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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.

The little Cape house on the dead end Cape Cod street was quiet.  The television in Bette’s room automatically turned off at 10 p.m. She usually fell asleep at 8 p.m. but liked the TV on in the room. Strange company, but, hey, whatever works when you’re sick.

I had gone upstairs to the den after mom settled in after dinner and turned on the other TV, snuggling into the plaid pullout couch and the cranberry afghan my grandmother had made years ago.

Ah, eureka! Thursday night and a new episode of “30 Rock,” one of life’s small pleasures while living at my mother’s house while my family was in their own orbit back in Rhode Island.

After “30 Rock” and some inane sitcom it was time for the routine — a little flossing, scrubbing the teeth, scrubbing the face and then globbing on that super-thick Wise Woman Goddess night-time face lotion for “mature women.”

Maybe at last I’d act mature, like Audrey Hepburn. Elegant. Soft spoken. Manicured. As flawless in beauty and social skills as Audrey’s skin.

But wait, is that the phone ringing? No one calls the house at 11 p.m.

“Is this Elizabeth Kelly?”

“No, this is her daughter. May I help you?”

“Well, Mrs. Kelly was here for blood tests earlier today.”
“Yes, and…” I quickly replied, clearly losing Audrey’s coolness.

“Well, I’m sorry to disturb you so late but I’m required by law to call because Mrs. Kelly’s potassium level is dangerously low. It’s below 2.5. We’ll also be calling her doctor.”

“So, exactly does this mean. I mean, what should I being doing?” I asked.

“Well,” the lab doctor said, “Call her doctor first thing in the morning. And give her some bananas as soon as you can to get the potassium levels up. The doctor will also likely prescribe medication. Sorry to have to have had to call you so late.”

Geeze, Louise, I thought hanging up. Now what.

I went online and Googled “low potassium.”

Up it came. “When the potassium level drops to less than 2.5mEq/L then the condition is life threatening and in need of emergency medical attention. The effects of low potassium in the body is the formation of a potentially fatal state called “hypokalemia.”

Hypokalemia? Jesus, I thought. What if she dies of this instead of the cancer?

I went downstairs and tiptoed into Bette’s bedroom. No sound, no movement. Oh dear God. I walked closer and put my face down close to hers.

Yes! She’s breathing!

Then I went into the kitchen and got two yellowy-green bananas and went back into her bedroom. Medicine time.

I looked at my mother’s face. She looked so restful. Almost young. Could it be possible that you lose all your wrinkles when you have terminal cancer? She was lovely in a way I had never seen before. Or maybe it was how the streetlight was shining through the peach-colored bedroom curtains.

“Or maybe,” said the wise woman goddess voice in my head, the Audrey Hepburn mature woman, “she’s finally having a good night’s sleep for the first time since the brain surgery. The medicine is making the potassium levels low but the sleep is making her beautiful.”

“You’re right wise woman,” I said, walking back to the kitchen and tossing the bananas on the counter.

Back upstairs I went, turning down the thermostat to 63 degrees, climbing into bed while trying to push Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” song our of my head.

I was happy that Bette was sleeping soundly. But I worried all night. It’s part of what we caregivers do. You get really good as the nighttime Wise Woman Goddess of Worry, watching over the sick, the unknown, the 2.5 potassium levels.

And that’s why I highly recommend that you stock up on extra jars of the Wise Woman Goddess night cream. Maybe even wear it during the day.

Last week Joann came down and brought this photo of all the neighborhood kids eating watermelon in our backyard in the summer of 1964.

The photo got Bette and Joann to talking about all those “kids” and remembering what it was like on Newport St., where the families were big, the houses small, and money was tight.   But somehow life was OK.  In fact, Bette says those were some of the happiest days in her life.

All the neighborhood mothers seemed united. The rules for the neighborhood kids were the rules, like somehow the parents had gotten together and made a pact, written a special code of conduct for that one block of that one street. Values, punishment and rewards seemed consistent from family to family.  Talk about a tribe.

Yet those same parents sure acted like kids, turning cold, unfinished basements into party spaces. Staying up late drinking beer and playing bridge on Friday nights. And let’s not forget that one father who put firecrackers in an outhouse during a summer vacation when we all migrated from Boston to NH. Sometimes we kids felt like the parents, yet we didn’t know what the rules were suppose to be.  So we just ran wild too.

On weeknights the mothers often were out the door as soon as fathers were home and kids were fed. I remember my mother taking evening sewing classes and making us such beautiful outfits. The hounds tooth skirt, coat and matching hat for Easter was one of my favs.  We couldn’t afford Filene’s but Bette made us originals.

See the 1964 watermelon photo has been good for Bette and all of us.

A good photograph is a wonderful distraction. It takes you somewhere else, far from the ‘mom-is-dying” reality. Photographs trigger all kinds of memories, mostly good, some not so good, but now is the time to talk about those too. Tick tock.

So forget about baking brownies. Dig through those old photo albums and bring one really great picture.