Last week I took her to the doctor to follow up on the recommendations of the nurse practitioner who visits once a year from the health insurer. I'm sure they check in once a year to observe her physical health and setting so they can see if it's time to send her to a higher (more expensive) level of care. That's the cynical chronic malcontent talking. Actually, I liked the NP. In a brisk, no-nonsense fashion, she gave us some information about the drugs Mom is taking and suggested we see if we could cut back some and add the memory drug that goes by the brand name Aracept.
The doctor was skeptical, but willing to try. He seems infinitely patient with my mother, who is having a hard time explaining things to him, or to anyone. Her mental acuity is shredding before my eyes. He took her off the cholesterol drug, cut the blood pressure drug in half, and added the Aracept. We walked out of there with medium-high hopes. The day after she started taking the new drug, I called her to see how she was feeling.
“I took it with dinner,” she said. “Then I laid on the couch for about four hours without a thought in my head.”
I was impressed and wondered if Aracept could do the same for me. I didn't say that.
“Maybe take it before bed next time,” I said. “Maybe it will help you sleep.”
A few days later I took her to her 6-month dental checkup. She has about five teeth left in her head, and apparently, she's pretty much abandoned them to care for themselves.
Minnie, the dental hygienist came out to get me in the waiting room. I followed her back to the exam room where my dinky mother was stretched out in the chair with a green fleece blanket pulled up to her chin. It was shocking to see her without her dentures. Who was this person? I tried not to look away. Luckily, without her glasses, she couldn't see my queasiness.
I sat on a little stool set over the air conditioning floor vent at the foot of the chair. Blazing sun cooked my back through a huge picture window while frigid air froze my back and thighs. While we waited for the dentist to arrive, Minnie chastised my mother for not brushing her few remaining teeth. Then she looked at me like I was responsible.
“Make a checklist,” Minnie recommended. “Brush teeth...”
“Good idea,” I said. Of course, I haven't done it. I keep forgetting. I get caught up in election news. What can I say? My mother's health and the presidential election are similar in the sense that they are both like slow-motion train wrecks. Nuts and bolts, rivets and sprockets, blood and bones and brain are all disintegrating molecule by molecule, frame by frame. I can't do anything but stand and stare and hope it's over soon.
Last night I called Mom to see how she was doing.
“I can't get my TV to come on,” she said.
“Okay. I'll call Mitch.” (Mitch [not his real name] is my brother). I called my brother and reported the problem. He said he would walk over there and fix it. A couple hours later, he called me.
“The battery was dead in the remote. Then I had to do a whole setup thing. I have no idea what I did. Somehow I fixed it.” This is the theme. Somehow we fix it. But life doesn't stay fixed. Oh well. At least she has TV.
This morning Mom called me, sounding relatively chipper.
“I need coffee and cigarettes,” she said. She's learned to place her order by phone. Rarely does she feel like braving Winco herself. I'm good with that. Shopping with Mom is not the treat it used to be. I don't know why. She still leads the way, and she still pays for everything. Maybe because she's like a two-year old who smokes? Maybe because the things we buy are not for me. Ha.
“Okay, I'll bring it over right after I finish eating breakfast,” I promised.
The temperature is heading toward 100° today. I went to Winco, hoping to beat the heat. Using Mom's debit card, I bought a 5-pound can of coffee, three containers of vanilla-flavored rice milk, and two plastic bags bulging with bulk cheerios and bulk rice krispies. And a TV dinner. Turkey seemed like a safe bet; she's stopped cooking entirely, it seems, except for toast. TV dinners is the new menu.
I drove through the heat to Mom's condo. When I unlocked the door, the place was dark. I unloaded the groceries and tip-toed down the hall toward the bedroom. In the dim light, I could barely see her form, lying under covers on the bed. I thought, uh-oh.
“Are you sleeping?” I whispered.
“Uh, wha, what? Yeah,” she mumbled. “I didn't feel like eating today.”
I said okay and left her in bed. What was I going to do? Force her to get up and eat cheerios? She's got a right to take a nap anytime she wants. At least she can wake up to abundant coffee and cigarettes. Assuming she wakes up. There's that uncertainty again. It's funny how I refuse to see the humor in it, when I know it's all around me.
