I spent the whole day with Mom at the hospital. We talked a lot about Dad.
Mom has been through so much herself recently, and her memory is spotty, but she has not forgotten Dad’s last day on this earth.
It is interesting to see what the mind chooses to remember. In addition to her crystal clear memory of Dad’s death, she also remembered a bag of walnuts, double-bagged, that she had at home.
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We saw Mom’s surgeon today for a followup visit. I think he’s good at what he does, and I like the fact he’s honest and does not offer false hope.
But there is still that disconnect. Mom had questions about colostomy care, and I could see the doctor shrink back. “Well, we don’t handle any of the colostomy care issues here, there are nurses that handle that.”
Certainly I don’t expect the doctor to be changing bags, but it seems odd that he washes his hands of anything beyond the actual surgical procedure. The doctor creates the need for the extensive and complicated aftercare, but leaves it to strangers to figure out his handiwork.
A similar thing happened with Dad near the end of his life. Doctors who knew little of Dad’s health were prescribing medications without concern for side effects. They would see him once, scribble on a piece of paper and they were done.
This disconnect is nothing new, but when it involves family members, you really feel it.
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I think my mom has officially passed my dad now when it comes to the dreaded roller coaster ride of hospital visits.
Mom was supposed to go home today. Instead, she was diagnosed with another blood clot in her leg and has to have another procedure done.
Today was a mixture of disappointment and giving thanks. After working so hard on recovery, Mom faces an unfortunate setback. But I am thankful that it was caught in time.
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Just like with Dad, I’m once again experiencing the roller coaster ride that comes with illness.
Mom was supposed to go home tomorrow. But now her right leg, the same one with the blood clot issue, has swollen up again, tight and shiny.
Looks like we may be stuck in Roswell longer than we thought.
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I came across a receipt for a book that Dad checked out from the library in July 2010. That was just a few months before he became sick and then went to live in the memory care unit of the assisted care facility. His dementia had progressed quite far by this point; he was wandering and unable to accomplish many simple tasks.
The book was “Children of the West: Family Life on the Frontier” by Cathy Luchetti. Despite the disease progression, he picked a book that was in one of his all-time favorite genres: history. It’s a bit of a relief to know he wasn’t checking out unauthorized biographies on Justin Bieber, ha!
Still, I wonder if he actually read any of the book or if he just looked at the photographs. Did he comprehend any of it at all, or was checking out a book just a vaguely familiar task that he still was able to indulge in? I guess I will never know. I do know he never read at the care center he ended up in, at least that I know of. The staff asked us what his hobbies were, and reading and walking were really the only things we could come up with.
Sadly, the ability to read is stripped from many of those afflicted with dementia. So instead, Dad wandered up and down the hallway of his memory care unit, a man who had lost one of the greatest pleasures of his life.
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Dad was such a packrat. He was like that long before the Alzheimer’s, but it got much worse once the disease progressed.
A Mum’s boy!
I just went through several grocery shopping bags full of Dad’s papers. Most were thrown under the bed, hanging out with the dust bunnies. Most of it was junk mail. There were dozens of cards and letters addressed to family members that were never sent. Lots of address labels that will never be used, and old bank statements.
But tucked deep into some of that junk mail were gems. Like this photo of Dad, as a teenager, with an inscription on the back: “To the sweetest Mum a Son could have. God bless you Mother. From your Loving Son.”
If I had not been very careful and deliberate, if I had rushed and not went through ever page in those bags, gems like this photo would have been lost forever.
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As I have mentioned before, Dad loved the library. I visited the local library today and asked if I could use his card.
The librarian’s face lit up. “Patrick was such a sweet guy.”
I caught her up on Mom’s medical situation and it turns out her Mom had colon cancer as well. Small world! She said her Mom refused to deal with the colostomy bag as well.
She also told me how towards the end, before Dad went to the nursing home, he would sit down at a table and take all of the contents out of his wallet. They would gently encourage him to put everything back.
Dad kept going to the library even when he probably forgot what the place was for.
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There’s a lovely trail near my parents’ condo. Mom and Dad used to walk this trail frequently. It was one of their favorite things to do in Ruidoso.
Yesterday I found myself on the same trail, which overlooks a golf course with a majestic mountain range in the background.
Everyone walking the trail seemed so relaxed. They were out enjoying nature, such a wonderful stress reliever.
I know I will be walking this trail frequently in the weeks to come and I hope it can bring me the same joy. I can feel my Dad’s spirit with every step I take.
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Dad sadly never had a chance to return home. He went from the hospital to the nursing home and then back to the hospital before dying in a skilled nursing facility.
Mom’s ending should be different. I am preparing Mom’s condo for her return. I am a bit nervous about the homecoming and how she and I will manage living together. Of course I am still concerned
about her medical condition as well.
But I am thankful that she is well enough to return home, and that she wants to come back home.
Filed under Memories
With Dad, he was already in the mid-stages of Alzheimer’s when he developed gallstones and had to have major surgery. It was hard to tell if his mental state suffered from the anesthesia and slow recovery period. His “new normal” mental state was already compromised.
With Mom, she was showing a few signs of mental decline, but now it’s hard to know whether it was related to the cancer creeping up on her or actually the beginnings of dementia. Her mental state actually has improved quite a bit, I’d say she’s 80 percent there. She does complain about holes in her memory, especially during the time when she became so ill and through the surgery period when she was in the hospital.
I get an update today on when she will be released home. She wants to go, but her memory of home is fuzzy now. Hopefully, all of the familiar items will bring her comfort once she’s settled back into her “new normal” of a life with a colostomy bag.
And perhaps those glitches in her memory are a protective mechanism. There’s a lot in the last two months that I would like to forget! Maybe Mom is better off with the cloudy memory for now.
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The Memories Project 