Upon being Overwhelmed

Sometimes as I sit here and view the house and land I wonder if there will come a time when I do not feel overwhelmed just looking at it. There is so much to be done here that I suffer defeat in spirit that kills my desire to just jump in and start doing it.

Well, with that said, let's do an update on Lola. She's doing the same. It would be fascinating to be able to track the neural pathways that govern actions. Momma is still throwing things, and sometimes as I walk past and pick up the comb, the pudding cup, the stryofoam drinking glass, I ask her if she had fun throwing them. She looks at me like I'm absolutely crazy and adamantly declares that "I didn't do that."

There's another development with the incontinence that I hadn't expected. I know that she has a dropped bladder which I figured had caused the inability to hold her water. As far as pooping in her pants, I thought that must be because she's simply lost the ability to realize she's doing it. Now, however, she's lost the ability to control the sphincter muscle.

Lately every night has become a nasty battle to get her into clean underwear because about the time I get her stood up and start taking the underwear off, she starts pooping. She doesn't even realize she's doing it. After being caught by surprise the first couple of times, I've now assembled a mass of things to have on hand before I start the nightly change - something to catch it, something for her to sit down on in between steps, more stuff to clean with, etc.

She used to go every couple of days, and it was usually in the middle of the day. I used to think that was bad. This is even worse. Keeping her clean is becoming harder, and I'm using Desitin at a frightful rate. I have to say, I could do without this nightly chore. I guess my nose is becoming a bit inured to it, but still in all, trying to keep the room pleasant for sleeping is getting harder.

Sometimes it's the little things that break your heart. Today I brought her a bowl of soup and crackers for a meal. She looked up at me and said, "I don't think I know how to eat this."

Lola Update 11-07-12

Lola 11-06-12

Mother is doing the same in her new diminished level. She is still throwing everything on the floor - her teeth, her comb, her pudding cups, the Hershey Kisses' wrappers, her drinking glass (with a screw-on top), etc. At least once a day she can't remember how to put her bottom denture back in after I glue it for a meal. When I come with all the stuff required to clean her up due to the incontinence, she asks me what I'm doing. When I say it's time to change her underwear, she asks what that means.

She can barely get up now. A month ago, I was scared of this, but she got better; at least she got better enough to stand up while I changed and cleaned her. Now she can barely stand up, and once up can barely stay up long enough to get the underwear off.

Sigh.  I'm scared it really is time to get a hospital bed and retire her to it. I've discovered I can't move her enough - roll her, etc., to do what's necessary in the chair. I thought I could, but I can't. Egads, that means finding a place to store her bed while the hospital bed is here. It also means coordinating getting one here and set up.

I think I need someone to come and teach how to do this stuff. Max found the Ky. state website about Ky. Health Care. He said the contact for help in Carlisle County was at the Senior Citizens Center in Bardwell. I plan to go over there and see what help I can get. The Ky. website said respite care for caregivers is available and other help, but not all services are offered in all places. Figures. I sure hope I'm wrong, but I fear all Carlisle County will offer will be meals-on-wheels, in-center med checks, food pick-up, and stuff like that.

She wallows her hair into a bird's nest. When I hand her the comb, she knows to comb. However, she gets the front and that's it. The back of her doesn't exist in her mind anymore.

She will still laugh and grin if I manage to say something that hits her funny bone. When she realizes I'm taking a picture, she always wants to smile for the camera.

That's it for the Lola Update.

Lola Update 10-28-12

Here's a quick update on Lola. She's recovered quite a lot from her spell of a week ago; although, she continues to be quite weak both in mind and body. Her balance was affected perhaps, but I can't tell what's a balance problem from what's just being 91, frail, and weak.

She's quite content to simply lay in her chair in the mornings without asking for breakfast or to sit up to watch TV. I have to remind her of these things and do them for her.

Lola Channels Joe

Whoo Boy! Today was a wild ride. Lola has been channeling Joe for the last 24 hours. It's not been pretty. Actually, if it wasn't sad, it would have been downright hilarious.

The short of it is that mother barely slept a wink last night. She was up early and falling. She wouldn't stay in her chair. She talked wild all day long. She hallucinated. She also had 4 BMs in the Depends. She wore me out.

Without going into a exquisite detail of the day, here's the gist. Lola wouldn't go to sleep last night. She kept talking, and talking. The last time I remember looking at the clock, it was 5 a.m. She woke me up at 8:30 a.m. wide awake and chipper. And promptly toppled right over, walker and all.

Lola Update 10-19-12

Lola October 19, 2012

Yay! Here's a quick update to note that Lola is doing much better today. She managed to get to the bathroom and back using her walker. She's sitting up a bit straighter in her chair. She couldn't name the banana pudding I brought her for a snack this evening, but she's had no real problem eating it.

Lola Update 10/18/12

Lola - October 7, 2012

Lola - October 12, 2012

I'm sorry to say that I think Lola had a minor stroke on Sunday night or Monday. She is recovering somewhat, but she isn't in terrific shape. She is in her chair in the living room, and that's where she's been since I got here there on Monday.

She has been very diminished this whole week. She has no paralysis, but is extremely weak. She could barely make it to the bathroom and the chair on Tuesday. At the time I couldn't tell whether it was the usual fugue or anything more. However, she slept most of Monday, which isn't unusual, but when I finally got her up and to the chair on Tuesday, she went right back to sleep.

Lola - October 18, 2012 

Getting her to wake up long enough to eat Monday was a lost cause. I finally got her awake on Tuesday to eat, but she had lost the ability to use utensils and went at her food with her hands mostly. This was bad because I had cooked split pea soup, which we both like (pppffft to all you who hate pea soup), and at that point I didn't realize how compromised she was.

I started to realize how bad off she was and stood back and watched while she tried to eat. She was missing the soup bowl with the spoon and not even realizing it. She turned the plate with her meat and bread on it over on her lap and was totally unaware of it. I got that cleaned up and thought she might be able to handle pudding. I gave it to her, went to clean the kitchen up, and came back. She'd had her fingers in the pudding, smeared it all over her and wasn't aware of it.

She began to recover somewhat on Wednesday, and could feed herself again. However, getting her up and to the bathroom was a no-go. Oy. She slept an awful lot, and has had trouble staying sitting up in her chair. I've had to keep her reclined because I fear she's going to slip right out of it. Julia came by to see how she was doing, and this was the first time that mother couldn't name Julia. She recognized her, but couldn't come up with Julia's name.

Lola didn't want to wake up today, but I finally goaded her into it, and she spent from about 3 to 10 watching TV. I got her bathed, cleaned, and in fresh jammies, and got a good meal down her. She wanted to go to sleep about 10:00 p.m. which is quite unlike her. She had the strength to use the walker to stand while I changed her clothes and bathed her, thank heavens. However, making her way to her bed is beyond her.

I'm divided about whether or not to get her to her bed, but leaning more to simply keeping her in the chair. In her bed I could manage bathing and changing diapers with sheets and rolling techniques. However, I think she's reached the stage that once she hits that bed, she will never get up from up.

The chair is leather, and it's one for the elderly that rises to assist in standing up and also reclines with feet raised. The leather is easy to clean, and the standing assist is fantastic for as long as it's an option. In her chair, she can be raised to sitting - which allows her to engage and watch TV and pushes her to continue.  Also, I can get to her from all sides in the chair.

If she goes to a bed, I think it would have to be a hospital bed. So I'd have to rent a bed. But she'd be out of daily life. I'd have to take a TV in there, but being in bed encourages disengaging from life I feel.

The main members of the family and I have discussed what to do, and we are all agreed that with her expressed wishes, we are to let things happen as they will. There is no need to take her to a hospital to have an MRI which would confirm or not a cerebral event. There is nothing to be done if there was - she's 91, frail, and failing. It's not like rehabilitation is a viable option, so it really doesn't matter whether or not we know what has happened.

If she was mentally competent - thinking and happily engaged with daily events - it would be a different story. However, she hasn't been able to remember since last November that her husband is dead. I haven't been able to talk her into even stepping foot on the front porch, much less sitting outside, in over two years. She has not been aware of her bodily functions, and hasn't even expressed a desire to be changed from urine-soaked adult incontinence underwear in over 6 months.

There's not much else to say.

Cut Rounds, errr, Biscuits, Lola and Max

Another episode of Edwardian Farm has gotten me tickled over the differences in Brit-speak and American-speak. In episode 9, Ruth has gone to quite a lot of trouble learning how to put together a proper Devon cream tea. She's learned how to traditionally make clotted cream (easy), and it has me drooling.

She's also learned how to make the area's Cut Rounds, upon which the clotted cream was served with jam or marmalade. Well, Cut Rounds from Devon are simply American biscuits, buttermilk biscuits to be more precise. Since I've not tasted a cut round, I can't be sure, but from watching them being mixed the only difference I saw was how the rounds are cut.  In England what they call biscuits, we call cookies.

We seem to be having our usual autumn which has become the new normal - from hot summer to cool weather in one week. Used to be we had very hot Augusts, with Septembers becoming cooler, and one could enjoy September and the first part of October. I even remember going Trick or Treating rarely having to wear a coat. In the last 20  years, it's become more normal to go from having to have the A/C on to needing to have the heater on in one week.

Max was in this weekend. We didn't get a lot done. The kitchen got cleaned up, and some groceries were bought. He brought barbecue left from his company's "Employee Appreciation Lunch," and I appreciated it greatly. In the evenings we watched "Tales from the Green Valley."

The yard needs mowing, but the lawn mower is refusing to move. It runs; it just won't go anywhere. Sigh. There's always something, it seems, that needs fixing.

On Friday we had a sump pump attached to the heater and pipes run to pump the condensate over to a proper drain. Joe, bless him, decided to simply knock a hole in the basement floor and let it drip out there. The problem with that is that every time the ground was saturated with water, so was the basement. Now we've just got to plug that hole up, and we might have a dry basement.

Physically, Lola has been doing better lately. She's gotten off her jag of wanting to sleep all day. That makes her steadier on her feet and less shaky getting around. Mentally, she's a mess. I've had to take her trash can away again because she started dumping half-full glasses of juice and water in it. Also, there was a whole stack of prized photographs in it, which I managed to save from a dousing. Now I just have to pick up all the food and candy wrappers she throws on the floor.

She's begun to want to eat her food with her fingers a lot. She has to poke her forefinger in everything on her plate. Then sometimes she picks up her fork and sometimes she doesn't. She's also developed a strange demeanor when I'm in the room with her. She stares in my direction at stomach level and won't speak. She won't look up to see who's in the room with her, and she won't look directly at the person. Other than that, she's carrying on getting up and watching TV all day.

Lola Update 09/27/12

A few words of update on Lola. She seems to be declining a bit more lately. It's getting harder and harder to get her up out of the bed. She has a little hacking cough at times. However, her appetite is as good as ever.

Getting Lola out of the bed is troublesome. She's slipping more and more into simply sleeping. I know that if I weren't here, she'd simply lay in bed until she died. I face a dilemma whenever I go to get her up - it startles her so much to be awakened, and I hate to make her feel that way, yet if I don't force her to get up, she'll get progressively weaker and not be awake long enough to eat enough to nourish her body.

Just Thoughts on Lola and Me

Just wanted to make a post to record some odd thoughts and different things.

Last night, I just let Lola sleep in her chair. She stayed up so late that I thought she'd never give it up. When I finally cried "uncle," - it was after 5 a.m. -  I was fed up with her and didn't want to mess with changing diapers and clothes. So I just covered her with a throw and plopped her chair into full recline, said good night, and left her to it.

Of course, she was up and moving before noon, but I wasn't ready to face the day. I've allowed her to totally screw up my day and night cycle. In the afternoon, when I finally agreed to sit up and acknowledge I would have to live, she had been up and moving. 

Lola Update 9/13/2012

Lola is puttering along just fine. I think I see a bit more of diminishing mind. Lately, she's been unsure how to put her bottom dentures in. After I hand them to her, she frequently asks if she's holding them the right way to put them in. Mostly she is. However, she's more frequently putting her fingers in the denture glue and not realizing how to hold them to avoid messing up the glue or her fingers.

Her ability to communicate with me has been a problem, and I thought it was bad before. It's getting even worse lately. When I wake up in the morning, and she has come into the living room and sat down in her chair, she never ever greets me anymore. She used to do that when I sat up from the sofa and indicated "let's get this day started."

Lola Update 09/04/12

On Sunday I jotted a few notes about things to consider addressing or documenting here. Let's see if I can pull the thread of them together.

As I've said many times, I think the major thing that bothers me the most about my parents' slide into the end of their lives has been their slide into mindlessness. I keep hoping that once this is over that I will gradually forget the hopelessness, anger and stress the caretaker suffers. There are many acquaintances who assure me this is so.

I really do hope so. Because right now I am more or less, depending upon recent events, extremely angry that all humans don't just pop off this mortal coil in one fell swoop but that some lose the vital integrity of their makeup and become either uncontrollable, aggressive animals or mindless hunks of flesh.

With my parents, I've had the sad endurance of both. My dad became extremely aggressive and uncontrollable. My mother has become a body with a bare hint left of the essence of her as a person.

On Saturday, I think it was Saturday, we had a major storm front blow through as a result of Hurricane Issac. Fortunately, most of the harshest parts of the storm passed either to the north or the south of our little town. Unfortunately, if any harsh weather passes to the north of us, our cable provider coughs and dies immediately. Sometime I think all it has to do is look like it's going to rain, and the internet side of our cable service goes tits up.

Weekly Update 8/26/12

Wow. It's nearly the end of August. Maybe one of these years, the summer will end. Ya know, I don't mind blocking out the months of January and February from doing much of anything outside because it's too cold. Normally Max and I block out the last week of July, all of August and the first week of September because it's just too danged hot. Actually, until these last two years, I was pretty much shot for most of the summer, but that's changing.

This year? Whoooee, we've just blocked out the whole dang summer. There was no working up to getting acclimated to hot temps this year. It hit 80 in May, and before we turned around, 90 came down on us, and on 90s tail was 100. The best I can say about this last week is that it hasn't broken 100, although it's come close. For August, though, 90s are the norm. Even as I write at 9:28 p.m. it's 81 F outside. Sheesh.

The garden has been a most spectacular flop. I alternately am angry, sad or laughing about it. I do hope it cools off some in a week or two because I want to till this flop of a garden under and plant garlic, turnips and greens.

Max was in for the weekend. Mostly we didn't do much, but he did manage to get a new light fixture up in the garage so we can see on the other side now. It was almost too hot for him for that. Remember now, he works in IT, and they have to keep the temps really cool to keep their equipment running. So he's not acclimated to the heat this year at all.

On Friday, Ms. Mary Helen called to ask if we thought we'd like chicken pot pie for supper. Well, duh. Of course!  She also said she had a watermelon if she could get some help carrying it. Ms. Mary Helen is 91 and still as sharp as a tack. She came over about 6 p.m with a huge pan of chicken pot pie. It was delicious. She used seasoning sold at Patti's Restaurant up by Kentucky Lake. I'm still trying to suss out the rest of the ingredients because it was fantastic. Thank you, Ms. Mary Helen.

Birthday Wishes and the State of Life

The amount of happy birthday wishes I've received on Facebook has been gobsmacking. Facebook is not a website I visit often. Actually I tend to stay away from it. Yet yesterday notices kept arriving at an amazing pace for people posting happy birthday wishes on my Facebook wall. I was stunned. 

I think something clicked off on birthdays for me after my parents didn't have a birthday wish or a present for me on my 12th birthday. Being a child, still, I was mortified but hungry, and ended up asking for a birthday present. I got one, but it was so tainted that I still remember it with a mixed measure of like (because I got something I really wanted) and dislike because I had to friggin ask for it.

So for Tuesday, I wasn't expecting anything out of the normal for my lala land world. Except that the weekend before Max had made sure I had a birthday present - a Kindle. Yay! Also, except that on Monday Jill called to let me know that Jeanne, her mother and my aunt, had decided she had to come visit her sister, my mother, and they'd be arriving after noon on Tuesday.

Copperhead, Oh, My!

There are certain things I really don't like about living in a fairly rural setting. Snakes sail right up there to the top of the list. This little fellow was on a patio wall no more than 4.5 feet from my window. I think he's a copperhead from the markings; although, his head looked liked aged copper. His markings fit. Won't be doing any wading through the weeds in the garden to get the last of the veggies that may be surviving the strangle.

Beyond Grace and Dignity

Sometimes making a blog post can be a cathartic thing that brings its own solution. After making my original post about Grace and Dignity, something inside of me eased. I've found myself coping much better. It's like throwing a tantrum and then being able to cope with the cause of the tantrum.

After the post, I received a nice comment from a stranger and an email from someone I consider a best friend. Both helped me in totally different but most welcome ways.

It's almost as if making the post blew my coping block to smithereens, and now that its residue has drifted into the wind, there's not much of a problem.

Yay, catharthis!

Ethical Question

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Lola wanted to just stay in bed. After allowing this and just getting her up to eat and clean her body, today I forced her to get up earlier in the day. When she stays in bed, she goes into the fugue. When I force her to get up, she doesn't. When she's in the fugue, getting her to the bathroom is scary with her being so fragile on the way. If I keep her up and moving, she's stronger.

On Tuesday, I gave her Rice Krispies, and for the first time ever, she didn't eat them. She ate a pudding, but not anything else. On Wednesday, she wouldn't eat the Rice Krispies again. I asked her if she wanted tamales, and she did. She ate plenty of them. Another taste change, I suppose. It will take me a while to adjust to it. Hopefully I won't starve her while I'm adjusting. So much for crowing about how she'd now eat anything and everything.

Just wanted to document that on Wednesday, her color wasn't too good. Also, her urine output decreased. That may be because she was asleep so much and not drinking. I've had her up today and forcing more liquids into her.

This brings up one of those ethical questions I so despise in caring for my parents at the end of their lives. In my heart of hearts I feel I could just let my mother lay in that bed, clean her body, and feed her meals, and she'd shortly die. I could also continue to force her to get up and move her body, force liquids into her, and continue to force her to bathroom details, and she'd not die as quickly.

When does keeping someone alive become inhumane?

When does it become inhumane to do everything possible to keep an elderly person alive who couldn't do it on their own, who can't control their bodily functions and who has no place of time and place?

Grace and Dignity

Lola is existing as is normal for her now. She's on a binge of staying in bed until I wake her and force her to get up. When she does finally get up she alternates between madly flipping through magazines and watching TCM. It's amazing.

She can't see diddly, and she flips through the magazines at nearly the speed of light. She's clearly not processing a thing in them; it's something to occupy her hands and mind. Quite a few of the major actors who are her contemporaries have recently died - Andy Griffith, for one. One would think maybe these people would pierce her armor of haze, but they haven't. It's crazy, but you can't help but finding yourself hoping that even if the woman can't remember her own husband is dead that maybe the death of a contemporary movie star might penetrate. Yeah. Crazy. I know. 


Because she sometimes gets up and goes into the living room while I'm in another part of the house, unbeknownst to me, I've taken to putting an incontinence pad in her chair. She gets up and doesn't realize she's in urine soaked clothes. Then she sits in the chair, and the urine gets squished out every where. Now she's taken to shredding the incontinence pads. So that's something to pick up/vacuum up. 


The other day I gave her a large chef's salad and instead of crackers to go with it, I tried putting some croutons on it. Big mistake. She threw croutons north, south, east and west on the floor. No leaving them on the plate. No putting them in the trash. Let's just toss them wherever. 


It is because of all of these things and my inability to handle them well, that I find myself having a terrible problem with treating my mom with grace and dignity. All of us should have grace and dignity. Every human should. 


I find myself being extremely sharp with her. My mouth opens and words pour out, "Thank you for throwing all these soggy croutons on the floor for me to pick up," while my mind is screaming "What the hell are you saying this for? Like she knows what she's doing? You're a bitch for saying these things."

Grace and dignity have fled the building, and I'm madly chasing after them. Please may I catch them.

Lola Update 07/18/12

Lola is just about holding steady. She's been setting into a pattern of going about a week that she gets up on her own and a week of my having to force her to get up. Last week she would have stayed in bed 24/7 if I had let her. The last 2 days, she's gotten up on her own by about 1-2 p.m. The week before, she was up at 7:30 a.m.

I've become used to having to wash a load of pajamas every 2 days. Even with putting 2 depends on her at night, the incontinence has reached a point of wet PJs at least 2 times a day. I have to admit that trying to get her to the bathroom in time to catch the incontinence has failed. I've given up on it. She has no sense of needing to go. Trying to get her to go every 2 hours or so when she's up to prevent accidents became more of a burden than just tending to her in the morning and evening. My sense of when she may need to go is far off. It irritates her when I badger her. It's simply easier to clean up.

Lola Update 07/02/12

There's not a lot to update on Lola. Her condition is about the same. The heatwave has been keeping me inside, and I've been listening to a lot of books via audible.com.

An interesting point for anyone that has someone they're caring for that needs incontinence protection - brand names don't mean better. I'd been buying generic "Depends" for my mother and came across a sale for the real "Depends" at a better price. Thinking brand name means better, I scooped a bunch of them up. Big mistake. Don't go there.

Whereas using generic "Depends" putting Lola into two of them at night contained everything, using two brand name Depends made washing sheets mandatory every time. So before you buy large amounts, test each one.

So as you can guess, Lola has absolutely no toilet control. The best you can do is force her to go to the bathroom and change into dry clothes when she gets up in the morning. Yes, force, because her mind doesn't recognize that she's sitting in what her body has processed. She can stay up later than I can and get up earlier than I can when she's not in a fugue state.

The fugue state takes her by stages/days. For days, she will stay in bed continually unless I force her to get up and come out of her room and eat. Then for days she will stay up until after 1 a.m. and be up and rifling though photographs by 8 a.m.

Mother still recognizes me. It seems that's about all she recognizes, though. She's consistently reached the stage that she does not know what food is on the plate that is set before her. That's a good thing in that idiosyncrasies she had are no longer valid. Like, she wouldn't eat hot chicken before but now scarfs it up. She used to only eat crackers and ice cream, and now she eats whatever is put in front of her. She used to say she couldn't eat salad, and now says it's delicious. It doesn't matter much what I offer, she eats it. A year ago, she was a tyrant regarding what she'd eat.

The best I can say is that I don't know what life would be like if we didn't have cable and the old movie channel. It consumes her. Her mind is gone. She has no clue where the bathroom is or her bedroom is or if she's eaten or not. As long as the TV is on the old movie channel she is captured.

Elder Care Wonder

There's something I wonder about sometimes. The quick is: Is it mean or kindly to let the elderly do things, even difficult things for themselves.

Specifically, it's late right now, and I'm getting my mother to bed. It's our normal bedtime, if not a bit early for her. She's in the bathroom struggling to get out of wet clothes from incontinence and put on clean dry ones.

Of course, I can go in there, order her around, hold the pants, guide her feet into the holes, etc., to help and hurry her along. It would ease her body and certainly quicken things up.

The question is: If you start doing everything for someone, how much do you hasten their inability to do anything for themselves.  My intuition is that you certainly hasten that inability. That's the tack I've been taking with caring for my mother. Yet there's a bit that nags at you; it makes you think that it's kinder to ease the ache by helping.