Who Cares What Nansi Thinks?

Well, it's happened. The thing I've dreaded for almost a year now. My mother has lost her room mate. Jane is gravely ill. She's in the hospital now. They're hoping she's stable enough for surgery tomorrow. Whatever happens, Jane will not be returning to the nursing home. Her family is very upset and blames the nursing home for the condition their mother is in.

In the beginning, Mom went through a lot of room mates. Her first one was a trip. Mom felt like she had to take responsibility for Anna. Everyone understood Anna and her ways except for Mom. Anna would curl up with her call bell button and press it while she was asleep. The aides learned to peek in and see that Anna was really asleep and just keep going. Mom saw it as Anna being neglected. Anna talked in her sleep. Lord have mercy, that woman must have had an adventurous youth! I would be sitting with Mom and she'd say something extremely sexual. Did I just hear what I THINK I heard????? Mom would nod and say, "Yep. That's what I hear all the time." I ended up requesting that Mom be moved. Not just because of the constant sexual talk, but because Mom was a nervous wreck that Anna might fall.

Her next room mate was a sweet lady who had suffered a horrible stroke at the top of a stair case. She'd tumbled down the stairs and broken her arm, her leg and several ribs. It was difficult to ascertain what was an orthopedic injury and what was the result of the stroke. She eventually recovered and went back to live with her children.

For several months Mom's room was like a revolving door. Mom is affable and the facility knew that she'd befriend whomever they placed with her.

Finally Jane moved in. They were fast friends immediately. Jane is just a few years older than my oldest sister, but suffers from a pretty severe case of Parkinson's. In the first few months, they bonded and took care of each other. Jane went to some of Mike's family functions with us. Then around Christmas she began to decline. She'd spend days in bed. She was just not herself.
Finally, Friday night, Jane was rushed to the hospital. They wanted to do emergency surgery, but couldn't get her stable enough.

My poor mom is devastated. I took her to see Jane this afternoon. They declared their mutual love and friendship. It was heart wrenching. As mad as Jane's family is, I don't think they realize how hard it's going to be on Jane to be separated from Mom.

I know how hard it's going to be on Mom. Mom will be lost without Jane.

I don't know how to pray. I prayed that Mom would find the perfect roommate. It happened, but Mom wasn't happy. I want to say "She's in a nursing home, how can she be happy???" But many of the people in the nursing home ARE happy. They're content and glad to be surrounded by people who love and care for them.

I breaks my heart to hear Mom ask what she has to do to prove she can live on her own. Mom can't live on her own. The local authorities had begun the process to force her into a nursing home before Mom had her last stroke. She was calling 911 at least 3 times a week to get help up off the floor. She was confusing her medications and either overdosing or not taking them at all.

Mike and I swept up a gallon zip lock bag full of pills off her floor when we cleaned out her apartment. She'd drop them and think she'd taken them. Her finances were a disaster. Two days after she went into the hospital they tacked an eviction notice on her door. She hadn't sent a rent check in four months. No wonder she thought she had lots of money when she lived out in the community.

Today Mom begged me to let her go back to her apartment. I feel like her jailer. I have this knot in the pit of my stomach that won't go away.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, OK? And please pray for Jane. She's such a great lady.

A couple of years ago, I BEGGED Mike for XM radio for my car. He got it for me and I love it. I'm a talk radio ADDICT, among my favorites is the Oprah and Friends network. All of her regular TV guests, like Dr. Mehmet Oz, Nate Burkas, Gayle King, etc. have hour long shows.

One of my favorites on the Oprah network is Rabbi Schmuley. He's a family man, father of eight, and all around wise leader. I first became acquainted with Schmuley's style when he had a show on The Learning Channel. He would practically move in with troubled families and help them get to the root of their problems. He actually helped a family who lives right near here, and who shops at my husband's grocery store.

Schmuley is very down-to-earth and extremely wise. But today? Not so much....

He was on a rant about the tremendous untapped resource that is America's elderly population. He talked about warehousing old people and how we don't listen to them anymore. He said that the reason he's got a show is because we no longer turn to our elders for guidance.

I think the reason we "warehouse" our elderly is because modern medicine is keeping them alive longer and longer. How many nursing home residents are there because they've had massive strokes that have left them utterly helpless? Or how many are afflicted with dementia and Alzheimer's and simply aren't the person they used to be.

Many elderly Americans live out the last years of their lives in a near vegetative state. I can tell you, without equivocation, that I'd rather die than be strapped into a wheelchair and spoon fed every day! No doubt about it. Sadly, by the time a person is in that state, they are no longer able to articulate just WHAT their wishes are.

I am reminded of a lovely lady I knew who was slipping a little. She'd get lost around town, or show up for an appointment that didn't exist. She'd be at the doctor's and would totally have forgotten that she was just there yesterday. Her son was tied to an invalid wife, and was simply unable to divide himself into two people. He was forced to put his mom in a secure facility.

Fortunately, in my town, there is an entire facility dedicated strictly to all stages of Alzheimer's. His mom seemed to adapt pretty well. She still dressed nicely every day. She still got her hair done once a week. She was an avid reader, prolific gardener and extreme social butterfly.

For several years my friend visited with his Mom. He gleaned much from her experience in life-- even if there were times that she thought he was her husband and not her son. Sadly, one day something most unexpected happened. She had a series of devastating strokes that nearly killed her.

I say "nearly". The truth is, the strokes should have killed her, but they used extraordinary measures and "saved her life". Now she sits in a lamb's wool padded wheelchair/bed. She's completely unable to do anything for her self. The only thing she can say is "help me!" How heartbreaking.

I thought of my friend's mom today when Rabbi Schuley was lamenting the fact the we ignore our elderly. I love ya, Rabbi, but you got this one wrong. We're not ignoring them. We didn't ignore them. When they were able to guide us, we listened. But now their ability to guide us is gone and we're left with the task of making sure they're safe and comfortable. It's an impossible situation with no good answers.

I have mentioned before that Mom fixates. She'll bug and nudge and nag and obsess until she gets what she wants. A couple of years ago she was fixated on Christmas cards and stamps. Now *I* knew that my mother has never sent out Christmas cards. She buys them. Some years she even addresses them. But send them? Never. She bugged, she nagged, she ranted, she raved. She stopped people in the halls and BEGGED them to get her some Christmas cards. People would come to my office and say, "Hey did you know your Mom wants Christmas Cards???" So finally, I bought her two boxes of religious Christmas cards and four books of stamps. That was Christmas 2006. The other day I was looking for a particular address in her address book and the four books of stamps slid onto the floor--not one stamp used. It didn't take me long to find the boxes of cards. Totally unopened. She just wanted them.

Lately she's been bugging to go to a fabric store. My sister came to visit. Mom hadn't seen her in years. She wasn't there ten minutes before Mom was bugging to go to a fabric store. Mom tells people, "I don't know WHY Nansi won't let me SEW!"

Here's why: She can't. Someone, against my wishes, brought Mom a sewing machine last year. It sat in her room unused. Mom couldn't figure it out. She ran up $300 on my cell phone bill calling Sears. Finally Sears called the nursing home and asked them to have Mom stop calling. The sewing machine became a source of major frustration for my mother. She couldn't get it to work and believed that if she could she would be able to sew like she did when she was younger. When her whole unit got moved from the second floor to the first, the sewing machine magically disappeared. It took mom MONTHS to miss it.

The truth is, Mom stopped sewing in the mid 90's. She didn't stop buying fabric and patterns, but she stopped sewing. For the most part, sewing meant buying fabric and stacking it in a corner. Sometimes Mom would actually lay the pattern out and cut out the pieces. It's been decades since an actual garment has come to completion.

Mom thinks she stopped sewing when she went into the nursing home. When we cleaned out her apartment, I found fabric that I remembered from my childhood. Her serger was coated with a red sticky substance. I remember scrubbing Jello off her kitchen floor and cabinets a few years back, I assume the serger was nearby when she dropped the pan of un-gelled Jello. That Jello accident happened three years before Mom went into the nursing home.

Why won't Nansi let her sew? That's the question I prefer my mother to be asking. The question I'm trying to protect her from is: What happened to me? Why can't I figure out how to put a garment together when I distinctly remember being able to make fabulous things?

I'd much rather have my mom mad at me than have her come to the painful realization that the most important thing in her life is lost to her. Besides failing eyesight, my mom has painful arthritis in her wrists. Those physical drawbacks are surmountable. What is insurmountable is the loss of reasoning. My mother can't string together the steps it would take to go from cutting out the pattern to assembling the garment.

Today, on a whim, I took Mom to a fabric store. I was immediately taken back to my childhood. I remember spending HOURS in the store, flipping through pattern books, digging in the remnant bin, listening to my mom oooh and ahhh over the latest patterns. I learned early on that just because Mom was buying a pattern and fabric didn't mean the item would actually come to be. Chances were it wouldn't come to be. Much of the fabric that I found in her apartment were purchased when I was a young girl.

Mom thoroughly enjoyed her trip to Jo-Ann Fabrics today. She spent $30 on pattern magazines. Dare I hope that it will scratch her itch? More than likely it will frustrate her even more. We'll see!

OK.. so I'm sitting at my desk at work on a Wednesday. Wednesday is a nursing home day--something I don't always relish. My desk phone rings, it's the nursing home. My mom's been struggling with some health issues lately, so there was that familiar pang of dread.

The nurse said, "You're sister's here, can I give her your phone number?" MY SISTER??? WHICH SISTER??? "The one with the dark hair." Of course she can have my number. My sister has been having computer problems so she didn't get the email with the millions of changes that I've gone through in the past few months.

My sister. It had been eighteen years since I'd last seen her. Eighteen years. In this cyber age, it's amazing how many years can slip by. We talk. We email. We Instant Message. And another year goes by. Before you know it, it's been over a decade, nearly two.

I could hardly wait to see her. This sister has always been gorgeous. All I could do was feel the years (AND POUNDS) on myself... I doubt she'd even recognize me if she saw me in the street. Since I last saw her I've gone through two more husbands, had two more children, and now have two grandchildren by the one child of mine that she does know.

I'm new at my job so I can't drop everything and run, as I would like to have done. As soon as my shift ended, I made a bee line for the facility...So I get to the nursing home and there she is... Lovely as can be. She's the family beauty. I mean, she's the stuff of romance novels.... Very dark hair, olive skin and the palest blue eyes. I was suddenly 11 again, watching her get ready for prom, hating my freckles and red ratty hair. If she's changed at all in the last 18 years she's gotten more beautiful. She's ageless. You wouldn't look at her and say "I can't believe she's 53 years old" You wouldn't even think of what her age might be, you're just taken in....

It was a magical visit--over WAY too soon. We all went out to dinner. My son (who's 10) thought his Aunt was an angel. He's still talking about her. The only sad part was Mom's reaction to the shortness of the visit. She was just broken hearted that it was to be so short. But she's fully recovered and glad that we got to see our girl at last!!

I got a note from my sister today. I'm grateful that the reality of the situation with my mom and I became so evident to her in such a short time. Mom can seem "normal" when you first see her. Her doctor is always telling me that she belongs in assisted living, not a nursing home. That's because Mom's "on" when he's there. (she loves doctors) Anyway... my sister was able to fully assess the situation in just a few hours. Her words in her letter (and in another to my siblings) have totally lightened the load. I don't feel so alone in the struggle with my mom.

A pleasant surprise indeed!