When I arrived to visit Mom yesterday...
...about an hour after breakfast, I learned that she had refused breakfast and was lounging in her electrified recliner, a sweet chihuahua who belongs to one of the CNAs on duty yesterday in her lap. Although the picture was sweet and heartening, the decline in Mom's motivation was not. I spent the morning feeding her sliced bananas, almonds and cashews (courtesy of MFS), we talked, played with the dog, and I worried about how this minor but telling decline in Mom's spirit was going to affect the outcome of Mom's rehabilitative "sniff" stay, which is due to begin tomorrow or shortly thereafter.
    Essentially, Mom had slipped into a "I don't need, or want, to do anything" area. Not good, right now. I left to come home about an hour before the home (which has a website, by the way, and which the owner, with whom I met yesterday, was pleased to allow me to advertise, here it is) was due to serve lunch. My intention was to take a nap, as I'd had only about five hours sleep the previous night. As I attempted to doze, though, my mind busily scoured the whys and wherefores of Mom's lagging spirit, most notable over the last few days as her lagging appetite, which almost never happens, didn't even happen at the hospital, and suddenly bolted upright off the futon couch flooded with the realization that she wasn't eating much because she and I aren't eating together except for maybe one meal a day!
    I hit the ground running, returned to the home in the middle of lunch and began a vigorous program of:

• Getting Mom eating and "going", and
• Assuring her, by both word and deed, that:
  1. I was right beside her all the way and will remain there through these next few weeks while she is away from our home;
  2. Her return to our home is as important to me as it is to her and the kitties;
  3. Her presence in my life and our continuation of our life together is so important that I will be where she is no matter where she is and I will always work to the utmost to ultimately get her back to our home, and;
  4. I need her and want her in my life as much as she needs and wants me in hers.

    As far as action is concerned, I mobilized in a couple of areas. I got her out for a walk (her in the wheelchair, of course) yesterday in the neighborhood in which the home resides. It's a rural paved street with lots of interesting homes. We collected wildflowers in the fallow areas between houses, picked up a pine cone that caught my mother's fancy, even joined in the search for a runaway dog, although we never spotted it. Since she'd napped in the morning right after breakfast, I kept her up with a relaxing half hour in the home's rose garden with the resident married couple, reading, an exercise session, a beauty parlor session of washing, setting and fixing her hair, and general conversation until dinner. After dinner, during which she heartily ate everything including dessert, we read some more until it was time for her preparation for bed. I was there to tuck her in (which, so far, I've always been) and promised her I'd be back "earlier in the morning than usual."
    I am pleased to say that by the end of the day she was completely revived, speech, spirit and all, to her week-ago-last-Wednesday self except for her legs. Her ability to bring her legs to bear on her mobility, with assist, of course, has much improved. As I watched her successfully help the CNAs assist her into bed significantly more than usual I couldn't help shed a few tears of gratitude, at which my mother, as usual, laughed. "She's gonna have a good rehab," I sputtered to one of the CNA's as we left the room, "I can see it now." The CNA agreed.
    I've got to go shower and get ready to head out, this morning. I'll probably eat a banana at the home instead of my usual toast, here, just so I can be with Mom a few minutes more.
    So, what happened to "my respite"? Well, I continue to consider that it's going on, since I'm not having to negotiate alone Mom As Dead Weight here at home. But, you know, you weight the necessities and you do what you have to do when it's necessary. Right now, and, I mean right now, it's necessary to keep my mother's spirits and interest in what this episode will mean for the rest of our lives together forefront in both of our lives. Last night, as I drove home (I'm 10 minutes away from where she is), I was wishing that I could be awakening her in the morning, as that probably would give her incentive to, at least, arise to a sitting position on the bed on her own. But, you know, my clone has not yet made an appearance and seems to be particularly negligent toward us at this time so I haven't yet figured out a way to add a few hours to the day or a miraculous lack of need of sleep in order to accomplish this.
    I also let the home know that Mom is not allowed to refuse meals. She needs the nutrition to "hold her up" for the upcoming rehab. She is to be brought to table, even if she resists, and placed in front of her food, even if she only picks at it.
    Today I'll probably be at the home most of the day. I'll spirit away if and when Mom takes a nap, but I want to make sure that nap falls later rather than earlier, so I'm sure I'll be there through lunch and dinner. This is possible because the home encourages the families of residents to visit as much as possible (sad to say, few do) and is always prepared to welcome a visitor to the meal table.
    My Mac is intermittently slowing, then revving up, so I still plan to take it in for diagnosis, if not fixing. While I sleep tonight I'm going to refresh the last back-up, just in case, so I probably won't be writing much tonight, either here or in the way of emails. I don't imagine I'll be able to get it to the repair shop tomorrow, since, fingers crossed, she should be going into rehab and the first day, as I recall, is filled with intake evaluations, meeting with nurses and administrators, and making sure the "sniff" is aware that my presence will be ubiquitous and I will be assertively monitoring Mom's care and progress.
    Gotta call the home and have them tell Mom I'll be there after my shower. These personal messages through the staff to Mom's ear seem to help, too. And, so, we continue.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 07:37   email  this post