Spider Solitaire

*Momma really loves solitaire. She has for years, and she's very good at it. I encourage her to play it, both (i just returned from helping her reboot the computer) because it is cognitively stimulating, and because it keeps her occupied. (Back from another trip to the computer, this time because a word bubble popped up.) She has her own computer- sort of. One day she tripped over my old laptop, and the screen internally shattered. This made it not very practical as a laptop for me, especially so far as my newspaper work was concerned. However, once it was hooked up to an old monitor we had, it made the perfect momma's solitaire computer. Thank God for Frankenstein electronics (and all)!! *Momma has begun spelling things of late. Random words, and not words get spelled or sung. She'll ask me about the afterword, like "right m?" Sometimes i try to figure out what she's spelling. Sometimes i try to correct her spelling. Sometimes i simply agree with her. i think that at least sometimes there's inherent meaning in the letters, even if they seemingly represent gibberish. Like tonight she was not particularly happy about something i said, and suddenly said "m-a-s-h". Somehow, i think i was sassed or insulted. At the very least it was an expression of displeasure. Still, i plan on calling her doctor to make sure we shouldn't be worried about the change.

It may be time.....

I'm fairly certain that I haven't posted about mom's latest trip to the hospital yet. There are likely a few reasons for this: 1.)I've posted very little about anything lately, and 2.)It is much easier to post about silly, flippant things than about the in depth things tied in to emotion. Still, I'm endeavoring once again to try and post more regularly. This is big news too, so it's likely a good thing to write about. So we started mom on Razydyne. Twice, actually. We've taken mom back off Razydyne. Twice actually. The first time we put her on it (both times actually but it was less scary the second time) she complained of her chest feeling funny about two days in. The day after she began it she complained of chest pain, but bubs figured that it was gas. The next morning she was sitting on her bed saying she felt funny, and pointing to her chest when he asked where. (Do you know the stress by the way, of trying to figure out if someone is sick enough to worry over, when that someone has trouble verbalizing pain and feelings, and often complains of pain regularly.) That afternoon, when he told me she was complaining of her arm hurting, (at some point he told me it was numb as well) I called the doctor, who told me essentially to take her to the closest emergency room. So he drove her to the hospital, and i drove myself to meet them, on rural windy roads, probably faster than i ought. The nursing staff at one of our two county hospitals are wonderful. The one put us in an empty room with chairs and a television, while we waited for the doctor. She thought it might be easier for mom than lying on the bed in the emergency room. Another printed out word finds for her to do, when we mentioned that she loved them. In fact, the entire experience was going really well (so far as an er visit goes) until about the time the doctor walked in. At about that time momma had had it. Her arm was still hurting her very badly, and she was reaching her limit of patience. So when the dr. came in, he had a foreign name and she started mimicking his accent. She wasn't being out of control, she wasn't screaming or running, she wasn't throwing anything or hitting him, she wasn't swearing at him or threatening him, she was simply repeating his name over and over in a mimicked accent. It was rude of her to make fun of him that way, but in her defense she was in a hospital in what was obviously somewhat severe pain after waiting for a while and she. had. had. enough. Given that and her medical condition, i would actually say she was comporting herself rather well. We told her to stop, but the doctor waved us off, leading me to think that perhaps he was understanding. He stopped examining her, and this is where he annoyed me. First, he asked me if we had ever had her worked up for dementia. Now, he could have meant a formal workup, but there is a certain amount of temptation attached to that question to reply thus: "No, you mean she might have dementia? That never occurred to me." Instead, i responded that yes we had taken her to a neurologist, and that was why she was on Namenda (or something like that). He had diagnosed her with Alzheimers. Here he went off on a tangent, how he was a geriatrician and thought she had frontotemporal lobe dementia due to her behavior. He kept harping on the behavior issue, on the fact that there were behavior issues with that type of dementia. And.then.he.offered.me.antipsychotics. If you haven't been reading these blogs right along you may not know my soapbox on antipsychotics. So let me try to only speak on this briefly. Let me get this straight, i know you mean well doctor and i appreciate you telling me that there is nothing serious with my mom, but you are suggesting to me that i give my mother an anti-psychotic, when such drugs have an fda black box warning due to being contraindicated for elderly patients with dementia, due to an increased risk of death, so you are offering me a potentially dangerous drug, to control behavior problems, which were not bad in front of you, and which i had not complained about. Also, he never told me what was wrong with her. Here's the blessing to the story. When i later took her to her doctor (whom i love and whose nursing staff i love) i told her this story. She responded that we knew mom had frontotemporal lobe dementia. (This i hadn't known.) However, this, according to her description, is treated the same way, but declines slower. So this was a really long way of saying that mom doesn't have alzheimers. This is good news. Praise God for good news!!

I have decided to start living on the point system. See, I find myself thinking of all the ways I am deficient. My house is a mess. My finances are far from perfect. My dog has fleas (and sleeps with me). My cats have fleas (and let me know when their litter is too dirty for their taste by making the by the sink their new litter). I oversleep, and fall asleep too early. I daydream on the way to work and suddenly realize I don't really remember the last stretch of road (only did that yesterday actually). My roof just lost several shingles, and they're still sitting in front of my house (a roofer is scheduled, but not until later in the fall/early winter). By some metrics I'm a mess. However, rather than focusing so on the failures I've decided to give credit for the little victories. How many women fail to do this, fail to give themselves credit for the hundred little accomplishments every day? How many of us wander through life trying to meet benchmarks that we or society set for ourselves, and feeling guilty when we don't? I say it's time we implement a point system. So every time I get up early enough to do my devotions, get dressed, and arrive at work on time, at 7 am (is) that's a point. There's a bonus point for actually being completely dressed before arriving at the office (this means not doing my hair or buttoning my clothes when I get there). Every time mom and I both get our teeth brushed, there's two points. It's a point for staying awake long enough to get her all ready for bed and giving her her medicine, without crashing and then waking back up. Bonus points (2) given if the entire bedtime routine is complete (clothes changed, teeth brushed, prayers said, tv programmed to go off). If the litter gets changed, that is totally worth a point. If any kind of housework is done- there's a point. This includes picking up all the garbage left on the kitchen table through the day. This also includes yard work (today I pulled weeds, as my yard could probably have put in a bid as the set of Terra Nova a year or so ago). A point goes for walking the dog. A point for updating this blog. A point for working on my novel. Two points for getting my newspaper articles in by the night before deadline. Now I probably won't actually live by this point system. Even if I did, I know that the points wouldn't really be any credit to me- it would be (and all that I do is) God's grace. (Thanks God! Praise God!). However, it does make me feel a little bit better to think about the little victories. We women do a lot. Maybe we should stop feeling so guilty for the stuff we don't.

The crazy idea edition.....

So several years ago i fell in love. The kind of mad, crazy love that makes you impulsively consider doing things you never thought you would- that was totally me. You toy with marriage, even if it wouldn't be right. You entertain leaps into the unknown which are definitively at odds with logic, practicality, ethics, and finances. You joke, with just a small part of you being serious, about the illegal activities which might remove the barriers keeping you apart. (Or is this just me?)

Of course such love fades over time with distance- it almost has to. It isn't healthy to maintain that level of fervor for long, especially when the situation just doesn't work out Still a smaller, more subdued version of the emotion lingers, where that person burrowed deeply into your heart.



He's eight (nine?) now. When I left he was two. Right before I left he pushed himself to his knees for the first time, and I took it as my going away present. He had cerebral palsy, and for the year and a half I was over there I worked with him closely assisting the nurse with play therapy at the group home in which he lived.



The love was not unrequited. i smile to remember one day when one of the caregivers came up the stairs to tell me that he was screaming, and would calm down for no one. When he saw me he grinned and the crying ceased as if on cue. This may have been more to get him upstairs than to see me, but i like to fancy i had something to do with it.



Of course at the time he was not adoptable. i was 26, had never held a "real" job, was single, and contrary to popular belief living on support is not as lucrative a proposition as people assume, as missionaries often come home more poor than they were when they left (unless there's a secret to church support no one has told me). Still, i joked about taking him home. The caregivers told me to do it; his grandmother would have encouraged it i believe.



For a time thereafter, i thought about it. Someday, i told myself i might adopt him. Reality set in fairly quickly however. Could i handle a special needs child? What if he became a life-long care case? Where was my income?



i hit re-entry shock pretty hard. i entered graduate school very shortly after returning. i inherited by default a home full deterioration and necessary repairs. i struggled to find a job. i became a caregiver.



i began talking to people i knew about adopting him, figuring they would be better caregivers than i anyway but i could still be a part of his life. i cringed at the slightest hint that he was being adopted by someone else, despite being happy at the thought.



Distance bred emotional distance, and i didn't care quite as much anymore.



Then a friend decided they would prayerfully think of adopting him.
Then they became pregnant and unable to pursue the adoption at this time, if ever. The pregnancy is wonderful news, and the fall through totally God's will.



It's reopened some of those crazy thoughts however.



i'm very nearly 33 now. i'm still completely single. Now, however, i have a full-time job with really good benefits at the most family friendly non-profit i could imagine. i still own a deteriorating house, but we're making progress. i'm still a caregiver.



Sometimes, though, i daydream about caregiving for two. Sometimes i know full well that i couldn't take on any more; sometimes feel woefully unequipped for what i have on my plate. There are other times, though, when i wonder if i could do it, if i could at the very least do medical sponsorship.



Don't worry anyone who reads this though- i do know it's a crazy idea.; What's life though if you can't entertain insanity at least a little bit though, at least in your daydreams.