Hard Day's Night

Boy, last night was a hard one. And this morning doesn't seem any better. I just keep messing up and then Mary suffers the consequences. Well, and when Mary suffers, so do I.

I didn't tend to her cyst properly, so Wednesday night she began to be in pain from it--her thumb and first two fingers felt like they were falling asleep and then they actually began hurting her. I gave her two baby aspirin. Nothing. An hour later and ibuprofen. Nothing. An hour later a Darvocet. Nothing. I was alternating heat and cold, rubbing it with peppermint oil and aspercream. Nothing. After about four hours, it stopped. I kept offering to take her to the hospital--because I was at my wit's end--but she didn't want to go. And I have to say I am totally embarrassed about my behavior. I was so frustrated. I didn't know what to do. And she couldn't remember what I'd told her or that she'd told me it hurt. To constantly hear the same complaints and questions and give the same information...it was driving me crazy. Plus, there was the guilt that I hadn't been tending to the cyst...

Thursday morning (Thanksgiving Day) it started again. I got her all ready to go to the hospital, but she had to use the potty first. Afterwards, she suddenly felt better. Go figure. I turned on the Parade and she watched it quite intently and everything was fine. For her, but I was a wreck. I'd gotten up extra early to start the rolls and had a pumpkin pie to bake as well as some other smaller things I said I'd bring to Mom's. The pie had half an hour to go when she started complaining and my roll dough desperately needed to be worked on. So I had a major heart attack and then...nothing, everything was fine. Not that I blame her. I was glad. I was overjoyed. I don't want her to be in pain. Well, we eventually got over to Mom's, but it was much, much later than I’d intended. Mom ended up getting so looped that she couldn’t see straight and some of the dinner didn’t turn out right, because she wasn’t with it enough to tell us how to finish it. That was a major disappointment because, well, that’s what the holiday is all about–the dinner! Also, Mom was so sick, she couldn’t eat, and that was a crying shame. Plus, she was really embarrassed. Oh, well.

Fritz and Robin brought a puppy with them–it looks just exactly like a miniature version of Fred’s Australian Shepherd Chips. The puppy (Haas) has blue eyes just like Chips, too. And an adorable personality. A little shy but quite docile and wanting to please. He sat on Mary’s lap a long time and I half hoped she’d take it home as Robin wanted to get rid of it. (They’ve got numerous animals at home, who all spend their days locked in cages in the basement.) She ended up leaving the puppy with Mom and let me tell you, Mom is tickled. She has a new light in her life. I thought Dad would ignore Simba but the puppy seems to adore Simba and gives him tons of attention–much to Simba’s chagrin! So everything seems to have worked out well there. Well, except that Mom is constantly afraid that the puppy with jump into her big pond (if he doesn’t slip through the fence and escape) and so has to watch him like a hawk.

Ok, so the next day Mary was alright. No problems. Saturday we were supposed to go visit Angie. (It turns out that she did have a little stroke while she was here, but she's alright now.) However, Mary was so tired, she went back to bed at noon. She had a big bowel movement first, and I think she hadn’t had one on Friday, so that may have been the cause of the fatigue.

Yesterday started out bizarre with Mary getting heart burn almost as soon as we got up–at around 10:30. She just had almost a whole piece of cake. I talked to a friend from Lexington, and she seemed...well, I felt like she thought I was neglecting her. We watched All About Eve because I have to get it back to the library. Well, I watched it. Mary slept through most of it. When it was finished, her hand suddenly started hurting. I hadn’t been attending to it properly! I had taken the wrap off to put heat on it this morning and then forgotten to put it back on. Well, she was in such pain, that she was sweating, so we decided to go to the hospital. I got her in the car and suddenly it was ok. Boy, was I happy to hear that! So I gathered some books I had to return to the library and a cake I wanted to give to Mom (a strange Smearcase Cake recipe I’d wanted to try out since the aunts are always talking about Smearcase and it sounded like it might be close to the Cheese Kuchen we got at Patterson’s Bakery growing up–oh, how I’d give my eye teeth to find out what happened to those recipes). When we stopped at Mom’s, she asked if we’d like to come in and Mary readily, surprisingly, agreed. So we had dinner with Mom and Dad. I was so glad not to have to cook!

We stopped at Walgreens on the way home and I got some Aleve, which my sister-in-law Jan said was the best OTC anti-inflammatory as well as a self-adhering ace bandage, since we have so many problems with her ace bandage (it’s too long and the metal clips keep coming off). When we got home, Mary didn’t want to go to sleep. Of course not, she’d slept all day! After she was in bed a bit, about two seconds after she’d been snoring, she called out my name. Quite softly. If I hadn’t still been awake, I don’t think I’d have heard it. She had that pain in her stomach. Of course, I’d missed her Protonix pill that day! Argh! So I gave her a piece of cheese and lay down next to her while she ate. She enjoyed the cheese immensely. It tasted really good to her. Eventually, she started to snore, so I got up. About an hour later, she had heart burn. I gave her some Mylanta and everything seemed alright. A few hours later, she had heart burn again. I gave her more Mylanta and her Protonix pill. I lay down beside her till she started snoring and adjusted her bed so that she was sitting up more before heading back to my own bed. This morning she was so shaky she could barely make it to the bathroom or wipe herself. She had diarrhea quite badly, so I gave her some Immodium.
That poor baby, she’s had so many drugs poured into her. But I’ve made a major attitude adjustment, so at least she’s getting lots of "tea and sympathy." She said yesterday that she didn’t want to "be this way." In other words, she felt like she was being a pain by being in so much pain. Ridiculous!

She has more and more problems not know where she is in the night or even in the morning. Even if she seems to understand that this is her house on McDeane, she still wants to go home to her sisters and brother. She can’t explain what she means. She doesn’t mean heaven. This drives me crazy because it’s so incomprehensible. So outside of reality. The night before last she was lying in bed moaning and when I went in, she said she thought she was going crazy. She couldn’t explain why or how. I crawled in bed next to her and she eventually calmed down and went to sleep. I keep joking with her that she puts out so much heat, she out to get hooked up with the electric company! I think it’s cute that she likes it when I get in bed with her. Unfortunately, her bed is far too small for two people. Her snoring always sends me back to my own bed anyway.

Well, it’s getting late. I need to get her up. Oh, another big mistake of mine–I didn’t order her Forteo refill in time. I could have sworn that the lady at Caremark had told me that I didn’t have to call in a refill. I remember asking and being so surprised and relieved that I didn’t have to call. But I wasn’t sure, so I had been intending to call for at least a week or two. But I always put it off. It was too early, I had to get Mary up and then...I just forgot. I wrote it on the fridge...didn’t help. I didn’t want to call. Why? Why am I like that? So I put it off till it was too late. I used the injection pen two or three days longer than I was supposed to, but I’m afraid to continue. It looks like it still has medicine in it, but they’re so adamant about throwing it away after 30 days... Well, the next shipment is supposed to come tomorrow. Surely it won’t hurt her too much to skip a day or two.

And one more thing...I promised Gina that we’d come the first weekend in December. I know she is really looking forward to it, and so are Mom and I, but Mary is really refusing to go. And I understand completely. I don’t really want to take her. I feel horrible about taking her. I know she wants to stay home. She was carrying on this morning about not going anywhere again–since she didn’t think she was at home. But isn’t it good for her to go and do things? I know she enjoys parts of it. If she never goes out anymore, what’s the use of continuing to live? Sometimes I’m afraid that Mary will never want to give up living. I worry about how to get her teeth brushed when she shakes so much that she can’t hold the brush. How to get her on the potty when she can’t get up. I can do it a little while, but I’d break my back doing it constantly. How to deal with it if she can’t remember who I am.

Angie

Angie was here yesterday. Mary and I went to get her so she could watch a Jeannette MacDonald (Love Me Tonight, 1932) movie with us. Then we made chicken pot pie. It was funny how much things have changed since a year ago. I generally feel so much more relaxed, don't lose my cool as quickly. Ange wanted to stay out of the cooking (I know, I've made it quite clear before that her way is not my way), and I wanted her to tell me what to do. I've never made chicken pot pie, but I admit that I have my ideas about how it should turn out based on my mom's. Well, I knew Angie's would be different, but I really wanted to do it her way. I told her that I knew I'd had a different attitude in the past but that I was trying not to be so close-minded and maybe I might learn something.

After dinner I asked Angie to let us know when she wanted to go home, and she said anytime but to go ahead and give Mary her cup of coffee (which she always has after dinner). I made Mary's coffee and offered her a cinnamon treat (you know, made with pie dough). Then I turned to offer Angie one and she was sitting with her head slumped. At first, I thought she'd gone to sleep but then I saw her eyes were still open and I thought she was dead. I kept asking her, "Angie, Angie, are you alright? What's wrong?" Her head rolled a bit, so I knew she was still alive. She tried to speak but couldn't and her eyes were all glazed over looking. I was freaking out, as you can imagine. I guess I should have just called 911 right then. But you always wonder if it's enough of an emergency. How stupid! Next time I'll just call. Anyway, I thought she must have had a stroke or heat attack and got a baby aspirin. She was trying to talk but couldn't move her lips. I tried to get the pill in her mought but couldn't. I kept trying to get her to talk to me--to keep her conscious. She seemed to get better and managed to swallow the pill--quite surprising since she swears she can't take pills. She got better and better in a matter of seconds. She was really hot and was sweating profusely. I couldn't find the phone. I told her I'd call her daughter Patty. I called Mom instead. She didn't know what to do either and said to call Pat, which I did. She said she'd be over. It seemed to take forever for her to get there. By that time, Angie seemed fine but she said she was very weak, especially on the left side. I could tell that Pat wasn't taking it seriously. She tried to blame everything going dark on Angie's macular degeneration--give me a break! She said she'd had a lot of spells lately. But Ange said she'd never experienced this. Pat left it up to Angie whether she should go to the hospital. Ange had thought Pat would have called her doctor at home, but Pat had no intention of doing such a thing. Angie said she wanted to go to the hospital--because if it was a strok or heart attack they always say you can help the person a lot by treating them within 3 hours. Pat agreed to but I just wonder whether she and her husband Bud didn't talk Angie out of it when they got her in the car. We called Angie's house last night but no one answered. We'll see today what happened. Angie said that things had been getting dark since she'd come into the living room and started eating her dinner. She never said a word and laughed at the program and talked with us. Maybe it was just her blood pressure. Mom joked that it was the shock of my wanting her advice on cooking that did it to her.