BLESSINGS RETURNED

November 3, 2008 at 2:18 pm (Adoptee, Family)
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This is the result of an assignment given in my Aging, Death and Dying Psychology class.  Since school started, I’ve had no time to write here, but thought this was appropriate to post since it seems to be the theme of my life these days.  The grandmother I write about is my natural maternal grandmother.  I was not raised with her, but she is so loveable, it almost doesn’t matter.  It breaks my heart to have to say goodbye when we have just said hello.   Coincidentally, my adoptive maternal grandmother was a lot like this one.  She died many, many years ago and I still miss her terribly.  It almost feels like I’m losing her again.  Here’s my psych assignment submission:

On this assignment we are to be writing a “reaction” paper. At this time in writing, I know the author, the title and who the article is about. My initial reaction was slight disappointment because, although I enjoy Dr. Mannino’s We the People articles, I was hoping for some variety. My next reaction was elation when in the second paragraph I read the name Linda Bacci! I can’t wait to get back to the article, but just wanted to get this down while the reaction was strong.
At this writing I am returning home to Santa Rosa from North Bend, Oregon. My brother driving and I in the passenger seat with laptop open. We are finishing a quick roundtrip to visit our ailing 91-year-old grandmother. It will be the last time we see her. I always thought that when someone reached that age, there shouldn’t be much to be sad about. They’ve had a full life and it’s their time to go, right? Their bodies are tired and worn, full of aches and pains, their hearing and eyesight are failing or gone and their minds are forgetful and slow. Their life is winding down like an antique clock whose springs are stretched and gears worn. I looked into my grandmother’s face and I saw sadness and resolution in her gentle and otherwise always smiling eyes. Sadness has never been a part of her vocabulary. I wanted to cry,not because she’s dying, but because she’s sad. We sat for awhile and talked. Other visitors talk around the elephant in the room. When they left and we were alone I asked her how she felt about her doctor visit that day. I knew the news wasn’t good. My aunts had already told me. But I wanted to hear how my grandmother felt about it. There wasn’t anything that could be done and her heart was weakening faster than expected. Then she explained to me from her recliner, with her feet propped up and an oxygen tube wrapped around her face pumping oxygen through her nose, that she had no pain whatsoever. None, she said. Her eyesight is good. In fact she was driving herself up until a month ago. Her hearing is good with the use of one hearing aide, her mind sharp and quick. It dawned on me that, if it weren’t for a couple of faulty heart valves refusing to pump blood through her body and osteoporosis crippling her shrinking frame, she’d be out scaling mountains and whitewater rafting. My grandmother is not ready to die—she probably never would be, she still has so much life she wants to live.
So, seeing Linda Bacci’s name brings comfort to me, just as the article says she has done for so many. I’ve learned so much from her including how to just be with a dying person, how to leave my own agenda at the door and how to be “other centered.” Linda is definitely that, other centered.   I’ve always wanted to me more like her.
I think I must have forgotten that she was a Chaplain because I only saw her in her capacity as volunteer coordinator at Face to Face. I would be interested to know when this article was written. Is she still making guest appearances in this course’s night class?
What a perfect career. In my current job as a litigation paralegal it is all about how much you can do in the shortest amount of time. “Time is money.” Time is what we sell. As a Chaplain, less is more and actions are often subtle yet more important than words. The simple act of sitting close to the dying person or asking the family to tell about their loved one. As Linda mentioned, we’re not responsible for other’s death or dying, but we can be there to hold their hand.

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OLD DRIVERS NEVER STOP DRIVING, THEY JUST USE LONG TERM PARKING

August 27, 2008 at 2:29 pm (Uncategorized)
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We all have heard about and had our concerns about the dangers of people driving long past the time they should have found a permanent parking space.  We also have heard the protests of those people when their driving privileges are threatened.   There is a  South Park episode parodying the senior citizens’ right to continue driving.  It was pretty funny actually.   Unfortunately for the town, Kenny wasn’t the only one “those bastards” killed.

After my harrowing experience with mom behind the wheel yesterday, I decided she had probably had enough.  But I didn’t want to be the one to tell her.  We already had an appointment  with her regular MD scheduled for early this morning.  I thought, brilliant! Mom’s hard of hearing.  I’ll just whisper to the doctor that I think she needs to stop driving and he can be the bearer of bad news.  My plan went well until the old doctor shouted at my mother “YOUR DAUGHTER THINKS YOU SHOULD STOP DRIVING.” 

Her response?  A non-committal mumbling “maybe so”.  That’s all he needed to hear.   She is now using long term parking.  Funny, although clearly disappointed, I think she was actually relieved.   She even enthusiastically talked about learning how to ride the bus!  You go, Mom!!  You rock!!

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DRIVING WITH MOM TODAY

August 26, 2008 at 2:05 pm (Family)
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That was then:

I learned to drive in 1978.  I was never a terrible driver.  But I guess I haven’t always been the best driver either.  Regardless, my mother was always a nervous passenger.  Everytime we were 5-6 car lengths behind another car or 15 yards before a stoplight she would grab the dashboard or make a sharp inhaling noise.  I kept telling her she wasn’t helping my confidence any.  She finally stopped jumping everytime an object appeared in her line of sight.  Unfortunately, she replaced this nervous bahavior with another.  She began reading every road sign outloud and, if that wasn’t bad enough (I could always tune her out) she would ask for confirmation that that’s what the sign said if I didn’t comment.  Did you know that on a particular section of 19th Ave in San Francisco the cross streets are in alphabetical order?  Yeah, “now I know my abc’s backward, forward, forward, backward, sideways, upsidedown, in a box, with a fox while eating green eggs and ham with Jan-I-Am. I don’t think anyone can imagine what this must be like unless you’ve driven with someone who reads road signs all the way from California to Washington State and back.

This is now:

Fast forward to today.  Mom called me last night to ask if I thought it was ok for her to drive herself again.  She hadn’t driven since her bout in the hospital.  I asked her what she thought.  She said she thought she was ok.  She was only going a couple miles down the road to have breakfast with her friends.  Ok, I said, try it.  She doesn’t know that I was driving behind her the whole way.  She later drove to my office so we could go to an appointment together.  It’s true what they say about parents and children reversing roles.  I hung on for dear life the entire trip as she sped up and slowed down and cross the center line and weaved into the shoulder.  “Should I go through this stoplight, she would ask, or turn here?”  I felt compelled to say, “Mom, after you STOP at the stoplight and AFTER it turns green, you need to go straight.”  I just didn’t know what she was going to do next.  Now I know how she felt when I was a young driver.

One more thing I think she will have to forego.  We’ve got a great bus system.  They stop right outside her front door.  Now we just need to teach her how to use it.

Guess what mom?  With all the money you’ll be saving on insurance, car repairs and gas, AND cigarettes, you can take me shopping!  I love you!

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MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS WITH NO ANSWERS OR SANTA ROSA JUNIOR COLLEGE WOULD NEVER HIRE GOD AS A TEACHER

August 25, 2008 at 9:28 pm (College re-entry, Family)
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What a week, what a week.   Life sometimes dishes out the tests that make Stanford look like preschool.   Hopefully I’ve passed a few this week.

Summer sailed incident free.  Did I take advantage of the extra free time? Of course not.  That would spoil my procrastination streak of 40+ years.   Work was slow, children (young adults) were well behaved and stayed out of trouble (as far as I know).  My 75-year-old mother also behaved herself.  I think God is an equal procrastinator.  He could have toss me a few hardballs along the way.  I could handle it.  But noooooooooooo.  He had to wait and toss the whole bag at once.  I feel like I’ve been standing at the backstop of pitching practice for the SF Giants.

All that peace and serenity came to a screeching halt last week.  My boss, who has been taking it real easy for many, many months, decided to start working again.  The office is remodeling which meant packing my entire office and while simultaneously meeting deadlines.  College started up again.   My classes this semester are online but they require at least one in-person class session.   No problem.  Hannah is home from her job as a camp counselor and requires a little taxi service and a chunk out of my thin pocket book not to mention help with financial aid applications, shopping for textbooks and miscellaneous sundries.  No problem.  Shirah, my lovable, adaptable daughter, is finding her own way to work after my school workload interfered with her schedule.  The poor dog sorely needs a grooming.   We can handle all of these things without a thought or care.  Then I call my mother to invite her to Shirah’s birthday dinner (happy birthday, Shirah!).  “I’m not feeling too well,” she tells me.  I say, “tell me more.”  She’s had a headache all week and has no energy.  Her words are coming slower than usual and she sounds confused.  “Ok”, I say.  We’ll cancel Shirah’s dinner (sorry, honey!) and take a trip the emergency room.  It had been awhile.  I hadn’t seen the ER in well over 2 weeks when my cousin’s mom suffered a massive stroke.  (I later teased another cousin who was on her way to care for her sister who was having shoulder surgery that we better not have any more family members go down because we were running out of caregivers.)   

Psych 56: Aging, Death and Dying.  I attended the first class a couple of hours before admitting my mother to the ER.  Could I have picked a better subject for the occasion?   Should be an easy class.  But nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.  The teacher has given us a mandatory homework assignment consisting of reviewing pages and pages of web material and text books and writing 3000-3500 words ALL DUE IN ONE WEEK.  For those of you who don’t know how much writing that is, we’re talking 10 PAGES, SINGLE SPACED!!!  Having past experiences in ER waiting rooms, I took my death and dying textbook to read.  How morbid is that.  In retrospect I should have at least put it in a plain brown wrapper.

Elementary Statistics.  Now, I’ve been told from a few different sources that this is one of the hardest classes ever designed anywhere and that Santa Rosa Junior College has one of the toughest curriculums.  But, I need it for my major, so I’m taking it.  First class, Monday evening.

Back to mom.   Following the Psych class the previous Saturday, I picked up Shirah’s birthday cake, took it home, placed it in the freezer, picked up Hannah, drove to my mother’s 5th floor apartment, assessed the situation.  She didn’t look good.  Got mom dressed (she’d been in her nightgown for lord knows how long), located all her medication, keys, purse, etc.  Even though she barely knew where she was or what she was doing, we still had to slap her hand away as she reached for the cigarettes.  We gently and slooooooowly walk her down to the car.  Should we take her to urgent care facility where the wait is shorter or the main hospital ER where we could be all night?  We told her we were taking her to the hospital because she was sick.  She kept thinking we were going to visit the aforementioned cousin’s mother who had the stroke.  We went to the ER.  Following a short intake we moved to the packed waiting room to settle in for a long. . . .wait.  We literally had not sat down before a nurse came and rushed us back to the ER.  

Seeing her condition and listening to her speak, several health care individuals at the hospital told me that she probably would not be able to live alone anymore or, of course, drive herself.  Even at discharge (3 days later) the doctor said she should no longer drive and requested a nurse visit the home to assess her living situation.   I know I must have just look at them perplexedly.  She only had a lung infection.  Why would they say she needs so much more care?

Knowing my mother was going to require so much more attention,  I hit the overload limit.  My eyes filled easily with salty tears theatening to spill at even a slight thought of what might be.   Of my mother’s losses, of my losses.  I didn’t know what to do.   Should I give up on school to care for her.  I only have 3 classes left before I can transfer.  I’m 47!  This is turning into a dream left to die.  It wouldn’t be the end of my world, but it would sure hurt.  I visited my blog after a period of absence.  Something pulled me there.  I re-read the end of the last entry where I remind myself that I need to spend more time with her.   How will I feel if I’m immersed in school and she dies?  How will I feel if I give up on school and she thrives for several more years?  Arghhhhhhhh!  Damn life with no easy answers!!!!!!!  I even toss out the questions to my 19- year-old.  Both my children are wise and gifted in seeing difficult situations with amazing clarity.  She told me I needed to set my priorities and I was the only one who could.  She was right.  Damn, damn life with no easy answers!!!!!!!

Then, I realized why the doctors at the hospital are telling me my mother cannot be independent.  I’ve lived with her in her current state for almost 19 years so I forget that she doesn’t seem normal to everyone else.  I then told the doctors that she had a stroke 19 years ago that affected her speech and her cognitive ability to process language.  Her thoughts get trapped in her head and she has difficulty relaying them verbally so people think she’s confused or stupid.   I readily tell people about her stroke when she speaks because they often don’t understand her.  I assume the doctors already know this.

She’s home now.  She does need more care.  Her simple math skills are almost completely gone.  She can almost no longer write a check.  She’s not sure what kind of foods she should buy at the grocery store so she buys the same things and cooks the same things.   But, she can mostly do for herself. 

She’s been a heavy smoker since she was 14.  In the past, most doctors would address her smoking in a passive way saying things like “don’t you think it’s time to stop?”  Of couse she does.  At the end of this hospital visit, the doctor finally said the Emphysema word.  He looked her close in the eyes and made sure she could hear him (she is hard of hearing too) and told her firmly but gently that SHE COULD NOT SMOKE AT ALL EVERY AGAIN!   My promise to her is that if she stopped, I would visit more often because I could not sit in her 900 sq. ft. apartment breathing in the thick, eye burning smoke.  And during my visits, I will do homework while she watches her favorite shows.  It’s been over a week and no cigarettes!  Our congregation of Lutherans, stingy on applause, applauded her during the Prays of the People this Sunday.   

I got to pick 2 answers on this multiple choice quiz and they are both right!  I still tear up, but now because I am happy for both of us.

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