I hadn't been up long and only had one cup of coffee in me when Dad announced that we needed to check on Mom, assist her to the potty, get her breakfast ready, and perpare for the visit with the Home Health nurses. So we go back to the bedroom and discover that Mom has already gone to the potty. 2, not just 1. In the bed. In her nightclothes. Leaking out all over the toweling underneath her as well as the sheets and blankets. In fact, she somehow managed to get it all over both of her hands, smeared everywhere.
Cleaning up this sort of job would normally be a nightmare. However, Mom's horrendous attitude made it much, much worse. She was not in her right mind, refused to believe that she had pooped in the bed, was mortified that we were trying to expose her body by taking her clothes off, and fighting us every step of the way. For instance, when I tried to lift her foot off the bed a couple of inches so I could slide her pajama bottoms off, she was firmly pushing her foot
downward, grinding it into the bed to try to prevent my succcess. My parents jointly taught my brother and me not to curse — even mild expletives such as
"Darn!" were prohibited in the household — but this morning, multiple,
"Damn!"s were issuing from my mother's mouth, much to my surprise. Somehow, though all of her fighting and cursing, we managed to wrestle her pajama bottoms off her, remove the heavily-soiled disposable underware, and clean up her front-side the best we could.
When my father tried to get her to roll over so he could clean her backside, she snarled,
"Damn you!" at him with intent that dripped of poison. At one point, she even threatened to kick him so hard it would cripple him again if he touched her. We finally reached an impasse and could get no further with her. I quietly pulled Dad out of the room and told him that we were not going to be able to handle this situation ourselves, and reminded him that the Home Health professionals would know better how to handle it. It was still about an hour before they were scheduled to arrive, and I hated leaving my own mother to wallow in her mess, but we had no choice under the circumstances. I knew that my mother wasn't in her right mind that morning, but her behavior and words hurt just the same.
I met the Home Health nurses on the front porch and apprised them of the situation inside, with much apology. They assured me it was okay and that they would deal with it. At first, Mom was as nasty with them as she had been with Dad and me, but she began to calm down when they started working with her. They finished cleaning up the front of her body and managed to get her rolled over onto her side. She started to get nasty again when they began wiping the poop off her bottom and asked what they thought they were doing. The head nurse calmly told her they were wiping the poop. Mom flatly stated that the poop wasn't hers. The nurse asked her whose poop she thought it was. Mom said it must be
"that other woman's poop," making a reference to the other nurse that was in the room. The nurse assured Mom that it needed to be cleaned off, wherever it came from. So, Mom finally began to cooperate. I had clean sheets handy, as well as clean pillowcases, pajamas, a fresh pair of disposable underwear, clean toweling to put underneath Mom, and a clean blanket. The nurses got Mom off the bed so I could change the linens, then got her situated again.
The head nurse instructed her junior to check Mom's vitals
(blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature, and oxygen level) and nodded to me to leave the room. She followed and we sat down in the den with Dad, who was sitting quietly in his recliner, arms folded across his chest, obviously deep in thought.
The nurse stated the obvious, that this sort of situation could
not continue, and that we needed to seek more intensive care for Mom. Her recommendation was short-term, in-home Hospice care, providing that the doctor approved. She said that the Hospice care would provide for someone to visit five days a week on a regular basis, rather than the two or three days that Home Health professionals would be able to visit. Dad said that we would think about it and let her know. Late in the afternoon, the nurse called and said that the doctor approved her recommendation of Hospice assistance and Dad's decision was the only thing remaining. Had the decision been left to me, I would have agreed immediately.
*sigh*
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."
That is how I am beginning to feel here, dealing with layer-upon-layer of issues... 
© 2008 Sapphire Words @ Blogspot.com
It is simply impossible to continue blogging the highlights of every single day, especially when some days leave me so little free time or so exhausted.
Last night, I washed a few dishes in the sink and setup the coffee pot before going to bed. When I pulled the handle downwards on the kitchen faucet to turn the stream of water off, it would not stop. I played with it for a bit, but there was always a steady stream of water coming out of the nozzle regardless of how the handle was positioned. I finally discovered that if the handle were pushed downwards and held very firmly, the stream of water reduced to a rather steady drip. Being that I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Jury Rigging (courtesy of my father's genes), I took a piece of sewing elastic from my mother's stash, inserted a couple of safety pins to make a tight band, and wrapped it around the faucet's nozzle and handle, making as tight a seal as I could to keep it from running all night.
There once was a boy from Quebec
Went to Wal-Mart in the evening to get BOOST® for Mom, EQUAL® for Dad and me, and duct tape for Dad. Duct tape used to be available only in silver, but nowadays they have blue, red, yellow, green even hot pink! A couple of extra dollars would even give you a roll with a floral print on it! The mind staggers...
For the first time in several days, Mom got up today for more than just a visit to the bedside potty. She allowed Dad and me to escort her to the table where she ate a small bowl of homemade soup with Dad and me. She spent the whole afternoon in the den, first in her recliner and then on the sofa. She ate a little more soup with Dad and me for supper before going off to bed. Wow.
If you examine the enlarged snippet (shown at right) of the main photo, you might catch a glimpse of some white paint on the granite face. As far back as I can remember, high schoolers like to paint the last two digits of their graduation year on the mountain as a teenage prank. Most of the numbers are painted largely enough to be visible from miles away. Examination of the mountain in aerial photos or Google Earth will also easily show the numbers.
appear on Glassy's face thirty-five years ago. 
All day long, Dad thought it was Tuesday and was getting ready for a visit from the Home Health people. Even after I told him it was Monday, not Tuesday, a few hours later he would say, "Since today is Tuesday..." and I would have to remind him again that it was only Monday.
When I checked-in with her later in the day, she thought she needed more time to reach a decision. I, too, agree that decisions are not her forte with her present frame of mind, so I called the oncologist's office and asked that we defer the appointment until a later date when her mental and physical condition are more stable. Whether we ever reach that day remains to be seen.
Dad woke me up just past 7:00 am by coming through the living room to go outside to catch his ride to church. When I saw him in his suit and tie, I told him it was Saturday, not Sunday, catching him by surprise. I guess the stresses of the past few weeks have gotten to him, too, causing him to get the days-of-the-week mixed-up.
Today was a relatively quiet day. Mom was much more docile and cooperative with Dad and me, thankfully. After the day we had yesterday, we definitely needed a more laid-back kind of day through which to recuperate amd recharge.
The Blue Ridge Mountains, a subset of the Appalachian Mountains that stetch from northern Alabama to Maine, pass through the northern portion of the county in which my parents live. As one travels downwards in elevation from the larger mountains into the piedmont region of South Carolina, many smaller, isolated mountains called "monadnocks" dot the landscape. One of the most prominent is Glassy Mountain (elevation 1,647 feet), seen here from atop another, smaller monadnock called — I kid you not — "Tater Hill." The bump on the horizon to the right of Glassy Mountain is Paris Mountain, in Greenville (SC), another monadnock about 20-ish miles away.
We woke up this morning to a drastic change in the weather conditions. This past week, the nights have been in the 50s and a bit chilly outside, but tolerable for stepping outside to smoke, talk on the phone, and peek at the stars. This morning, however, the temperature was still in the 50s but with drizzling rain, a slight breeze, and higher humidity that drove the chill deeper. I stood outside to taste a few puffs of smoke with arms hugging my torso underneath my breasts, legs smushed together to hold in body heat, and ready to dash back inside to my waiting coffee.
Thankfully, today was not so hard a day dealing with Mom as some days have been — at least on a physical level. Her disposable undies were not wet when we woke her this morning, and we managed to get her to the disposable potty to pee and back to the bedside with a relative minimum of effort (it only took about 30 minutes this time! yay!). She drank about seven ounces of apple juice and ate a small dish of banana pudding for breakfast, not the most healthy of breakfast foods, perhaps, but at least she ate something and there was a lot of banana in it. She ate nothing at lunch but was hungry again for an early supper, eating a few bites of pound cake, four bites of baked fish, five bites of stewed apples, and drank another seven ounces of apple juice.
I TXT THERE 4 I M
