Bringing Meme Home
10/28/2007 08:21 p.m.

Today is my last day of employement at the long term care/rehab facility where I have been employed for the last year.

I am nervous, but excited at the same time. I get to be a stay-at-home care provider and, consequently, a stay-at-home mom. YAY!!!! But, Meme's "condition" has been stable and improved for the last week or so, and suddenly I find myself feeling trepidacious about the whole idea. I hope, hope, hope I'm doing the right thing. I've given up my employement (although I DID discover during my stint as a cook that #1 - I don't enjoy working all alone and #2 - I don't enjoy cooking for 40+ people and #3 - I DEFINITELY had a more difficult time preparing meat for these folks to eat than I thought I would (I became a vegetarian in January of this year).But we will be mostly reliant upon her money to make it and I hope we're not dipping into the money put away for this too soon.

Meme is VERY excited about coming home, though stubborn about wanting to get around on her own. She is quite capable lately, but with her bones being so very brittle, all it would take is one more fall, I'm afraid, to send her body into terrible shock. As it is, she seems to be experiencing another UTI (her 7th this year) and her immune system is already so fragile...

Well, I'm nearly ready for her, just a few finishing touches. I've gathered all the equipment I think I'll need in the coming weeks/months - a hospital bed, a bedside commode, a wheelchair, a transfer-type shower bench, depends, etc. Although, at this point, she is fully capable of using her old bed (which she states she would prefer for the time being) and she is no longer incontinent. Such a strange condition. And she is just about back to her "old" self save for a couple of strange reminders. For instance, she continues to insist that she "can't get rid of" the "gum" in her mouth, and she constantly "chews" it and seems fully unable to stop the chewing. When I ask her if she has gum in her mouth, she is able to answer that she does not, that her mouth is empty. I remind her not to chew, and she replies, "well, I know it but I can't get rid of the gum. I keep trying to swallow it, but it doesn't go down. I keep trying to fish it out, but I can't find it." So strange. And her short term memory is still pretty much gone. I keep telling her that she's coming home in "x" days, and she says, "Ohhhhh????" But then she'll bring up that she's excited about coming home. She told me today that she can "almost remember using the (incontinent) pads, but not quite." Anyway, strange stuff. So, I know I'm doing the right thing...so that she isn't alone ever.

Ok, back to work for me. 7 more hours on this shift, and then hasta la vista for this place. Then, I'll be totally broadcasting from home.


I am currently Blessed
I am listening to the ticking clock

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Thought to Word to Action
10/21/2007 02:17 a.m.


So many words imparted
Into that vacuum of nebulous space,
The interval between
Nothing and transformation.

Words are energy,
The next step after thought,
The planning that usually happens
Just before action.

They can pack a punch
And should be used with caution!
Latent manifestation
Crowded onto the head of a pen or
Tip of a tongue or
Suspended until release of pressed keys
And breaking heart -
Potentially explosive universe of
Infinite possibilities!

Oh Guardian Spirit,
Watch over those
Flooded in the thoughtless provocations
Of unintentioned expression
And help me hold my own.


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I went to the Dollar Store
10/20/2007 09:35 a.m.


And I bought a first edition book of Brooke Shield's bout with post partum depression. I know, I felt a little silly doing it, but how can I go wrong for a dollar? I know she really struggled with it, and I find it brave of her (of course I haven't read it yet) to be so candid.

We'll see.


I am currently O.K.
I am listening to Jeremiah softly snoring

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It's my Friday
10/17/2007 05:53 p.m.


Whew. Today is my "Friday" and I'm always so glad to see it get here. By the time I get to this day, my feet are KILLING me from working 3/10+hr days in a row and walking on the concrete floor of the kitchen for the last few days. Just one more medical records shift to finish, one more meal to cook and then the dishes for 42 residents. I'm wiped out. But just one more week of it all and then I'm home for good (the 28th is my last day here).

I'm freaking out just a little bit over not having my own paycheck. But, there's really no point in crying over milk that hasn't spilled yet, right?

Miah and I have the day off together again tomorrow, so I think perhaps we'll make good use of it and go have some fun. Plus, my auntie from Arizona is here to celebrate Meme's 88th birthday (which is on October 19th) and so we have the big birthday celebration on Friday.

Life is good.


I am currently Content
I am listening to Every little sleepy leaf fall

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Disturbing dream
10/16/2007 05:47 p.m.


I dreamed that I felt something funny in my abdomen, and I looked down, and there was a very "clean", angled, razor-like incision in my lower abdomen, extending from the left and curving slightly up just under my belly button to the right, and it sliced through the full layer of skin and fat, and I could see my lower intestines, and one organ on the right. At first, because it didn't hurt, I wasn't alarmed. But as the dream progressed, and I wasn't close to a hospital, I became more and more worried that I would begin bleeding, that infection would enter.

It was SOOOO vivid. Yicky!!!



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Bringing Meme home
10/15/2007 03:42 p.m.


Well, we had the big family meeting this weekend, and I've officially given notice at work.

I'm going to bring Meme home, and care for her full time for as long as I am able, hopefully until the end of her life.

It will be an added pleasure to be able to be an at-home mom.

On a side note, bringing Meme home has given rise to thinking about her life, and Grandpa, and beginnings and endings, and how I would love to be able to celebrate a 50 year wedding anniversary with the one I love. Meme and Grandpa actually celebrated 53 years together before he died. But of course, I must be realistic. Jeremiah is not ready to ask that question, and the likelihood that I would live to be even 95 is slim even if he asked and the wedding happened this year.

It's strange, the thoughts that occur to me now vs. even 10 years ago when I didn't think so much about time and where I was headed.


I am currently Reflective
I am listening to my daughters' music while they get ready for school

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Dementia with Lewy Bodies and Belly Dancing
10/10/2007 03:49 p.m.

Dementia with Lewy Bodies is the diagnosis being considered for Meme now. It explains so much, the hallucinations, the neurological difficulties in her legs and hands, the excessive sweating, the flucuating blood pressures, the incontinence, the memory difficulties, the confusion that comes and goes. But it is not a diagnosis to be gladly embraced. Dementia with Lewy bodies has an even shorter and more miserable life expectancy than Alzheimer's, and I've watched Alzheimer's eat through a patient's brain. It isn't pretty. But DLB is a system-wide condition rather than being limited to just the brain. The prognosis is typically 5-7 years from onset, and it appears that Meme has had this for some time (maybe a year or so). According to the research I've done, most DLB patients die from an infection (like pneumonia because of eventual food aspiration as the swallowing mechanism fails).

I know that everyone dies. But to decline like this, to be aware of the strangeness of her condition as she is, to not understand what time of day it is, or to think that maybe I'm Alison, but not the "right" Alison; to want to go home but be worried that if she "acts up" anymore we won't take her... I feel guilty, but I can only hope it happens quickly now. When she was crying out to Jesus to help her, bargaining that if He got her out this mess she PROMISED not to get into a mess like this again, and no relief came for her, I thought my heart would break.

And if she does indeed have Dementia with Lewy bodies, my considerations as far as caring for her at home are clearer. I think I might be able to do it for a time, now, when she is still in her right mind most of the time and not combative. But if her legs fail completely and she can't get up at all, or, worse, she DOES get up and forgets that her legs aren't working and (god forbid) falls and breaks more bones if I'm not right there in the same room with her at all times...I just know that my 24/7/every minute caregiving abilities at the level where she can do nothing at all for herself are going to be limited. Even a baby can be left to nap once they're sleeping. But she would not be able to be left like that. So.....we'll see after this weekend. My aunt is coming from Arizona for a week, and my mother will come from Portland, and we'll have a family meeting about it.

On a lighter and much more pleasant note, my step sisters from California got me the WILDEST and CRAZIEST birthday present EVER. Those resourceful, wonderful, clever, awesome women searched out my po-dunk little town, and found, of all things, a BELLY DANCING class!!! And then, they PAID for lessons for me!!!! I can't even imagine my rotund body performing such otherwise seductive moves.....BUT....I'm going to do it anyway!!! They are convinced I need to be around vibrant women crazy enough to belly-dance, and they think it will be good for me!!! I have tomorrow and the next day off, so I'm going to call the teacher then. *giggling* I can't believe I'm going to take Belly Dancing lessons.

Life is amazing.


I am currently Dorky
I am listening to an electric wood chopper down the street eat a tree

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Update on Meme
10/08/2007 07:53 a.m.

It seems after her ordeal that my grandmother will never be the same. She does at least recognize all of us and seems more or less mentally clear, though not quite as cognitively intact as before. But she can't walk, even with her walker. She doesn't eat well. She's not drinking much of anything. She's incontinent and doesn't know it. Well. None of us will ever be the same, on any given day.

And another poem is born, while kidneys begin to shut down and the heart beats a little slower.

At 87, one would think I might be ready for her to go. But, I don't think you can ever be "ready" to let go of something so precious.

Then again, I could bring her home and she might rally herself and go on for many more years. These are just things we can't know for sure.

Very interesting bout of delerium and sudden physical disability.It wasn't delerium in the truest sense because nearly all throughout, she was aware that what was happening to her was "strange" and not made of the same substance as her loved ones standing right in front of her. At some points, she remembered the names of her loved ones but was not able to tell that we were those same individuals. And another odd thing. She is normally hard of hearing, needing us to repeat things two or three times before she gets what we're saying. But during the ordeal, she heard all of us speaking perfectly well. And her sight seemed less degenerated as well. Now she's back to being HOH.

Someone recently said to me, "It's like a gigantic rock. Time and pressure wear away the little things, but the heart of it will last forever." I hope so.


I am currently Odd
I am listening to Some dubbed Japanese movie playing in the living room.

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At Your Expense - grandmother's hallucinations
10/06/2007 10:17 p.m.



Sometime in the middle of the night,
Your mind was victimized -
Neurotransmitters misfiring
At the behest of some unknown assailant.

In the morning,
You politely said you didn’t know who I was.

Overnight you went from a walking,
Mentally competent 87 year old woman
To someone who's legs wouldn't work,
Someone who saw apparitions,
Strangers who came to take you away
When you didn’t want to go,
Thinking me an imposter sent to trick you.

“You’re not Alison. You don’t look anything like her…”
The strange manifestation of
The lucid nightmare you
Had just begun to experience.

And I couldn’t convince you otherwise.

My tears for your suffering fell invisibly.
You insisted you had to “get out of here”,
But your legs wouldn’t work
Nor your mind,
And I found no words of solace,
No,
Not one.

There was no one left for you to trust.
“Sweet Jesus, if you get me out of this mess,
I promise I’ll never get into a mess like this again.
Help me, Lord. Sweet Jesus, help me!”
But your prayers seemed to reach no one,
Finally concluded He couldn’t hear you anymore.
Legally blind eyes seeing clearly that which I could not;
Hard of hearing ears working well in the afterworld.

But you wouldn’t go,
Fighting until the dawn of a new day
When we stopped all your “medications”
Fucking man-made pharmaceuticals
Profit-driven money-mongers made rich at your expense.

I am currently Angry
I am listening to the grind of society's machinery

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There was a suprise party!!!
09/26/2007 04:54 p.m.

When I got home from work last night, I walked in and the kids/Jeremiah had planned a surprise party!!! There were decorations, and Kate's boyfriend and his mom were here, and Jeremiah cooked a wonderful supper. And there was carrot cake, and candles, and posters that Kate and Amanda had made by hand. And there was champagne, and love - oh so much love. Miah even wrote me a love poem.

I will remember this birthday for the rest of my life.


I am currently Blessed
I am listening to work calling me from far, far away.

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