Fleeting Memories

I just put Mom to bed. It was one of those evenings,  she was impatient with me for making her stand up to fix the bottom of her night gown. She has an elastic bandage on her arm, to keep her from messing with the dressing on her latest scrape. She keeps trying to unwrap it because she does not remember hurting herself. It was a real chore just getting her arm into the sleeve of her night shirt. She was not happy with me as I lifter her feet into bed and tucked her in.
Her skin is so thin and fragile, I have to be very careful not to tear it just moving her from chair to chair. Even picking up her legs to position her in bed is a precarious stress on her skin. We are using a new prescription lotion on her legs. In addition to being fragile they are very dry. Each day I have to wash her legs with plain water (there is a heavy residue after it is absorbed) and then put on the lotion.
And then there are her finger nails, she yells at me if I try to clip them, so I use a nail file and emery board. There is more, but no point talking about brushing her teeth or taking her dentures out. I don’t use a lot of toiletries myself, I have never fussed about my nails. So grooming Mom has taken me places I have never imagined myself going.
Sometimes when she is impatient with what I am doing, I think of how much easier it would be to just not do it. But that would be unkind than leaving her alone like she would have it.
I know this has been a rambling post, but I have been thinking how much we are like Mom as we react to providence. It is easy to confess that God has a plan for our lives, but how impatient we become when his plan is uncomfortable or ill-timed in our estimation. He does things for our eternal benefit, and we are just focused on how we feel right now. When we are tested and tried we no more think of his ultimate plan than Mom understands why I have her arm wrapped in the elastic wrap. Kind of embarrassing when you really think about it.
Well, that’s all I have time for right now, Pax!
Technorati Tags: Mom, Alzheimer’s, wound care, bedtime, providence, faith, impatience, grooming

I forget a lot of things. “Where did I put my keys? Did you see my phone? I know I put my sunglasses right there.”  Mom though, Mom forgets different kinds of things. She forgets how to swallow pills. She forgets that she is taking her pills, while she has one in her mouth. She forgets that she is standing up while you are trying to transfer her to a different seat. Mom forgets that the compression bandage is covering a wound on her arm and she takes it off to see why she has it there.
I worry when someone’s name (often someone I know well) disappears off the tip of my tongue. I worry that I should be taking the Alzheimer’s meds myself. I worry how long will it be, before the erosion of personality starts on me. That may be one of the biggest hidden tolls of taking care of Mom, the conviction that I am looking at myself in a few years.
Some of the things mom forgets makes my life more arduous, like when she forgets how to move her feet to get into the car. Some of it makes life less pleasant, like the toilet chores that are routine for me now. But nothing is quite as bad as the dread of what lies ahead. With Mom and Dad both severely incapacitated with the disease, genetically speaking, I feel doomed.
Well, enough of such pleasant thoughts this morning. I need to check on Mom. It is a gray rainy morning here, I hope yours is brighter, inside and out. Shalom for now.

So, I just spent about an hour writing a new post. Unfortunately when I tried to delete a section, I deleted the whole post. So this is going to be an abbreviated version of what I really wanted to say.
I feel sometimes that my life is defined by the routines of every day. My apologies to Simon & Garfunkle for using there turn of phrase, but it is the ordinary stuff of life that “are the borders of our lives.” I am not just talking about the time I spend caring for Mom. I mean the whole lattice of insistent details that you can’t ignore. Everything, from a dishwasher full of clean dishes to brushing your teeth. I feel like it all has me corralled and fenced in.
It has been over a week since my last post. Which is probably a good thing for everybody. After all, who needs to read about rubber gloves and Lysol. You don’t need a dissertation on Swiffers and sweepers. It has been a deadening, dulling, disconcerting week. Nothing bad, but nothing good. Just a week of ordinary duties.
The only break in that week was the fourth. We spent the day with my in-laws. Dave & Jane, Nancy & I, and Mom: just the 5 of us most of the day. It was quiet, it was cool and dry, it was relaxing. Mom got so comfortable in Dave’s recliner, watching Ron Howard as an elementary school boy in Mayberry, that she was annoyed that we had to come home. She said she could sleep right there.
Since I insisted on moving her, she was going to prove that she couldn’t move her feet. She did a pretty convincing job of it. But I got her home. Yet not without mishap. While “flailing and hooting” about not liking her wheel chair, she managed to cut her arm on the way in the door. So now we have one of those slow healing wounds that are so much fun.
Sunday afternoon, Mom was pretty tired, too much excitement the day before, I guess. Well, she fell asleep in her own recliner, sprawled at a most uncomfortable looking angle. But while we were not looking, she had pushed down her bandage and scratched and rubbed her cut so that she, and her chair, were covered in blood. It was actually pretty grissly looking when I first saw her. But it was superficial, just messy. Now we keep her arm lightly wrapped in a long ace bandage. There is too much of it to push away. She can only rub at the outside. Hopefully this will give it the rest it needs to heal.

So that has been the highlight of this last week. I have not had many of those Peter Cottontail moments like I wrote about last time. In fact, it seems like it has all been exhaustingly ordinary. But we keep putting away the dishes and brushing our teeth, it’s what we do. So, I hope you can find something to savor within the borders of your life. Peace rjb