Tag Archives: victories

So Mom would probably be mortified if she knew I was revealing this to the world, but it really is something that a lot of caregivers can relate to.

Today, all I wished for was poop.

Mom has a colostomy and after spending a week in the hospital, mainly on a liquid diet, her stoma had “gone asleep” in a manner of speaking. The medical staff warned us it might take a day or two to get things going, but after three days of solid food, Mom was barely outputting any stool. And that in turn was making Mom very sick. (Imagine how you feel when you are really constipated.) I feared another ER visit was in our near future.

But today, angels might as well have sounded from the heavens. Mom had stool in her colostomy bag! Yay for us! Our home care nurse was just as excited, and pointed out how when you are a caregiver, you have to enjoy the small victories in the face of illness.

That’s very true. I remember during Dad’s steady and steep decline into dementia, we would be happy if he was just able to eat, and didn’t have a fall in a day. It’s difficult to believe that one could take pleasure in the face of decline, but if you only focus on the negative, it will swallow your soul whole. I’m the ultimate pessimist, but even I recognize the joy of my mom being regular again. It keeps us out of the hospital, and out of the Grim Reaper’s grasp for a little while longer.