The Past Three Weeks

So, in the past three weeks we have had an amazing amount of activity and I am pretty sure Mom is tolerating it better than I.

The end of September brought a trip for me to San Diego and a birthday surprise. Although I am slightly embarrassed about the surprise event, we had a great time at a Britney Spears concert. Pretty hilariously entertaining. It was so good to see friends and have a little time to do some wine tasting and some real shopping too!

The next week Mom and I hosted my old roommates from California. Three girls and two beautiful babies. This is the first time that they have experienced The Land of Enchantment and all of its glory. They were impressed especially with the food and the skies. We did Acoma, Santa Fe and of course, the main event - Balloon Fiesta. They now want to come back with the rest of their families. We had a great time and they were totally enchanted.

The next week we got all of us packed up and made the trek all the way across the country to my cousin's wedding in New Hampshire. So, so beautiful and so, so good to see family and celebrate. The plane rides made me a little nervous, but went surprisingly well. It was hard to be that far away from home, but I know that Mom enjoyed our Duck tour in Boston and the beautiful leaves on the way to Jackson, NH and the little bit of snow we got to see and the fun time with family.

In the midst of all this I continue to work full time and still coordinate Mom's schedule. Not an easy job. So many friends and I can barely fit them all into our schedule. We are still doing the tube feeding about 6 times a day and Mom is needing more intense help with the activities of daily living. Very time consuming. She still loves walking and movies and being with friends - a little bragging, but we have been told that her smiles are biggest for Jeremy, Naomi and me. It is so variable whether she has energy or is feeling well. This makes it difficult to make plans too far into the future. But I am so very thankful for the friends and family who have committed to spending time with Mom regularly. As par for the course, I have been able to share some of my professional expertise as Mom is needing more and more skilled care. It is not easy to take care of some one you love in this way, but I do know that it is so important. We are all going to be there someday and to show this kind of love, especially for a friend, a sister, a mother, a child; this can be such a precious time.

I am back at work today, the last of three, and then we will have four days off together, in Albuquerque, to do what ever we want. We are thinking of swimming at a friend's house and taking a walk to see the sandhill cranes.

A Dad Memory

I came home about two weeks before Dad died. I got to spend so precious time with him, doing what Jeremy and Mom had been doing for years. I took him to radiation treatment, pain doctors, chemo, cooked for him, gave him medications. But my favorite story makes me smile every time I remember.

Mom and Dad had decided to spend time in Colorado at Health Quarters. It is a program that focuses on cleansing the body and attempting to rid the body by only putting in pure nutrients and providing the resources so that the body can fight any and all diseases. The diet was purely raw fruits and vegetables: fresh, home made juices and many different supplements. So when I came home I was amazed at how skinny Dad was. I think it was becoming more of a reality that we were not going to be able to beat the cancer. We were just at the point of finally starting hospice and trying continually control the constant pain.

I had taken Dad to a doctor's appointment and we were on our way home. And I had decided that he was far too thin, not getting any good tasting food and not getting better. He didn't have a large appetite so it was hard to get him to eat large quantities of anything. I decided that he just needed more calories and got him anything that he would eat.

We had just finished an appointment with his pain doctor and were on our way home. I asked Dad if he would like a McDonald's ice cream. He said "No." I offered a couple of times and finally he agreed. We stopped and went through the drive through so we could get home and let him rest as quickly as possible. At the order window, the conversation went like this.

"Welcome to McDonald's, may I take your order?" said the voice over the speaker.
"Yes, I would like one soft serve vanilla cone please."
"One soft serve vanilla cone, is that all you need today?" the voice said.
"Yes...."
"NO WAIT!" Dad interrupted.
"Excuse me?" I said.
"We also need a Whopper and fries!" Dad explained.
"OK," I told the voice. "We also need a Whopper and fries, please."
"You might have to eat the ice cream first." I told Dad.
"That's fine." He told me.

So we got up to the take out window and got Dad an ice cream cone, a Whopper and fries. I was totally surprised that my Dad even knew that McDonald's had W hoppers and that he was so willing to eat it instead of his raw veggies. The ice cream was mostly gone by the time we got home and he ate almost the entire Whopper and fries. So strange, I can count on two hands how many times my parents took us to McDonald's to eat.

I hope this story is as entertaining to read as it is for me to remember. I do love and cherish that these memories are so fun. That was my Dad. Witty, surprising, funny and not at all a junk food man.

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.