What I did do is to watch my mother the entire weekend, and while she appears to be able to do more than she had been able to do a few weeks back, it remains an exhausting task.
She gets up, eats the breakfast I prepare for her—juice, coffee and usually some cake or cookies, because I have been told that at this stage of her life, to give her whatever she wants—and then she goes into the big chair in her living room and sits there basically for the entire day.
I try to engage her in conversation, which sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t.
I asked her several times if she wanted to play Scrabble, or go out on the deck to catch some rays; she declined each time.
She complained about the room being too cold, and sometimes, it has to do with the air conditioner being on—which I shut off because she wanted it shut off—or it had to do with the sliding door in the living room being open to let in some fresh air—which I shut if she wanted it shut.
All the while, the other day, it was 83 degrees in the house, and while she was cold, I was so warm that my sweat impaled me to the couch I was seemingly sitting on the entire day.
A lot of times, when I could engage her in conversation, it was fun, and we spoke about everything, from the stage of the weather to the type of monitor I use to watch out for her at night.
On the latter subject, it really is a miracle device.
Where once you could only hear the person you were monitoring, now, these devices come with a visual monitor, so you can not only hear them, you can see them—and you can also talk to them simply by pushing a button on the device.
My mother was up and down a good part of Saturday and Sunday evenings—which I saw and heard through the monitor--so I did go down to her several times to try to get her back in bed at night.
She sometimes has a hard time in discerning what is daytime and what is nighttime, so I have to direct her back to the bed when it is nighttime, whether it is 8 p.m. or 10 p.m. or 4:30 a.m. or 6 a.m.
On Saturday night, I saw she was not in the bed, and I went to look for her in the pitch black of night.
“Larry, I am here,” as I turned around, startled, and saw her sitting on the couch, the one that I called home for a good part of this past weekend.
“Mom, it is the evening, and you have to go back in the bed.”
“I am eating cookies,” and I saw that, in fact, she was eating Oreo cookies when she should have been sleeping.
“Mom, when you are done with the cookies, you have to go back into the bed,” which she did, and while she didn’t sleep through the night—she got up pretty regularly to go to the bathroom, which at this point, she can pretty much do herself—she did sleep a good part of the night.
Last night, as I was dozing off myself, she was up and down and up and down some more, necessitating me to steer her back to the bed.
But the days were OK, highlighted by my family and I eating dinner with her in her part of the house.
It was only fast food, but my mother really enjoyed whatever I brought in for her—Arby’s and Taco Bell—and she chowed down on the food as if it were 1999.
At this stage, my mother sleeps away a good part of the day, but on the other hand, she really has progressed, physically, since coming home from the hospital a month or so ago.
Her vital signs are excellent, she can move around a little bit on her own, and she is quite cognizant at times.
We have help for her coming in during the week, and she really has a good team of three women who absolutely know what they are doing, having many years of experience of working with the elderly.
But it becomes a little dicey on the weekends, as we have no help coming in, and it is up to us to care for our mother.
I have to say that my mother is in good spirits, but she does often ask us, “Why did this happen to me?”
And honestly, I have no answer for her.
God often works in strange ways, but with help, my mother can almost rise above it, or at least deal with it, as best as she can.
It is a difficult time for her, but I see how she has progressed since coming home from the hospital, and she really has been doing so much better in her own and familiar environs.
Honestly, I do not know what the coming weekend will bring us, but whatever happens, we will be there at the ready to help her.
She helped us when we were babies and not able to help ourselves, and it is now our obligation to help her when she can’t help herself.
Life is cyclical, and we are more than happy to do what we do in her time of need.
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