DJ Mrs White In The Library With The Lead Pipe (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} djmrswhite) wrote,@ 2008-05-06 20:33:00 |
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The Fourth of Six Days in Texas, Plus The Sisterhood of The Crapping Pants
Here's what's funny about the Rockport shoe store. All the models in the little videos playing on their flat-screens are 23 years old. They should get Elaine Stritch to do them instead.
So now she has new Rockports. They're fancy. She also has new socks that don't cut off the circulation below the knee. I spent the latter part of the day taking a big permanent marker and ID-ing each new sock with her name and room number.
She gets a little weaker with each visit, which is disconcerting and I'm kind of in denial about it. I'm going to bring it up at her care-planning meeting on Thursday, so I guess I'm not in that much denial. But still, denial enough that I don't want to think about what's down the road. Her good hand shakes to the point that she now uses straws to drink from cups she does not touch. Forks are a problem because they involve stabbing the food or resting it on the tongs. Neither of these options seem to be working any more. So We ate at TGIFridays--she loves that place--where I had the genius idea of taking her flat-iron steak, cutting it into tiny chewable pieces, mixing it into the mashed potatoes, then taking it off the plate and dumping it all into a bowl so that she could use a spoon to eat it. This idea was met with great pleasure on her part. Our waitress was the loud kind, the kind who sneaks up on you from behind and then goes, "HOW IS EVERYTHING???!!!" and then you jump out of your skin for a second before giving the thumbs up because your mouth is full of flat-iron steak. I used a fork with mine because I'm a big show-off.
Then she pooped and we didn't quite make it to the bathroom in time. So it's a good thing we always carry that extra pair of pants around wherever we go. It's not an everyday thing. But it's a sometimes thing. So it's good to be prepared. And because this song is never far from my thoughts, I had "We pooped at the mall today..." in my mind for the rest of the afternoon.
Next stop, her first massage since the stroke. They have these franchise places now called Massage Envy and they're not bad. Also not prohibitively expensive. She fell asleep after the first 10 minutes of the woman working on her arms and legs. But she was so relaxed and drowsy when it was over that it was tough getting her back into the wheelchair. I think I harmed myself dead-lifting her off the table. That moment was all the motivation I've ever needed to join a gym.
First thing that happens when we get back to the nursing home is her Alzheimer's-having roommate also doing the numero-dos in her wheelchair. We're watching "Charmed" before her dinner time and I smell the smell. I look at my mother and say, "Uh... are you okay?"
She looks back at me and points her head in the direction of the silent roommate. The poor woman barely knows her own name anymore, much less how to use the toilet by herself. My mother rolls to the nurses button and pushes it. So it was a day of aromas all around.
In family news, I got my 12 year-old niece to finally remove the Aqua "Barbie Girl" ring-tone she gave my new cell-phone the last time I was here. So that'll be one less embarrassing thing in my daily existence. But I still won't know how to use my own cell phone.
Oh, and speaking of cell phones, can one of you Apple disciples out there explain to me why my Motorola phone refuses to speak tomoroccomole's iPhone? Because I'm going to lose my shit if I call him again and it bypasses both his ring-tone and his vibrate feature and goes straight to voicemail as it seems to do each and every time I need to talk to him. I might even do it in my pants.
Here's what's funny about the Rockport shoe store. All the models in the little videos playing on their flat-screens are 23 years old. They should get Elaine Stritch to do them instead.
So now she has new Rockports. They're fancy. She also has new socks that don't cut off the circulation below the knee. I spent the latter part of the day taking a big permanent marker and ID-ing each new sock with her name and room number.
She gets a little weaker with each visit, which is disconcerting and I'm kind of in denial about it. I'm going to bring it up at her care-planning meeting on Thursday, so I guess I'm not in that much denial. But still, denial enough that I don't want to think about what's down the road. Her good hand shakes to the point that she now uses straws to drink from cups she does not touch. Forks are a problem because they involve stabbing the food or resting it on the tongs. Neither of these options seem to be working any more. So We ate at TGIFridays--she loves that place--where I had the genius idea of taking her flat-iron steak, cutting it into tiny chewable pieces, mixing it into the mashed potatoes, then taking it off the plate and dumping it all into a bowl so that she could use a spoon to eat it. This idea was met with great pleasure on her part. Our waitress was the loud kind, the kind who sneaks up on you from behind and then goes, "HOW IS EVERYTHING???!!!" and then you jump out of your skin for a second before giving the thumbs up because your mouth is full of flat-iron steak. I used a fork with mine because I'm a big show-off.
Then she pooped and we didn't quite make it to the bathroom in time. So it's a good thing we always carry that extra pair of pants around wherever we go. It's not an everyday thing. But it's a sometimes thing. So it's good to be prepared. And because this song is never far from my thoughts, I had "We pooped at the mall today..." in my mind for the rest of the afternoon.
Next stop, her first massage since the stroke. They have these franchise places now called Massage Envy and they're not bad. Also not prohibitively expensive. She fell asleep after the first 10 minutes of the woman working on her arms and legs. But she was so relaxed and drowsy when it was over that it was tough getting her back into the wheelchair. I think I harmed myself dead-lifting her off the table. That moment was all the motivation I've ever needed to join a gym.
First thing that happens when we get back to the nursing home is her Alzheimer's-having roommate also doing the numero-dos in her wheelchair. We're watching "Charmed" before her dinner time and I smell the smell. I look at my mother and say, "Uh... are you okay?"
She looks back at me and points her head in the direction of the silent roommate. The poor woman barely knows her own name anymore, much less how to use the toilet by herself. My mother rolls to the nurses button and pushes it. So it was a day of aromas all around.
In family news, I got my 12 year-old niece to finally remove the Aqua "Barbie Girl" ring-tone she gave my new cell-phone the last time I was here. So that'll be one less embarrassing thing in my daily existence. But I still won't know how to use my own cell phone.
Oh, and speaking of cell phones, can one of you Apple disciples out there explain to me why my Motorola phone refuses to speak to
moroccomole's iPhone? Because I'm going to lose my shit if I call him again and it bypasses both his ring-tone and his vibrate feature and goes straight to voicemail as it seems to do each and every time I need to talk to him. I might even do it in my pants.
