While We Were Gone

Saturday, October 10, 2010

Today was my day to cry.   We’re planning this trip to Colorado to babysit our grandson, Carson, but I can barely stand the thought of leaving Mother.  Jerry thinks we should take her back to the Baptist Village.  Because Michelle thought she might get better, we paid the rent through the end of October. 

I’m afraid to leave her there with Cord and my brother Greg.  I’m not worried about them but worried she won’t know where she is.  We have our routine, our daily ritual.  I’m afraid she’s going to freak out without me.  She calls me Janis all the time now.  Looks for me.  Depends on me.  Asks where I am if I’m out of her vision.

We still have the same conversations.

Jerry thinks the Village will be better because of the schedule there.  Fewer distractions—the dog, the cats, strange people (to her) coming in.  At the Village, the nurse will be right there outside her apartment door.  I cried and cried tonight, but I guess he’s right.  I know I need to get away for a while, and I definitely want to see the baby.  Different butt to wipe!

October 17, 2010

Cord’s birthday.

Everyone was sitting around the table, Jerry, me, Chloe, Slade, Cord, Grandma, and Miranda, my niece.  Chicken-fried steak.  We held hands and Cord said a prayer, just for her.  After we ate, we lit the candles and sang happy birthday.  Big, big smile.  Everyone spent a little time getting close and talking to her.  I think she really knew who we all were.  Something about the whole family around the table stirs her sense of contentment.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Now we find out that Aunt Rosie has had a stroke, not as bad as Mother’s (she still knows her family members) but a loss of words and the ability to string the together.

Cathy and Gene, her children, my cousins, came over to see Mother while they were in town.  I think, after seeing Aunt Rosie, they weren’t too shocked but were actually surprised at how good she looks, considering the advancement of her cancer.

I don’t know if Mother ever figured out who they were.  I mentioned Bill, Billy Gene, Rosie, Rosemary.  She said, “I just don’t know.”  Then after I while, I think she knew them.  After they left she said, “Someone was here.  Who was it?  Where did they go?”

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I was working hard to get everything packed and ready for the trip.  Tons of laundry.  Grocery store trip.  My suitcase.  Mother’s stuff—pillow, sheets, quilt, medicine, clothes, family portrait, clock.  I wanted the place to look familiar. 

The hospice nurse, Sue, had already sent an oxygen machine, a bed, and a potty chair back to her room. 

Mom knew something was going on, just like our dog Buddy knew we were going on vacation when we started packing the RV.  I was dreading having to tell her we were leaving.  But I did.  I printed a big picture of Jerry and me holding Carson so she would remember us and where we were while we were gone.  I showed it to her. 

“We’re going to go babysit Carson, our new grandson, for a few days.”

“I can’t see that.”  She frowned.

Instantly she started fretting.  I took her outside and put her in a lawn chair so she could watch us pack both cars.  Jerry packed his car with Chloe and her BFF Caroline and Mother’s recliner.  She kept asking, “Are you going somewhere?”  I kept telling her the same story over and over until it started soaking in.

“We’re going back to your room at the Baptist Village.  I’m going to stay with you tonight.  Cord is going to stay with you Wednesday and Thursday.   Greg is going to stay with you Friday and Saturday.  I’ll be back Sunday night to stay with you again.”

Too much information.  She was getting really upset.  “Who?  Who?”

I packed her and her oxygen tank in the car and we took off. 

She didn’t know where we were when we got to the Village, but once Jerry brought in her recliner, she knew where she was!  She saw the family portraits the Japanese artist had painted hanging in her bedroom.  “I’ve seen those,” she said.  I guess so.  They’ve hung in her bedroom for almost sixty years!

“Where are my clothes?”  I showed her her closet.   She checked out everything in the bathroom.

She had not smiled so much in weeks. She jabbered to Slade and Cord on the telephone and knew who they were. In the dining room, she ate her dinner like a little pig.

Michelle, the nurse, put everyone in the nurse’s station on alert. They'd be checking her several times a night.

After dinner we put on her nightie.  The nurse gave her her Xanax.  She kicked back in her recliner, and I turned the TV onto the Texas Rangers.  Even though she didn’t know who they were now, familiarity bred contentment.

 She went to bed at 7:30 and was out like a light. I felt so much better about leaving her now. Now I felt like I could really enjoy the time with little Carson Cramer.

October 20, 2010

Mom and I both slept too late to go to breakfast.  I went to the dining room and brought her back her biscuits and sausage gravy and two poached eggs.  I thought I’d eat what she didn’t.  She ate it all, so I had Grape Nuts from her pantry.

She seemed fairly satisfied all morning.  Charlene came, bathed her, got her dressed, fixed her hair.  We went to lunch again. 

She looked at Wanza at the end of the table.  “She can’t see,” she told me.  Wanza beamed because Mother remembered her.  Wanza is legally blind.  Wanza won't remember she was here because she has short-term memory, too.

Later, Michelle, the nurse, opened our door and said, “Come on, let’s go for a walk!  It’s a beautiful day outside!”  She was antsy because she was taking medicine to quit smoking.  She rounded up five or six ladies and gents, and I walked with Mom as she pushed her walker.  It was almost time for me to leave.  As we were walking, Jerry called on my cell phone to let me know he was on the way.  I told Jerry, “Michelle is trying to quit smoking, so we’re having a parade.”  One of the lady’s scooter’s battery went dead.  The whole parade was a hoot. Jerry didn’t understand what I’d said to him until he drove up and saw Mother in the street with her walker along with all the rest.

By then we had walked from the door of Assisted Living to the front entrance of the Village, probably about fifty yards. Jerry let Cord out of the car while he drove to the back entrance.  He and Grandma sat on the bench to catch her breath.  Cord said he’d bring her back through the building after he finished his cigarette.

I went back to her room to gather my stuff.  Cord got Mother lost in the building, so by the time they finally made it back to her apartment, she was exhausted.  She lay down in bed and immediately zonked out.  Jerry wanted to come in to tell her goodbye, but I told him that it would just upset and confuse her. 

Later, as we were heading up I-35, Cord called me to ask me what channel the Rangers were on.  He told me she had slept until the hospice nurse came.  The girls had brought their dinner to the room.  Mother was very flustered and mad.  When she asked where I was, he showed her the picture and she remembered. 

She told him, “This is a bunch of crap.”  Not a Dorothy word.  He didin’t know if she was referring to their situation or the tomato soup and cheese sandwich.

        

She climbed back in bed and went to sleep.  Cord was on the couch when she walked back in the living room.  She had made her bed and thought it was time for breakfast.  When Cord told her it was almost night and time for bed, she got really agitated.  He dressed her in her nightie and took out her dentures and hearing aids, made her brush her seven teeth, settled her in her chair and turned on the Texas Rangers. 

After the nurse gave her her Xanax, she calmed down.  She looked at Cord and said, “You look like Cord.”

I am Cord.”

“Where are you extra clothes?”

“In this closet.”

“Did you get something to eat?”

Everything was fine then.  Dorothy was herself again, worrying about someone else.

October 21, 2010

We were enjoying our time with Carson.  His little butt was cuter than Grandma’s.  I won’t say it was any more fun to wipe, though, mustard-colored, curdled Mother’s milk.

This morning Cord called.  “I just wanted to let you know Grandma just said, ‘I love you,’ to me.”

"You’re kidding!  She hasn’t said that to me yet!”

“I know.  Just wanted to make you jealous.”

October 22

An E-mail I received from my brother Greg, after his night and two days of mamasitting:

Mom became comfortable with me after about fifteen minutes of my sitting next to her, and we sat on the couch for two days, visiting. I think there may be some smell or odor each of us have that we sense without particularly noticing that is familiar. She recognized me as someone she trusted, but still had no idea who I was.

She seemed comfortable with Cord, seemed to get along with him quite well, seemed to trust him. I watched them interact and listened to the tips he gave me before he left.

Saturday was most interesting, especially late in the afternoon, and after she had supper. I finally figured out a pattern to her language use so I could understand some of her questions and commentary. She expressed quite clearly her frustration with her lack of memories, with her inability to remember things she had been told, and how tired she was of all of this and how much she would prefer this all to be over.

She would tell me she just did not know, and that she was going to have to go out there (indicating the desk outside her door where the attendant is) and tell them they had to let her know about all this. Then she would say "I don't know. I just don't know."

I can understand, and sympathize. She does not know, does not remember, and does not know what she does not remember. I am aware that her quality of life issue is now one regarding the level of anxiety and terror she experiences when she wakes and knows she does not know. 

She worried incessantly about where she would be when I left. She wondered who would be there when I had to go. She wondered if she was going to be there or not, and why she would be there or why she would not be there.

She focused on each meal for two hours before the meal. She dressed herself, she changed into her bedclothes herself; she did not want help with those activities, and said so.

The most anxious I saw her was when she woke up Saturday night after having slept about thirty minutes. There was a look of terror in her eyes. I got her to sit next to me, rubbed her neck and scratched her back as I talked to her, and she relaxed and went back to bed in no time. Not long after that the lady came with her medicine. She went to the bathroom and came back out. I heard them talking, but mom did not get back up. She was out like a light after that. I heard her get up a couple of times during the night, watched and saw her return to her bed each time. I did fish a washcloth out of the toilet on one occasion, rinsed it out, and left it on the edge of the shower.

She woke before I did Sunday, dressed, and went to the desk to ask, “Who is that man and why is he sleeping in my room?”  She was up and out front about seven fifteen, and the nurse brought her right back in and introduced us again. By the time I got back with our breakfasts, she was comfortable with my presence again.

She has that short grasp on her situation and the anxiety of not knowing anything, and knowing she does not know anything, and not knowing what she does not know scares her more than anything.

She also taught me her mood can shift from one extreme to the other in a matter of a few moments. I had not anticipated that her moods and emotions, and memories, would be so mercurial. The point she made repeatedly which was not lost on me was the she is ready for all of this to be over. She wants it done. She expressed that to me with great sincerity several times Sunday morning and afternoon. And I understood what she meant.

Sunday afternoon we talked about my leaving. She asked me, even asked if I was going back to Muskogee, and asked about the woman and the white dog... even though Deb did not come in and even though she did not see the dog, nor did I talk about the dog. She was lucid for that short span, was relaxed, seemed to remember something about me, and said she was fine.  Those small windows of memory are precious to her, I know. She seemed to relax and be happy that she had captured the memory to savor for a fleeting moment.

I tried to call Slade on my cell phone when I had to leave, hit the wrong number and dialed her phone. She dialed the number back demanding to know who it was. She did not know who called or why they called and it brought on an anxiety attack. Slade was on his way to bring Cord over as I was leaving.

She did not know my name by the time I got to the door. How sad.

 I enjoyed staying with her, learned a lot about communicating with her, gained her trust rather readily, and appreciate how seriously her quality of life has declined. It has been destroyed. It could be worse, I know. There is a certain melancholy quality about spending your last days not knowing who you are, where you are, or why you are doing what you are doing, who is around you, and what is happening tomorrow.

By the same token, she has yet one more reason to embrace her own death. She has lost a great deal of the essence of her existence, her identity, but remains who she was always, and will always remain in our minds... the most caring, unassuming, loving person we will ever know. One of the few people we will ever know without any malice in her heart.