Another trip to the ER

Mom fell yesterday and was sent to the ER. She'd been in bed and reached for something on her little rolling table, and maybe she hit the table, or maybe the floor. They found her on all fours on the floor, with, strangely, pillows under her knees.

Anyway, she got a couple of nasty-looking cuts on her forehead, one of which swelled like half an egg. I met her at the ER and we sat for a glum three hours while doctors and nurses came and went, and mostly went. They did a CT scan and took x-rays of her knees, and none of it showed any serious injury.

She was wild-eyed, haggard and indignant at the long waits -- 10 minutes to her is like three hours. She kept telling me to go and get somebody, but of course nothing was going to happen until they were good and ready for it to happen. She had to pee, she said, and a nurse did it with a catheter, drained her completely, and 10 minutes hadn't passed before she said she had to pee again. So they tried a bedpan, but of course she couldn't pee, but as soon as they took it away she said she had to pee again.

I'm inexplicably peeved at the hospital's -- what is it? -- culture? All these young hyper-fit nurses and assistants, male and female, sashaying around flirtatiously in their pajamas. It's like a slumber party. We pressed Mom's call button at one point -- "just press that and we'll come right away," we'd been told -- and nobody ever came. I even called out to a passing nurse at one point, and she glanced at me and just kept going. If she worked for me -- if I was her boss -- I'd have fired her on the spot.

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I've been fighting a cold -- slept almost four hours this afternoon and woke up wondering what planet I was on. So I'm sure I'll have a long, sleepless night.

A rally

Nice Easter dinner with Mom today. We had Julie's mom, Julie's cousin, Ez, me and JV -- six altogether. Mom made it through church, rested a bit, and survived a coffee hour and a meal in the fancy restaurant that lasted almost two hours. She looked good, talked a little, and was upbeat. She has a way of rallying in when she needs to. She pleaded when I left, and it gave me no cheer to have to be firm.

Just to spite everybody

What could be so wrong?

Sorry to stay away so long. Its been a fraught couple of weeks, not least because of this push to move. We have boxes everywhere, and most of our furniture is gone. So, if you like sitting on bare wood floors, come on over.

Hard to sum up the mom situation. But safe to say the news is not upbeat. Two weeks in a row she didn't make it through church -- this is unheard of -- and we fled to her room where she was exhausted and got right into bed. In the last two days I've had a handful of desperate calls -- as yesterday, "WHEN ARE YOU COMING OVER?" When I wasn't planning to come over at all. This followed by another call a couple hours later when she insisted she was at my house. I did eventually go and whatever crisis she'd felt had long since passed.

Here's a sample call of a few days ago: "I lost my brain. I can't keep directions straight and I don't know where I am."

It's sad. Her decline is accelerating and it is hard to watch. Her situation has been made worse by the latest aide problem. Maria has been out "sick" or something about four days in the last two and a half weeks. She's left early twice. She has five kids -- that many kids and surely, somebody will be sick, or in trouble, or need a ride, or something. The agency tried to get a sub one day, but the sub's "car broke down," and today, finally, she did get a sub.

What a hassle.

I have toyed with the idea of quitting my job and being the aide mom needs -- she'd have to pay me -- but it would drive me crazy. The place is so depressing, and Mom is so depressing.

I rode my bike today and went to my own church's Good Friday service -- an attempt at "cleansing." But I never did quite get there -- she was still on my mind.

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So the picture above is how I got in trouble with the cops. Driving home from work one afternoon, I came upon this elementary school that we cover in our paper. There were dozens of parents out on the lawn, and I wondered if there had been a concert or play or something. But, no, it was just parents picking up their kids.

It struck me as a kind of touching daily ritual, and I got out of the car and took some pictures, being careful not to make any kids identifiable. So, on my way back to car, this woman comes racing across the grass, yelling "Who are you? Why are you taking pictures? Who are you taking pictures of?"

I gave her my business card and said I was the editor of the Wauwatosa paper and I was just getting shots of the "after-school scene." She said she read the paper, she was a first-grade teacher, and she seemed fine about it, and she went back to the school, and I left.

I'm home for about five minutes when two cops come to the door. They have the business card in their hands. (That treacherous little teacher.) Was I at the school? What was I doing there? Had I been taking pictures? What had I been taking pictures of? I told them what was up. I said I'd never left the street or the sidewalk -- the public space -- and I showed my boring pictures, and then the young by-the-book cop insisted on calling my boss, asking him, had he assigned me to take the pictures? Was this in the normal realm of my job, blah blah blah. (As if my boss knows what the hell I do.) Then the young cop comes up to me, having not found anything amiss, and kind of gives me a stern little talking to, to check out in advance, etc etc, and kind of fishing for me to say I was "wrong" somehow.

But I wouldn't say I was wrong. I said, "I'll take it under advisement. But I want you to stipulate that I did nothing illegal." He wouldn't  give me that, but the older guy, the sergeant, said, "Yeah, I guess that's probably right."

I was just glad I wasn't black.

God I hate cops.

It's a lousy picture, but just to spite everybody, I ran it in the paper.

More tired and more tired

West Meinecke Avenue

I got a pleading, nearly tearful call Friday from Mom. I had a full day scheduled -- work, a meeting,
whatever -- and told her I couldn't make it. These things don't usually bug me, but that one did. Her private aide had had a family emergency and hadn't made it that morning, and on a weekday, that's most of her activity.

"I don't have any friends here," she said in her most depressing, nearly inaudible voice.

So.

So I went Saturday at 10, and she seemed fine. I read to her, we walked around, and I left her at lunch. Then today, she was ready for church, so we went. But she had forgotten her glasses, so I ran back up to the room in the middle of the service, and when I got back down, she said she had to go to the bathroom, so we departed again.

In the room, she was suddenly exhausted and had to lay down. She seems more tired and more tired, and her conversation is full of confusion. She pleaded with me to stay, but I said I had to go, and, it was hard, but I left.

I think there is no relationship between time spent with her and her general happiness. Except for the moments you're right in front of her, and to call that happiness, well, it's pretty crummy.

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Remind me sometime to tell you about my encounter with the Wauwatosa police.

I wish I could take back ...

Do I look a little tired?
Mom holding me up.

Sunday. I would like to go to my regular church once. But chapel it was. Mom seemed perky when I found her upstairs, all dressed and ready to go. But during the service, she seemed to decline and bent over in the chair. I thought she was asleep, but when I leaned close, she turned and looked at me sideways, like, What are you lookin' at? 

I kept her on track with the liturgy, and we sang familiar songs, which she knew -- not, for once, the long, dirge-like, where-is-the-melody hymns they do so often. Sitting there, singing the hymns, surrounded by the old people, I thought: There will be a time, not so long from now, when I'll be old and decrepit and in a wheelchair like she is, and I will feel like I've been through this before.

She wanted a salad in the Bistro, but, upon looking at them, didn't want a salad, so I got her an omelet, which she ate half of, and toast with jam, which she ate half of. Her weight is declining, the dietician has said, and I pushed food on her till she was sick of me.

I wondered, then, if she really was sick. She looked, suddenly, bad. I asked her if she was OK, and she said she wasn't, and she wanted to go lay down, so I brought her up. She said she wanted to go to the bathroom, but then didn't have the energy for it and just wanted to get into bed. It was a fade faster than most of her fades, and I wondered, Are we coming to the end?

She lay half-asleep, and I read her a couple of devotions, then just chatted with her. Her voice is soft, quiet, almost always lately.

"Do you think about your parents sometimes, Mom?"

"I do. Yes."

"What do you think?"

"I think they were very dedicated. Did the best they could. Took care of their kids good."

She talked about babysitting her brothers, which was "boring," she said, because she couldn't do the things she wanted to do.

I asked, "What did your family do, when you were a child, for fun?'

"We'd go sliding."

"Outside? In the snow?"

"Yeah. In the winter, we'd go Sunday afternoon and go down the hills. My dad liked to have fun with the family like that."

"What did you do in the summer?"

"In the summer we'd go in the boat. Up north, in the boat, we'd go to town."

She said, of her father, "he was the leader in the fun."

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The picture she painted (see last post), the things she thinks about and says -- they're simple, but deep, even consequential. Behind a soft voice, inside a mind that drifts, she's all in there somewhere. Life -- her life -- is profound, meaningful and humbling, and I wish I could take back some of the things I've said.

A red-letter day

Exercise with Sister L
January

I was all set to write one of my usual, carping little entries about this strange direction my life has taken, till I opened the mail. A big envelope from Mom's place -- about meds, or costs, or meetings or, or. or. But it wasn't.  This is what it contained:

If you look closely in the bottom right corner, you can see her name. This was done in an art class in September (the photograph doesn't do it justice), and it was chosen for a "Memories in the Making" art exhibit that will be shown at galleries and public spaces around town. There's a note that came with it, with the title of the painting, "Apples in the Fall," and:

I lived in southern Minnesota when I was growing up. I made pie with my mom. We picked the apples ourselves at an apple orchard. Our secret ingredient for the pie was cinnamon. 

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Just now she called -- it's late for her, 7:15 -- and I told her about the painting. She didn't seem to remember it, but when I read her the note, she laughed.

She said her leg hurt, but earlier Maria had gotten her in the pool and she was thrilled -- and there were ladies there she'd done water aerobics with before and she was glad to see them.

I'll bring the painting and the note next time I go. I'm thinking I should get her to the "Artist's Tea and Reception" May 23 at the Lutheran Home, which is just a couple blocks from my house. She could stay overnight. But these are high hopes. We'll just have to see.

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My blog turned 1 year old this week!