Heart breaking. Expected, yes, but still heartbreaking when you stand next to someone who could do the NY Times crossword puzzle in INK every Sunday, and now, can't manage to take the cap of the Ensure before tipping it back to take a swig. "Ok, Mom, let me take the cap off for you. This is the chocolate flavor, you like this one." "Yes, I like this, should I drink it?"
My mom never asked for advice or permission for anything. It's strange. I can't quite comprehend the change. On one hand, I appreciate that the fierce, fiesty, ornery, head strong, confident woman is the most easy going she's ever been, but on the other hand, it means that she's slipping away right before my eyes. This is new territory for me and for my brothers. It's a new landscape, that shifts slightly every day.
"I want to make a frittata." she announced the other day. "Ok, can I help you?" No is her answer, as she tries to peel the potatoes and cut the zucchini. My jaw drops as I watch a woman who peeled more potatoes than the machine at the Pringles factory, try to wrestle the peel off. "I'll do that mom." "Yeh, you better do it." It's the first time, she's ever let me, a 51 year old woman who has made plenty of complicated recipes anywhere near her stove. Passing the frying pan off, not because she wants to,
or because I'm insisting, just can't do it anymore.
Her lung cancer is advanced. She's in hospice and luckily not in any pain, what with the doses of medication that we dutifully catalogue on the worksheet. She naps frequently and wakes frequently, shuffling into the kitchen trailing her oxygen tubing. "Can I go outside and smoke?", she asks. "Sure mom, just take off the oxygen so you don't blow up the apartment building."
She can still manage to light up, just fine. It must be muscle memory or part of her DNA now. Her brain is operating on such little oxygen and I see all the signs of oxygen deprivation in her lips, fingernails and the way that she breathes in slowly and blows out repeatedly and rapidly. The clinical side of my brain kicks in and registers hypoxia and Kussmaul respirations. Gee, I wonder what her blood gases would look like? Get out of your head, I whisper to myself, like Kevin Costner did when he stepped up to bat in Bull Durham. If I give her the haldol or lorazepam for her paranoia, agitation and shortness of breath, will it make her confusion worse, I ask the angelic hospice nurses. No, they reassure me, it will help her feel less anxious, and she'll feel better.
She's still eating fettucini, lasagna and heirloom tomato sandwiches, so I guess we still have a little time left.
What must it be like for folks who care for someone with Alzheimers or long term dementia? I'm new to this, maybe it gets easier, maybe it gets harder. I don't know yet, I guess, I'll just have to take it one
day at a time.
My mom never asked for advice or permission for anything. It's strange. I can't quite comprehend the change. On one hand, I appreciate that the fierce, fiesty, ornery, head strong, confident woman is the most easy going she's ever been, but on the other hand, it means that she's slipping away right before my eyes. This is new territory for me and for my brothers. It's a new landscape, that shifts slightly every day.
"I want to make a frittata." she announced the other day. "Ok, can I help you?" No is her answer, as she tries to peel the potatoes and cut the zucchini. My jaw drops as I watch a woman who peeled more potatoes than the machine at the Pringles factory, try to wrestle the peel off. "I'll do that mom." "Yeh, you better do it." It's the first time, she's ever let me, a 51 year old woman who has made plenty of complicated recipes anywhere near her stove. Passing the frying pan off, not because she wants to,
or because I'm insisting, just can't do it anymore.
Her lung cancer is advanced. She's in hospice and luckily not in any pain, what with the doses of medication that we dutifully catalogue on the worksheet. She naps frequently and wakes frequently, shuffling into the kitchen trailing her oxygen tubing. "Can I go outside and smoke?", she asks. "Sure mom, just take off the oxygen so you don't blow up the apartment building."
She can still manage to light up, just fine. It must be muscle memory or part of her DNA now. Her brain is operating on such little oxygen and I see all the signs of oxygen deprivation in her lips, fingernails and the way that she breathes in slowly and blows out repeatedly and rapidly. The clinical side of my brain kicks in and registers hypoxia and Kussmaul respirations. Gee, I wonder what her blood gases would look like? Get out of your head, I whisper to myself, like Kevin Costner did when he stepped up to bat in Bull Durham. If I give her the haldol or lorazepam for her paranoia, agitation and shortness of breath, will it make her confusion worse, I ask the angelic hospice nurses. No, they reassure me, it will help her feel less anxious, and she'll feel better.
She's still eating fettucini, lasagna and heirloom tomato sandwiches, so I guess we still have a little time left.
What must it be like for folks who care for someone with Alzheimers or long term dementia? I'm new to this, maybe it gets easier, maybe it gets harder. I don't know yet, I guess, I'll just have to take it one
day at a time.
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