Documenting Life: Aging in Place
With Mom moving in this past October it seems natural that my blog will start to reflect this new life. I've decided to take a documentary approach to our life with an aging, ill parent, living in our home; mostly pictures, but in posts too. These posts can be found together with the tag "Aging in Place".
As I was prepping meds for Mom this morning, with the spring sunlight streaming in, I was struck by the image of it.
Sunday Mornings with Mom
This is usually how I start my Sunday, every two weeks. One of her heart medications is taken every other day, so having a two week "set" makes it work best.
This picture represents one of those milestones for an aging person. The point where this becomes difficult to self-manage is a point where phrases like "Assisted Living" and "Adult Foster Care" begin to be heard. It was one of the reasons we moved Mom in, just helping with this task, along with making sure she's taken the meds, already has helped with her falls and lucidity.
We're trying to help Mom to mostly Age in Place, she no longer can be completely independent, but staying with us keeps in with her community, even if that community largely is just CK and I, well and our herd of animal companions. We're planning to investigate some more community resources for helping us to help Mom.
Sunlight on Maple
Spring invites haiku.
Sunlight on maple.
Coral bark blazes alight.
Beckoning to spring.
The view off the deck, March 16, 2013, Portland, Oregon
Ticking Away the Moments
I look back at this blog and realize that two months have whooshed on by. One of those weeks was spent celebrating Mom's 70th birthday in on the Big Island of Hawai'i, which also felt like it went by far too quickly.
It was a bittersweet trip. Mom was delighted to be there, but the rigors of travel exhausted her. Her blood levels fell, in fact we spent the morning at the Kaiser Infusion Center having a transfusion of blood and platelets. The flight home was arduous, with her saying she was hallucinating and constantly fighting with me when I'd remind her that her bag needed to stay under the seat, that she needed to not hold her cane until the plane was on the ground, etc. I feel like we'll never take a big trip with her again. CK thinks maybe we might, but if we're able to bear the cost of first class tickets. Mom's always wanted to go to EPCOT and I'd really hoped she might be able to do some of these things.
Some weeks are better for Mom, but in general she seems afraid of the world and too content to just while away the hours listening to books on tape or watching shows on the Lifetime channel. To me these all seem to be the same story line of families facing challenge that they greet with Faith and are therefore led to a happy ending. Improbable and so narrow, I don't seem my life reflected in these stories at all, that I find them grating. I worry that this consumption of brain-candy stories to be worrisome. When I urge some engagement with her peers, attending some activities at a local senior center, she professes too great a fear of venturing into any group.
Looking back, I think Mom's always had some level of social anxiety and I think she's sabotaged a lot of connections. When you add to that her deteriorating eyesight and the legacy of the emotional and financial abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband's family, I can connect it all to this fear of joining any kind of group. That said, it is hard to watch her passive consumption of mindless entertainment, ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.
When I was younger she at least tried some new things, particularly arts and crafts. She developed some skill, and enjoyed tole-painting, sewing things, some quilting, and a little machine embroidery. All pursuits that the pain in her hands and the failing eyes have taken from her life. I cannot say the same for reading materials and shows, I always remember her with a stack of Harlequin Romance novels and a fondness for movies like An Officer and a Gentleman and Ice Castles.
She resents my prodding, it makes her feel bad about herself. She hurts, profoundly. Her health has never really been well in my lifetime. It is hard to greet pain and keep going, I know this from personal experience. It takes a lot of will to try and keep moving with, and through the pain. I especially know that when the pain increases the fatigue it brings make it even more difficult to stay engaged and moving, however, I know at those times that it vitally important to keep trying.
And yet, she suffers profoundly. Physically, emotionally, mentally, she suffers. Is it wrong for her to hope to ease into death and go to the heaven she imagines in her mind? Is that so wrong for her to want that? Is it just that Dylan Thomas made too deep and lasting an impression on my young mind that I recoil at the thought of pursing, of longing for an easy death?
The other night I shared with CK that I felt like she's just giving up and that it hurts. I felt like both my biological father and my step-dad both just turned toward pleasure, pleasure that was surely killing them, and refused to do the hard work to stay alive and present, part of my life. It hurts a lot to feel like my Mom's doing the same thing.
Watching sunset at Kealakekua Bay - Hawaii - March 2013