A Wee Bit o' Reality

I received a call from my doctor's office the other day. The receptionist told me that the doctor had requested I come in to his office. I felt this was strange, since I'd only just been to see him a week or two before this call. Everything checked out well, at that time, and he had not sent me for any tests.

I questioned the receptionist as to what the reason might be; she mumbled something about a medical review. Even though I had no idea what the doctor might be reviewing, I allowed myself a small bit of hope...had they perhaps found a new treatment for Fibro I hadn't heard about?

Since I didn't know what the whole thing might entail, I cancelled one appointment, as a result of having visitors that week. I thought, when I phoned and cancelled, that the receptionist ( a different lady, this time) sounded a little knowing. When she realized I didn't know what the appointment was about, she changed the subject to how cool the weather has been.

I didn't think much about The Appointment...it was just another thing to do in an already busy week ahead.

I was still not thinking about what the doctor might want, out of the blue like this, when I settled myself in his office. My mind was on a whole cadre of different tasks I had ahead of me.

After the preliminary greetings, my doctor said...I guess you're wondering why you're here?...


I began to be aware that he was a wee bit nervous. And that made me focus more on where I was and...why was I here?

I could see him thinking...In for a penny, in for a pound...and, with a little grin, he told me that since I was on a couple of medications for Fibromyalgia that could cause either Alzheimer's disease or dementia, that Fibro itself can cause them, he felt, at my age, that I should be tested for those two conditions.


All I heard was Dementia, Alzheimer's and...test. A test!


Good grief. My eyebrows shot up and I stared at him, wide-eyed.


My doctor, who reminds me of one of my granddaughter Brianna's friends...he seems about that young...began to giggle nervously. For him, I suppose, it must have felt as if he was facing his grandmother. I could see and feel his apprehension at what he was planning on doing.


He quickly explained. My doctor felt that aging was one of the things the medical profession was ignoring. He is all about prevention, he said, and since I'd just turned sixty, he felt he had to talk with me to make sure I knew what aging was all about.


Excuse me?

And then he went on to state statistics...on average, women die at the age of 75 and men at the age of 72. Women usually get Alzheimer's and dementia more than men, who statistically die of stroke or heart attack. He hurriedly explained, as I was about to fall off the chair, that these were only statistics...most people live much longer.


I kept thinking...they must have gotten those figures from somewhere!


I began to laugh...my usual reaction to shock. Some perspective arrives, after I let out inappropriate and nervous, forceful energy in laughter. Usually.


My doctor watched me. My laughter took on a nervous edge...was he already thinking I was demented?

I told him I couldn't pass the test...I could hardly remember anything. I told him I had recently joined Lumosity.com and that I was doing brain exercises every day. I told him I took my dog for walks every day, that I worked hard physically in the garden. I told him I could not pass tests...even an eye examination has sweat pouring down my face.


I tried to come up with as much as possible, to prove I was still mentally coherent...anything, just so I wouldn't have to take that test. I caught myself almost begging...


The doctor ignored it all. He told me the test was very simple, it was not about the questions so much as how I dealt with them, my body language, and so on. And that there was much that could now be done to help with dementia/Alzheimer's.


Well. If one knows one is to be tested for losing their minds, then perhaps one can visit the doctor in a better, more prepared frame of mind, one not shut down by shock and stupefaction, at the fact that statistically, at the age of sixty, there may only be fifteen years left to one...

I have never contemplated how much longer I would have to live. I knew about those statistics the doctor rattled off to me. I just had no idea they applied to me. I have forever held the opinion I would live to be 104. But, even if I lived to be eighty or ninety, there are only twenty or thirty years, conceivably, left to live.


Time goes very quickly, these days. The last ten years have gone by in a flash...


He began the test. He asked me the date, where I lived, what country I was in, where his office was. He asked me to remember three things...apple, table, and penny. Except he has a South African accent and penny came out of his mouth as pain.


He looked astonished as I recited apple, table and pain back to him, when he asked what three words I was to remember. He mentioned it again, again I heard pain. He tried to describe the penny; he said it was a coin, a round metal object you pay with. Still! I heard pain. I could not think what pain had to do with a coin.


Addled, I watched him take his wallet out and hold up a penny. Oh! Oh! A penny!


I just knew I would be the first person declared demented because I couldn't understand an accent.


After that, I was asked to write a sentence, fold a paper and place it on the floor, and subtract seven from 100, then seven from 93, etc.


It all caught up with me in the subtraction. After 93, I no longer knew who, where, what or why. I stared at the doctor, my mind a complete blank. Were there other numbers? What was a number? Oh, my goodness...


For just a second or two, I learned what Alzheimer's might be like for those so afflicted. For just that moment, my brain felt like a hole, like there was only Air where my brain should be.

The doctor watched me; suddenly, I could tell he was a doctor, albeit young, and a good one. 


He was aware of my struggle and so, I didn't try to hide it. I showed my astonishment, for only a moment, and then, closed my eyes and concentrated like never before...


After what seemed like hours but was really only seconds, I was able to visualize the numbers once more. I was able to think once again.


After the questions were completed and after the doctor told me I passed the test in the high percentile, we discussed the moment where my mind went completely blank.


He told me this occurs more often in the aging brain. He explained why...something about blood flow, lack of exercise and a few more ditties I have stuffed away until I'm ready to really have a good think about them.


He warned me about lack of acceptance of aging; he'd seen too many people become angered and embittered at themselves and their partners/families because of impatience and fear of increasing age-related problems.

It is the way it is...he said...I am concerned that here in this country we ignore aging, we try to stay young. Any signs we might be getting older are hidden. And then I see the elderly not getting the respect they deserve, only because their bodies and minds cannot keep up with the young...


He looked so earnest and so young as we chatted. He knew I worked with elderly patients; he was somewhat surprised at my shocked reaction to the test. He said...You are a senior, after all.


And therein lies the rub. I have not, as yet, considered myself a senior. Nor have I ever considered how many years might be left, in my life.


A wee bit o' reality is a good thing, for the Queen of Denial.


On the drive home, I tasted the word senior, as it applied to me.

It felt good. 

Actually, it felt right!

Creating a Home

When the word "home" flows through my mind these days, I am instantly flooded with warm, loving energy...I know that today, my home is a cozy and safe place to be.

It was not always thus; during my first marriage, there were times my home was not safe. Those were the chaotic years, where sometimes there was not enough money to pay the utilities.

Those were the years I became very creative with ingredients, because sometimes there was little in the pantry other than condiments and pasta.

I felt anxious when I thought of the word "home" in those days. Life was far from serene and peaceful on the home front; this unsettled energy transferred itself to the inhabitants and the very home, itself.

I have lived in at least twelve different homes, during my adult years. Each time I moved, I tried to infuse the new home with the comfortable feel of the last one, never quite succeeding because of the transient nature of my life at the time.

But I lived in my last home for 18 years... and I was able to transfer its homey feel, when I moved, to my new home with ease. I just transferred the love...and the rest fell into place.

However, what happens when a move is done where it will probably be for the last time? And you are aware of it?

This is what my mother faced last week, after she moved into a Care Facility. Brand new and swanky, this home has all the bells and whistles, and best of all, has caregivers who tend their patients with love and dignity.

But my mother only sees a hospital room. It will be up to her family to decorate this skeleton of a room, which has only a bed, dresser, highboy, and her beloved recliner in it. Mom has no idea how to make it homey, because to her, this room is not something to love...this room is the last place where she will live. Because of this, her inclination is to ignore the whole idea of making this room attractive.

I want to make it into a place where she will find peace. I forget, though, that my mother's world grows smaller and smaller...the place of peace and comfort to her, now, is her bed and her recliner. I fight against recognizing this, because to do so would make me accept where she is on the path of life.

And so, I see a room filled with living things...plants and flowers. My mother, who was a brilliant gardener in her time, used to love plants and flowers. The real ones. Now she says they die, in these airless rooms. She cannot bear to watch them die.

She has impossibly bright red silk flowers, instead. They make a strong statement in an otherwise undecorated room.

I think this is how her room will evolve. She will add items that catch her eye and stir her soul. They will be mismatched; my vision of what her room should look like will be nothing like the room my mother will design, in this last part of her life.

With my mother's move, I have given myself a gift. Instead of fretting and worrying about my way, my vision...I will stand back and watch my mother, just sending peace and love to her each time I enter her room. No demands.

As she becomes more comfortable in her new way of life and her new environment, the things my mother will collect around her will touch a part of her soul I cannot know. She is traveling on, on a path I have not trodden as yet. Only she knows what tools to gather for her journey.

Last year, I was able to help Mom face Dad's death... becoming a teacher. This year, Mom will take her role back, as I watch her moving slowly and yet, so purposefully, away from me.

Creating the vision I have for her room is the last thing on her mind. She already knows this room is transient, and therefore difficult to infuse with her personality. She knows what she requires. I do not have to do it for her...

I'm learning to let her go.

Beware, British Columbia

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. I'm not entirely sure of that, since I've never used a sword, and I'm not the kind of person who writes about unfair political practices. But when those practices impact upon my family, the way they have over the past couple of years...it is time to try.

I'm not even a political person. I rarely listen to the news about the excuses these politicians come up with...the excuses are not new, after all. I am not well versed in who is who or what they do in the government...but I write now from a bruised heart.

I write in defense of my mother.

The medical system has broken down in British Columbia; it has been thus for a few years. I hear stories and have personal experience about people waiting and waiting for medical treatment; I hear stories about shoddy care when they are treated. There is a shortage of Doctors and RN's, LPN's and hospital workers, making trips to hospitals a dire last resort.

And it was a last resort for my mother, who is frightened of anything that might smack of institutionalized care. She has fought hard over the last year, since my Dad died, to stay in her own home. She has care workers that come in three times a day, dressing her, preparing food, and doing countless other things for her, that in my absence, must be done...the chores of day to day living.

But, along with shortages in everything medical, there is also a shortage of home care workers. Inevitably, my mother fell, when she was by herself...many, many times. Sometimes she dragged herself across the floor to reach her bed, just so she wouldn't have to call an ambulance, or anyone else, for that matter. She thought she could hide how desperate her situation was...because she knew the next step would be a care home.

Eventually, sometimes she would be taken to hospital, by ambulance, after a fall. After being told she was on too many medications, after she was told that she could walk, if she only tried, after she was made to feel it was all her fault...she would be sent home. Sometimes at 2 AM.

My mother is 85. A grand age for someone who lived through World War II, widowed twice and divorced once, lived through quadruple heart bypasses, lived through the pain of a burst appendix in her seventies and countless other medical problems. When my Dad died, it was the first time in her life that she lived alone. Now there was no one who insisted that she receive proper medical care.

But Mom is a survivor. Sometimes beset by enormous fears, she would become crabby. She would tell me, I am crabby today...everyone bothers me. Most of her careworkers understood; some did not. And these workers, inexperienced ones, would place a complaint against Mom, prompting visits from her caseworker, who suggested to my Mom that a home would be the best place for her. Mom's greatest fear was becoming true.

Last week, after three falls on different days, Mom called me and said her back was hurting. I wondered about pleurisy, since she had suffered with that malady before. No, she said, the pain was different.

I live 40 km away from Mom and the roads were impassable for a time with snow and ice. I told her to tell her careworkers. She did. They asked her if her arm was numb. It wasn't, she said.
But three days of pain finally made the workers call my sister, to tell her Mom needed to be taken to the doctor.

The last time we took her to her doctor's, she fell out of the car and lay in the parking lot, in the gutter, in the pouring rain. Neither my sister or I were able to pull her up...her Doctor finally came out and lifted her into her wheel chair. My sister would not have been able to take Mom anywhere by herself...Mom's knees give out at the most inopportune moments. And it had already been proven that we do not have the skills required to pick her up.

My sister called an ambulance.

There is a black cloud that hovers over hospitals these days. People are made to feel silly, for fearing the worst, feeling fear, when illness strikes and one must go to hospital. People are not listened to...the medical people have no time. In Mom's case, some of her tests showed problems with her heart, and she had a compression fracture, from either osteoporosis or her many falls. She was kept in this time, mostly for pain management, we were told...and a heart specialist was called to see her over the weekend.

At first, she seemed alright, when I visited. In pain, but alright. There were moments when sharp pains appeared in her head. We told the nurses, who checked her blood pressure, and gave her pain medication. I stayed with her until the medication took hold. She was lucid and making sense, even through the cloudiness medication can induce.

But the next day, Mom started seeing things that were impossible. She insisted bugs, people she knew, and her grandkids, none of whom were there, were all around her. She phoned my sister, at eight o'clock at night, out of breath and frightened beyond compare.

I had made sure Mom had a telephone. But I could not get through. My sister phoned the hospital the next morning; they said Mom did not have a phone. My sister said she did, Mom had phoned her the night before and since Mom could not get out of bed....? Eventually, they found it.

By the time my sister, who had to wait for visiting hours (we had been told in no uncertain terms to not come to the hospital until 2 PM) saw my Mom, Mom was well on her way...seeing things and making little sense. My sister told the nurses, who had not noticed anything with my Mom. They said they did not know her...it was impossible to tell. Does this mean that the medical people know all the other patients under their care? But one LPN had noticed my Mom seemed confused that morning.

My sister phoned me, very upset. Our mother, she said, was not being taken care of...she was left in her bed with no one checking her, unwashed and frightened, looking worse than when she entered the hospital. When she told the nurses about Mom's sudden confusion, they said it was due to medication. When they checked, it was noticed that Mom had had no medication since the day before. And this is a lady in the hospital for pain management?

So Mom's sudden confusion had nothing to do with medication. But I remembered my father-in-law hospitalized three years before his death suddenly becoming very confused, telling us he had seen certain nurses having sex in the next bed, with butterflies flying around them. We told the nurses then, too...but it was not until we finally phoned his doctor, that they discovered he had hydrocephalus. Quickly, then, he was taken for MRI's and CT scans, and operated upon. He weathered the operation at the age of 89. This experience made me think...

After I spoke with Mom by telephone, she told me the nurses had asked her if she was seeing things. I asked, are you, Mom? No, of course not, she assured me...and then proceeded to tell me the hospital needed cleaning...there were bugs everywhere. And there was a dark man behind her head and one of her grandchildren was sitting by her side. This grandchild lives in Vancouver, and was certainly not sitting by her side. The dark man...he sounds familiar.

I phoned her doctor, who was too busy to speak to me, but his nurse took down the information, and said he would check her this morning.

I don't know if Mom has hydrocephalus; I only know that it is estimated that 14% of the elderly in care homes are misdiagnosed with it, giving the diagnosis of dementia. I am not a medical person, I only have personal experience with it. Untreated, death will occur. I know, too, that I am tired of the treatment my family has received.

Stymied, I sit here and write. After a weepy, frustrated breakdown last night, and a sleepless night, I am girding my loins, so to speak. I am leaving for the hospital in a couple of hours. I will wash her myself, I will make so much noise doing so, during visiting hours, that it will be noticed by every last person on her ward, medical or otherwise.

If my inappropriate behavior has me thrown out, or hopefully, jailed, I have told Graham not to get me out...but to send reporters. People who own pens. So angry now, I will speak with any and all...with my guides and allies fully in agreement.

Tell me, Mr. Premier, if it was your mother lying uncared for in a hospital bed, what would you do?