Up & Down

Life is exhausting. We get up in the morning, shower, brush our teeth, eat breakfast, take medicine, read the newspaper and this is all before our day even starts. Then we work and socialize and eat again. Maybe exercise, a little TV, sweep the floor and go to bed to do it all again in the morning. And then in addition to the "regular" life, we add parties and people, grocery shopping, trips, endless odd errands and so on. Busy.

Yesterday, Mom woke me up at about 2:30 in the morning. Still not sure what the root cause of the problem was, but I got her cleaned up and into my bed by about 3:30. Slept for another two interrupted hours and then got up to go to work. After I got out of the shower, I found Mom in her bathroom and she was just not doing well. Very flat affect, unable to answer any questions, and not directed in what she wanted herself. Lots and lots of saliva, which in turn causes lots of choking and she was needing suctioning and having a hard time breathing. So, I ended up not going to work. I just needed to be with Mom. It was a rough day. In the afternoon, we finally asked Mom if she was having any pain. "Yes, Yes, Yes." Where is your pain? She pointed to her chest. Not what she usually points to. Usually it is her feeding tube insertion site. Little more nervous. We gave her some oxygen and some morphine. I am not sure if it was just not feeling well or the morphine, but she was soon stumbling around the house. This is not something we normally have to deal with. So, finally, I was able to get her into bed, and because she was still so unsteady I decided to sleep with her, for fear that she might get up and fall.

We did wake up twice in the night to go to the bathroom and each time it was very hard to focus on the main objective of the awakening. Then we were up at 6:30 this morning getting ready for the day. Feeding, showering and then off to fix her tooth that she broke the morning before. (She bit her yanker so hard she cracked her cap off.) But now she is ready for Halloween with her golden pirate's tooth. It is now evening and we are doing a little better, but it remains very hard to focus on anything. She just keeps wandering around and around the house.

Day by day. Up and down. Round and round. Good and bad. We take each day as it comes and try and try to find the best and the precious moments. Right now Mom is sitting behind me on the couch and rubbing my back. She is usually the one to get her back scratched - her favorite thing in the world.