In the couple of months since my last entry I'd like to say I've been too busy doing amazing things to scribble, but the reality is my brain's just not been in the game. Not for lack of material... I just haven't "felt it" - my universe being Groundhog Day broken by occasional spurts of chaos. But like getting back into the gym after a long break, I know that the thing to do is "just do it" (those damned Nike people, that should'a been my million dollar slogan!), so...
Mom's spinal surgery recuperation, Chapter 1...
For a week and a half I slept on a love-seat/"sofa" in mom's claustrophobia-inducing two-bedroom, two bath apartment - which is a single bedroom and bath due to the volume of its contents. Mother and her now dead "estranged" (they still did everything together, they just lived separately) husband, Tooie, are/were pack-rat hoarders the likes of which legends, or reality shows, are made of and after Tooie's death a few months back, hundreds of boxes and bags from his house (I toyed with "thousands" when estimating the bulk if that gives a hint) containing family treasures were sifted through and mountains of them ended up crammed onto every available surface and clogging every pathway in mom's already bursting apartment... moving through it's a lot like crawling through a kid's play tunnel, though at least mom's not as bad as Tooie was since her 20 sets of candlesticks, 5 bottles of window cleaner, 8 china chickens, 150 wall-hung items, 12 file boxes of email printouts, 112 pieces of mercury glass, 26 totes of everything from gift bags to household tools, etc., etc., are all VERY neatly organized... another sickness...
But I digress...
Mom was medicated heavily when I arrived from Roanoke (she's in Annapolis, MD) - oxycodone and/or -deine, valium, various other meds, and mom's highly susceptible to them - so the moment I walked in the door there commenced a discussion about mom checking out of the hospital wherein she insisted repeatedly she wanted her clothes because she was ready to go home and the party of "they" couldn't make her stay... it went something like this... "Sarah, where are my clothes?", "Why do you want your clothes, mom?", "Because I'm checking out.", "You can't check out mom, you just had spinal surgery and your doctor hasn't cleared you yet has he?", "No, (insert whine) but I want to go home (insert insistent tone) and they can't make me stay... now where are my pants?!", "I don't know mom but you're really groggy and I think you need to let me find a nurse or doctor and talk to them before we do anything.", "I want to go home!", "Mom, you can't even stand right now...", "Sarah, I want to leave, I want my pants! Where are my PANTS?!", this in a borderline freak-out tone... a few more go-'rounds like that... I finally lose my patience and bark at her... then, fortunately, the meds kicked back in to their full potential and the fight was over for a while.
Mom was only supposed to be in the hospital 2 to 3 days... it was 5 before they finally released her. The delay, a cripplingly painful melon-like fluid build-up on her knee that kept her from not only being able to get out of bed, but also from even being able to lay in any position that didn't cause considerable discomfort... which necessitated more meds and talk from staff that she would be moved to a rehab facility because she was clearly unable to go home... which brought on more vehement argument from her about home and rehab and her determination to go to one and refusal to go to the other... it was wonderful. Silver lining? My seestor showed up a couple of hours after I got there with a bag full of magazines, playing cards and the old travel Battleship game which we immediately and with great nostalgic glee set up and played. =)
Now as eccentric and argumentative as my mom is, times a thousand on meds, she knows what she knows about herownself...
"Drain the knee.", she said... "Your doctor's on vacay.", said they...
"Drain the knee.", she said... "The on-call's not in the hospital.", said they...
"Drain the knee.", we said... "We've called your doctor's office and the on-call but they haven't called back yet, we have to wait.", said they...
"Drain the knee!", we said... "We're still waiting for the on-call to call us but we'll take you for an x-ray to see if there's fluid on the knee." (Seriously? The melon doesn't tell you anything? When it's happened before? Reeeeally?), said they...
"Drain the knee!!", we said... "The x-ray shows you have fluid on the knee, we just have to wait for the on-call to call.", said they...
"REEEEALLY?!", I said... "GIVE ME THE NUMBER TO THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE AND LET ME CALL THEM!", I said...
"The doctor just called, he said he's coming in from vacay to drain the knee.", said they...
::smirksmirk:: said we...
She was standing within hours. Corporate health care bureaucracy. Shit.
So... after the cute physical therapist I wanted to fix my seestor up with had a session with mom and cleared her to be released, they began the paperwork and told mom she was going home. Mom who'd wanted to go home from first consciousness... mom who argued for her pants... mom who wanted to go home now... mom who petitioned for her clothes, her pants, anything she could put on and leave in... mom who insisted they couldn't keep her there... mom who said she would, under NO circumstances, go to rehab...
"Wait... what? They said I'm what??" Sudden alarm. "I can't go home, I'm not supposed to go home. The physical therapist said I'm supposed to go to rehab!" "Yes, mom, the physical therapist... did you notice a ring, I wanna set Jen up with him... you just had the session with told the nurse that since you can get up on your own steam and take some steps, you're cleared to go home now.", "But that isn't what he said to me! I didn't notice a ring, I think he's single. He said I had to do all these things before I could go!", "What things, mom?", "I don't know... something about this and that and this and that I had to go to rehab. So I know I'm not supposed to leave yet!", "I talked to the nurse mom, they're doing your paperwork now.", "Wait! Are you sure?? That's not what he said!!", panic creeping in...
I told her I'd go talk to the nurse and physical therapist and confirm, knowing it was the only way, and set out down the hall with my seestor a few steps behind telling me we should just tell her she's going home and be done. Brief confab with seestor to say I know mom's control-freak self will not accept the answer unless it comes straight from Cutie-pie p.t., "And besides, he's cute, you should play kissy-face with him."... seestor agrees - on the confirmation, not the kissy-face - we confirm with nurse and request tete-a-tete with Cutie-pie p.t. (who the nurse seemed to want desperately to guard in his little locked p.t. room - is that to keep folks out or patients in?! - since she kept saying "I think he's gone... I think he's getting ready to leave... I think he's going home now...", "Just get him...", said we, "unless you want to argue it with our mom." Nurse promptly throws Cutie-pie p.t. under the bus and he's in mom's room in minutes. heheheh). Cutie-pie p.t. assures mom that what he said was if this happened and that didn't and this did, then she would've had to go to rehab but since that wasn't the case, she was walking fine, she could go... mom, o' lady of the pants, vixen of vexation, dame of determination, tries to persuade Cutie-pie p.t. that he hadn't actually cleared her to go home but he's goooood... patient... firm... and we finally roll her out.
Of course, by this time, it's 5:00 p.m. on Friday and everything in the hospital closes at 5:00 so not only can we not get her a walker, a necessity in the days to come, but we can't get a wheelchair for her either - an immediate necessity as I can't, small as she is, carry her silly, drugged up self to the car. To add to the challenge of the game, the departments we'd get them from are closed 'til Monday ::sigh:: Eventually, the sweet young nurse wrangles a new-with-tags walker that she had no idea how to "record" (presumably for inventory and a bazillion dollar charge to the insurance company) and we're off... I've decided we'll just put mom in a computer chair from the computer lab at her building and roll her upstairs. My seestor's abandoned us for much needed rest in the midst of the the walker/wheelchair fiasco so it's just me and mom driving home in my 4x4 Escape... not a smooth ride, definitely not suitable for a spinal patient. We did 25 mph the whole way home.
Mom's spinal surgery recuperation, Chapter 2...
The next 7 days, locked in mom's apartment amid the mountains of mom's and Tooie's stuff all kind of ran together... and was emotionally draining... the catalyst definitely bourne of mom's oxycodone... she was a source of great mirth as well as great upset for me while she was on it. Funny... the party of "they" say alcohol is truth serum... so too, evidently, is oxycodone.
Anyway, my first FaceBook post was "Mom + oxycodone = hilARIOUS conversations! =)"
Which was the result of mom swearing by God and all that's holy that SOMEONE has spiked (I loved the word "spiked", denoting some malicious canning company conspiracy) her canned, jellied cranberry sauce. She was heavily sedated but she was tenacious when she slurrily insisted "My cranberry sauce is hot! It's spicy, Sarah!", "It's not spicy, mom, it's ok.", "I'm telling you, Sarah, it's spicy! Someone has spiked it with something hot! I can't eat it!!", "Mom, it's the cranberry sauce from the can that you, yourownself, opened... it's not spicy." ::taking a taste:: "It's not spicy, mom, try another bite...", "Sarah, I'm TELLING you, someone put something spicy in it and I can NOT eat it!!!", "Ok, ok, mom!" I took it away but served it to her the very next day, waiting expectantly... as she ate every bite. ;-D
Then there was her "coffee". She uses the biggest coffee cup I've ever seen - big ol' pottery-type mug - and she shovels in powdered creamer and sugar until there's, NO exaggeration, about an inch and a half of stuff in the bottom of the cup... then she pours her coffee in from the pot. What she ends up with is a viscose coffee-flavored syrup that makes my head hurt just to take a sip. I've set her up in her bed with mountains of pillows to recline on, hold her head, elevate her arms, prop her leg on... I've put everything she says she needs beside her on the bed, most of which she didn't need and which took up the whole other side of the mattress, but which she insisted she might need and what would she do if I weren't there to get it for her? Seriously mom? I took a week and a half off work, I'm going nowhere soon! =-/ I've run a rut in the carpet ferrying child-sized helpings of food and drink back and forth from the kitchen when she's finally hungry or thirsty and, on this particular occasion, had ferried the industrial sized bottle of powdered creamer and the sugar bowl back to her, along with her empty mug and a spoon. In go heaping spoonfuls of creamer and sugar and, when the mound meets sufficient height requirements, I shuttle it all back to the kitchen and pour her coffee in, which she insists I MUST bring back to her to stir. So I do. Against my better judgment, I do. I pull the folding table over, set the coffee, coaster, napkins, spoon, etc. up on it, make sure it's close enough for her to reach it, and watch as she, who refuses to allow me to help, proceeds to sink her spoon into the goopy mess and begin to stir, sloshing small rivulets of it over the edges of the mug to the napkins underneath... I watch, relaxing somewhat that there's no catastophy, as she puts it down, puts the spoon down, rearranges a couple of things on the bed beside her as we chat - she, groggy from the constant flow of oxycodone - and then clumsily picks the mug back up... "Let me help you, mom, you're looking a little sleepy.", "I'm perfectly fine, Sarah, stop fussing over me!"
it took about 3 seconds...
she takes a small sip, drunkly commenting to me about the TV show she's "watching", and almost instantly she drifts off to sleep and proceeds to spill the coffee down her front.
Second FaceBook post: "Mom + Oxycodone = coffee spilled down her front when she falls asleep sitting up because she insists she's perfectly fine... ;)"
::sigh::
Then there's our Thanksgiving feast. As previously scribbled, mom was very excited that before she went into the hospital she'd gotten sliced turkey from the deli for Thanksgiving "feast" sammiches... and... AAAND... wait for it... "mashed potatoes in a tub!!" =) By Sunday she's regained enough strength and sobriety that she wants to have our Thanksgiving "feast"... followed by the eggnog - bourbon spiked of course - she had us pick up the morning after she came home when she insisted she was well enough despite spinal surgery to go grocery shopping. ::eye roll::
Third FaceBook post: "We. Love. Eggnog... with bourbon. =D Mom is only allowed a few SIPS since Mom + oxy + bourbon = E.R."
I tell her we will but she can ONLY have a FEW sips of eggnog so we don't end up back at the hospital... I get no argument, but I could see it on her face... she'd show me, oh yes she would! =-/ I prepare the sammiches and bring her the HUGE wine-glass helping of eggnog and bourbon she insists she can drink all of and she prepares it with the same dogged intensity found in her coffee preparation, this requiring eggnog, bourbon and just the right amount of nutmeg. 17 and a half minutes later it's ready... she takes a sip, rolling her eyes and murmuring her appreciation... I go to the kitchen to pour mine (30 seconds prep for me!) and return a moment later to find her, eggnog sitting on the tray in front of her, passed completely out with her head lolling back (which couldn't've been good but seriously, how could I have seen that coming?!) on her neck brace! Off to bed I packed little Kathleen, thankful I didn't have to argue about taking away her eggnog.
Now I think I mentioned... mom's well organized... which is an understatement of monolithic proportions... but she's also become painfully anal-retentive in her cleanliness now that all we kids are gone and, as she always has been, is utterly convinced that without her we would not remember to breath, much less put things back where we find them. As such, we are all instructed in strict step-by-step format on things like: spraying all three shower walls and the curtain down, top to bottom, when we get out lest we leave a stray hair (the meltdown when it's not a head-hair is amazing)... not folding back the towel draped on the end of the bed for the cats so we can sit down because then we might forget to put it back (so suck it up and have a hairy ass or stand while talking to her)... washing off each dish as we use it and putting it in the dishwasher immediately (if we don't want to hear vehement inquiries of "Who left this plate in the sink and didn't rinse it off?!! Dammit, if you're going to use a dish, PUT IT IN THE DISHWASHER!!" - which sounds reasonable until you live it... as a grown adult... with dishes of your own... that you manage to wash and reuse on a daily basis. =-/... wiping down the surfaces of the bathroom if we use any kind of airborne personal product (ignoring all logic that she sprays hairspray for, no joke, two uninterrupted minutes when she's getting ready in the mornings and doesn't wipe it down and it's fine - ours is somehow stickier or smells worse or whatever other justification she can think of.)... if we need band-aids, scissors, string, tape, scrap paper, a book or any other thing, we are flogged through the same step-by-step hoops and, in EVERY case, we are quizzed when done to confirm that we have, in fact, followed and completed to mom's satisfaction each and every step.
SO...
Imagine MY dread when, upon my arrival at mom's apartment my first night in Annapolis, I suddenly remember that mom now has two of Tooie's cats... and a gargantuan litter box for the two of them that would accommodate a herd of bison... and I know... standing at the threshold of the bathroom where she has it stationed... mere feet from her bed... where she's laying recuperating... I know what yo-yo hell I'm in for each and every time she hears a paw rustle the sand within that bear cave of a box... I will spend 20 of 24 hours of each day running to the box to scoop and dispose of kitty poops, real or imagined! Adding to the dread is the fact that one of the cats is ancient and I'm not entirely confident she'll seek out the box, and the other, being what appears to be a mix of orange tabby and Maine coon, is a small pony. Seriously. A pony.
The fourth FaceBook post I never got around to... it would've read: "Mom + oxy = peace in the land of O.C.D."
I scooped the box each morning, carefully vacuuming each and every stray piece of sand up and repositioning the mats she's placed in front of the box (I won't even go into the circus that results from having to essentially pole vault the box just to take a shower), assuring mom I'd done it and then waiting expectantly all day to hear her summons me for poop-scooping duty...
Not a word. Until the last day I was there, not a word.
I like to think that was God's small concession to my sanity for that week. =)
Mom's spinal surgery recuperation, Chapter 3...
The last day I was at mom's and after she'd been up and around a few days poking lethargically at boxes, we came down to it.
I'd spent the day clearing all the plants from in front of her living room window, washing down each of the folding tables they'd been on and setting the sofa table newly recovered from Tooie's up in place of them, washing it down, washing all 3 windows top and bottom, inside and out, then rearranging all her plants on the sofa table... I was exhausted mentally and physically from the week and was alternately glad that I'd finally be going home and getting away from the bickering and sniping that's part of mom's world and agonizing that poor, helpless mom would be there by herself and thinking maybe I should try to wrangle another week off to stay with her... instead, I spent most of the late afternoon/evening clearing out as much as possible in her living room and rearranging boxes, tables and piles in the most convenient way I could so she could work after I was gone without having to strain herself...
We'd spent time going through accordion files mom had set aside with my and my siblings names on them and which contained tons of memorabilia we'd forgotten or never seen...
One of these treasures was a black and white photo of my grandmother in her 40's Sunday best and my biological grandfather in his Navy uniform, set in a cardboard folding frame whose front was stamped with art deco design, palm trees, and the words "The World Famous Cocoanut Grove", California (where mom was born)... the back was stamped "June 28, 1944", three weeks to the day after my mother's birth, and the kids looking back at me were heartbreakingly lovely.
My seestor, who has a scanner, has been in charge of scanning and sharing all the old photos from Tooie's with us as mom gets them sorted through... I'm too far away to help and my brother is more than happy to leave it to her...
And this is where we come to an age-old wrestling match that my seestor has learned to work around, my brother ignores and I, in my maturity, argue about every chance I get because it makes me crazy...
Mom is O.C.D. and a total control-freak (yes, yes, I knoooow). My seestor surmises it has a lot to do with her childhood, parents divorcing, her mother remarrying and feeling totally unable to control anything in her life. I think she's probably right. As such, ANYthing mom has that is of any value, monetary, sentimental, whatever... she keeps an iron-fisted reign on. Insanely so right after my grandmother died, down to recipe cards and bottles of plant seeds... though with Tooie's passing and the resulting mountains of mess she's gotten better...
but one long-running bone of contention still between us: a Colt .45 revolver my father gave her when I was a baby. They've been divorced for 43 years and I would LOVE to have it, learn about it, use it... but nope. NO deal.
Anyway... my last night... I was getting ready to go to the drugstore to make some copies of some old photos of mom and me and to pick up a couple of items for her when we come to the picture of my grandmother and biological grandfather... and I say, iron-fist in mind, "I know Jen is taking everything and scanning it but I also know she's really behind and I would reeeeally love to have a copy of this... would it be ok if I took it and copied it and brought it riiight back?"
The change in her was palpable. "No." "Why?", I asked. "Because I said no.", "I'll bring it right back; Jen's overrun scanning and I'd really like to copy and frame it." "No." "Good Lord, mom, why not? Jen's taking the photos out and not bringing them back for weeks; I'll bring it right back!" I insisted. "No. I know Jen will take care of them.". "What?!! What the hell do you think I'm going to do with it? I'll copy it and bring it straight back. Jen will take care of them? What about me and Ren?", and then she said it...
"Renny," she said, "isn't a thief. I can't trust you to bring it back."
An eternity of stunned silence from me; it was like she'd physically slapped me.
I knew, you see, exactly where this was going. When I was in my late teens or early 20's, I was a liar of the first caliber, and what my mother would term a thief, though my "pilfering" was limited pretty much to borrowing her clothes, shoes, and in this instance, taking a photo. I'd been going through some old ones of hers and found one I'd never seen of her, as a teen which I'd also not seen... and I took it to frame. She saw it a year or two later when she came to Roanoke to visit, exclaimed unhappily about me having it and I told her, laughing, about having taken it since I had no pictures of her (long running family joke is none exist of her) and none of her young, which was the end of it. I thought.
Now clearly it was wrong of me to have taken it, but that was 25 years ago and I have MORE than proved who I am as a person and in my family in the intervening years.
I was stunned. And hurt. And angry. But mostly hurt.
And the weight of the entire week fell squarely on me at that very second and I lost what little restraint I had. Sobbing and shaking in anger I told her I could not believe she'd held onto that for 25 years and never said anything, I couldn't believe that despite me proving over and over again in the intervening years that I was not that person any more, THIS was how she looked at me... that despite who she knows me to be that she would still hold that photo's theft against me... that I couldn't change who I was then but that I was a different person than I'd been at 20 and she damned well knew it, that it was wrong of me to take it, terribly wrong, I was deeply sorry I had taken it without her permission, but that she was wrong. Wrong as she could possibly be. About me. About her stance on me taking the Cocoanut Grove photo to copy...
"Good Lord, Jen's loading them into her car and driving them all the way to Baltimore and keeping them in the house with Lula (her wonderful, giant, AMAZING, wolfie-type dog) for fuck sake, and all I want to do was take it to fucking CVS a mile away and bring it right back, goddammit!!!
"Oh. Well that's fine. I thought you wanted to take it home to Roanoke."
:::giant balloon whizzing around the room blasting out every ounce of air:::
What...
the hell...
just happened...?!!
And there it was. I had a choice... be my mother, hold onto my anger, stroking it and feeding it to keep it alive... or, also like my mother, let it go and proceed as she was about to... as though nothing ever happened.
It was insane... after the week I'd spent with her - the longest easily in 20 years - it was too crazy to wrap my brain around... too crazy to want to hang onto... I knew it'd just eat at me.
So I let it go.
And I knew, though it'd been packed for years, exactly where that photo was and that next time I went to my mom's I'd return it, gift wrapped, with my sincere apologies. There're just some things too crazy to hang onto.
Well I don't know why I came here tonight
I got the feeling that something ain't right
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you
And I'm wondering what it is I should do
It's so hard to keep the smile from my face
Losing control, yeah I'm all over the place
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Well you started out with nothing
And you're proud that you're a self-made man
And your friends they all come crawlin'
Slap you on the back and say 'Please, please.'
Trying to make some sense of it all
But I can see that it makes no sense at all
Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor
Well I don't think I can take anymore
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Well you started out with nothing
And you're proud that you're a self-made man
And your friends they all come crawlin'
Slap you on the back and say 'Please, please.'
Yeah I don't know why I came here tonight
I got the feeling that something ain't right
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
(Yes I'm) stuck in the middle with you
Stuck in the middle with you
(Here I am) stuck in the middle with you.
R.I.P Gerry Rafferty 1/4/11
