Watching the snow fall all day.
I’m beginning to understand the concept of challenges and changes being gifts — forcing the learning curve into fast forward. Taking risks, raising the bar, blasting into unknowns — things I never had the nerve to do. Now there doesn’t seem to be any way out and I have no idea where we’re headed. Moment by moment we arrive in new situations — Quitting is not an option.
The best news is mom’s confusion has cleared a lot and she’s in good spirits. Now I need to determine how much of what was originally there is still with her. I watch her express childlike contentment when she’s engaging with others but when she’s quiet I’m not sure how much inner peace is being felt. It’s not so much that she is off in another world or lost – she just sometimes seems to be existing in a very small world and I have to keep narrowing down what she is actually retaining in our communication. She clearly remembers what’s important but unfortunately she is the one who decides what things are important.
Our last trip to the doctor gave me a new awareness of the danger of memory loss being a major side affect caused by most pain medications. The side affects really take a big chunk out of the miracles of medicine. How to decide which is worse – the pain or the memory loss is not easy.