the bloom of doom

I'm bummed out---feel like garbage....and it's all because a flower is starting to bloom for the very first time in my garden. It doesn't make sense, but I will explain.

No doubt I have mentioned that I have a "Memorial Garden" in my yard--a special area where I have one plant or item to represent everyone I know who has died, that I actually cared about. The center point is a North Star pie cherry tree, for a baby I lost in my fourth month of pregnancy. Under the tree is a nice concrete bench. That's for my brother, Lloyd, who cared more for structures than flowers. On the south side of the bench is a small "dry creek bed" representing Hubert VanSlyke and the property my family bought from them and where Bob and I built our house. The property is prominently marked by a long dry creek bed, (plus, I hit a boulder when I was planting in that area and said, "Hey....Hubert!") Surrrounding these main features are wild flowers for Linda Skaggs a dear friend who died young from an extremely aggresive cancer, peonies for Iliene VanSlyke and Chad's grandmother, a plant that has four-leaf clover-type leaves on it for Jim Sawyer (ISWNE--ashes left in Ireland,) hollyhocks for my Grandma and Grandpa McCleary, (my mother always had to keep the hollyhocks separate at home, so as not to cross pollinate and destroy "the original" Foster flowers), a nicely shaped lilac bush for Barbee and Maude Martin, and, *chuckle*, still looking for a plant that looks similar to marijuana for my Aunt Marilyn...funny family story there. It's probably sacrilege, but I confess, I buried my dog, Shasta, there and planted Shasta Daises, and also...Max....who was an exceptional cat.

Whether my mother was sentimental, or she just liked the whole genealogy, grave hunting, or dead-people-identification and remembrance idea, I don't know. I never asked. But she loved to bring people by just to see it, and have me give them the tour of what plant was for what person and why.

Well, that became a dilemma for me, when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and I had to think about the fact that someday soon, though I hadn't even considered it yet, I would be planting a flower for my Mama.

Best way to jerk myself out of an emotional swoon was to begin to think practically. Obviously, the plant would be her very favorite, the iris. She had (has) every color one would ever want, and delighted in planting even more different ones whenever she had opportunity.

I first thought of bringing a purple iris from their house to remind me of home, (she has them there by the gross), but I decided I would rather get something extra special for Mama....an iris she had never seen, and something that would make her proud and impressed. So, through catalog after catalog, I finally chose what I considered "the perfect iris." I can't remember the name, but it's pink---the color of cotton candy, (she could never have enough), and super-ruffly, like the dresses she always sewed for me and my girls. I thought it was a fine choice.

My next dilemma was when to plant it. Would planting it now be "jumping the gun?" Planting the flower "before the deed was done?" Then again, iris take two years to bloom.after planting. And the truth of the matter was, I wanted to share it with Mom. I wanted her to see what special iris I had picked just for her. So, I thought "Whatever" about whether it was the "right" thing to do or not, and two years ago I planted it. Well....wow. Two years have passed in a blink. And I am shocked to see....it is beginning to bud. As the days pass the bud is getting bigger, and I am getting more and more upset. It's really pretty stupid---it's a plant for heaven's sake. But just like the first time you look at someone's tombstone and say, "Wow. They're really dead," I look at that bud in the Memorial Garden and know, "Wow. She's really going to die!" And it's not going to be so very long from now, either. So this plant has been the cause of much suffering in my heart lately---self-inflicted sorrow, I guess.

At first, when I was passing through the yard and happened to glance at the iris, I saw the bud begin to swell and my bottom lip began to tremble. Now I can almost see the very top where the petal color will soon show and I just want to run out there and tape it shut and say, "No! Don't bloom yet! I'm not ready! I can't do this yet!"

I forced myself to look again tonight and there are now two buds swelling and the plant is healthy and strong. Mom is bound to her wheelchair now and the ground is soft, so I know I can't bring her up to to see it. There's no other way, but for me to wait until it blooms, cut it, and take it to her. And I'm not sure I can do that. To me, it will be like handing her a beautiful flower and saying, "Well, Mom....your flower is blooming in the garden. You can go now." My heart is broken and that darn bud just gets bigger and healthier every day!! Never have a wished a plant to just die, but sometimes I do now. (Of course, that would be painful for me in a different way, too.) Part of me is excited to see if the bloom will be as spectacular as I hope....and part of me wants to be angry, rip it to shreds, and cry.

But what would Mama want? I think she would want me to let it bloom fully, pick it, take it to her, and show her what I have planted for her. Sigh. It may kill me to do it, but that's life----"A time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted."

Heaven must be a wonderful place..... where people do not die!

Will post a photo of the flower soon. :(

Changing of the Guard

Grandchildren Molly, and Eric after coloring Easter eggs while Mom watched.

Well, Christine has been living with Mom and Dad for the past three years and has been an immense help, but in my opinion, she is worn down. She has and continues to help with Mom's care, the cleaning, shopping, organizing, and errand running, but all this time she has been growing up more every time I turn around. Last spring she graduated from college and landed a couple of jobs she absolutely loves---part time at the library at MSSU, and part time with the Joplin Museum Complex. She belongs to more clubs and civic-type groups than I can name and she also has become engaged and looks forward to a wedding next year. She works as many hours as possible, and often stays the night with friends in Joplin after work, rather than driving back down to Mom and Dad's. I understand. It's not a picnic. And she has more than fulfilled anything I could have ever asked her to do, (and she still does.)

But still, Mom and Dad need a lot of help.

Once again the Lord provides and surprise, surprise, my niece, Molly, (Allen's child), who is 20 or so has moved in with them now. They are officially a family of four. Molly is very different from Christine and is a real change of pace. Where Christine is a neat freak who insists that the world be in perfect order and would clean all day if given the opportunity, Molly is much less intense. She enjoys cooking with a variety of herbs and spices, lots of vegetables, and makes cooking combinations that I have never heard of. She will, no doubt, turn Christine's clean counters into space for bowls and bowls of creativity. :) Molly also loves to grow her own food. Boy, does she have opportunity there! She's been digging around all weekend, "turning that place into a real garden" Dad says, and also helping him plant potatoes. She's one of those "organic, vegetarian" types who actually eats food that is good for you and has flavor. Dad has called me a couple of times just today to tell about the wonderful rice, black beans, kale, and who knows what else dishes that Molly is preparing. He says, "It takes her all day, but its the best stuff I've ever had....you just can't stop eating it!" He also raves about Mom eating twice the amount of food since Molly came than she was before. He says, "Molly keeps putting it down her, and she keeps eating it." He's amazed, because getting Mom to eat has been a real stressor for him. And I know when Christine comes home after working long hours, she will be SO happy to have Molly and dinner there when she gets home!

So, Christine will catch a break, Molly will get some land to garden her little heart out, Dad will have company, (and have a garden to be proud of), and Mom will be eating her fiber. It's a win-win-win-win situation. I cannot possibly express the thankfulness (and a little bit of the guilt), I have felt with both girls stepping up to the plate and offering their best skills for their grandparents. You can't force a kid to do that, and I am so very proud of them both! Thank you, Sweeties!!! I don't know what Mom knows and doesn't know, but I am confident that if she sees (or could see) and understands (or could understand), she would be the proudest grandma on Earth!

a chair....with wheels

When I mentioned the idea of a "wheelchair" to Dad he ducked his head and said they didn't need it. Somehow the idea of Mom in a wheelchair just seemed like one more step down the ladder, I guess. Still, Mom twists her ankle and "melts" into the floor often. She also loses her balance and is quite weak. She's been using the dining room chairs for the same purpose as a wheelchair, to scoot from here to there so she doesn't have to get up. It's painful to watch, though, because she moves about a half inch with each effort.

Dad absolutely can't take her anywhere, so I told him I'd check into a chair "just to get from point A to point B....a chair....with wheels." I met a great lady at the elderly appliances store who did all the Medicare paperwork and had the "transport chair" ready at no cost and no pain to us. The disease is bad enough, but to have to deal with Medicare, too, would be unliveable. Anyway, after this angel of mercy's quick tour we decided a transport chair would be the best choice. I have learned that a "transport chair" is exactly that---not to be wheeled around by the owner, but just with four small wheels to be pushed around. It folds up in a snap, has foot rests that easily pop on and off, is only 31 1/2" across at its widest point, and weighs nearly nothing. And it's in candy-apple red! ZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!! ZZZZZZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

I took it down to my doubting father and we put her in there for a spin. She acted like she it was Christmas morning. Much like a little one in a walker, she easily learned to push herself backwards and with a little practice can go forwards as well, and turn a 360! Although she gets hung up cutting corners too close sometmes, she smiled and smiled and smiled! That made all the difference in Dad's opinion and he has been fine with it ever since. He thinks she gets more exercise now than she did before she had it because she is always scooting around the house. One morning she got all the way out of bed and into her chair before Dad even noticed!

Of course, we get her up and have her walk often, but that can be kind of a big deal. If she wants out, she'll help herself out, but if she doesn't, she won't try at all and is dead weight. She really likes the chair! Now I need to build a ramp. It was nice to be able to wheel her outside to sit in the yard the other day in the sunny, wonderful weather, but on the way back in, she lost her footing on the step and sank to her knees. It was quite the trick getting her back up again and took both Dad and Allen lifting and me holding the door to do it! Anyway, she now has a wheelchair, and it has made her more mobile and happy than she has been in some time. Yeah!

after Christmas

I haven't written because I've been mad about deleting a video of Mom at Christmas before I got it posted here or saved. I have it on Facebook, but don't know how to get it from there to there. I've been aggravated.

Mom at Christmas

As you can see, she was very smiley and happy. Just as we did last year, my kids and I spent the night with Mom and Dad Christmas Eve. We put up a tree that night and Mom helped decorate it. She just smiled and smiled.

over-medicated

My job location has been moved an hour away just this month, which of course stinks from the view of cost and time wasted, but does give me plenty of time to call Dad every day and share the day's information. What can we think to talk about every day? Plenty. The dozen wild turkeys I saw on the way to work invoked a discussion of turkeys past and turkeys future and every thought either of us had had on the topic, while the finding of a calf that was missing for a day was a fifteen minute discussion beginning with the wheres and whens and ending with, "I remember when...." most often followed by hearty laughter. Dad is so funny when he tells a story!

One day's topic, however, was that of medication panic. Dad had received a letter from Mom's doctor that Dr. Yuhas would not accept whatever kind of Medicare dad had going on with her. Dad was extremely tense about the whole situation and was upset fretting that now he was going to have to find Mom a new doctor, and he'd want to run all these tests, and the cause of the most anxiety: he couldn't get Mom's prescriptions filled. Long story short, I fixed the problem with one phone call and Dad acted like I had performed a miracle second only to the parting of the Red Sea.

But it did give me a chance to ask, however, "What kind of medication could Mom possibly need?" Thus began the list. He said, "She has a pill for cholesterol" to which I said, "She's weighs around 125 pounds, how high can her cholesterol be?" Then there was "She has thyroid medication" to which I wondered, "What happens if a person's thyroid is messed up?" The kicker was the "She has to have her estrogen pills." I said, "Estrogen pills? Why would she need estrogen pills, for heaven's sake?" And then he said it....."She has to have those estrogen pills or she'll act crazy." I paused to consider if I had heard correctly before I said, "Not meaning to be rude here, Dad, but how much crazier can she act?" He thought for a second and said he guessed I was right. I shook my head and smirked. I talked with him about, "What is the goal of Mom's medication?" If it gives her some comfort or lessens her anxiety, sure, I understand that. But if it just prolongs her life.....is that really what we're trying to do here? He guessed not and sighed. The medication issue starts the whole day off on the wrong foot with Dad thinking Mom must have her pills or the sky will fall, and Mom refusing to swallow them, instead spitting them out and hiding them in peculiar places. It ends up being a major daily battle and Dad's nerves are shot at the end of the ordeal. I thought, "Why is he doing this?" I called the nurse. She agreed with me that we should continue to try to get as much calcium in her system as possible, (she does fall on occasion), and suggested we keep her on some sort of nerve pill, that she's been on for quite a while, since she used to get scared when she was hallucinating. Other than that, although she couldn't really say that the other pills were unnecessary, she did state, "I can see why you would want to do this. If it was my parent, I would probably do the same." I took that as an affirmation that was enough to get Dad to calm down about it. Dad is old school, of course. He firmly believes that the doctor is always right and to veer off course of his orders would be certain ruin. I introduced the idea that one could tell a doctor, "I would rather do something else" or "I don't think that's that would be the best idea for me because...." It was a foreign idea. Thankfully for him, he has good doctor and the nurse is fantastic. She spent 20 minutes on the phone with me answering every question and talking about Mom as though she saw her every day. In a world of ineptness, I am happy to say, this nurse is not a participant!

worth 1,000 words

I had to include these two photos of my brother, Allen (Joel), and my mom the last time he came to visit. I think they show exactly the emotions we are having right now. The second photo demonstrates, I think, the feeling of anxiousness. What is she thinking? What is she feeling? What can I do?

The top one speaks of helplessness sometimes, and complete boredom the next. Not that we're bored of Mom, certainly, but we are getting bored with Alzheimer's--the slow regression that it is taking Mom through. We are bored watching the disease take its course, bored with the weight loss, bored with the lack of expression, bored with the continual trying to think what we can do to help her, and bored that the answer is "nothing."

The picture of Mom is just what it is. I think she is bored with it all, too! :) There is no such thing as pointing a camera at her and saying, "Smile." She smiles when she feels like it and she doesn't when she doesn't. Ah, to have that freedom ourselves! :)