It's Saturday, my brother's day to visit Mom. I slept well last night after watching a DVD of Winnebago Man (documentary about an angry man who was/is a sensation on YouTube) and then the last hour of The Glass Slipper (Leslie Caron and Michael Wilding on TMC--1955).
More and more I am able to see life beyond Mom's stay at Northwoods. I am beginning to trust that she will go home. However, I keep hearing stories of people who have gone home only to come back in a year or two. That might be in the cards, too. It seems that Tom, the raconteur at Mom's table in the dining room, was on his third "visit" to Northwoods. He was well known and well-loved by the staff. Yesterday morning he went home--I missed him at the lunch table and so did Mom.
My visit yesterday wasn't as uplifting as the one on Wednesday. I got there later than usual. I had been transfixed by the Royal Wedding from 7:00 a.m. to 10:30. I knew Mom didn't have BBC America on her television and suspected she hadn't seen the wedding so I began to sketch and color some of the wildest of the hats the invitees were wearing. They were glorious hats, deep electric blue, pink, black, champagne and all colors of the Spring rainbow. My favorite for weirdness was one that looked like a canoe, somehow affixed to the front of the woman's head. It was the electric blue one, with black flowers on the crown (which was nowhere near the crown of her head) and a brim that came all the way to the middle of her nose! Oh, wait. Then there was the hat I named The Medussa Hat. It was sort of flesh colored with a ring of fabric that stood straight up in the front, rising from the woman's forehead, another piece that sat on her hair and the best, most awful part, snake-like curlicues of fabric branching off on both sides. It was atrocious! I wondered how much it cost and why the woman had thought it was attractive. She was sitting right behind Queen Elizabeth, so she was obviously a royal. Well, the British royal family has never been known for their fashion sense.
On the way to Northwoods I stopped at the Silverdale Caregiver's Center, a well-kept secret located in the building that used to be the Lutheran church, behind the Sheriff's office. I went there when my mother's caregiving began to get very stressful for me last year. The support and counseling I got were so helpful to me that I decided to ask them to help me with finding housing possibilities for my brother. When our Mom dies, in 6 months, or 1 year, or 5 years, he will have to find someplace to live and he will need housing for a low-income person. I walked away with lists and forms and a suggestion that my brother complete a form that will allow him to access the services they have through this office.
I didn't get to Northwoods until 12:30. Mom was in the dining room, at her regular table, waiting for her lunch. As I walked in she declared, "It's my daughter!" But that was the last declaration she made, other than that she wasn't hungry at all. I learned from the speech therapist aide that she'd eaten 75% of her breakfast (yes, they pay close attention and write it down in her chart), a great accomplishment for her. But now, her pap looked even more unappetizing than usual. She ate her pudding, she drank a little lemonade and some of her chocolate health shake (Ensure in a tiny milk carton).
The aide called on another young lady to take over. She'd had good luck in encouraging Mom to eat. She is a sweet, rosy-cheeked, dark-haired young person named Levita. She and Mom had compared their names, Levita and Lucretia, both unusual. She was the girl who asked me one day if Mom was always happy. I think Levita is a happy person, too. She asked Mom to be a "team" with her and to set a goal of a certain amount of food to be eaten. She made a pile of about a half cup of mashed potatoes and ground meat and gravy, pointing it out as the "goal". She actually fed Mom, coaxing her, softening her against the stubborn refusal to eat any more. I don't think Mom ate all of her goal pile, but she ate more than she had intended to.
I showed Mom the sketches I'd made of the hats from the wedding. She gave a cursory glance, but was too tired to take much notice. She wanted to go back to her room and nap. While Levita was working on the food goal I was talking to Ted's wife. Ted, 87, didn't have a stroke as I'd assumed. He had choked and collapsed. Apparently he had choked again at the hospital. I met his wife last weekend. She is probably 20 years younger than her husband and right now very distraught, eating too much of the wrong food, crying, angry. I gave her a pamphlet and a card for the Caregiver's Center. I hope she goes to see them. She is facing a difficult future. I know they can help her if she asks them to.
Finally, even Levita had given up on getting any additional calories into my tiny Mom and I was allowed to wheel her back to her room for a nap. It is sweet to put her to bed. The relief is palpable. Her sigh of pleasure as she lies down, her eyes quickly closing, her smile of relaxation, the sound of contentment when I pull the blanket up to cover her cold hands. All reminders of how wonderful it is to feel the release of surrender to rest. How lovely it must feel to someone who has lived so long.
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