Prune Abuse and Rock 'N Roll

Thursday, Feb 25, 2010.

I awoke this morning to an orange tinted toilet seat. It looked clean, but it was definitely orange. Hmmm. Odd. Nothing a little hard bleach job couldn't handle.

Wished B a good morning and gave her her pills, Earl was still at the bank having coffee. She thanked me and said she had some other good pills in the cabinet, her fiber laxatives, but that they hadn't been working so well for her lately. She confessed she had had an accident in the wee hours last night. Not from the fiber laxatives, which apparently don't work well enough, but from her old nemesis, PRUNES (insert unhappy face here). And so I had naively thought that she was really over prunes, they are never her friend, but the battle of staying thin rages on even in Alzheimer's-land. Prunes the weapon of choice this time, her body ever the battlefield.

She confessed that she had intentionally abused them, and that this was not the first time. Believe me I know it wasn't the first time. There was a time, before the Depends that this was a weekly if not nightly occurrence, and she would creep into my room bare assed, save the turtleneck (obviously), looking for clean pants. Thank god those days are behind us. So yes, I have had to deal with many a laxative abuse disaster. They are messy. They are NOT fun. You are all very very lucky that I wasn't documenting these great adventures for everyone back in the days before Depends. You would have asked me to stop writing.

Somehow even with the Depends, last night's events proved explosive. She said she messed the whole bathroom (often we get a splatter effect all the way over onto the tub somehow... don't ask, that bathroom is like the Mystery Spot of fecal matter, no laws of nature apply). I told her she should have gotten me up to help her out, but she is stubborn and was embarrassed (understandably) and didn't want anyone to know. I am still boggled as to why she told me any of this after going through the painstaking efforts to hide it all. Oh sweet dementia. Somehow she had managed to "clean" this one up on her own without waking either Earl or me, she said she even scrubbed the carpet with carpet cleaner! Christ, it must have taken her all night. She can barely get on or off the couch, lord knows how she got down on her knees to scrub the carpet. The carpet was spotless this morning! Just WOW.

Anyways... after she spilled me her secrets, I asked her to play me a song on the "fun machine" (electric organ) to show me the ropes. This lifted her spirits considerably. She started playing "I Don't Know Who Holds Tomorrow" (a catchy, albeit churchy kinda hymn) from sheet music, and was playing pretty well considering her gnarled arthritic fingers. Earl came home while she was toying around and sang a bit for us. He has an AWESOME deep old-man voice, and I am trying to convince him that the three of us should start a band (I am also trying to convince him to go skydiving with me for his 86th birthday, which he seriously considered, with a big ol' grin, for about five whole minutes... then shut me down... *sigh*... baby steps). Tomorrow, if BB can remember stuff, I get my first organ lesson, peddling some sweet synth outa that fun machine. ROCK OUT!!!

Back at the Ponderosa...

Wednesday, Feb 24, 2010.

Well today was brighter. No poop to clean, no fires to put out, and no meltdowns! I can only call that success. It was sunny out finally, after all this bummer winter weather, and I went out to the farm to paint. B was doing a lot better this morning, she actually knew that we were watching Gunsmoke while we were watching Gunsmoke, and knew that Bonanza would be on next. This is the telltale mark of a good day. You know, she can forget my name, or her children's names (or that they are all still alive, which is pretty common) and I'm totally used to it, but when she forgets who Festus and Little Joe are I just start to lose hope.

Before I left for the day I showed her a picture of Avery cooking brownies that Aunt Becky had emailed me. She clung to my computer with both hands for no less then ten minutes and I was afraid I'd never get it back again to show Earl. She had a great time talking about Tyler and Aves and kept saying how much she wished she lived closer to them so she could see them and Leta more often and maybe even get the chance to see Aunt Becky again. She was happier lost for a moment in that one single thought than I've seen her in more than a month.

She tried to eat dinner but said she couldn't chew it. Earl gummed it down no problem and he is missing more teeth than she is right now. So much for gourmet cooking, when you can have fudgesicles instead. Hmph! We watched "The Diary of Anne Frank" on the classic movie channel and B just couldn't follow what the plot was about throughout the entire movie. "Do ya'll know what's going on here?" "Well, B, these guys are hiding from Nazis and they cant leave the house, the whole movie is like this, they're in hiding." What a tough one to sell. We kept getting this question over and over and over again. "Ya'll following this?!"... "THEY'RE HIDING. FROM NAZIS. THEY CANT LEAVE THE HOUSE!!!" "Oh, ok"... "What's going on here?!" "THEY'RE HIDING FROM NAZIS!!!" "Oh, alright"... "Why are they hiding again?"... and so on and so forth, into echoing delirium.

Earl is a bit under the weather right now, has a nasty cough thanks to some infected visitors, and side note people: DON'T VISIT OLD FOLKS (OR ME) IF YOU'RE SICK!!! But he's acting the mighty tough guy as always. Says he's fine. I keep making him my spicy ginger honey tea and he says "it's kicking its ass." So far BB and I are immune to this plague, but I already decided that I wasn't getting sick, and that usually works for me. Mind over matter, I'm just cool like that.

The Growler

Monday, Feb 22, 2010.

Haven't written in a few days, mostly because its been the same sort of stuff around here. Was holding out for something less depressing but hey, you get what you get here. B has been pretty out of it still. Earl made the comment to me the other day that it seems like we get just one "good day" with her a week, no matter how we try, and he is pretty right on this assessment. She has been so out of it lately. Not remembering what we are watching/talking about/doing, while we are currently engaged in it, and reverting to those nasty behaviors that I thought she had lost long ago with her memory.

She has started GROWLING again. Growling to herself when she is frustrated, or more often growling at us in even the slightest opposition. I caught her the other day (when she thought I was in the other room) growling so nasty at Earl when he had asked her, and kindly so, to try not to use her fingers for cutting and serving pineapple upside down cake (we lost the previous cake to a savage late night finger banging). It was almost like witnessing a demonic possession and I can only describe the actual sound to be like that of a rabid wild animal mad with rage and ready to attack. I know I make jokes here, to ease the tension, but sadly this is not one of them.

I had almost forgotten how she used to growl in her heyday. The Alzheimer's changes behavioral patterns and I had thought for a while the disease was almost a blessing, because, in it, I thought she had forgotten how to be miserable and nasty (which I say lovingly and honestly because we have all shared those moments with her at different times). BB can get N A S T Y. Needless to say when I touched her shoulder immediately after this hellish growl and asked her to "think positive" and not act so mean, she became embarrassed she had been caught in such behavior, that was clearly and only intended for Earl, and was sweet as pie to me and to him.

In other news, she had spent the last few days NOT using the walker, even when reminded, and is still pretty slow and frail, so I was watching her movement like a hawk, hoping I might catch her if she fell. I have since noticed another shift in her mobility. Getting off the couch has been visibly difficult for her, but lately it has become this ordeal, this battle against physics. She has to push herself up to get off the couch, like a rocket or a spring. It takes her about three tries to get a good blast off, and when she does get on her legs it is rocky. A lot of the time she falls right back onto the couch. Sitting down, has also become less fluid in motion. She now bends her knees slightly, points her butt in the direction of the couch, points it out as far as she can. Then, once she has no doubt judged the distance and path of trajectory, FALLS into her seat. When I say fall I mean she commits to this fall. She should just cover her eyes because it is clearly a gamble. There were many times I watched this this weekend holding my breath and crossing my fingers she'd hit the couch and not the floor. There were a couple of close half butt on couch landings but so far so good.

Today, she used her walker all day so that was a relief. And she liked dinner and actually ate it all for once, but it was homemade chicken and dumplings so she would have really been crazy not to. Yesterday she HAD TO have lasagna. We had no lasagna. She reminded me Pizza Hut had lasagna, she had seen it on tv. And couldn't figure why we couldn't have lasagna. She has no patience at this point and when she wants something she wants it NOW, like a spoiled child. And so I went to get lasagna, despite having dinner underway. Got home, she had one bite of the lasagna, and said she couldn't figure out why I hadn't got enchiladas like she had asked for.

*Sigh*... I think I'm ready for one of those good days each week that Earl keeps reminding me about.

No More Dr. Appointments For A Little While...YEA!!!

Thursday, Feb 18, 2010.

Took B back to Dr. Joplin this morning as scheduled. She was not enjoying it at all, and was dead afraid that they wanted to look in her vagina when they sat her on the examining table. What a relief that THAT wasn't happening today! Whoa Nelly!!!

So basically, she has some plaque in her carotid arteries but nothing that should impair their function or cause concern. She took yet another blood test to check her potassium levels, and they called us with the results this afternoon. She is fine, totally normal. She is amazing at passing all these tests, don't know how she does it. They want to see her again in three weeks just for another check up.

I went out to the park to walk some laps and jog a bit (7 miles total today), and to the grocery store to get some stuff to make another pineapple upside down cake (they have a way of complimenting a "cruddy Dr. visit" very nicely). When I got back she was extremely worried that she could not urinate and was very tired. She was obsessed with this for almost two hours, said she felt fine but she just couldn't go. Sat on the pot at least (and literally) 15 times, but nothing. She kept drinking glasses of water and after a couple of them and some slices of pizza, she finally met with success. Phew! Think it was just in her mind all along, a delusion of time and reality. But I made sure to read up on urine retention online while she was ripe in spazzing out, just incase, and I will definitely be keeping an eye open for this continuing further.

Again today, had to follow her around with the walker to get her to use it. Very slow walking and also some strange out of character movement. She kept going out the front door and just standing in the front yard staring at things on the street and around the house. Every time she did this I kept a hard eye on her, then after observing her motions for a few minutes went out to talk to her about whatever had caught her attention outside. Granted, it was absolutely lovely outside today, but BB NEVER really goes out into the front yard (or the back yard even), so it was a bit odd and I definitely caught notice. We are REALLY lucky she hasn't wandered off yet, and my greatest hope is that it stays that way.

Speedy Has The Boot

Wednesday, Feb 17, 2010.

Sad to report it was not a good day for B today. Maybe because yesterday was busy. Mary, Earl's daughter, and her husband, Danny, came to visit for a few days. So yesterday was full of catching up and a lot of what I call "on" time for BB. But she also napped much of the day.

Today she was pretty darn out of it, both mentally and physically, and it seems to me that her condition is getting worse pretty rapidly at this point. She wasn't recognizing Gunsmoke or Bonanza while they were on and kept asking when they would be coming be on. She became belligerent with me when I replaced her empty box of fudgesicles (complete with chocolate paw prints) with a new full one. She started yelling at me, in front of everybody mind you, for not telling her they were in the garage freezer this whole time, as if I had intentionally hidden them from her and purposefully ruined her whole night as she was up desperately trying to look for them. Good times this morning.

She was very confused in general all day and slept a lot. Stayed on the couch more than usual, and just like yesterday, had forgotten to use her walker every time she was up. She needed that walker badly today, her physical condition has become VERY weak. I don't know if it is a result of recovering from the mini seizure last weekend, or because we have company in the house, or if it is just the Alzheimer's disease running its cruel course. But regardless, it's been damn startling to me to see just how weak she was today, I had to come to terms, once again, with the truth and fidelity of mortality. She can barely get up off the couch right now, and walking has become painfully tedious. She shuffled around the house for a half an hour with only one shoe on, and the other in her hand. When made aware of this fact she grumbled that she knew exactly what she was doing and needed no help, this was purposeful one shoe walking and... "just what are you staring at?!!!" There were a few times today that I was sure she was about to fall right over. I was on her heels with the walker all day, and eventually, after a full day's observation and walker following, asked her if she was tired. She said that she was more tired than she's ever been before in her whole life but didn't know why because she has been taking so many naps. She was so frustrated and confused and couldn't figure out why she felt this way. It made me realize that, realistically speaking, there aren't so many days left for her walking around and being mobile. She is just becoming too weak.

Update: insomnia strikes my being once more, the night stalker haunts the halls yet again, shuffling feet and strained breathing beating heavy like a dervish on slo-mo. She has been fiddling around loudly between the closet outside my room here and the bathroom for the last hour. It is now 1:45 in the morning. Just another day in the life.

Paula's in The House

Monday, Feb 15, 2010.

B's doctor appointment came and went. She had her carotid arteries scanned with the sonogram to make sure she is getting enough oxygenated blood to her brain. We are set to hear the results with Dr. Joplin on Thursday morning.

Paula came by the house today. BB remembers her from working with Eveline, and B also knows her husband, Ray, who drives the local school bus here. So she got the stamp of approval from the toughest critic in the world, and Earl and I think she's pretty good too. She can only work part of the day as she has two other jobs, but Earl asked her to start today to test out. She came back after lunch and cleaned the whole house, she also cooks and can administer pills when needed. It did become a little tense because BB became so comfortable with her she started giving her orders and telling her just how to do things (as if she were simply a maid), stalking her and watching over her shoulder and commenting rudely like she likes to do. But she will be coming back on Friday to help out again. This could really be a solution for the time being, a familiar person that can come in and help out as needed when I am gone. Let's keep BB positive about having her in the house, she really liked her today!

In other news, B is slowly rejecting actual food for sweets. All she would eat today was chocolate cake, key lime pie (which is delicious and many THANKS Aunt Becky), and countless fudgesicles. She gorged on them then flat out refused to eat dinner, though I served it to her anyway. She didn't touch it and proceeded right back to the sweets. She does eat okra at night. I have been making sure to cook it for her, and while she doesn't eat at dinner she will eat the whole bowl of it each night out of the fridge. Last night it was close to a whole pound of okra that she ate in the night. I guess this is balancing the sweets nutritionally somewhat, but it is still a very unhealthy behavior. She has a problem with compulsive eating.

I also asked her about bathing, and if she wanted me to run her a bath and she got nasty and told me to mind my own business. She has not bathed since I have been here to witness (since November 1) and for who knows how long before that. Not sure what to do about this. It is clearly a taboo subject for her. But another area in which she clearly needs assistance. In general she was very confused today. Words are disappearing more and more quickly. Sometimes it is really hard for her to communicate and she gets really upset a lot. She threw a little fit earlier because she ran out of gum and Earl didn't just go get it for her immediately. Sometimes she is REALLY nasty to him and he does not deserve it at all. When he did go out to get the gum she was suddenly sweet as pie. Very manipulative behavior.

Recapping

Sunday, Feb 14, 2010

As everyone now knows and has thus been filled in on B's hospital visit, I'm just going to recap the events of Friday night so we have them logged and the facts are clear for future medical reference. It was a close one, glad she is ok.

On Friday night, technically Saturday morning at around 1:40 am I awoke to Earl knocking on my door. B had fallen in the walk space next to her side of their bed, whether she fell getting into or out of bed remains unclear and I do not know for sure if she bumped her head or had a seizure at this point in the night. Both seem possible to me. I found her lying on her back, she was conscious though foggy, and entirely unable to move herself. I got her back up on the bed, with some difficulty (I don't know what would have happened without help there, there is no way Earl can lift her on his own at this point) she was conscious but totally groggy, said she needed to get up to use the bathroom, but we both were hesitant to move her.

After about five minutes she got herself up (you all know how stubborn she is) and with aid of the walker we took her into the bathroom. I sat in with her, still unsure of her condition, talking to her and asking her if she was in any pain, asking her if she remembered how this had happened. She was pretty unresponsive and started hunching over and at this point I got pretty scared. I got up and held her hand asked if she could feel me squeezing her hand. Asking if she could hear me. All she would say was "I'm tired." Looking in her eyes there was some response, but she still didn't answer any of my questions. She then looked down at the floor completely unresponsive and started shaking (like a tremor) for about 5 seconds (which the Doctor later said was most likely a "mini seizure" not a stroke) and simultaneously lost control of her bowels. I screamed for Earl, I seriously thought we had lost her for a minute. I held her hand and told her I loved her. Earl started talking to her and she started responding again. I went and called 911 and returned to the bathroom. She was conscious from this point onward but couldn't squeeze my hand or hold her head up for a while. She kept saying her neck hurt and she wanted to go to bed.

When she realized that the ambulance was coming she tried to get up. I sat her back down. She tried to get up again, I pulled her pants back on and sat her back down again. She was trying to escape (stubborn old BB). The medics came in, I stayed with her as they took her vitals (which seemed normal), still in my pajamas, explaining to them just what had happened. I gave them the all the pills she has been taking and alerted them to the concern about the Furosemide/Potassium balance we discussed in her recent visit with Alana documented below. She refused to go to the hospital and in her weakened state became combative with the medics. Somehow I was able through humor and persistence to get her to agree to go. I lifted her up off the pot (she wouldn't let the medics touch her) and walked her to the stretcher and she got on and was buckled in. Stayed by her side till they shut the ambulance door and got in Earl's truck to go to the hospital.

We made it there at the same time, and I was right there when they rolled her out and in to the emergency room. The nurses hooked her up to a heart rate monitor and took her vitals again. Her blood pressure was low, lower than when they took it in the house. She told them that she was there because she had "eaten too much chocolate." And we explained what had actually happened, first to the nurse staff, then to Dr. Joplin once he came in. They took a blood test and asked Earl and I to sit in the waiting room, where we hugged and cried and appreciated each others company. I seriously don't know how either of us would have coped without the other there. At about 4 am the doctor came back with the blood test and everything was relatively normal with the exception of her low blood pressure. We decided that she should stay in overnight just to be safe.

That was the great night of no sleep. Earl and I got up at about 8 am, neither one of able to sleep a wink. I personally was half delirious at this point but somehow managed to drive us back to the hospital after tearing up part of the lawn backing the car out. We laughed it off. B was asleep when we got there but was delighted to see us when she awoke. She tried to escape then but had all the wires hooked up to machines. Again laughing it off. The doctor came back in, took her blood pressure (which was back to normal now) said she should sleep some more but could go home after lunch time if it was still testing out alright. He also removed the Furosemide from her medicine regime as a precautionary measure. Earl and I went back home, and each of us passed out in our recliner chairs.

We went back to the hospital and picked her up. She was dressed and waiting for us already and was acting as if nothing at all had happened. I gave her her sunglasses and wheeled her out to the car. She was desperate for pizza as the hospital food "was just horrible." Always the firecracker. When we got home she immediately lit a cigarette, and accompanied it with a fudgesicle. She was really recovering quickly and falling right back into her routine of insane compulsive behaviors. She then tried to make me promise that I wouldn't tell any of her children about any of this, which I vehemently denied, and she threatened me with crude ramblings that made absolutely no sense. LOL. She was back to her good old nasty self.

The rest of the day she had energy but was pretty out of it memory wise, all she knew was that she was "going to be in trouble" for going to the hospital and kept focusing on this thought alone. She stopped using her walker and became combative when we kindly reminded her of its purpose. I opened another box of fudgesicles when she finished the first simply and only because I was glad she was alive (normally we cap it at one box in the freezer per day and when they're done they're done). We got some pizza and tried to make the most of what was left with the day. Aunt Becky called after dinner and BB answered it herself and proceeded to speak with her on the phone for an hour without divulging any of the previous nights events. She almost slipped up when she told her how I had had a rough day and was exhausted and when asked why blamed it on me and Earl "going shopping" (a total fabrication, no I'm going to say a straight out lie, and with the full on intent to lie to cover her butt) and cleverly hung up just as I tried to get a chance to talk as well. Sneaky sneaky.

So today, Sunday. Still a bit tired understandably. Took it easy today, we watched Giant (B's favorite movie) which I had rented from the library. And she kept asking us over and over "who's that?!" "that's Rock Hudson"... "Who's that?!" "That's James Dean"... "Who's that?!" "That's ROCK HUDSON!!!" Over and over and over again. Sometimes I don't know where we get the patience, but we do. You can only laugh it off. Plus she kept telling me that I look "exactly" like Elizabeth Taylor, which to me absolutely solidifies her crazy, but is still nice to hear even for the 20th time. She's crafty that BB.

Had to remind her several times today to use the walker so she wouldn't fall again. At one point she came out of the bathroom with it turned backwards, pushing it like a stroller instead of using it for support, dead serious in her intent. She got mad at me when I corrected her in holding it but I still I couldn't help but laugh. The rest of the day she used it without needing reminding. She told me she was starving and asked me to cook dinner at 4:30 which is more than an hour too early, but I kindly obliged, then she decided she wasn't hungry and just picked at her plate, eating nothing. She didn't even eat her okra, which was seriously shocking to me. She then proceeded to eat 4 fudgesicles in a row right after dinner, and has somehow gotten into the habit of pulling the stick out entirely before eating them and sucking the contents out of the wrapper. Earl and I tried to explain how the stick is an important element in eating a popsicle but it just made her really mad at us. She ended up spilling one all over her shirt and told me she'd just sleep in it anyway. I got her a fresh shirt and discovered, as I was helping her get it on, that she still had 4 electrode stickers stuck to her chest and torso form the emergency room more than a day before. She got really mad at me and fussed when I removed them, said that she needed them and insisted I replace them with new ones.

A lightbulb went off over my head and I asked Earl about her bathing habits, something I have (up until this point) allowed her the dignity of handling herself as she has told me several times she showers in Earl's bathroom and doesn't need assistance. Earl told me that she has never once used his shower. Sweet Jesus!!! I intend to have a conversation with her about this tomorrow. She needs to start bathing regularly, and I am seriously growing tired of her lying to me and continuing to lie to me. Each day a different struggle with handling the basics here, and that will be tomorrow's I'm sure.

We have another doctors appointment in the morning, at 9:15, to do a sonogram of her neck and arteries. Then a follow up with Dr. Joplin later in the week to check on how she is doing. We are also meeting with Paula, the lady Vivian has recommended for in-home care, tomorrow. Uncle Greg and Earl both spoke with her today and we found out that she used to work for BB's best friend Eveline before she died. Despite the excellent references and personal connections B was and is still extremely resistant to having anyone come in to help. This is not a surprise, but it is still disheartening. Let's all try to be excited and encouraging when speaking to her about this, like Paula is an extension of the family. I will try to fill you all in with what I can regarding these events tomorrow.

Slow Day Snow Day

Thursday, Feb 11, 2010.

I finally got some sleep last night. Good hopeful dreams. Woke up this morning snowed in. A full 4" in Stamford, and it's still going. You can imagine what that'll do to the roads around here. Praying desperately for it to melt so we can get back to business. Kinda wish I was out at the farm to see it, Hamiln got 6"!!!

Well, it was a pretty quiet one today. BB immediately wanted to know what my great plan was for the day (she likes it when I go out painting or I have something to do so I can tell her about it when I get back before dinner). Looking out the window all stern like Clint Eastwood "well, stayin' in don'tcha think?" There wasn't much choice. I asked her in jest if she wanted to help me make a snow man. She declined. Too cold. We all kinda shared the news paper this morning, passing sections around to each other, then swapping them again. Then Bonanza came on. Then Gunsmoke (B LOVES her some Gunsmoke)!!! Then we all ate lunch together at the kitchen table. BB was very talkative this morning but she was also VERY confused. Wasn't making a lot of sense and it was hard for Earl and I to follow her while she was forgetting words and jumbling up sentences. Sometimes it's like another language and you have to try to mind read. Today was a bad communication day for her. But she didn't seem to be frustrated with it so that was good.

After only a day, the novelty of walker has started to lose its flair. She used it a bit but left it parked behind the couch a lot and wasn't as excited about it as yesterday. I did take it around the living room for another test drive, and it garnered a laugh. The funniest thing was when B told me to put my waterproof boots on and she'd let me borrow the walker to go walk laps on the track in the park, wait for it... SO I WOULDN'T FALL DOWN IN THE SNOW. That's my girl, she's always looking out for me!

The doorbell rang sometime during the second Bonanza after Gunsmoke. It was the mailman, and I thought he was super rad for bringing in the mail so the old folks didn't have to go out in the snow. But Earl told me it was because there was a package too big for the mailbox. It was addressed to BB, but return addressed "Frazier" so somehow BB thought it was for me. "No B, this is for YOU, it says Bobbie Smith right here. See?" "Oh but it says Frazier here so I think it's for you." "No B, that's Dad's handwriting, clear as day. It's for you. You open it." She did. Sweet Jesus it was Valentine's Day CANDY!!! I called Dad immediately because she wanted to thank him. She did. Phone call over the candy eating began. "Oh it's too hard. It hurts my mouth. I can't eat it," she said. I tried one. They were still frozen from the mail truck and it being absolutely freezing outside. I made her wait till they thawed then she went at em. She kept asking me if we remembered to thank Dad while we had him on the phone. She asked me this no less than 20 times within the next hour. Patience is my virtue. "Yes B," I told her, "that's WHY we called him." She proceeded to eat a little bite from each and every chocolate in the assortment, but not a single whole piece because she didn't want to get fat. Lord knows the fingers were all a'touching on em as well. Fortunately I got a piece or two before they were pawed while they were still frozen. They were super good... and again, THANKS DAD!!!

Dinner time was approaching so I started making meatloaf (it's her favorite lately), baked some sweet potatoes, and of course we had okra as well. She was very happy with dinner tonight, and actually ate EVERYTHING on her plate (normally just pushes the food around not eating then rips into 4 or 5 fudgescicles afterward). Success. This time. She actually didn't eat many fudgesicles today, and I am always shocked when this happens. They are her absolute obsessed compulsion. She actually had one left from yesterday, and got mad when she realized it was frozen and then decided to leave it out to thaw. Earl cleaned that one up, bewildered by the logic of needing to thaw a popsicle. Eventually she asked us to get her some more, so we pulled out another box from the garage freezer. She had only 2 of them after dinner (that makes 3 all day). We shall see if any are left in the morning. LOL.

Both she and Earl were pretty lively tonight. We stayed up after the news till almost 11:00 (they always go to bed at 10:15 on the dot, just after the weather report). We talked and talked, talked about music, and records, and Elvis, and their old and new neighbors and eventually Tiger Woods and the sad decline of golf and how they both wished their hero would return to the game, and how everyone should forget about his rampant philandering and 14+ mistresses, 'cuz "it's his business." Haha, agreed! I couldn't have enjoyed more, this treat of staying up a little bit late, I'm so lucky to be in such good company.

Speedy Gonzales

Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010.

Freezing today. Couldn't sleep again last night. Thinking too much, busy brain, heavy heart. Daydreams stole sleep's place. Yesterday was kinda rough, but today was better. Awoke this morning later than usual, bleached some crusty poop off the toilet seat (ALWAYS wipe the toilet seat in BB's bathroom before you sit, believe me I have learned this wet lesson the hard way, and when there's schizer I'm almost glad because at least I can see it first and sterilize). I set her scattered mess of items on the bathroom counter back in place and started the day. B and Earl were already watching Bonanza on TV. She took her her pills with out resistance. And the morning was pretty mellow.

Around noon the doorbell rang, B's walker and cane were delivered all new and shiny. Went to the park to walk some laps, move my bones and calm my restlessness. Grabbed some lunch at Sonic and headed home. When I got back Earl had gone to the store to get B some more "fudgies" (fudgesicles) which she can't seem to live without (one whole box of 12 eaten today). B was lying on the couch and I brought her a cherry lime slush and proceeded to destroy my burrito and chili cheese tots with onions. Jealous Californians? Muhahahahaha. Mmmmmmm!

My head down in food, I barely noticed her get up from the couch and zoom on over toward me with the walker. Woman hauls some serious ass in that thing! Normally she wouldn't have gotten up just to check out my lunch, but today she had a renewed fire under her feet. She stood over me smiling the biggest smile in days, not needing to sit down, and asked if she could try my chili cheese tots. BB hates tater tots. She decided she loved these and I gave her her own fork and she helped me finish them all.

Earl came back and she zoomed on over to him. "Hey Speedy Gonzales," I said "slow it down you're gonna get a speeding ticket!"... she laughed... "Earl, watch out, she's a speed demon in that thing! She's liable to mow you down. Better put some speed bumps in the kitchen!" BB loves her walker, which neither of us expected at all. We are sincerely shocked by her positive response. She's been zooming all over the house all day. I haven't seen her so active in weeks maybe months and she likes the attention we give her teasing her to slow down. "You know, I always wanted to be a race car driver. You expect me to go slow?" she teases back. Earl says she's like a damn kid with a new bicycle, wont get off the thing. He and I have taken wicked delight in watching her cruise around all day (I like to borrow it and pop wheelies), the laughter and the jokes haven't stopped, and neither has she. She even took it in to bed with her, so I'm afraid I'll no longer be hearing the familiar slow beat of the night stalker's shuffle 'cuz she's so stealth now rollin' in the walker.

She did mention to me that next she'll be able to drive again (please god NOOOOOOOOOO!!!), so I'm thing it's back to hiding the car keys from now on. She also, although briefly, decided to stop smoking (for a total of five minutes). Earl discovered this when he found all her cigarettes were missing and she finally fessed up that she'd hid them in a drawer by the washing machine and was going back on the Chantix, which as I said, lasted all of five minutes. It was pretty funny because we certainly didn't expect it to last. Oh, and Earl figured out how to switch the breaker off for the stove!!! So that particular fire danger has been quenched. Now I only have to worry about burning alive in smoking fires, not cooking fires. Baby steps, a load has been lifted!!! And once again, Earl is a damn genius.

In BB's House

Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010.

I didn’t sleep that well last night, so if I’m prickly today that’s why. BB came home from her MRI yesterday dazed and tired, it was scheduled for late in the day, 7pm, but we got to watch Wheel Of Fortune in the waiting room (Earl is a damn genius) and that calmed any potential nerves. They took her down the hall in a wheelchair, as her walking is very slow now. The procedure was long and tedious as she couldn’t hold still and what should have taken 15-20 minutes tops took more than an hour to complete. I didn’t know it at the time but the process had really traumatized her and has affected her outlook and experience today greatly. We came back from the appointment, had some cake, watched The Bodyguard on TV (LOL) and then retired for the night. I wrote some emails and went to sleep.

At about 3am this morning I awoke to the all too familiar smell of okra burning. I know this smell well, and I thought we had fixed this problem by talking to her about the dangers of middle of the night Alzheimer’s cooking. She had stopped this behavior for a few weeks and I assumed we were in the all clear. I got up to investigate the situation. B was sound asleep in her bed and sure enough there was a pot on the stove festering away with no water left to steam. I turned it off, turned out the light, and tried to go back to sleep. I could not. Lying there in the dark, restless and thinking about burning alive, I heard her get up again, the rhythm of hard breathing and slow shuffling feet, which I have affectionately begun referring to as “the night stalker” (I’ve been working on a kickass heavy metal song… NIIIIIIIGHT STALKER… BURNIN’ DOWN THE HOUUUUUUSE!!!) I could hear her getting busy in the kitchen, got up and found her there dutifully cleaning up the evidence. I asked her what she was doing and she lied to my face about having cooked it ever so watchfully but that it was done now. I told her I had turned it off while she was sleeping, and it had burned. She became hostile with me and accused me of lying so I just went back to bed. I didn’t sleep much last night.

I awoke. A bit surly. Tired. Exhausted. Earl was at the bank having coffee as usual, BB was still in bed, which is not like her for this time in the morning but is quickly becoming the norm. I greeted her, “mornin’ B” and went to shower. When I had dressed Earl was back. “Mornin’ Earl.” “Mornin’ Luci.” The burned okra sat on the stove in a strainer in a different pot. She had raided the garage freezer in the night, and she had found and eaten another entire box of fudgesicles (so that was two boxes eaten yesterday), left empty in the freezer marked with several chocolate paw prints.

I put out B’s pills and met with a harsh resistance for the first time since I have been administering them to her. BB was really upset about the MRI scan the night before and was cranky and hurting and a bit delirious. She didn’t want to do anymore of this hospital business, and could definitely handle her own pills. She didn’t need me telling her what to do and accused me of “knowing everything” and taking ill charge of the house. I told her I would leave if she really didn’t want me there, if that’s how she wanted it I would go. I looked at earl to show my sympathy for her pain and felt my eyes watering up, just sad that things were so hard for her and that she was so confused. It’s hard to watch her struggle with anger, and frustrated on top of it that the words and sentences are becoming hard to get out. She then assured us that she did not cook that okra, and I had lied about finding it cooking on the stove unwatched. I hadn’t even brought it up at all at this point. Frustrated, I went to the bathroom, cried some pity tears, composed myself and returned to the kitchen.

Then I made the mistake of asking BB if she wanted me to save this okra in the fridge or if I should throw it away (I always ask her about throwing stuff away because she gets strangely attached to things, like a bottle of mouthwash that sat in our bathroom for over a month with a GIANT dead fly in it, which I was NOT supposed to throw away under any circumstances). She said she would eat this burned okra and asked why the hell (she has been cursing more and more lately) I’d want to throw it away. This started a whole mess about the okra I don’t even want to rehash. For about the next half hour there was dire confusion about the state of okra in the house. We kept explaining we would cook some okra again. We weren’t eradicating the house of okra, just throwing that particular pot of it away. She was really sad when she thought we weren’t going to eat okra at all anymore and was desperately trying to figure out what else she could eat to help with her “elimination” (another decidedly popular subject), and this frustration led to her becoming belligerent and violent, threatening to throw the okra pot first at us, then through the glass window. Thank god Bonanza came on at that point and she stopped shouting in order to watch. Started the okra talk again at commercial but I gave her the newspaper and she simmered back down.

Once the paper was done she decided that prunes would be good for her elimination. She had to have some prunes, and right now!!! I volunteered to go on the prune mission, as I was already craving a breakfast burrito from Sonic. Got my boots on, keys in hand and then she no longer wanted the prunes. They gave her diarrhea. She admitted to intentionally abusing them to disastrous results, we spoke of rationing them to avoid this problem. No. Diarrhea. Bad. She wanted okra. We had okra. And so I went to get Earl and I burritos.

By the time I returned Earl had fixed B some eggs (she has recently stopped cooking them for herself everyday) and the three of us sat down together and had a nice breakfast. She started talking again about the MRI and how much she had hated it, and how now because of it her back hurt. And I began to realize just how deeply the experience had traumatized her. I reassured her that it was over and she could forget about it now. But the story of it continued to haunt the rest of the day, over and over again. Cortney called and I went back to my room, cried for a bit again just to let the frustration and sadness out.

I struggle with feeling sad a lot. It is strange for me because I am not a sad or depressed person. It is weird because I thoroughly enjoy each day spent here. I realized a while ago that it is not my own sadness that I feel, but sadness for her. Watching this once so vibrant woman, so spirited and intelligent, my own grandmother, whom I love more than most anyone fall so far from being herself, from knowing herself. From being able to communicate what she feels, losing the use of simple words, losing whole sentences. Watching her fall farther each day. It is incredibly sad. It will be sad reading these journals FYI. It may bum you out but this is just the plain reality of what happens around here. Don’t be sad for me, I know how to find the beauty in all of this, as you will see. These are the eyes and ears talking here, just the facts observed and sometimes the feelings.

Soon enough it was time to go to the doctor. This was met with little resistance as the hospital had called to inform us her appointment was switched from Dr. Heart to Alana, her regular nurse practitioner. She liked seeing the hospital, her old stomping grounds, but had trouble remembering who was who. “I know you! Who are you?!!!”

Earl filled out the paperwork this time. They checked her vitals. Oxygen was 100%, a miracle for an 82 year old who’s admittedly been a smoker for 76 years. Height has shrunk. She now weighs more than Earl who at 5’11” has become thin and frail. Alana (“pronounced like banana”) took a look at her meds, and like Dr. Dickerson wondered why she had stopped taking potassium. This had not been instructed; B had chosen to eliminate this on her own, most likely because she forgot about it. Alana said that now that she was taking her meds she wanted her to return in a week to test her potassium levels in her blood, and see if it needs to be added back in. She kept all the medicines she has been taking this week in the cocktail, and then looked at what else B had stopped taking. They were allergy and asthma meds that were only to be taken when needed, not daily, but put them back on the regime of pills for when they are necessary.

She is now currently taking once daily: Aricept (for Alzheimer’s), Plavix (as prescribed by the doctor in Houston for stroke), Furosemide (for water clearance, and where the potassium comes in play to balance the effects), and Celecoxib (for arthritis). She has a prescription for Allegra (for allergies when necessary) and has just been given an antibiotic to take for 10 days to help with what Alana suspects is an upper respiratory infection, aka Snotty McGee.

I also spoke with Vivian about getting some in-home care. We were given the same list as before, dated September, and she told me to try the Senior Help Center in Abilene to look for other options. She mentioned that a woman had come in today looking to do home care work and that she gave her an application and is awaiting it’s return, upon which we will be contacted for an interview. So there is some looking into this to be done, but as usual, BB was once again not accepting this idea. Earl and I explained to her that she at least has a choice in this matter: accept the help or go to a nursing home, plain and simple and her choice to make. Based on that part of the discussion I think she is willing to try the help. Hopefully it will not be met with more resistance, but I doubt it. Each day there is a deep struggle with this issue.

Dinner was a bit tough tonight, I usually just cook and serve but we had a lot of leftovers out to choose from and she could not make a decision on what she wanted to eat. “I don’t know… I don’t know… what is this here? What?”… all while fingering the food we were all sharing. This is a huge issue for me that I struggle with daily. She has a serious obsessive compulsion to touch any food she sees when walking by it. Asking what it is has not been enough; she absolutely HAS TO touch it. This is a huge sanitary issue for me because she constantly blows her nose in her hands and never washes them, just wipes them off. I have been working on getting her into hand washing, also met with severe resistance and belligerence. Anyway, I had a rough day already so I let the touching food lecture slide as I didn’t want another fight, just decided to not eat any meat at all, and have a quiet dinner. Earl had to fix her plate as she was unable to make a decision, and she actually ate what was on it so that was good.

After dinner we watched Shane, a good old western she’s seen many times. “Who is that?” “That’s Allen Ladd, Bobbie.” “Oh ok.”… “Earl, now, who is that?” “THAT”S ALLEN LADD.” “Oh ok”… continuing on that way throughout the duration of the film. She became pretty talkative after the movie and was talking to me about her son, my dad, about his life, my life, how we used to fight, but how we get along now and it’s so great. Then she asked me if Dad and I had been married. “You were married, right? You and your dad, married weren’t you?” Shocked, I explained her that that would be more than a little weird and no we had never been married. Earl and I tried to hide our laughter of the sheer insanity of it. She was so certain of it. Well, I guess it’s just another one of those utterly crazy moments that we have been having more and more of lately.

A movie about POWs came on next. The prisoners had gotten an egg somehow and cooked it and were all drooling over it and Earl recounted how he had got an egg somehow on his birthday but he couldn’t remember how he got it. I started talking to him about how good it must have been to have an egg and asking how he had cooked it, and he told me about a makeshift stove they had made with tin cans they hid from the Nazis.

Then Earl made my night by bringing out his POW mementos, the books written on Stalag Luft IV and their 600 mile “march of death” through Germany. He held them first, finding a choice cartoon in one of the books and handed it to me. It depicted some prisoners, one in his underwear, barbwire fence around barracks, and some strange cart like thing with a hose and a clear explosion coming out the top of it. “What’s that?” I asked. In a German accent he replied “Schizer-vagon.” I almost suffocated laughing so hard. My little knowledge of the German language basically only includes the word schizer and wagon is self-explanatory. It was a cartoon of the prison camp’s “shit wagon” and it was exploding from the top. He explained that they had to make it explode to create a vacuum to suck the schizer out of the latrines. He delighted in his recollections of how the loud bang would always scare the new-bee prisoners. I delighted in the idea of schizer explosions.

He then handed me the whole stack of stuff and told me I could take my time checking it out. I picked up this little gambling ticket leaflet, inside there were war poems written on a Lucky Strikes cigarette wrapper, a Nazi postal paper, on other scraps of paper all folded delicately into this small little cardstock pouch. I unfolded each one carefully and realized they were accounts, poems, and notes written while he had been a prisoner. He acknowledged this upon my query and said some were from the camp and some were from the “march of death.” He had notes of how many kilometers they had marched each day, of how many prisoners died that day, how many Nazis were shot, and a few large print excited scribes, the first I found was “British liberated us today!” and the second hidden deep in the booklet was “April 13 ate a fried egg today. Mary’s birthday. One year old.” The very egg he had remembered eating earlier had been on his daughter’s birthday, not his own. He had never met his daughter at this point as she’d been born after his deployment. His handwriting was so excited it glowed on the page practically blinding out the routine tallies of kilometers marched logged.

This was a special, extremely personal thing to have let me so casually flip through. It made my day and I think Earl had given it to me for this specific purpose. I asked him if I could really hold onto this stuff for a while and read it all and he said yes! I still cant believe what a gift has been bestowed me. I needed some cheering up today and I think I got it.