Archive for August, 2009

Do you hear the peepers?

Monday, August 10th, 2009

“I think it’s going to be tonight. It’s my favorite night of the year. Do you think you’ll be able to stay awake for it?” I asked Bette, acting more like a five-year-old trying to talk her mother into going to a drive-in movie.

This annual rite means so much to me and I’d never shared it with Mum. The first and last time would be tonight. I hope she likes it as much as I do.

After finishing dinner, I brought our trays into the kitchen and cleaned up while Bette wrapped herself in a blanket close to the fire and watched “Jeopardy.”  Dark already.  I loaded up the dishwasher and took the garbage outside. I stopped just outside the door.

Could it be?  I tossed the garbage into the composting bin and walked to the west side of the yard, closer to the marsh a few streets over.

Yes!

I rushed back in and helped Bette push her swollen feet into her green rubber garden shoes and get into her winter coat.

“I just knew it would be today,” I said. “It’s always the last week in March without fail.”

I wrapped my arm in Mum’s and out we went to the deck, arm in arm. It was so dark. Few stars and no moon. No lights on in any of neighbor’s houses. Today it reached 50 degrees but most people are still in Florida.

Missing this.

“Do you hear them?” I asked. Gingerly we walked through the backyard, closer to the marsh.

Peep. Peep. Peep, sang the tree frog peepers in their song of spring joy. The Hallelujah chorus signals the Yuletide season and the Peepers are the official welcoming chorus of spring.

Their high-pitched little voices tell us that the harshness and dark of New England winter are over.  New beginnings and possibilities are coming. Rejoice. Be grateful.

Bette and I stand there listening. I know this will not be a joyful spring. The nurse’s note this week said, “Declining rapidly.”

But still, standing there with my Mum I sensed joy. Bette was always giving that to us, even when she had every excuse to be selfish. Like tonight.

We walked back into the house and cranked up the heat.

“It won’t be long now,” Bette said. I hoped she meant the spring.

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Hurry up and die

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Here’s the dirty little secret we caregivers share. A shameful secret that few talk about.

As the end nears you start wishing the person you love so much would hurry up and die.

I mean how much more can anyone take.  The person you love is no longer conscious much of the day, if at all.   The day is one of tedious tasks– morphine every hour, sitting quietly holding Bette’s hand while she moans and stiffens further into a fetal position, with her right hand becoming more permanently bent, as if that human hand was turning into a puppy paw, asking for a treat.

If she were asking for a treat I imagine her saying,  “Oh, please dear God, take me.  I want to go quickly and with dignity. These daughters of mine now have to put those horrible adult diapers on me.  Such humiliation. Please, I’m begging, take me and spare them having to do this. I don’t want them to remember me this way.”

But Bette no longer talks. She just moans and whimpers.

“Is she in pain,” callers ask.

As the morphine cocktail – four fifths morphine, one-fifth cranberry juice to cut the horrific taste – dribbles from her mouth , I worry that nothing is getting into her system and, yes, there is pain. Hospice says it’s too late for an IV drip; Bette’s veins probably wouldn’t take it.

It’s  9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m., dinner time, 10, 11, two in the morning, four in the morning, the sun is coming up, coffee time, breakfast. More morphine. Change the diaper. Turn Bette over and sponge bathe her. Change the sheets. Cut a clean nightgown up the back so we can more easily get it over her head and change the diaper without causing her too much pain.

More moans. Not wimpy moans like a puppy with its cute paw raised for a treat, but an old dog’s moans, a dog who needs to be put down because he can no longer make it outside to pee. His food goes through him and comes out like sludge. He needs to be carried up the stairs at night, though he mostly stays on newspaper on the kitchen floor.

“Please God, make her die.  How many more days must she suffer? When does it all end so we can live again?  Go to work, sleep all night, be in our own beds?

“Damn, stop it. That’s selfish,” we remind ourselves. Shame. Shame. Shame.

A close friend calls and we remember that while her husband was dying she planned a three week vacation to Hawaii. We were appalled. “How selfish,” we gossiped.

Now we know how beat caregivers become. How much you need something to look forward to. Something where you can plan, control, mark out the calendar dates with certainty.

At the end, I feel like a watcher, not a giver. I am powerless at a time when the best mother in the world lays dying, gurgling and choking on the fluid in her lungs. But not the morphine she so needs.

Please God, hurry up and make Mum die.

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Which house will they buy? Jello brain knows

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Something happens to your brain during this journey.  The brain goes from being a reliable Energizer battery to red Jello with pieces of canned pears jiggling all around.

Jello brain makes it hard to work, to plan, to read. So at night after Bette falls asleep I go to my  addiction –  House & Garden TV.  (HGTV for short.)

Mind you, I try not to watch it every night, late into the night, and I don’t watch the HGTV program about improving a house’s curb appeal.  Who cares about the outside.  But the shows where people look at three different houses and choose one to buy is a favorite. (Hint: if you’re stressed for time you can tune in at ten minutes to the hour and get a summary of all three houses, and see the winner.)

This house hunting show provides entertainment when all the sisters are together. It’s the one program we all like. No debate, simply mindless communal fun.

“Look at that house. It’s so ugly,” someone shouts at the TV.

” Look at the brown cabinets in the kitchen. Brown with the rose-colored counters and a blue tiled floor.? That’s a deal killer.”

“Why would two people need a 6,300 square foot home? I mean, two people with six bathrooms? That’s ridiculous.”

“Imagine having to clean six bathrooms every week?”

“I bet they’re going to buy house #3. Who wants to bet?”

HGTV is mindless entertainment. Easier than having to concentrate on a movie or  a book. Or have a conversation.  The voyeuristic element where you get to see how people live and decorate is such a good distraction.

But when my sisters are gone and I watch HGTV alone, my mind wanders.

“Which house will the Johnson’s buy?” says the perky HGTV lady.
Which week will Mom die?
“Will it be the 2,600 square foot contemporary 60’s ranch?”
Will it be before Andrew’s graduation?

“Will it be the much smaller 1,800 square foot classic craftsman with the pool?”
Will she make it through summer, one last summer at the beach?

“Or will the Johnsons choose the larger townhouse close to downtown with city views?”

Or will she decide to go before Memorial Day so none of us have to change our summer plans?

During the day we’re too busy to think. At night with just the glow of the TV lighting the living room the questions pop.

There are no answers. But I’m always pretty good at guessing which house the Johnsons and all the other HGTV house hunters will choose.

Even with Jello brain.

That is my only super-power for predicting these days. All other bets are off.

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