All Day Tuesday – hitting air-brakes, hitting false brakes when you aren’t even driving the car. You know it’s not doing any good but the “reaching” is automatic. I know Mom has good days and mom has bad days but now throughout each day things can change a lot. Yesterday I had to adjust my rose colored glasses – take off my blinders. I had to look more closely at what I didn’t want to see. Something deeper about mom had changed. She was having a hard time doing anything and I was having a hard time keeping myself strong enough to accept what was happening. I couldn’t make it go away. I have yet to experience a day filled with so much weakness and disorientation and I could see she was having a difficult time with the chaos and confusion before her. Her speech was slow, slurred and sentences were hard to finish. At times she could hardly stand up – she would look at me and say What am I going to do? The only answer I could find was I don’t know but I couldn’t let her hear it.
The trees look like fireworks.
Wednesday Morning I’m still At the House, waiting to go see mom – to see how she managed the night – to see what the new day will bring. I’m relieved knowing she has a doctor appointment in the afternoon.
Much Better on arrival. Mom slept until after 10 o’clock and awakened with returned ease of motion and comprehension. She ate a big breakfast and took all of her medication without “much” prompting. She seemed grounded with renewed strength. But later she fell back into that space, that void.
Relief. We just returned from the doctor and he feels mom’s confusing behavior and weakness is related to her bladder infection and not stroke related – that was my main worry yesterday. I’m still not feeling 100% at ease but I know this is something I have to learn to live with. I find myself remembering times earlier this last year with her when I felt helpless. I know I have to come to some kind of terms with myself where I just let go. I have to believe I can know when my time to fix things is up.