[50] Two: spend more time with mom

 

I guess it's true when they say you need to be careful what you ask for. 

On my list of fifty things is "spend more one on one time with Mom." By this, I did not mean it to involve my Dad being in the hospital for several days. Or rearranging my life and missing my kids and ... and ... and... But you know, the rearranging is working out and the kids are mostly adults and can live without their mother for a little while (it's the house that I'm most concerned about). But timing is everything and there are medical appointments to be rearranged or changed to telehealth, and mere days before a Very Important Day, for which I had hoped to have time to plan and plot.

Nevertheless, my time with Mom has been fantastic ... and difficult ... and hilarious.  Well, hilarious if you have as strange a sense of humor as mine. 

Mom has Alzheimers and her short term memory isn't so spiffy. Whilst in the Emergency Department with Dad, she asked what the plan was eleventy-nine billion times. Every 27 seconds or so. There was a pair of sisters a couple of stretchers down the hall who probably heard my various iterations of The Plan eleventy-one million times. "We're waiting for Dad's test results, which should be here in an hour or so, and then we find out what's happening next.  Jim will pick you up in an hour and take you home to eat dinner. If Dad needs to stay at the hospital overnight, I will come to your house and stay with you until Dad comes home in a day or two." When one hour became an unreasonable amount of time to Mom (after me saying it for over an hour), I changed it to 45 minutes  ... then half an hour ... until finally Jim arrived and whisked her away to dinner with himself and two of her grandkids. 

And, of course, it's been me and Mom ever since I arrived at my parents' house that night after it was clear that my Dad would soon be admitted.  

We stayed up late watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and sipping vodka martinis (ok...a martini for her and a convincing glass of water with ice for me, as I'm not a martini fan). And she got up early in search of her beloved. 

Over the course of the next few days, we fell into a sort of routine. Up in the morning, breakfast and meds, shower every other day, and washing up the in-between days. Mom is allowed to complain as much as she wants about showering, as it's' obviously payback for all the complaining I did about taking baths as a child. I wash the breakfast dishes and she dries. We head out the door to visit Dad in the hospital, and once she's had all she can take of the hospital, we return home for lunch.

Our afternoons are filled with reading and looking through photo albums and putzing around the house. We have dinner together and then settle in on the couch to watch a movie together. More Harry Potter. 

The one thing she is certain to remember in some form is that martinis and movies go together. 

Then it's time to get into pjs and settle into bed. Most nights I sit with her in her bed and we each read a bit. Then she bids me goodnight and I remind her that I'll be in the room next door and will leave my light on so she can find me when she needs me. Each night, we have a 2 or 3AM check in and then go back to bed. 

Realizing I need a couple hours to pick up prescriptions and groceries, my friend Renee comes to the rescue and spends some time with Mom. That evening, right as I'm about to start dinner, I get the call that I can pick Dad up from the hospital. Renee helps us out the door and soon we're back home and Mom barely leaves Dad's side. 

Tomorrow will make a week since I've been to my home, a week since I've seen a couple of my kids, and two days before the Very Important Day. I'll stay and cook up some freezer meals and do some cleaning and make sure Mom and Dad will be set for a trial day completely on their own. Then we'll develop a new routine, which will include me spending part of each day with Mom, helping her through showers (or letting her "get away with" skipping a shower for a day), sharing memories, running errands together, going out for coffee, and getting up to our usual shennanigans. 

(And yes, we already know that the two of us shouldn't be allowed to do anything together because we always get up to something!)