Episode 69 - The long and winding road (the Beatles)

Mom is back at the Care Center.  By Sunday, they had taken away all the meds she'd been put on since leaving our home and by Tuesday she at least knew she was in a hospital.  Medication is such a delicate balance. Agitation, anxiety, restlessness, pain - a different drug (or combination) for every symptom... trying to find the "right mix" that would give her quality of life and also a good rapport with others in a group setting.  In hindsight, perhaps the new surroundings and subsequent meds led to her falls. No one is to blame - not the care center, not the doctors nor for that matter, me.  I've felt terrible seeing Mom go downhill so quickly but realize it's part of her aging process.  We are all partners in trying to do what is best for her.... but it is hard.

The psychiatrist asked me to spend some time Tuesday with Mom, before conferring with him.  He is the one who gave the "med vacation" order.  I hadn't seen her the day prior, so Tuesday afternoon was a pleasant surprise.  She knew most of the answers to the questions I posed to her.  She was still stumped by the year (and why would she care? She doesn't even write checks).  We couldn't have a President with a simple name like Bush, Johnson or even Eisenhower (which she would remember in a heartbeat).  But she knew her name, birthday and that she was in a hospital.  Our conversation was simple and not strained.  I've finally come around to living in her world and not correcting.  She went into great detail about the visitors who had stopped by and their ensuing conversations.  One was a professor from her days at Coe College.  They hadn't spoken in years.  "How nice that he would remember me..." 

"Yes it is," I would reply, wondering how old a professor from her college days (65 years ago) might be now.  Another visitor was her pastor.  What a wonderful visit they had.  She laughed as she gave me a sentence by sentence account of their dialogue.  He told her funny stories and they talked about their church and the many things Mom had done there over the years.  You would think it was a typical hospital visit between clergy and parishioner - except for the note on the bedside table which read: "I stopped by to see you but you were asleep. I tried to wake you but could not. Will see you again soon, Pastor Tom".  Yes, it was a wonderful visit.  Perhaps she heard his voice and dreamed the rest - or maybe she just conjured up the conversation when the nurse read her his note. Mom asked me to be sure to call and thank him for stopping by.

Also in the course of our time that day, Mom told me she would like to get married again.  "Really?" I asked.  "I don't know that you'd want to be married again."

G:  Oh I think I would.  I don't know where I'd find someone. Probably no one would want me.

Me:  Mom, any man would be a fool, not to want you.

G: (laughing)  So what do I do?  Call someone up and see if they want to go out?

Me:  Well, you're a little restricted... to the men at the care center.

G:  Why?

Me:  Because that's where you live and since you can't leave... you know?

G:  Well if I got married again I might have to cook.

Me:  You aren't allowed to cook.  You'd be better off staying single.

G:  I think I'd be better off married.

This warms my heart, in that it proves companionship is a natural, lifelong desire.  DH's Dad had a "girlfriend" in "the home" several years ago.  It put a little spring in his step for the short duration of their romance.  Mom's fantasy of finding an aging Romeo will never reach a 'spring in her step' stage. Even at the care center, there are only a handful of men... none of whom could handle my "handful" of Mother.  

When I finally spoke with the psychiatrist, he said he would recommend Mom be taken back to the care center.  The meds will be monitored and added back slowly if necessary.  She no longer has a "one on one" (patient tech) staying in the room with her, so she would probably be released the next day.  I made arrangements to return the next afternoon to take her back to McVille.

The next day, the discharge went quickly.  The nurse helped me get her dressed in the clothes I'd brought from home.  Mom asked me several times where we were going.  "McVille," I replied each time.  The nurse brought a wheel chair to take her down to my car.  I retrieved the valet parking ticket from my purse and asked Mom to hold onto it for me.  She held it firmly.  When we arrived at the door, the attendant who had parked my car, met us.  I looked at Mom and she handed him the ticket.  As we waited for him to come back with the car, she looked out the large window at the landscaping outside.  She reminisced about helping "put that mulch in." 

G:  Someone helped me.  I can't remember who.

Me:  Probably someone on the grounds department, or facilities.

G:  Yeah... probably.

I wondered if the young nurse bought her story, as she looked outside at the mulch laden beds.  Mom has definitely laid a lot of mulch in her day... though none to my knowledge on hospital grounds.  The car came around and we got loaded and belted up for the 30 minute drive. 

As we drove, she commented on various signs and memories she had.  She talked about Hawkeye Downs and the All Iowa Fair.  My Dad had served on the Fair Board for years.  We passed the Palisades Kepler State Park and several local farms.  She commented on the "new" tractor dealership and the busy intersection just a couple blocks from our house.  I realized it was six weeks almost to the hour from our last trip together down this stretch of highway - when I took her to the care center for the first time.  The golf course, the cemetery where her brother is buried... and finally, Lisbon - her beloved hometown.  I turned right at the second intersection of the highway.  A few blocks later, I turned the car into the cemetery.  We drove slowly and she talked about her best friend, Laura Mae, who died more than 20 years ago.... she saw names she recognized (and even remembered).  We came to my Dad's grave and noted her name on it as well ... across the road from Dad's grave, was my Aunt and Uncle's.  We drove a  little further down the road, past her grandfather's headstone - and further yet, her mother's parents.  Around a couple corners, we drove past my grandparents' graves and then out the other side of the cemetery.  Seven more miles and we came to McVille.  Her demeanor changed slightly, as it had six weeks before. 

G:  I wonder what this town will think of me being here.

Me:  You're not really "in town" Mom - the care center is sort of a community in itself.  It just happens to be in McVille.

I thought about taking a loop through the McVille cemetery where her parents are buried, but decided instead, to drive down Main Street.  She ooh'ed and oh'ed about various businesses and storefronts.  Her family had had a gas station in town here when she was a young girl.  She didn't mention it.  As we turned north to head toward the care center, she turned and looked out the car window and announced, "That's where we lived."

Me:  Where?

G:  Right there. (pointing to a house on a corner)

Me:  Really?  (I slowed down and studied the house.  I think she's right. Somewhere in a corner of my mind, I recall as a child, her pointing that house out to me.  It may have been fifty years ago, but this recollection was far more plausible than her college professor dropping by.)

Me:  I'm glad we came this way.

We arrived at the care center a few minutes later and I parked in the drive outside the entrance.  I told her I'd be right back with a wheel chair.  By the time I found a nurse (90 seconds?) and we went back toward the front door, we spotted Mom, almost to the building.  The nurse set off the alarm in an effort to get to Mom quickly.  She (Mom) wasn't sure what all the fuss was for - but took a seat in the wheel chair in short order.  We took her back to E3.  Ethel sat quietly in her wheel chair.  The nurse continued to "check her back in" taking stats, etc.  I went out to the nurses' station to give them the  paperwork from the hospital.  I talked a few minutes with another nurse and the center administrator.

We discussed medicine and safety.  Per my request, they will have a doctor call me before changing her medicine again and because of her "fall factor" - they will put an alarm on her bed and chair, to sound if she gets up. We talked about the possibility of her not being able to remain there if her confusion worsened again.  The nurse who checked her in said she is much better now (on her med vacation) than she had been last week.  The next couple weeks should give us an idea of how she'll settle back in. 

I titled this episode "The long and winding road" - that song kept going through my mind as we drove back from the hospital yesterday.  The route itself (from the hospital to McVille) is a pretty straight shot (less the detours through graveyards and small town 'Main Streets') - but the journey of the aging process is not a straight path.  It starts at birth and if we are fortunate, spans several decades.  Those first years of life are guided by the loving hands of our parents and the final years, God willing, by the loving hands of our children.  I'm finding this to be harder than raising babies, at least emotionally.  The babies grow up - and someday will experience parenthood themselves. Then they will hopefully understand, that whatever their parents did - it was their best.  It's all any of us can do.

I remember as a child, when asked what I wanted for Christmas or a birthday - responding "a baby brother or sister..."  It's the gift I wish I had gotten. Being an only child gowing up was lonely.  Being an only child as an adult, is as well.

(que music) "Many times I've been alone and many times I've cried, anyway you'll never know the many ways I've tried."

I'll always be the daughter of a woman who "made things happen".  My feelings of helplessness now, leave me tired and sad.  I need to feel in control of something.  So I decided I'm going to take a day of vacation tomorrow to do just that.  I think I'll clean the house.  There's nothing like eliminating soap scum and dust bunnies to empower a person.

So ends Episode 69