10- Advocate Advocates - Doctor – Do –Done
There is a slight hill at the entrance to the medical doctor’s office and for the life of me; it’s even more fun to have the mom on my arm when it snows. Those days are meant for strangers, and dogs with no tails. Sounds quite harsh, but it’s a great way to judge what the incline will be like in the exam room.
Now when the senior mom is more than eighty-five years old, and I’m sitting in the room, when the young, male doctor asks the mom for a gynecological exam. Now, the incline just got steep. She looked at him, and then looked at me, and I had to say, “Hey doc, I don’t think so.” And my mom agreed.
She advocated for herself in this arena. And I was quite proud that she had the same take on this part of the exam as me.
My thinking was, ‘what are you going to look for? Cancer? She’s already closer to death than fixing?’ And I certainly wasn’t going to stay in the room if the doctor forced the issue.
Walking down the incline towards the car my mom said, “I don’t think I could even spread my legs that far apart anymore.”
2/6/09
Conduct in Relationships – Hands Down
Who’s got that elder parent who can’t speak without their hands flying through the air? My friends mom who can’t help herself especially in the car, close quarters, small kitchens, and even seated in a living room.
Things seem to always spill, fall or fall and break whenever she speaks. And it’s not a disease, or illness, it’s a very bad habit to avoid. The actions of arms and hands flailing into my face towards my eyes.
Sometimes you would that think the generation of men who didn’t let women speak freely were the ones who created this mother’s expressive habit. Why? Only through her overt efforts of over-speaking could she be heard. Else the hidden hostilities of marriage and failed dreams could lead to this accentuation in senior.
We all know that certain illnesses may cause severe lack of body movement control, but in the senior citizen, who at first appears normal and safe - beware. Striking up the conversation in the grocery store could be a serious mistake.
I watched jars of pickles fall and crash, creating a further mess of unsafety to slip and slide through the broken glass. The stranger was stunned as the exasperated hand motions of the first activity created another action of more and different products from the other side of the isle to submit to gravity.
A picturesque scene of music-ish shopping was halted by her conversation alone. On the drive home her flying hands and arms made driving quite quizzical.
My bruised arms from her expressions of apologies in the car made me wish that I had a straight jacket instead of a seat belt.
Please inform Detroit of another safety issue, the need for nets between driver and passenger seats.
Things seem to always spill, fall or fall and break whenever she speaks. And it’s not a disease, or illness, it’s a very bad habit to avoid. The actions of arms and hands flailing into my face towards my eyes.
Sometimes you would that think the generation of men who didn’t let women speak freely were the ones who created this mother’s expressive habit. Why? Only through her overt efforts of over-speaking could she be heard. Else the hidden hostilities of marriage and failed dreams could lead to this accentuation in senior.
We all know that certain illnesses may cause severe lack of body movement control, but in the senior citizen, who at first appears normal and safe - beware. Striking up the conversation in the grocery store could be a serious mistake.
I watched jars of pickles fall and crash, creating a further mess of unsafety to slip and slide through the broken glass. The stranger was stunned as the exasperated hand motions of the first activity created another action of more and different products from the other side of the isle to submit to gravity.
A picturesque scene of music-ish shopping was halted by her conversation alone. On the drive home her flying hands and arms made driving quite quizzical.
My bruised arms from her expressions of apologies in the car made me wish that I had a straight jacket instead of a seat belt.
Please inform Detroit of another safety issue, the need for nets between driver and passenger seats.
2/3/09
Water - Hold That Thought
8- Water - Hold That Thought
How many prescriptions am I drinking? The water in a city’s service is filtered for certain things, but living downhill from a mountain river that has a city or two up river can be quite vexing. Wondering what heart, thyroid, sexual enhancement drugs you may have taken today?
Know they neighbor has a completely new meaning.
Visit an elder’s medicine cabinet and know, that like food, what goes in must come out. Makes a younger wonder why the frogs are looking like fish, why the fish are both male and female and songbirds are singing disco in the dark.
So, ya take a gander at the dosage on the jar, and look it up on the web, under Adult and then begin to worry. Grandma’s been a little daft, maybe she’s overdosed. Aging plays ‘a slowing game’ on the liver and kidneys and doesn’t pass it out all that fast like the Adult Dosage is meant to.
In addition, she’s only taking twenty pills three times per day. And Grandma’s only getting worse; sort of make me wonder – why?
Yet, soon enough I may turn from a woman into a man with gills and snout, and they’ll just call me elderly.
How many prescriptions am I drinking? The water in a city’s service is filtered for certain things, but living downhill from a mountain river that has a city or two up river can be quite vexing. Wondering what heart, thyroid, sexual enhancement drugs you may have taken today?
Know they neighbor has a completely new meaning.
Visit an elder’s medicine cabinet and know, that like food, what goes in must come out. Makes a younger wonder why the frogs are looking like fish, why the fish are both male and female and songbirds are singing disco in the dark.
So, ya take a gander at the dosage on the jar, and look it up on the web, under Adult and then begin to worry. Grandma’s been a little daft, maybe she’s overdosed. Aging plays ‘a slowing game’ on the liver and kidneys and doesn’t pass it out all that fast like the Adult Dosage is meant to.
In addition, she’s only taking twenty pills three times per day. And Grandma’s only getting worse; sort of make me wonder – why?
Yet, soon enough I may turn from a woman into a man with gills and snout, and they’ll just call me elderly.
1/26/09
Toilet Adjustments-Training Pants
7- Toilet Adjustments-Training Pants
Shopping for size and shape is historical, yet if you are the first time buyer for another – it depends. It gets a bit tricky. It’s not like there’s a sample of each brand laying around to check out the quality, how it’s made. Then, it’s quantity of desired ultimate use. If you notice, the label doesn’t give total volume content. It’s not like a can or a jar. Written out, 16 oz., 7.5 ounces volume liquid, one-quart liquid. Yet, isn’t that what this paper container is use for? Depends.
I know the advertisement portion is states, “Keeps you dry!” But this is an adult diaper. It’s a hygiene product, and well, dry depends on the volume. What’s the volume of this or the other product?
Now I haven’t check the baby diaper volume content levels either for comparison of product use. However, if they do, I would buy them if the cut and size worked for skinny person.
So manufacturers and users of take note, this may be a greater point of advertising dollars. State, please on your packaging:
• This brand holds one liter, while this brand holds a gallon.
• This brand holds a 16 ounces of solids and this brands holds 32 ounces?
What am I suppose to look for in comparison? Besides the size and the stretchy shape which they all seem to have to one degree or another? Some guidelines on this fashion in addition to living-form-fitting would be very helpful, since I am the proxy. I’ve seen the television advertisement, but I’ve seen a baby’s bundle a thousand times too, and never waited for the baby to compliment the structural design or shape, since the next change came faster than the verdict.
In addition, there is no worse way to loose your chances of meeting someone to date, then by being seen reading the packages of incontinence products in the Walgreens drug store. Do you concur
Shopping for size and shape is historical, yet if you are the first time buyer for another – it depends. It gets a bit tricky. It’s not like there’s a sample of each brand laying around to check out the quality, how it’s made. Then, it’s quantity of desired ultimate use. If you notice, the label doesn’t give total volume content. It’s not like a can or a jar. Written out, 16 oz., 7.5 ounces volume liquid, one-quart liquid. Yet, isn’t that what this paper container is use for? Depends.
I know the advertisement portion is states, “Keeps you dry!” But this is an adult diaper. It’s a hygiene product, and well, dry depends on the volume. What’s the volume of this or the other product?
Now I haven’t check the baby diaper volume content levels either for comparison of product use. However, if they do, I would buy them if the cut and size worked for skinny person.
So manufacturers and users of take note, this may be a greater point of advertising dollars. State, please on your packaging:
• This brand holds one liter, while this brand holds a gallon.
• This brand holds a 16 ounces of solids and this brands holds 32 ounces?
What am I suppose to look for in comparison? Besides the size and the stretchy shape which they all seem to have to one degree or another? Some guidelines on this fashion in addition to living-form-fitting would be very helpful, since I am the proxy. I’ve seen the television advertisement, but I’ve seen a baby’s bundle a thousand times too, and never waited for the baby to compliment the structural design or shape, since the next change came faster than the verdict.
In addition, there is no worse way to loose your chances of meeting someone to date, then by being seen reading the packages of incontinence products in the Walgreens drug store. Do you concur
1/22/09
I can scare you too.
Are you the one taking the parent to the hospital for some outpatient care? I was, after years of attending to this parent with me, as power of attorney for her medical affairs, we arrived at the out patient reception at the direction of the primary physician. But, I could have been at the auto dealership for a car repair and they would have been nicer, more organized and a touch more compassionate.
The local hospital was recently renamed and as I could now see the effects of 'under new management'. We quickly learned that upon inquiry we were lower than low on the human being scale. The medical orders were not present. And how dare we not have the MD’s telephone number to call up for these items. 'Oh yes, we heard you were coming for this procedure, but Your Doctor never sent the paperwork. So what are you doing here - kind of treatment. How stupid could we be? How much more intrusive and demanding could we be, since we were present but not complete - how dare we?
So what do we do now? Sign papers, no. And it was such a struggle for them to find the telephone number for the physician. And it was such a trouble that, ‘You can’t wait here, you need to go back there, down that long hallway. Wait there. Now. Because this is all too much work for us to do.”
Old people don't move that fast, turning around alone, is six separate and slow movements, so we're going...
“We’ll just come back tomorrow, no, no I don’t want to trouble your staff,” and was heading for the exit door to the car.
Then a patient advocate arrived, and stroked us out during the long hallway walk back to the reception area. Now, the papers were ready to be signed as the receptionist placed an identity band on the parent's wrist. By the time I looked around for the parent, she’s rolling back down the hallway alone.
We arrive back at outpatient services where we were just sent away from. Directed by nurse this time, back to a room, and since we didn’t have paperwork, the RN was exasperated, that she had another task, she departed annoyed. Only to return with the same papers I had just signed, blank, taxing the sick and confused parent with signing documents she could not read nor were verbally explained to her. Initial here, sign there and date it. The parent could barely hold the signing ink pen, so that was too slow for the RN.
Even the first ID wrist band was removed, and she began to replace it, when the parent asked a question, which was just one thing too much for the RN who replaced the next, second ID wrist band and departed without a word and hostile to find another RN. I was sorry I noticed that the allergy section of the wrist band was blank, and the parent-patient did have a couple of drug allergies that you should know about, can I tell you?
The outpatient area was completely empty. Maybe one other patient, and one outpatient receptionist – the one who cycled us out the first time. The parent was pretty nervous with all impatience delivered and ready to make the effort to leave. The parent had brought her own book, lunch and other entertainment and was simply scared at the hospital management of her case.
“Who knows if they know what they doing for the rest of the day? And they just might kill me,: the parent verbally rationalized to me about the experience so far. “Since now they are angry that I’m here. Maybe we should go?”
Then the lab technician arrived, forthcoming and confident to take a blood sample, and a new RN arrived, who looked familiar to the parent and myself. Suddenly the anxiety left, and the entire tone of business changed. The new RN explained easily what was going to happen, how long it would take, and then the next step.
Whew! Nothing like being scared by the person and institution that suppose to help you! Next time, like the airlines, the auto repair shop, we’ll call and confirm before arrival that all the parts are present for the work to get done.
I still stopped in to visit the Administrative Offices, and let them know before I left the parent there. I wouldn’t give them my parent’s name – jokingly, “I still don’t want you to kill her.”
The local hospital was recently renamed and as I could now see the effects of 'under new management'. We quickly learned that upon inquiry we were lower than low on the human being scale. The medical orders were not present. And how dare we not have the MD’s telephone number to call up for these items. 'Oh yes, we heard you were coming for this procedure, but Your Doctor never sent the paperwork. So what are you doing here - kind of treatment. How stupid could we be? How much more intrusive and demanding could we be, since we were present but not complete - how dare we?
So what do we do now? Sign papers, no. And it was such a struggle for them to find the telephone number for the physician. And it was such a trouble that, ‘You can’t wait here, you need to go back there, down that long hallway. Wait there. Now. Because this is all too much work for us to do.”
Old people don't move that fast, turning around alone, is six separate and slow movements, so we're going...
“We’ll just come back tomorrow, no, no I don’t want to trouble your staff,” and was heading for the exit door to the car.
Then a patient advocate arrived, and stroked us out during the long hallway walk back to the reception area. Now, the papers were ready to be signed as the receptionist placed an identity band on the parent's wrist. By the time I looked around for the parent, she’s rolling back down the hallway alone.
We arrive back at outpatient services where we were just sent away from. Directed by nurse this time, back to a room, and since we didn’t have paperwork, the RN was exasperated, that she had another task, she departed annoyed. Only to return with the same papers I had just signed, blank, taxing the sick and confused parent with signing documents she could not read nor were verbally explained to her. Initial here, sign there and date it. The parent could barely hold the signing ink pen, so that was too slow for the RN.
Even the first ID wrist band was removed, and she began to replace it, when the parent asked a question, which was just one thing too much for the RN who replaced the next, second ID wrist band and departed without a word and hostile to find another RN. I was sorry I noticed that the allergy section of the wrist band was blank, and the parent-patient did have a couple of drug allergies that you should know about, can I tell you?
The outpatient area was completely empty. Maybe one other patient, and one outpatient receptionist – the one who cycled us out the first time. The parent was pretty nervous with all impatience delivered and ready to make the effort to leave. The parent had brought her own book, lunch and other entertainment and was simply scared at the hospital management of her case.
“Who knows if they know what they doing for the rest of the day? And they just might kill me,: the parent verbally rationalized to me about the experience so far. “Since now they are angry that I’m here. Maybe we should go?”
Then the lab technician arrived, forthcoming and confident to take a blood sample, and a new RN arrived, who looked familiar to the parent and myself. Suddenly the anxiety left, and the entire tone of business changed. The new RN explained easily what was going to happen, how long it would take, and then the next step.
Whew! Nothing like being scared by the person and institution that suppose to help you! Next time, like the airlines, the auto repair shop, we’ll call and confirm before arrival that all the parts are present for the work to get done.
I still stopped in to visit the Administrative Offices, and let them know before I left the parent there. I wouldn’t give them my parent’s name – jokingly, “I still don’t want you to kill her.”
1/21/09
Don't Loose That Thought
Heck, it comes up in my house every Holiday season, the history of the holiday. It’s the dreaded memory passed on to each generation. Be it July 4th, Labor Day, Memorial Day there’s always a tradition to behold. And since I am care giving another – alone - by myself, it’s a lot.
The stories get expanded, it’s like a one snapshot memory with a movie loop. Repeated, so it’s not forgotten what tid-bits happened before I was born. Now, with more than fifty years of living under my belt, it’s not really going to shape my life with the lessons expressed in the tale.
Why do I take it? Proximity. My siblings seem to think it’s okay to ignore each holiday with a phone call. Those calls last only long enough to remain in the moment, and what they don’t understand and won’t give up their lives to know their mom with dad’s old stories.
I videoed my mother talking over the slide projector, flipping through the ages and phases of their lives, wondering if anyone cared about my own life. Later, I converted that video tape to DVD, and made ten copies. One for each of the second, third and fourth generations was mailed out each of them.
Since they couldn't show up for their share of the thoughts and spoken words, I thought they could view them at their lesisure. Since they couldn't remember - I didn't want them to loose that thought.
The stories get expanded, it’s like a one snapshot memory with a movie loop. Repeated, so it’s not forgotten what tid-bits happened before I was born. Now, with more than fifty years of living under my belt, it’s not really going to shape my life with the lessons expressed in the tale.
Why do I take it? Proximity. My siblings seem to think it’s okay to ignore each holiday with a phone call. Those calls last only long enough to remain in the moment, and what they don’t understand and won’t give up their lives to know their mom with dad’s old stories.
I videoed my mother talking over the slide projector, flipping through the ages and phases of their lives, wondering if anyone cared about my own life. Later, I converted that video tape to DVD, and made ten copies. One for each of the second, third and fourth generations was mailed out each of them.
Since they couldn't show up for their share of the thoughts and spoken words, I thought they could view them at their lesisure. Since they couldn't remember - I didn't want them to loose that thought.
1/16/09
So You’re Moving Closer
The tricks of the trade; proximity, familiarity makes atoms attach-detach and move on. I was in anatomy class when this theory came up in the learning section on chemistry. Then I also remembered proximity and familiarity from psychology classes, denoting communication and exchanges between the parties.
This theory also works for dating and most all other human relationships that work, since chemistry, is the basis of human life on this planet. Yet, maybe the hydrogen atom speeded up before spinning off to link up with some other group of attracting molecules.
Still, what part of moving near the parent do you find attractive? Especially when the parents didn’t care about you that much when you were young child and vulnerable like Cammy was. Now, as a little molecule that has attracted another atom to you (like marriage, partnership or out-of-wedlock children), what part of moving near the parent do you find attractive?
It took two visits; each of them five plus days, by Cammy to my house while plotting her relocation. That’s an awful lot of words to express in numerous on-going conversations about her feelings on her duty to serve her mother.
Soldiers have to rationalize to others their personal feelings of duty and service to their country. I was watching Cammy attempt to fit the uniform of a soldier. Duty - must order itself, from specific web address, only to ship out courage.
Although this daughter knew little of all of the great facets courage it would take in the future. She expensed directions to higher power and demanded divine intervention to make the end happen fast.
Cammy wished for:
• No lingering,
• No long discussion because they would end in hardheaded arguments.
Helpless acts of surrender wouldn’t come easy to Cammy’s mother. That character flaw didn’t exist in the gene pool of mother or daughter. Both parties had intolerant temperaments. One thrived on driving drama hard and fast only to make the other drive away from drama.
Cammy’s mom had some bad, bad habits in her day. Not sure exactly her day had ended yet in her mind, it just tilted a tad. A maturing body was not going to stop her alone. So she physically tore down walls, put up walls, built rooms, added bathrooms and was now tearing out her den and kitchen including the floors.
For company, Cammy’s mom had the plumber, Zack who did everything. The licensed handyman extraordinaire, electrician, and carpenter-tile layer who cohabitated with his own girlfriend with their child in his own home. Cammy’s mom paid his wages out her inherited trust fund.
Then another Mexican handyman extraordinaire who was all hot air and another love of Cammy’s mom being the Mexican handyman who took over eighteen years of their most unpurposeful relationship to beat on her, breaking a few bones, dousing her with paint on the front porch a few times and who knows what else went unreported to the cops.
Now, all that is the work the plumber had come to fix nearly thirty years later. In addition, by the checkbook, buy the checkbook - to the tune in his pocket for labor and materials of more than fifty-thousand dollars. That was just for the rental unit. Now he was working in the main house. Ever so slowly he worked first on the water heater, then on front bathroom, then on second bathroom, now on floors in the den into the kitchen. All without receipts for the work completed, just a check from the big checkbook.
This got Cammy going toward her former and now her current mother’s home to live nearby. The speed of the plow, the prod, that hydrogen atom spinning off to be closer and closer to her mother, since her Brother didn’t do the job of moving their momma into a box apartment in So-Cal down the street from him.
As an adult married woman, Cammy understood the underlying principles of this endless act of spinning insanity her mother’s life, called excitement. Cammy felt her life was like a bowl of popcorn in the bright lights. You can pick with your eyes the shape of which one you want. Not so easy getting those perfectly rounded, brain-shaped pieces that melt into your mouth without picking it first with your eyes.
You can spin like an atom towards the perfect goal with all your hope and desires, but sometimes, most times it’s more like knocking two pieces together that bends and cracks apart with a little pressure when you are picking the right one for the dream. And, then it goes spinning way from your fingertips in all directions to collide out there with the unexpected. Still, you knowingly know - you’re moving closer.
This theory also works for dating and most all other human relationships that work, since chemistry, is the basis of human life on this planet. Yet, maybe the hydrogen atom speeded up before spinning off to link up with some other group of attracting molecules.
Still, what part of moving near the parent do you find attractive? Especially when the parents didn’t care about you that much when you were young child and vulnerable like Cammy was. Now, as a little molecule that has attracted another atom to you (like marriage, partnership or out-of-wedlock children), what part of moving near the parent do you find attractive?
It took two visits; each of them five plus days, by Cammy to my house while plotting her relocation. That’s an awful lot of words to express in numerous on-going conversations about her feelings on her duty to serve her mother.
Soldiers have to rationalize to others their personal feelings of duty and service to their country. I was watching Cammy attempt to fit the uniform of a soldier. Duty - must order itself, from specific web address, only to ship out courage.
Although this daughter knew little of all of the great facets courage it would take in the future. She expensed directions to higher power and demanded divine intervention to make the end happen fast.
Cammy wished for:
• No lingering,
• No long discussion because they would end in hardheaded arguments.
Helpless acts of surrender wouldn’t come easy to Cammy’s mother. That character flaw didn’t exist in the gene pool of mother or daughter. Both parties had intolerant temperaments. One thrived on driving drama hard and fast only to make the other drive away from drama.
Cammy’s mom had some bad, bad habits in her day. Not sure exactly her day had ended yet in her mind, it just tilted a tad. A maturing body was not going to stop her alone. So she physically tore down walls, put up walls, built rooms, added bathrooms and was now tearing out her den and kitchen including the floors.
For company, Cammy’s mom had the plumber, Zack who did everything. The licensed handyman extraordinaire, electrician, and carpenter-tile layer who cohabitated with his own girlfriend with their child in his own home. Cammy’s mom paid his wages out her inherited trust fund.
Then another Mexican handyman extraordinaire who was all hot air and another love of Cammy’s mom being the Mexican handyman who took over eighteen years of their most unpurposeful relationship to beat on her, breaking a few bones, dousing her with paint on the front porch a few times and who knows what else went unreported to the cops.
Now, all that is the work the plumber had come to fix nearly thirty years later. In addition, by the checkbook, buy the checkbook - to the tune in his pocket for labor and materials of more than fifty-thousand dollars. That was just for the rental unit. Now he was working in the main house. Ever so slowly he worked first on the water heater, then on front bathroom, then on second bathroom, now on floors in the den into the kitchen. All without receipts for the work completed, just a check from the big checkbook.
This got Cammy going toward her former and now her current mother’s home to live nearby. The speed of the plow, the prod, that hydrogen atom spinning off to be closer and closer to her mother, since her Brother didn’t do the job of moving their momma into a box apartment in So-Cal down the street from him.
As an adult married woman, Cammy understood the underlying principles of this endless act of spinning insanity her mother’s life, called excitement. Cammy felt her life was like a bowl of popcorn in the bright lights. You can pick with your eyes the shape of which one you want. Not so easy getting those perfectly rounded, brain-shaped pieces that melt into your mouth without picking it first with your eyes.
You can spin like an atom towards the perfect goal with all your hope and desires, but sometimes, most times it’s more like knocking two pieces together that bends and cracks apart with a little pressure when you are picking the right one for the dream. And, then it goes spinning way from your fingertips in all directions to collide out there with the unexpected. Still, you knowingly know - you’re moving closer.
1/13/09
Siblings as Sons
Cammy and I each have a brother. Oh, what brothers they are too. In the food chain they are each moms favorite. The mom gleans, smiles, perks up, and nearly parades the food and comforts of home for their sons. We daughters on the other hand, sit back and watch this fountain of youth bubble. We daughters don’t’ achieve that treatment, moreover, more than often we are closer to dirt than the ground once our brothers come around.
Yet ask that brother to help you with mom, her infirmities, insanities and suddenly our brothers, our male siblings are dumber than dirt – if they have been trained well by their girlfriends or wives. How they can pull it off? With the look – the deer in the headlights stare, the incapable incapacitated dullard dunce with the “I dunno know” rapier displayed. Therefore, easy to shoot dead between the eyes, it’s sinful.
The Brother will either take the mom and decide it’s best if she’s just down the street from him, living in an apartment sized box, with no civil concerns about what she will do with her time. The Brother will extract the mother from her life, her sewing machine, her garden, her automobile, her familiar driving neighborhood, her doctors, her surviving friends and basic life to leave her down the street in other state, a strange city but it is close to him. Yes, just down the street from his life and his friends and leave it all up to his wife to take care of HIS mother.
When the wife disagrees with her husband’s (the Brother) plans watch out! Hell hath no furry like a woman stuck with another woman. When the wife is forced into hand maiden services such as driving, shopping and more because her mother-in-law, truly doesn’t know this new location where she will be living. See the wife rationalize why the mother-in-law would be put out by her son (the Brother) to live out her life where she currently is. Oh, yes but they will visit often.
Why does only another woman recognize this? Like the daughter or female friends of the family? Or are the Brothers or sons just afraid to speak up on their idea of calling “a park job” – that of planting their mothers where it’s close but not comfortable or familiar to relive their guilt.
Brothers will show up on the home turf for traumas and tragedies but not for the day-to-day duties. It’s pretty much a fact. In addition, if the Brother is doing it, odds are his own wife is doing more.
Ask the brother to give up his job to move? Nope. Ask the daughter to relocate, oh especially if she is single or childless. It is her duty and we are crucified if we don’t. The Christmas gifts no longer come from the siblings, if the single, the childless female sibling, and we do not attend to the duties as THEE caregiver for the parent.
Ask only the youngest daughter of the tribe – because it is in the genetic pool that only the baby should tend the elder. Moreover, it will not be the baby boy; it will only be the baby girl.
Big Brother is off the hook – for both of us. We girls do have that added chromosome, right?
Yet ask that brother to help you with mom, her infirmities, insanities and suddenly our brothers, our male siblings are dumber than dirt – if they have been trained well by their girlfriends or wives. How they can pull it off? With the look – the deer in the headlights stare, the incapable incapacitated dullard dunce with the “I dunno know” rapier displayed. Therefore, easy to shoot dead between the eyes, it’s sinful.
The Brother will either take the mom and decide it’s best if she’s just down the street from him, living in an apartment sized box, with no civil concerns about what she will do with her time. The Brother will extract the mother from her life, her sewing machine, her garden, her automobile, her familiar driving neighborhood, her doctors, her surviving friends and basic life to leave her down the street in other state, a strange city but it is close to him. Yes, just down the street from his life and his friends and leave it all up to his wife to take care of HIS mother.
When the wife disagrees with her husband’s (the Brother) plans watch out! Hell hath no furry like a woman stuck with another woman. When the wife is forced into hand maiden services such as driving, shopping and more because her mother-in-law, truly doesn’t know this new location where she will be living. See the wife rationalize why the mother-in-law would be put out by her son (the Brother) to live out her life where she currently is. Oh, yes but they will visit often.
Why does only another woman recognize this? Like the daughter or female friends of the family? Or are the Brothers or sons just afraid to speak up on their idea of calling “a park job” – that of planting their mothers where it’s close but not comfortable or familiar to relive their guilt.
Brothers will show up on the home turf for traumas and tragedies but not for the day-to-day duties. It’s pretty much a fact. In addition, if the Brother is doing it, odds are his own wife is doing more.
Ask the brother to give up his job to move? Nope. Ask the daughter to relocate, oh especially if she is single or childless. It is her duty and we are crucified if we don’t. The Christmas gifts no longer come from the siblings, if the single, the childless female sibling, and we do not attend to the duties as THEE caregiver for the parent.
Ask only the youngest daughter of the tribe – because it is in the genetic pool that only the baby should tend the elder. Moreover, it will not be the baby boy; it will only be the baby girl.
Big Brother is off the hook – for both of us. We girls do have that added chromosome, right?
1/11/09
Peers – Jumping the Girdle
When the best friend of thirty plus years decides to move back, friends have to get one thing very clear with each other. Not privacy, not sharing clothes, not fighting, not ignoring each other tastes but a much practiced fact - that we are not kids ratting around and nineteen years old anymore. The physicality of watching each other age is different from the practice of actively sharing in each others aging process. In as much as we both have one parent to look out for, we have each other to look out for too.
Much like bra burning of 1966, the act of jumping the out of the girdle was a major effort to tackle, even in these times. Now to know the back support it might give each of us house daughters and sons in the garden. It makes us thankful to wear the girdles with or out stays, known as the back brace. Moreover, for this effort of care giving we would need an excellent model of bracing our backs.
Maturity is not a clever game. It does sneak up on the caregiver and it seems never the parent. At first you compare, then feel good about being better at life skills than the parent is. Then when standing, walking or picking something up next to a member of your own peer group, you begin to notice the difference that age as affected each of the two best friends. Our aching backs.
The lean is not as limber, the lumber is not as quick, and the mind is made up faster because the sense of taste and style has been defined separately. Although, within the relationship of friends, navigating the history of home - we each must give adequate room for allowing changing to be accepted by the other in different frames of time. It may take more than one parent with more than one experience to know how much room is required.
Cammy was visiting the Adobe Disneyland to look for her new house when Gina, my mother took a slide. Not an exactly fall, just a slide down when her slipper got stuck and didn’t move with the foot, leg and hip and the body turn down on Gina. Who had slid, gently twisted, and slowly dropped to the carpeted floor next to the stove.
After a phone call next door to my house, Cammy and I wandered over to view mom, who had crawled over to the living room telephone to ring me up for assistance.
I could only look at my friend who knew all her efforts to move closer to her own mother could culminate into a situation like this. Cammy was not prepared for the appearance of this type of event. A parent falling to the ground.
Looking at Cammy, I said, “Do you know how to lift someone?”
Ah! Would the stays in that girdle would really be a support for her. Gina hadn’t been on the floor from a fall, in three years, and probably wouldn’t have been for a few more years, since she overtly practiced, ‘the slow and careful movements’ and let everyone know it. Yet, Cammy’s mom would not accept that notion of slowing down at 75 or 77.
We got Gina up and on the chair with ease. Still, Cammy’s head inside was turning to her own mother, also her own senior years. Such is this life, of the house daughter or son, to have to jump the broom and marry. Jump the generations of time passing and find the logic in a girdle and its support.
New friends your life, don’t seem to understand this thinking like your own old, old, and older friends.
Much like bra burning of 1966, the act of jumping the out of the girdle was a major effort to tackle, even in these times. Now to know the back support it might give each of us house daughters and sons in the garden. It makes us thankful to wear the girdles with or out stays, known as the back brace. Moreover, for this effort of care giving we would need an excellent model of bracing our backs.
Maturity is not a clever game. It does sneak up on the caregiver and it seems never the parent. At first you compare, then feel good about being better at life skills than the parent is. Then when standing, walking or picking something up next to a member of your own peer group, you begin to notice the difference that age as affected each of the two best friends. Our aching backs.
The lean is not as limber, the lumber is not as quick, and the mind is made up faster because the sense of taste and style has been defined separately. Although, within the relationship of friends, navigating the history of home - we each must give adequate room for allowing changing to be accepted by the other in different frames of time. It may take more than one parent with more than one experience to know how much room is required.
Cammy was visiting the Adobe Disneyland to look for her new house when Gina, my mother took a slide. Not an exactly fall, just a slide down when her slipper got stuck and didn’t move with the foot, leg and hip and the body turn down on Gina. Who had slid, gently twisted, and slowly dropped to the carpeted floor next to the stove.
After a phone call next door to my house, Cammy and I wandered over to view mom, who had crawled over to the living room telephone to ring me up for assistance.
I could only look at my friend who knew all her efforts to move closer to her own mother could culminate into a situation like this. Cammy was not prepared for the appearance of this type of event. A parent falling to the ground.
Looking at Cammy, I said, “Do you know how to lift someone?”
Ah! Would the stays in that girdle would really be a support for her. Gina hadn’t been on the floor from a fall, in three years, and probably wouldn’t have been for a few more years, since she overtly practiced, ‘the slow and careful movements’ and let everyone know it. Yet, Cammy’s mom would not accept that notion of slowing down at 75 or 77.
We got Gina up and on the chair with ease. Still, Cammy’s head inside was turning to her own mother, also her own senior years. Such is this life, of the house daughter or son, to have to jump the broom and marry. Jump the generations of time passing and find the logic in a girdle and its support.
New friends your life, don’t seem to understand this thinking like your own old, old, and older friends.
Same Old Dirt
There's a piece of dirt, up on a hill surrounded by high mountain desert named Santa Fe. It’s where no one, thirty two years ago wanted to live until Conde Nast found this city in mid-to-late 1990's. Now there's endless suburbs of high-end homes instead of ranches.
Our moms and dads worked here, and retired here. Their distant daughters and sons have made it - ‘the time’ to move back home.
This is coming home to Cammy, home already to me.
More big-box stores moved in, the dirt roads are now paved, and lit at night. Stars down the street instead of in the sky, so it goes. Such a difference a few decades can make along with great press coverage. The Adobe Disneyland for seasonal living of the well heeled had arrived to show the natives how to live.
Cammy's husband Dougie made the decision in the fall, that it's time to move from the southern California beach city to the land of dust just down the street from Cammy's mom. They both are now telecommuting for work.
It's been up to Cammy to figure out the physical move from the beach life of her wonderful So-Cal existence to the land of high desert dust on a mountain two days drive from So-Cal and just left of Texas. Cammy has her emotional baggage; her mom has her emotional baggage. Now the turf war of privacy and secrets begins.
Dougie thought he had her mom wired for sound and power. Yet, that mom shorted out emotionally to screw Dougie's plan to have an office outside the home, the mom’s guesthouse. From the start it was a short-term arrangement, yet that fact that not just anyone, but her son-in-law could see her life and secrets was reason enough to ream her daughter Cammy for having the idea. The verbal agreement to rent a backyard studio for her son-in-law’s telecommuting work would come to an abrupt and sudden halt bringing back every old argument, every old torment of the daughter-mother hostilities.
Still, between the deeply forgotten past and here-to-be soon present, the mind places tricks on the emotional responses to situations. A partial reversion to the young wild child daughter in temperament, health, and some impatient habits return without warning when in contact with her mom. Even though, the Adobe Disneyland forgot her, she remembers the old her, along with the mother-person of her past.
Wait until her mom gets the address. Waiting to deliver to the mom, the privacy, work-at-home, visiting time rules for when the distance down the street from the mom is not enough.
Done, Cammy rented a home with plenty of bedrooms for everyone's home office and rooms for living besides. Hoping that down the street would be far enough away from the mom.
Although they took their time, nearly two months before informing Cammy’s mother of the exact location of their rental, their privacy disappeared at once in the Adobe Disneyland. Deleting away the twenty-five years elsewhere it took to evolve to who and where she is today.
Our moms and dads worked here, and retired here. Their distant daughters and sons have made it - ‘the time’ to move back home.
This is coming home to Cammy, home already to me.
More big-box stores moved in, the dirt roads are now paved, and lit at night. Stars down the street instead of in the sky, so it goes. Such a difference a few decades can make along with great press coverage. The Adobe Disneyland for seasonal living of the well heeled had arrived to show the natives how to live.
Cammy's husband Dougie made the decision in the fall, that it's time to move from the southern California beach city to the land of dust just down the street from Cammy's mom. They both are now telecommuting for work.
It's been up to Cammy to figure out the physical move from the beach life of her wonderful So-Cal existence to the land of high desert dust on a mountain two days drive from So-Cal and just left of Texas. Cammy has her emotional baggage; her mom has her emotional baggage. Now the turf war of privacy and secrets begins.
Dougie thought he had her mom wired for sound and power. Yet, that mom shorted out emotionally to screw Dougie's plan to have an office outside the home, the mom’s guesthouse. From the start it was a short-term arrangement, yet that fact that not just anyone, but her son-in-law could see her life and secrets was reason enough to ream her daughter Cammy for having the idea. The verbal agreement to rent a backyard studio for her son-in-law’s telecommuting work would come to an abrupt and sudden halt bringing back every old argument, every old torment of the daughter-mother hostilities.
Still, between the deeply forgotten past and here-to-be soon present, the mind places tricks on the emotional responses to situations. A partial reversion to the young wild child daughter in temperament, health, and some impatient habits return without warning when in contact with her mom. Even though, the Adobe Disneyland forgot her, she remembers the old her, along with the mother-person of her past.
Wait until her mom gets the address. Waiting to deliver to the mom, the privacy, work-at-home, visiting time rules for when the distance down the street from the mom is not enough.
Done, Cammy rented a home with plenty of bedrooms for everyone's home office and rooms for living besides. Hoping that down the street would be far enough away from the mom.
Although they took their time, nearly two months before informing Cammy’s mother of the exact location of their rental, their privacy disappeared at once in the Adobe Disneyland. Deleting away the twenty-five years elsewhere it took to evolve to who and where she is today.
1/8/09
Introduction – House Daughters and Sons
Everybody has ONE... at least one parent that is. Some of us are lucky enough to start out with two parents. Then by a twist of fate, luck, or age, we have only one parent who is considered elderly, aged, or frail.
We are the caregiver who lives in the house or nearby. We are the ones who are first called upon, before strangers or siblings. We are the driver, the shopper, the housekeeper, the appointment planner. We are the ones who surrender our time to time, to fulfill a role that no community is prepared to completely, with dignity, oversight and positive outcomes in the societal ladder's wrungs of living a long life.
We are the house daughters and sons. We have part of life, and a responsibility to a part of another’s life that is reverting back in abilities while adapting to the limits of their body or their minds. Alternatively, some combination there of.
Mother’s give birth; the child leaves, makes a life of their own, and now returns. This is the house daughter or son who returns to the parent.
The purpose of these writing began when several old best friends chatted about each of their parent’s insanities, infirmities, and inabilities to cope. We decided to survive the experience together laughing. This is how best friends and their mothers adapt to living, aging and care giving. Show downs, shoot-outs, surrender and lessons to others on how to "shake their heads in disbelief and not show it" lessons. All the things nobody ever told us about surviving the as the house daughter or son.
Several are newbie’s to care giving and caretaking of a parent. I've been at it for over sixteen years and am considered, "the experienced care giver". My old friends and I are going to be living in the same city after nearly twenty-five years apart. This is going to be humorous ride as we attempt to enjoy the insanities of becoming our parent’s parent as the house daughter or son.
We are the caregiver who lives in the house or nearby. We are the ones who are first called upon, before strangers or siblings. We are the driver, the shopper, the housekeeper, the appointment planner. We are the ones who surrender our time to time, to fulfill a role that no community is prepared to completely, with dignity, oversight and positive outcomes in the societal ladder's wrungs of living a long life.
We are the house daughters and sons. We have part of life, and a responsibility to a part of another’s life that is reverting back in abilities while adapting to the limits of their body or their minds. Alternatively, some combination there of.
Mother’s give birth; the child leaves, makes a life of their own, and now returns. This is the house daughter or son who returns to the parent.
The purpose of these writing began when several old best friends chatted about each of their parent’s insanities, infirmities, and inabilities to cope. We decided to survive the experience together laughing. This is how best friends and their mothers adapt to living, aging and care giving. Show downs, shoot-outs, surrender and lessons to others on how to "shake their heads in disbelief and not show it" lessons. All the things nobody ever told us about surviving the as the house daughter or son.
Several are newbie’s to care giving and caretaking of a parent. I've been at it for over sixteen years and am considered, "the experienced care giver". My old friends and I are going to be living in the same city after nearly twenty-five years apart. This is going to be humorous ride as we attempt to enjoy the insanities of becoming our parent’s parent as the house daughter or son.
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