End stages

Singing in the penalty box.
Mom in blue, second from left.

Mom had a couple great days last week. She ate two servings of fish on Thursday, two desserts, and made cupcakes and did a storytelling session.

I was gone to Michigan from Friday to early Sunday morning, and had calls and messages when I got back that Mom was at the hospital. I found her in the ER, and spent the day with her as they moved her up to a regular room. She had a broken femur --  a displacement of the femur from the hip, with fractures in the bone going down toward the knee.

Nobody at her place was able to tell me how this happened, but they are doing an "investigation" and we'll see what they come up with. She has significant osteoporosis, and Dr. Riordan said her injury was consistent with a fall or a hard bump, but that it might not take a lot of force to cause it.

The doctors gave us the options of repairing the fracture with surgery, which, if she survives it, would necessitate a long, painful rehabilitation process just to get her back to her wheelchair, where she doesn't even use her legs, or not repairing it and just managing the pain. Dr. Hirpara said if it was his mother, he wouldn't choose surgery. Good enough for us.

Hirpara said a fracture like this, after her earlier broken hip, is often a turning point toward the "end stage." I asked "A year?" He said two months, and that was generous.

A case worker will meet with me today to discuss hospice, which will start here and move with her back to her place.

Yesterday mom lay in the ER in bed, asleep, but reaching up and moving her arms like she was directing a choir. Music is where she started, and maybe that was it.

She's sleeping this morning, and I think slept all night, the pain medication keeping her at ease.

She weighs 108 pounds.

Innovations in Momcare

Dove bar dissection

My most recent innovation in Momcare was yesterday's Dove bar. I pulled the hard exterior chocolate off, chopped it up, and gave bits of it to her with spoonfuls of ice cream. She ate almost the whole thing, closing her eyes in quiet ecstasy with little each bite.

Today, after church, I went for two in a row. I got her a brownie with custard swirls in it, cut it up in small pieces and soaked it all in coffee. She liked that, too. You take your satisfaction where you find it.

When I arrived for church today she was unusually -- peppy is too strong a word -- alert, I guess. Jackie the aide said, "She's having a great day."

Of course that's a good thing, but it is accompanied by an unusual amount of energy poured into her difficult habits -- working her feet free, trying to stand, grabbing passing pews and handrails, and, except in church, talking out one anxiety after another: "Did you get the tickets?"; we have to greet the pastor (we had just done that); we should return to the Bistro "where the people were standing" (we'd just been there), "we don't have a spoon" (we did have a spoon), and so on.

But one moment made me feel of use. Pushing her in the chair she called back, "Jon, come with me, come with me!" not able to see me, not knowing I was pushing.

We had to return to her room at one point to get her attachable coffee-cup holder.

"Well, where is it?" she asks.

"It's in your room."

"Well, we're spending the whole while on one part of our problem."

It was a way to be with her.

*

She has a new wheelchair, as maybe the pictures show. It's got a high back with a pillow, so she can rest without folding in half, and a board between the foot rests, to keep her feet off the floor. She was determined today, and still reached the floor.

The new wheelchair.

One foot on the floor. 

Flowers and farms

Mom's birthday, Aug. 20, with Ms. V.

Well, thanks to all those who sent cards and letters and flowers to Mom for her birthday. I read her every word, and she was pleased. It was her 84th, her fourth since she moved.

I went to get her for church this morning and found her doubled over in her chair. I wasn't sure if she was asleep or just didn't have the wherewithal to sit up straight. I sat her up and said, "Do you want to go to church, or should we just skip it?"

"Let's skip it," she said.

For her, a radical decision. For myself, I'm hoping we can just stop going to church, since very often we are on the drowsy side.

Mom lately has been saying things like this:

"It's hard to figure out."

"Did you get the tickets?"

"Make sure you get a big one so we can all fit."

I agree, or reassure, or say I will, and I have no idea what she's talking about. But they are the kinds of issues a lot of her life was made up of -- managing four kids, planning trips and outings. So, though the substance of the events are long gone, she's still tending to the logistics.

Today, in the Bistro, she said, "See those red flowers down there? They're so beautiful."

They were beautiful, and I felt moved that she got that out. And later, a man passed us and said, "Hi Mary."

"He recognized me," Mom said.

"Everybody here knows you, Mom," I said.

"That's right, you can't hide," she said.

A joke, and I did laugh.

*

I rode my bike 300 miles over five days a week ago -- with all kinds of gear. I'm not sure how long I can go on doing this, but I had fun.

Highway 45.
As high as an elephant's eye.

Here's looking at ewe.

Wisconsin gothic.

Back home, at a wedding last night, with V and young Ahna.
(I have a congenital inability to smile.) 

Make it do

Recent Mom art

I went Saturday. Mom had already been to art, and I attended the baking session with her. There were about eight of us there. Mostly we all watched while Hildur, the new activity woman, from Iceland, made a kind of quesadilla, with two big tortillas sandwiched together with a filling of Brie cheese, apple slices, walnuts, brown sugar and cinnamon, with a little squiggle of caramel syrup on top. It was all heated up in a kind of toaster she had brought. Pretty darn good.

Mary -- a different Mary -- told us about her husband's saying:

Eat it up

Wear it out

Make it do

Do without

Katherine said she had heard the last line, "Throw it out." So we debated that. I see online that the first line could be, maybe better, "Use it up." But we were eating the enchiladas, so we were eating it up. 

Mom does art pretty well, I think. This one, above, is her own work. Sometimes they do art by everybody starting with a blank page, doing something on it, then rotating the pages around the table, creating a set of community pages.

She has her obdurate moments. Sunday, at church, I was pushing her forward (in wheelchair) for communion, and she kept grabbing the pews as we passed and holding on. I couldn't figure out what she wanted. Did she not want communion? Hard to imagine. So I would lift her arm off the pew and put it in her lap. Finally, about after about five of these, I hissed, "What are you doing?"  

She grew quiet. Sullen, I think. And of course I felt bad. We got a brownie after church, which I cut up and saturated in coffee, and fed to her little by little. "That is so good," she said. Nothing like a brownie to bind the wounds.

*

Going on a big bike ride next week, and I'm so excited.

Mom and Betty at Singalong

Ain't it pretty

Forth and back

Sister S, descending

Long time, no write. It's hard to say, "No change" in a way that's interesting. On the other hand, there have been small events.

Mom has fallen twice in recent weeks. Both of them out of bed -- she wakes, thinks she can get to the bathroom, and goes down. She's wearing bandages on her hand now and has a scrape on her knee from her most recent fall, about a week ago.

Also, she was moved temporarily to a different room while her own room was fumigated for bedbugs. Her clothes were hither and yon, her shoes lost for a time, and it was pretty disorienting. Finally they brought in a sniffer dog, a bedbug specialist, who declared the coast was clear. It was a beagle, like our old dog Herman on Newport Road, who pretty much lived through his nose.

Mom is lucid at moments, is better for special company, but mostly when I see her she is hard to understand. She speaks very quietly, and is constantly starting thoughts that she is unable to finish. Some seem very urgent, and I say "What? What?" but it never comes through.

She eats well, but is losing weight.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have played some. I went to Frankfort with Sisters S and K and their husbands, and had a real nice week. We hiked in the dunes (above), ate and drank, and I biked. I met up with a friend there and we rode M-22, surely the Midwest's best biking road. Two days later I went to pick him up for another ride, and he'd been hospitalized with a stroke. That's how old we are. He has, thankfully, made a full recovery.

Sophisticated Ladies
(S and K)

Genealogy sidetrip to Alpena

The Olson church in Spruce

Snippets by Sister S

Pinwheels

We've got a near-summit of Sisters and brothers-in-law in town. Here's Sister S's take: 


Had a good first day with mom. I arrived shortly before lunch. We ate, then the gang had hand massages in the penalty box (Bev, Joanne, Gloria, etc). Then we went to arts and crafts with Jesse and made a pinwheel and went outside to see them spin. Then we went to Stratford for tea and brownies and discussion of the news. She did not speak, but seemed to be listening intently, and did not ask to leave even though it lasted a long time.

*

Today Wendy from Bright Star is there instead of Ivette. She's great. We went down to the lobby after breakfast to watch the comings and goings. There was a bus going to Trader Joe's, which is right next to Bay Shore mall, so I left mom with Wendy and went along to buy mom socks. She only had 5 socks in her drawer and none of them matched. Beautiful sunny day. Does mom need anything wear?

Birthday boy

*

Went to Kohls - 2 nice t-shirts, 6 pair of socks, 2 stretch bras. Then stopped in Trader Joe's for a $5 bottle of chardonnay. 30 minutes and back on the SJ bus! Success.

*

Beautiful day in Milwaukee. Just had breakfast with mom, and Wendy from Bright Star came as we were finishing. Mom ate scrambled eggs, a whole English muffin with butter and jam, fruit bowl, and the forbidden bacon, cut up real fine.

*

The art today was alcohol and paint applied with a dropper onto clear plastic, so each drop exploded into a bright color. Mom was beaming and said, "This is WONderful!" Now they're off to yoga before lunch.

*

Jon came for lunch and we gave him our cards and a pinwheel for his birthday. Mom had trouble swallowing and packed her food in her mouth - first time since I've been here. Maybe she didn't like it. She ate the rice pudding dessert. Then she asked to go to bed and had a good nap.

*

Move and groove didn't happen, but it was okay. She had a new young aide, McKenzie. She was very good with her and patient. Then she left and we did devotions and sang a little - Jesus Loves Me and Be Near Me Lord Jesus as she fell asleep. Felt a little choked up; it reminded me of us singing as dad was dying.

When an anti-depressant depresses

20 miles of gravel on the Eichenbaum State Trail

Mom has slightly improved. The nurses reduced her anti-depressant dose, and in the topsy-turvy world of pharmaceuticals, it has perked her up a little bit. She looks better, seems to feel better, and is able to get through a full thought occasionally without forgetting what she started to say.

"We think it was starting to snow her," said one of the nurses, on the dosage she was taking. Snow, as on a fuzzy TV.

The drama Sunday was all about Gloria. She's blind, maybe from birth, and 80-plus. For as long as she's been there, you could find her in her wheelchair out in the penalty box, reading in Braille, running her fingers over the thick pages of an untitled book. Sometimes she would gasp or say "No!" at a critical point in the narrative, and you would think,  "What is she reading? Must be a good book!"

But she is losing it. She doesn't read much any more, and if she doesn't sense the presence of somebody nearby, she'll call out "Help me! Help me!" and even shriek for some kind of reassurance. So we all say, "It's OK, Gloria. We're here." But often it's not enough. The other day they gave her a bath or shower and you could hear her throughout the entire floor crying out. "Help me please! Help me please! Ah, ah, ah! I'm dying! I'm dying!" It went on and on.

The other day Julie brought Ollie, the dog we babysit, and had Gloria touch his plush white fur. "Oh, this is nice," she said.

*

Rode my bike 110 miles yesterday, Milwaukee to Appleton. It was fun, felt good till I hit the Eichenbaum trail. If I were rich, I'd have it paved.

Eden, Wisconsin, where they grow the trucks big.

Recent Mom art