Friday, February 14, 2014 

Happy Valentine’s Day! It started with a bang. I had the usual job of getting Lucy, my oldest poodle, down the stairs. Now that her eyesight is limited, she is fearful of descending the steps in the morning. But eventually, she finds her way down. I had let Valentino out for a while. Snow is deep, but the sun is shining. It’s a balmy 30° F. Quite a change. Should be a nice warm day—relatively speaking. Why only yesterday, we awoke to a temp of -1° F.

After checking my email, I washed mom’s place at the counter and the floor under mom’s stool, sanitized the bathroom, then fed the pups. They enjoy their three dollops of yogurt every morning, and I enjoy giving it to them. I then cleared their breakfast dishes. Don’t know when I noticed the pungent odor, but there it was. One of the pups had pooped in the kitchen.

I blamed Valentino. Hard to tell really who did it, but I had to clean his butt a bit. He skulked to the window seat and I stared at him. I didn’t have to say a word. He was chastised, but maybe unsure why. Nonetheless, he is always ready to accept blame. So I ventured outside to see. Had a suspicion that Val was not the culprit. And sure enough, he had already pooped while he was in the yard. It was Lucy, poor aging Lucy, who probably had no clue what she was doing, except that maybe messing the kitchen floor was a whole lot more appetizing (to her at least) than finding a suitable spot in the deep snow.

Do you sense a theme here? Is this karma or just a sad accident. My Cloroxed and Lysoled hands seek shelter. And there’s only more to come. But if I can forgive a sweet senile dog, I can forgive my mother. Back to the bathroom counter, where I noticed that I had missed a smudge of poop earlier.

Later

Awakened mom rather late (11:00 am). She was sleeping so peacefully, but the extra rest meant another cleanup. So I showered her and now she is finishing breakfast. She warned me not to go out in the snow. It’s too dangerous. Once you fall, your whole life will change. I can’t dispute that at all, and she lost many friends from falls. Not immediately of course, but over time, when falls are wont to take their toll. She and her sister Rose had fallen several times in Bayonne. Part of it was Aunt Rose’s serious unsteadiness and her shortened leg. Unfortunately, Rose never fell alone but took my mother along. I only learned of a few of the falls after the fact. Rose was always very secretive about health issues. This flaw nearly cost my mother her life.

One winter, Mom developed pneumonia and was quite ill—unbeknownst to my brother and me. But Rose was stalwart and stubborn and, dare I say, selfish. She wanted to go to Atlantic City on a Thursday and so she dragged my mother to the bus station and off they went. On the way home, both had soiled their underpants. My mother must have been exhausted. I didn’t see my mother until the following Wednesday. She was in horrible shape, slumped over the table. I took her to the doctor immediately, but should have called 911. The doctor was reluctant to hospitalize her, claiming she would become disoriented. To my mind, disoriented is a far better cry than dead. A week later, we hospitalized her; the antibiotics the doctor prescribed had done little good. As a result of the delay in care, mom had had a minor heart attack for which the doctors loaded her up with the usual—beta-blocker, statin, aspirin, you name it. My response, of course, was to pitch everything within a week. She was 94 then. Mom remains totally drug free today at the age of 97. Of course, I don’t recommend this for anyone whose parent is not in generally good health and has, for example, diabetes, or is on medication for a specific disorder. I even stopped the Alzheimer’s medication years ago. I have been told this would have slowed the course of disease. But considering her current mental ability and her advanced age, I don’t think staying on it would have been worth it. It caused nightmares. It wasn’t necessary.

Doctors and nurses we meet are impressed that she is not taking any medication, barring antibiotics for recurring urinary tract infections. Needless to say, I am not popular among some of them. But I make up for the lack of meds with good nutrition, when and where possible. Mom looks great and has gained weight (from 87 lbs to 93 lbs) since she moved here. So arguments with me are fruitless. As a medical writer and editor, I have been privy to many inside arguments used to sell some drugs. Consequently, I am very picky about what I will take or will allow my mother to take.

The pups are quite different. At every provocation, I run to the vet. This is a function of not knowing what’s going on and not being able to communicate sufficiently with them. But our vet understands our dynamic and even now tells his patients about my success with milk thistle to restore my dog’s liver enzymes to normal.

Still Later

Well, mom is watching television once again. She is clean, has had breakfast, can’t go anyplace or sit on the porch, so the entertainment for the day is set up. Rob is outside once again putting the snow blower through its paces. The wind is howling—as it often does here—but the sun is shining. So life isn’t all that bad. Now if I can only get the smell of ammoniated urine out of my nostrils…

 

Later Yet

I gave mom some cookies, and she was delighted as usual. But moments later, she asked for cookies again. I reminded her that she had just had three cookies. So I prepared her lunch plate instead.

Mom always calls me to take her plate. She rarely finishes anything. I am torn between giving her less to eat and therefore wasting less food or giving her what I think is enough food. I don’t want to put too little on her plate. So I load it up in the hopes that she will find enough of something that she will like. Mom used to love green beans; she only tolerates them now, after having been exposed to the limp canned variety that Meals On Wheels had dished out in Bayonne. Mine are always fresh, but memory is what it is and that vegetable is forever banished to the heap of those no longer preferred. She used to dislike sweets, but a taste for sweets has been revived in her like some ancient childlike yearning. Sweet is probably the last remaining active taste on an aging tongue.

One of the nurse assistants I know told me about a patient she had tended who would eat nothing but Shredded Wheat. She ate it cold for breakfast, warm for lunch, and then with a piece of melted cheese for supper. Unimaginable. At least mom will eat almost anything I offer.

Still trying to rid the house of the smell of urine. I just washed part of the kitchen floor with white vinegar (what Rob and I call cleaning vinegar). Smells like a cheap salad in here!