Leveling Out?

I don't know, my experience with Mom in the last couple of days have been not so bad.

Wednesday night, I went over a little before six p.m. to stay with Mom so Dad could attend a meeting at the church. She was alert and calm all night! I pulled out a book of Christmas carols and we sang some of the songs for a little while. She really enjoyed that.

She's been watching a LOT of Turner Classic Movies lately, maybe too much, so she was not upset when I turned the channel to Fox and we watched a couple of episodes of "Two And A Half Men" reruns, in between Celtics basketball pre-game analysis and the game. She only asked me a couple of times what time it was. At eight o'clock, I turned it over to the program I watch, "Survivor," and she didn't mind watching that either. Once and a while, her eyes would get droopy, but she didn't sag down and close her eyes hard like I've seen her do before.

Dad was home before we knew it, and she was still bright and alert when he came in the door. Success!

Today, I didn't get over there until about twelve thirty in the afternoon, and when I drove in, with my weekly garbage in the Jeep, to pick up their garbage and recyclable, Dad's car was out of the garage. When I went in, she was lying on the couch. She seemed a bit distressed.

"Are you okay, Mom?"

"I'm just worried about being alone."

"Do you want me to stay here until Dad gets back? I can always go to the dump later."

"No, that's okay."

"Okay, if you're sure."

So, I gathered their trash and recyclables, loaded the Jeep, said I'd be back in ten minutes, and that's what I did. When I got back, she was still on the couch, and I did their breakfast and lunch dishes, then settled into a chair with a magazine and sat with her while she napped. Dad came home about fifteen minutes later, put away his groceries, then went outside for a little walk. Mom stayed on the couch, I read some more, Dad came home, and went downstairs to look at his emails.

Mom asked me to read to her from some of magazine I was reading, "The Week," so I did, not holding back on the disturbing stories, but she didn't seem to mind hearing them. I made sure to spice the bad news blurbs up with the fluffy news pieces. Dad came up, it was four o'clock, he took his pills, Mom started getting a little restless.

We walked around the table eight times ("I can't do anymore, I need to sit down.")

She asked if it was time to start dinner, we said, no, not yet, so then she said she wanted to sing some Christmas carols. I took out the book again, and with the fire in the wood stove warming us up, we feebly sang a few carols.

Dad told Mom that one of their church friends would come to stay with her Sunday afternoon so he could go sing carols at a few nursing homes with his choir after church (and so that I could go to my weekly Sunday afternoon gig.) She accepted that, with little argument. (Though, we may have a snow storm that afternoon, so the plans are subject to change.)

About four thirty, I put on my coat to leave. Mom and Dad saw me to the door, and she thanked me for coming over. I told her I'd see her tomorrow.

Maria wasn't able to come on Wednesday for Mom's weekly bath because she was sick. She thought she might be able to come tomorrow, Friday. If not, Dad mentioned he might try and give her a bath. Mom said, "you could do that."

Mom seems to understand that Dad and I are trying to do all we can to make things comfortable for her. Though, they both mentioned that neither one of them slept very well last night...

All in all, not too much drama for the last few days, which is good for me, because I've been worried about my friend Terry who has been in recovery this last week from a liver transplant. It was touch and go for a while there, but I spoke with him tonight, and it looks like he'll be released tomorrow at noon.

Finally, a little bit of emotional relief!