Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Katy is represented by
Rachelle Gardner at
WordServe Literary
Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net
Recent Posts
- Soul Train
- Live Out Your Dream And Discard The Box
- Tears In A Bottle
- From The Young Mom I Once Was, To You
- I Can’t Help Falling
- What A Difference Ten Years Makes
- The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford
- The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
- Where Have All The Years Gone
- Fun With Kiki Cullen
- Stuck On Mom
- Ten Years Later, Our Girls From Northern Ireland Remembered
- The Thrift of Grief
- Job Security
- The Party’s Over
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
Mom’s The Word
I haven’t posted much about my mother recently because, well, she’s hanging in there. By that I mean, she hasn’t fallen since April or so. In addition, we’ve managed to wean her off 2/3 of her seizure medications and much of the narcotic prescriptions she’d accumulated. Now she’s down to anti-depressants, three Valium per day, and Ultracet as requested.
So while she still sleeps most of the day and all of the night, at least when she’s awake, she is not slurring her words or stumbling badly. For the most part, she makes sense, can do simple arithmatic and sign her name to greeting cards, and engages in family gossip with the best of them. She has regular panic attacks, basically every time she leaves her assisted living facility, but hey. We deal.
This may not sound like much of a difference to you, but compared to where she was a year ago, it’s an improvement. One I frankly didn’t expect.
She makes crummy blog fodder right now, unfortunately for us. I wish that when she’s not stoned, she could be happy, but it just ain’t so.
She recently told me that the years when all her five kids still lived at home and my dad was alive were the best years of her life. I nodded respectfully, but people, that’s not how I remember it. After a few seconds of silence, she said, “Of course, at the time I hated every minute of it.”
Ah, so my memory isn’t too far off.
Then she added this gem, “If I’d known how much more miserable life would get, I’d have been happy back then.”
Right.
Anyway, Mom’s taking a bit of a break from round-the-clock disasters, but as for Doug’s mom….well. Eight days ago, she moved to the nursing home after a five-day hospital stay. Some days, the extreme dizziness abates to the point that she can do therapy successfully, and other days, not so much. She’s in the same joint my mother was in earlier this year, right across the hall.
She is disturbed by all the loonies in the bin, because she’s never been around “those kind of people.” Heck, I know the loonies by name!
Hopefully, she’ll get to go back to her assisted living place. We shall see.
I will write something fun or profound soon. I promise. Until then, be good kids and have a lovely autumnal weekend!
You have such a great perspective on this. I dread the day when our parents are put in nursing homes or assisted living places. It just seems like it would be such a hard thing to do.
Posted by Danielle on 11/15/06 at 11:27 PMDanielle—It’s an ongoing struggle to remain as upbeat as possible. And I’m just talking about me!! ;) My MIL actually enjoys the social aspects of living in a retirement community. She’s made a lot of nice friends, likes going on field trips with the group, etc.
My own mother, not so much. But she wasn’t happy before, either. And she would NOT be happy living with one of her five children. She’s not happy. That is very hard for me, but I can’t fix it. I can only continue to do the right things for her, as I see it. And try to be happy myself!
Posted by Katy on 11/16/06 at 10:40 AM
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