three yawns

We are so tired, Mom and I, but for different reasons, of course. Mom's body is exhausted with her corporeal struggles and mine with keeping pace with her needs--medical, emotional, financial, legal. When I get there to see Mom yesterday it's the end of the day; she looks better than I've seen her in days, almost a week, actually. I keep thinking--so what could have produced her loss of mental acuity during this last week? I know that Alzheimer's decline can be sporadic--so I know to expect this: how one day she can be better than ever and the next she's slipped back into a fog. But at the same time, I know that each time she's had a stroke, there's been a period of days preceding where her speech and mental functioning go significantly downhill. There's some research that suggests that this is indeed the case--that people who suffer from amyloid angiopathy (and it's subsequent brain bleeds) experience this kind of decline just prior to the stroke. Mom also demonstrates these symptoms when she has a urinary track infection--it's almost like her brain becomes un-wired, her speech garbled, her conversation full of non-sequitors.

So all of these things have been running through my head this past week (along with worry)--all of them possible explanations for Mom's declining mental functioning and her angry, aggressive behavior on Wednesday. And there's been frustration. It's taken three days to get the nursing staff to take a urine sample, why I'm not sure. I got the doctor's order Tuesday am and ever since have prodded the nurses to get the urine sample. Daily prods (however nice) these have been, each one accompanied by the promise that--it will be "done tonight." Wednesday, when I talk with Anne, her response is--"Well, I may not be able to get a sample." "Why," I ask (knowing she's talking about not being able to get enough "clean" urine from a woman who is incontinent), "it's a catheter order?" "Oh," she says and then adds--"Well, Dorin may not allow me to do the test." Again, I say, "Why, she's had many of these before?"

I like Ann--she has a sense of humor (and smile) and is good with my mom--but I cannot reconcile why she is so reluctant (negligent?) to carry out what was ordered so many days ago. I am thinking--if someone isn't here, constantly and persistently looking after Mom and her medical needs, Mom would be in peril, even in an institution as well managed as the Mirabella. Persistence is the key--someone with the time and energy to be persistent. The idea of Mom going home--to an environment with little to no medical oversight--makes me shudder with fear.

So when I see Mom last night in such good humor, I feel relieved, thinking maybe she's okay after all, maybe there's no new stroke, no UTI, no further Alzheimer's decline. Maybe.

Yet, despite how good Mom looks and despite how clear she sounds, she is tired. Mom yawns, a big heavy yawn that causes her entire face to rise and then collapse with the effort of it. Note the time lapse photos--looks like Mom's crying but really she's expelling sleep from her face. It's a process, letting go of exhaustion in the realization of knowing it's still daylight, still hours to go before sleep is expected, permitted.

Mom's yawns are contagious--soon she has Lorna and I yawning right alongside her. There's been three yawns each in the last three minutes. Spectacular! We are fully infected with the need for sleep, only it's not clear who is causing whom to yawn, to be that in need of sleep.

When I go to leave, Mom's second visitor for the day arrives--Mom's nephew Paul. I leave them laughing at Mom's pumpkin hat, Mom relaying to Paul the escapades of Wednesday's adventures, Lorna filling in the details where needed. We all yawn once more, before I leave. Even Paul can't help himself--his mouth widening and shutting in chorus with our own. A loud collective laugh leaves our lips. We can't help it--laughter's as contagious as sleep.

As I ease off the clutch of my Miata and shift into first gear to pull up the steep incline of Mirabella's driveway, I see my brother turning into the opposing lane with his motorcycle--another visitor for Mom. She will be exhausted by the time lights go out tonight.

As I pull out onto Minor and head for Denny, I feel my own exhaustion--something heavy enough to weight my bones, cause my body to ignore my own commands to grab the wheel, turn the tires, change lanes, stay alert to oncoming cars. It will take stamina to reach home safely. It has taken stamina to get this far and still be breathing, laughing, crying, however imperfectly. Mom's life has become a job for me, however beloved. It has been for a long time (at least two years)--managing her financial issues and cash flow problems, managing her real state assets, managing her health care needs and medication procurements, managing her legal muddles, managing her mood swings and changing psychological needs, managing the poverty of my family's dysfunction regarding "what to do with Mom." All of these my brother Eric has left for me to handle. And now this--an "office" to come to, so to speak--a physical room at the Mirabella where Mom is struggling to hold her own and where I have a job to keep her safe, keep her healthy, keep her still with us. Something has to give....it can't be my students, it can't be my exercise...so it's sleep that's taken the brunt of my new double life. Sleep is what I have lost, what I dream of: to sleep, uninterrupted, for hours, day and night, until this nightmare goes away, until life returns to what I know it to be.

Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--