I started not to blog today but I am going to give it a try, since there is a lull in my activity. I am at Mother's computer in her room. She's in the bed. She is not feeling well; we think she has some sort of virus. Hopefully she will feel better in a day or two.
The last time I did this type of duty was in 2005 when we had just moved into our house and Mother fell and broke both shoulders. She was hospitalized for nearly two weeks, then spent about 6 weeks in a Rehab place. It was a miserable time. She was in constant pain and both arms were useless, so she had to be fed, bathed, etc., which was why we had to put her in the rehab place. Bruce spent a lot of time here helping me, and various friends and family members also helped with caring for Alesia and Coco. It was an ordeal for us all, though.
That fall, after life had returned somewhat to normal, I began the search of photolistings for a second child. Alesia had been home less than a year, but I just felt so strongly she needed a sibling. I knew I wouldn't have been able to manage on my own without Bruce's help. I wanted her to have a sibling who would be there for her long after the folks in my generation are gone. Thus began my journey to adopt Michael.
It seems like I have spent a lot of time in hospitals and nursing homes and by the bedsides of folks I love. My dad had several ulcers, hemmorhoid surgery, and a heart episode before I was 10 years old. My mother had two hospitalizations during the same time period, one to remove a huge tumor from her uterus, when I was five. My grandfather was in and out of veteran's hospitals because he had circulation issues and eventually needed hip replacement surgery. So there was a lot of illness around me.
When I was 14, and a freshman in high school, my beloved grandmother had a massive stroke and had to be hospitalized. For weeks, she was in the hospital in Knoxville, and then a nursing home there. I took my turn at the hospital along with everyone else. My aunts and uncles came and went, and tried to help. They were helpful, of course, but since we were the only family in town, most of the burden fell to us to be there. Eventually Mamaw was moved to Myrtle Beach, and lived out her days in a nursing home there, which was the best solution we could manage. Someone from the netowork of extended family went to see her every day, and my cousin worked there for a while.
We have a family policy that we do not leave anyone in the hospital without staying with them during all their waking hours, and often overnight if necessary.
My experience in dealing with my grandmother at 14 aged me in ways I didn't realize until much later. I so wanted to be grown up. I wanted to help. I remember sitting in the room next to the pitiful little person in the bed, completely unable to communicate with her, and feeling utterly helpless and frustrated. It was a feeling I came to know much better over the years.
It has been so nice this afternoon to be able to say to Alesia, "Here's the grocery list and the debit card, you know what to do." She drives my car now, pretty frequently, as needed. Of course, she's 19. She is competent at buying groceries and managing the more mundane things around here.
When I was just a little older than her, my dad had a heart attack that kept him out of work for several months, and scared us all. Despite his earlier maladies I had always thought of him as indestructible. I suddenly realized he was mortal. I cried for days, mostly out of fear. Dad quit smoking and became a healthier person and went on to live 13 more years. I went on to research a lot about heart health, and eventually I quit smoking, too.
Of course, after the heart attack there was the aortic aneurysm, a scary episode of fibrillation that required his heart to be shocked, and finally, the cancer that claimed Dad's life.
His hospitalizations were always made worse by the fact that he never, ever reacted normally to medication. After the heart attack he was given a tranquilizer called Tranxene, and he went nuts. He sneaked all over the hospital looking for cigarettes, his gown flapping open in the back.
The crazy happened again about 10 years later, after his anuerysm surgery when he was given Librium. Instead of making him calm, those things made him hyper and crazy. I kept telling the doctor after his aneurysm surgery to change the orders and NOT give him the Librium, and she wouldn't do it. At one point I was there by myself and I was afraid he would have to be tied down. He kept saying he would pay me to get him out of there, in US currency. He HATED being hospitalized.
I couldn't get the floor nurses to listen to me and stop shooting him full of Librium, so I finally called the doctor's office and left her a carefully worded voicemail and said basically, if you don't rescind those medication orders I will take him out of here, in a cab if necessary, and within 48 hours you will be served with a lawsuit for malpractice. I was not kidding. I was at the end of my rope. She rescinded the orders within an hour and he was left alone. He did fine once that crap was out of his system and he was back home in his own bed.
My dad was not a big guy, but 6'0 and 180 lbs. of crazy I could NOT handle, even when I was 30 and working out every day.
My brother is a good practical nurse, and like me he has borne the burden of dealing with Mom and Dad's many illnesses and hospitalizations. He is not so diplomatic as I am when dealing with medical issues in hospitalizations where we feel our parents are not being treated right. He's been known to raise his voice and have a Come-to-Jesus meeting with folks. He's not a big guy either but he can be scary when he needs to be.
When Mom was hospitalized with her broken shoulders, every nurse and orderly that went in there tried to grab her arms to help her in and out of pain, and when they did she experienced shooting pains, often causing her to scream. One of her shoulders had been shattered and was basically put back together with a lot of hardware. The medical folks just didn't understand. Bruce threatened to go to the hospital head person [whatever that's called] and tear them a new one, if it wasn't made clear how Mother was to be handled. A huge sign went up on her door saying not to touch her arms or shoulders, just her back.
Army training has its advantages.
I've always said you could drop my brother naked, in a desert, with nothing but a pocketknife, and he'd come walking out within a week, just fine. He doesn't watch TV, at all, but he scoffs at shows like Survivor.
However, the nurses told Mother when she was in the hospital that he would stand out in the hall and cry sometimes, he was so upset. He never liked to show anyone that side of him. He spent a lot of time in the backyard just after Dad died, because there were a lot of tall pines back there and he could cry in private. [He doesn't read my blog, BTW]
That mixture of toughness and tenderness has always characterized the men in my family.
When Bruce and I were small, my father changed diapers, read stories, fixed boo boos, and did everything Mother did, at a time when most men of his generation left all those tasks to the wives. I would've never settled for anything less in a man, which may be why I'm not married. LOL
My grandfather [Mom's father] also changed diapers, read stories, and cared for us, when he visited, which was frequent. It was all new to him, though. He'd never done that for his own kids or other grandchildren because my grandmother and aunts were incredibly efficient and insisted they could handle everything. Mom, however, would say things like "Thank goodness you're here. You stay with the baby while I go to the grocery store." She didn't treat him with kid gloves.
He viewed diapering my brother's baby butt as a personal challenge, because Bruce had no hips or butt and the cloth diapers would slide right off him. Papaw would try elaborate tricks to get the diapers to stay on [he was an engineer at heart] but nothing but plastic pants really did the trick. When I was born, the first time he diapered me, he told Mother excitedly "This one has a little flair at the hips! And a rounded behind! The diapers stay on beautifully!"
Well, I have digressed all over creation, but it helps me to write.
We are pretty sure Mom just has a virus, and that's not something that can be medicated, so we will see how she does for the next couple of days. As long as she doesn't get worse I see no need to haul her to the doctor or the ER. In fact, she has kept down some Gatorade just now and we are going to fix her a delicious dinner of Saltines.
I know a way you can help [besides reading rambling blogs.] Y'all pray she will get better sooner rather than later, and pray I will have the stamina to do everything I need to do.
I do have wonderful helpers in Alesia and Mike. They are the greatest blessings in the world.
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