Category Archives: death and dying

old remedies, old bones

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I’m back in the place I left. Blood sometimes takes away the choice.

Plans hardly ever go as planned around here. New roofs sag, ceilings get cracks, seeds planted and nurtured succumb to frost, walls never get painted.

My plan for this trip to visit my mother was to help a new live-in aide acclimate to my mother and to this forsaken place. But, after an on-site interview, the aide changed her plans and is not coming after all. I can’t say I blame her. It would take a kind of frontierswoman personality to take on the situation here.

So, I’m here, instead to nurse my mother through some kind of sore throat. Or cold. The doctor said it is not strep.

She can’t seem to swallow pills any more, so I’m giving her liquid Tylenol. There are two bottles here, one is labeled “sore throat relief” and the other is “rapid blast.” The ingredients of both are identical. I guess the marketing ploy works, because here I am with two separate bottles when one would do When she wakes up at night, I make her tea with lemon and honey..

I am making a big pot of chicken soup. A whole chicken. Five cloves of garlic. Lots of carrots and celery. A parsnip and a turnip and onions. I wanted to put fresh parsley in the for Vitamin C, but the grocery store was out of parsley. Something to do with Easter and eggs, I’m supposing. I will cook the soup for hours and, hopefully, she will drink the broth.

She hurts all over. Our bones are tired.

I miss my grandson, he of the wall of hats, one of which belonged to my dad and is over a half-century old. Here he is, wearing it, acting out scenes for Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

From my daughter’s post on Facebook: Mr. Magorium: “You don’t have to be happy that I am leaving. All I ask is that you turn the page, keep reading, and let the next story begin. And when someone asks, tell them my story, with all its wonder, and end it, simply, ‘he died’.”

Ditto.

ending entropy

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Entropy is a term used to define (among other things), a process of deterioration of a system.

In terms of technology, my life seems to be one big process of entropy. My old desktop died a slow death over the past several months. Last week, I totally fried the new laptop that I inherited from my once husband. (That frakkin’ Vista!) Now I’m on a old little laptop that does not hold the wifi settings that I need to get online. It’s only a matter of time with this machine as well. How do you end entropy?

I think the first thing for me to do is cut my losses. and not spend any more time and money trying to fix messes of machinery that have aready joined the slide into infinite entropy.

I have to start over, with an inexpensive CPU with XP that can keep me online. If I ever have enough money to get a new laptop, it will be a Mac. That’s a big IF.

And then there’s my mother, whom I somehow have to rescue from the entropy of her care by my brother. I’m leaving tomorrow, driving into what I know will be a battleground for what’s left of my 93 year old mother’s demented life. She deserves better than she’s getting.

She fell yesterday, and the doctor wanted her to go to the emergency room, but that didn’t happen. I want to take her there when I arrive tomorrow. It could wind up a fierce and legal battle if things do not change to her benefit.

Took a sleeping pill to calm me dowm.

TOMORROW’S ANOTHER BATTLE FOR FREEDOM AND INTEGRITY AND SELFLESSNESS.

4 am, Friday the 13th

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I tell myself that it’s a dream and I can wake up. But I don’t wake up.

I have gone back to my apartment building, but I can’t find my apartment. It’s no longer there. Everything I own is gone — my clothes, my cell phone, my car keys. I have to call my daughter, I think. I can’t remember the last two digits of her phone number. But I don’t have a phone anyway.

I run down to the lobby. I don’t know anyone. I ask various people for help, but no one will help me.

It’s dark out now, and raining. I run out into the street, go into a store and ask for help. I ask them to call my daughter at ….. I can’t remember the phone number.

I am crying now, running down the dark wet city streets. I find a police station and run in, asking for their help. They ignore me. I go to reach for the phone on a desk, but I can’t remember the phone number anyway.

I run back out into the street, lose one shoe, keep running and crying,

Part of me says it’s a dream. You can wake up.

But I don’t wake up.

I run farther, shivering in the cold rain, without a coat, with only one shoe, and with no way to find a safe place. I run and cry.

I can wake up. I can wake up. This seems so real, but it can’t be real. I can wake up.

Eventually I do wake up. It’s just about dawn, and I am in my bed with my cat sitting on my head.

While I was in the dream, it was so amazingly real — the fear, the abandonment, the isolation, the cold rain. At the same time, I was watching myself in the dream, telling myself to wake up.

I wonder if I had been having my mother’s dream.

it was only a matter of time

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My mom fell down. I wasn’t here. I was at my daughter’s, when my mother tripped and fell. My brother was with her; he said she lost her balance (which she does occasionally) and fell in his kitchen. She has a big bruise on her bad shoulder. And, she says, everything hurts.
When I got back here the day after she fell, against my brother’s wishes, I called an ambulance take her to the hospital. She couldn’t walk unless we held her up, and she was in a great deal of pain. My brother wanted to take her to a walk-in medical office that has an X-ray machine; we’ve taken her there before. But I didn’t want to take the chance. Suppose she had broken something.
The hospital X-rays showed no broken bones. A CAT scan of her head showed no pathology. It did show “volume loss,” however. (Like that’s a surprise??!!) The attending doctor wanted to keep her at least overnight because she was in danger of falling again. He wanted to hydrate her and give her a sedative (since she was agitated) and some tests, including blood. If she had stayed overnight, she would be been eligible for Medicare in-home help. My brother insisted on taking her home. So, we did.
She slept soundly that night and way into the day. Then she ate and went back to sleep.
And it has all gone downhill since then. She woke up at 3 a.m. this morning, incoherent except for crying that she wanted to go home and that everything hurt. I gave her an arthritis strength Tylenol, which seems to work well on her pain, and eventually, she went back to sleep. She repeated that scenario at 8:30 a.m. She gets up to eat something, and then goes back to sleep. While she’s up, she’s barely communicative.
The attending physician in the hospital gave me a script that says my mom needs one-on-one care 24/7 because there is a great probability that she will fall again unless someone has an eye on her constantly. .A nurse is coming tomorrow from the county’s Adult Protective Services to evaluate her condition and her living situation. That is part of my strategy to put as much pressure on him as I can to hire someone to come in and help with her care while I’m going through my move — and, of course, after.
But it is only a matter of time.

old bones

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She has old bones. And they hurt. Wrist, elbow, shoulder neck. Hip, knee, ankle, toe. They all hurt.
I give her two Tylenol, and she sleeps. I hear her whimper. “Please,” she whispers. She’s never been able to tell me “Please what?”
Her old bones hurt. Teeth. Fingers. Time makes old bones. Her bones have had too much time.
My bones are starting to hurt too.

home to the sea

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We drove into the sun, with a pale moon still high in the sky, and we brought our father/grandfather/father-in-law/once-husband to the place he asked to be laid to rest.

The morning wind whipped around us, and the tide was beginning to flow, as we searched along the deserted beach for a place to leave him to the sea.
gettingready.jpg

His daughter prepared the place.
prep.jpg

His son placed him in.
burial.jpg

Until that point, the small waves inching up the shoreline were a good ten feet away. Then suddenly, before he filled the hole, one wave reached and carried most of him away. Ah, we all thought — the sea is as eager for him as he was for the sea. It was odd, though, that none of the other waves had come up as far.

After they filled in the sand and were ready to place the flowers on the spot, another single wave obliterated all traces of where he had been placed. And so the flowers were left on the shore line and petals tossed into the spray.

flowers.jpg


And then we left him to the sea.

My photos of the trip are here.

Our daughter’s are here.

And our son’s are here

With b!X back in Portland, OR, who knows when we will be all together again as a family.

who am I?

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That’s the question she asked as she finally sat up in bed somewhere close to noon today. Usually she asks “Where am I?” Obviously, her dementia has gotten worse.
I tell her her name, in Polish, in English, her maiden name, her married name. By then she’s onto her other worry — “Can I go home now?”
It’s night now. I was with her most of the day, since my brother had a dentist appointment. When I’m with her, I try to respond with care to every question, every mood, every demand. After all, her world must be truly terrifying. And I’m her anchor.
Except she’s my anchor as well. I can’t move beyond her peripheral vision, or she panics. She is downstairs now with my brother, banging her cane on the floor and calling for me. My contact at the Alzheimer’s Association local chapter tells me that it’s not unusual for dementia patients to latch on to the most trusted caregiver and constantly shadow them. That’s what she’s doing, and it’s making me crazy.
I am holed up in my room, television blasting so that I don’t have to hear her distress. I am eating cherries and chocolate chip cookies. My stomach is in knots.
Meds only seem to make her worse in other ways. She needs 24 hour care, and it’s become too much for two people. But my brother wants her with him.
And I want to get away from this whole situation, even though she pleads with me: “Take me with you.”
It’s beautiful here on the mountain. But it’s also a prison, especially for her.
“Where are the streets?” she asks. “Where are the families?” she wonders as she looks out the window at the lush trees and patches of blue sky.
It’s hard to take her anywhere because she needs a toilet nearby. And her mood can go from placid to panic in a heartbeat.
She has lived too long. I hope that I am not still alive at 92. Or if I am, I still have my mind and my sense of humor.
Meanwhile, I’m sorting through all the stuff I brought with me to this place and downsizing. And packing.

Myrln Monday: a daughter grieves

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.
On this Myrln Monday, however, she adds her own grieving voice:

Myrln Mondays: There have been a few in a row now, I think, that I have missed. Forgotten. And then when I remember that I’ve forgotten I feel terrible. And ironic. Because while I have forgotten I have not nearly FORGOTTEN. Not even close. It creeps up on me unexpectedly. Often at night as I’m trying to fall asleep. And suddenly it’s upon me. The too soon-ness. Too quick-ness. Unfairness. Eeriness. Incomprehensible
-ness. Surreal-ness. And I am overcome. All the clichés exist within me at once: it’s a bad dream and I’m going to wake up and he’ll still be here.

Just one more day — one more day to be sure we said everything. Wish him back – on a star, on the moon (“I had a talk with the moon last night,” he’d say to me, “and it’s all going to be fine”) — on my worry beads. Self-admonitions, I should have gotten out there more. I should have heard something was really wrong when we talked. I should have gotten out there more. The truth of the phrase “sickening feeling” because every time it comes my stomach hollows out and I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Then it’s gone. The same way each time: full of feeling foolish, selfish, sorry-for-myself. Like I’m the only one who has ever lost someone. Only one who has ever lost her father. Who has ever lost him too quickly, unfairly, unexpectedly. The only one who has had to continue on after…

I may forget the Myrln Mondays amidst painting new rooms, preparing for homeschooling, living my life (as my father would be demanding I do anyway as he pointed out in number 8 of his life lessons poem: “Remember the dead in your heart, but honor life and the living with your time and attention because afterward it’s too late”. but I have not FORGOTTEN. Not even close. And as everyone has told me, as painful, unbearable, agonizing, maddening, sad, lonely and empty remembering is, forgetting is far, far worse that all those together. So I am remembering. And missing. And hurting. And crying. And remembering. Always.

SAND HOLE
They excavated sand,
this father and daughter,
digging to China.
I knew it’d really be closer
to Afghanistan,
but their game had a tradition
to follow.
Fathers and sons
have growing between them,
which can be another kind of hole,
while
fathers and daughters
share games and imagination.
And dug holes
always come out in China.
I wonder where the holes Chinese dig
Come out?
Waf jul99

the Russert Rainbow

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I haven’t seen anything appear through a search yet, but both Brian Williams and Keith Olbermann mentioned that, as the people gathered at the Kennedy Center to honor Tm Russert, a rainbow appeared over the NBC Washington Studios.
That is such a lovely and uplifting piece of synchronicity.
Not surprisingly, there are no rainbows over here in the mountains — just lots of thunder and rain and some kind of blight happening on my little “oasis in the wildnerness” garden. And I can’t take a photo of it to see if anyone knows what it is because I dropped my little camera while away the other weekend, and it broke. I bought a new little one but haven’t had the time to figure it all out yet or download the software.
Meanwhile, despite taking an antidepressant, my mom is having more frequent bouts of uncontrollable crying. She keeps asking for her husband, my dad, who passed away almost 25 years ago.
We are sitting at the table, and she is eating some spaghetti with a roasted sweet red pepper sauce that I make. She decided that she doesn’t like tomato sauce and she doesn’t like straight alfredo sauce, so I mix my pureed sweet roasted red peppers with a little alfredo, and she wolfs it down.
“Where are your children,” she asks.
“They live far away,” I answer. ” Where are yours?”
She looks at me and says, “I don’t know.”
I don’t know which is worse, Alzheimer’s or “old age” dementia. With Alzheimer’s you don’t realize that you’re not remembering. With dementia, you are torn apart by a sense that you can’t remember even though you want to.
I look back at my original blog, which I began in November of 2001. At that point, I was already taking care of my mom, living across the hall from her in a senior citizen apartment building. Even back then, when she wasn’t so bad yet, I was struggling to have some sort of life apart from caregiving. With each month that went by, I lost more and more of my own life.
I never thought that it would all go on for so long.
No wonder I’m burned out.

the lone crow

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For the first time ever, I see a lone crow wandering around the area of the bird feeders. At first I wonder if it’s a grackle, but a quick look in the Audobon bird book confirms that, indeed, it is a crow.
I leave tomorrow to join family and friends for my late once-husband’s remembrance party. A lone crow, and thoughts of death.
My mother is now losing her hair. Her digestive system is screwed up. She is always afraid, never satisfied or happy, constantly restless.
I watch the crow march back and forth across the small area where squirrels and doves are pecking at what the finches and cardinals have accidentally tossed their way. He doesn’t seem to be eating. He looks like he’s checking things out.
Is he wondering “Is this the place?”