box or a paper lunch bag.

Nope. Unto dust I shall return, and I want to get back there quickly once my brain calls quittin' time. Just release the bits and pieces back into nature and I'll look down (or perhaps up, who knows?) and smile, and then I'll get on with whatever it is you get on with after your spirit steps through the door. If I'm joining a choir invisible, I sing alto. Badly.

Joe already knows this, but if he croaks before I do, I want to make sure that everyone else knows it too. And what better way than to post it on the internet, so all dozen of my faithful readers and all two dozen of my accidental Googlers know my last wishes.

Heh - "Save a few grains of my remains" would make a good line in a blues tune, but I haven't got the time or the inclincation to write the rest of it. If you do, send me a copy and come to the after-party. You can sing it there.