Who Cares What Nansi Thinks?

Last week Mom began seeing "red spots" through her right eye. The nursing home rushed her right over to see the surgeon who'd done her cataract surgeries. Her right eye had been the most difficult eye to work on, according to Dr. Daily, so I wasn't too surprised to hear that she was experiencing a retinal hemorrhage. It wasn't much of an emergency because we weren't scheduled to see the specialist for another seven days.

We went to the retina specialist on Thursday. Visiting a new doctor is difficult. There's so much paperwork. Apparently I didn't fill it out to the nurse's satisfaction. She lectured me and talked to me like I was three. I was just too tired to let her have it. (lucky for her, I can be brutal)

The hard part of the paperwork was that Mom couldn't remember her vital statistics. She kept insisting that her birth date was June 3. (That's my dad's birth date.) She couldn't remember her social security number. Just six weeks ago when we started this, she was able to rattle all of that off without hesitation. Now? It's simply not there.

It was a long day at the retinologist. First we had to endure the nurse who was so angry. Then we met the doctor. Then he sent us for scans. After that, they photographed Mom's eyeballs. Then back to the doctor for results. The bleed was very evident. No doubt about it. The doctor felt that it was already resolving and for the time being, has opted not to do any laser surgery. We go back in two weeks to see if the healing process is complete.

Each phase of our visit was separated by a wait in a waiting room full of people. Most of them were between 60 and 80 years of age. To me, they all fit the "Pennsylvania elderly" mold. The women were frail, tanned and white haired with their little matching outfits. The men were nearly deaf, balding, white haired and thick in the middle.

Mom was unusually quiet. She kept looking from face to face. I said, "What's wrong, Mom?" She replied, "I know this can't be true, but the waiting room is full of your dad's aunts and uncles." I said, "Well, they're Pennsylvanians, Mom. They all sort of do look like Dad and his relatives." Her answer to that sort of startled me "Your dad's not from PENNSYLVANIA! He's from FLORIDA!" After she said that, she sort of deflated and said, "Oh yeh. We were from Pennsylvania, weren't we?"

My mom has spent the last three years remaking her history. She forgets sometimes that I was there, and I know the truth. I've heard her tell people that my dad was "the head of P.R. for NASA" or that she went to Medical School but had to drop out when she began having children. She tells of her years as a teacher in a school for disabled children. She told the eye doctor that he goal in Medical School had been to be an ophthalmologist. Her new reality has obscured the REAL reality and she is sometimes very sad when she has to come back. I think she's losing her real memories in the process.

Visiting Mom is getting to be more and more difficult. I want her to be happy. Her two favorite pass times are (1) telling her outrageous stories-- and expecting ME to validate them; and (2) saying shocking and gross things then pointing at me and yelling "oh look, I've shocked my daughter!" Guffaw Guffaw. *wretch*