The New Normal

Sometimes for a long period of time, maybe months, maybe days, maybe even years things go good. They go so good that you are knocking on wood everyday hoping and praying that they will stay that way until the end of time or at least for the next week. It is just a period of time when things look great and if you had planned your life it wouldn't have come out any better then what you are living. Everything is just cool.

I take those periods and fully enjoy them because I know that before long they will just be a distant memory for me. I especially am over the moon happy when my mom doesn't have any health problems whatsoever. For a period of time she was in the hospital every other month and nobody, doctors wise, could figure out what was going on to drive her in and out of the hospital. They went with strokes, mini strokes as they called them and then some more doctor talk that they tried to bring down to the level of someone like me not in the medical profession, just a worried and concerned daughter, but most of it didn't make much sense to me and most of it I had to ask what they met over and over again until I got a better understanding of what they were talking about. At the last trip to the hospital they explained that on top of everything else they thought she was having small seizures and explained to me that all seizures are not the jerky kind, as they put it that you can just "zone out" like she was doing and being unresponsive but they come back in a few minutes or so. But the time they told me that my head was swimming with all the other things they told me and I was trying to digest it all. Five days later she was sent home with medications that could probably be used to open a small pharmacy. And to her it was a small pharmacy since she had never in her life been on anything until now. 

I always pray that we don't see another hospital and that her health at least stabilizes so to say. I know that she won't get much better and all these things won't disappear and that she will have to be on all these medications for the rest of her life but I just want the good days to last longer. I really want them to turn into good years and maybe a good decade. I want her to live the rest of her life as happy as she was before. She can't be as active but she can be as happy I think. So, everyday I try to do little things to make her happy. Just little things that she likes that makes a little difference to us but a big difference to her. She wanted chocolate candy the other day. I checked to see if she could have it. And it was a go so she got to have some chocolate candy and she smiled and ate that chocolate candy like it was the best thing she had tasted in her life. 

It gave me a smile seeing her enjoy it so much. She also likes her fuzzy bear slippers that we got her, my son and I, for Christmas two or three Christmas' ago. During the night she likes to wear them and giggles like a school girl when the ears of the bears move when she walks. Simple things like that give her joy now. We almost do the happy dance when she locates the sleeve or her shirt by herself and is able to put her arm through without any direction or help. My son even clapped for her one day when she did it all by herself. 

Well, this morning was rough. It had been the roughest one yet in a while. I would compare it to almost like taking care of a new born who is up every two or three hours and you are constantly up with the baby trying to figure out if she or he is hungry, wet, or just cranky and wanting attention from mom and dad. That was like my morning today. My mom had an upset tummy and she was in the bathroom practically all night and into the wee hours of the morning and it just not let up a little bit. I don't know what made that happen since she is not eating anything different. But, from time to time that happens and it takes it toll on us but in a day at the most she returns to her normal. 

Normal, that is a word for you. Normal changes way too often and what is normal today is not normal tomorrow and the next day and the next day and so on and so forth so I use that word with a grain of salt . Normal for my mom has changed greatly. Normal for me has changed and normal in general is not so "normal" any more. 

Mother Hearing

When I had my son ten years ago I developed this "mother hearing" where I can hear him from a country away if I had to. When he was a baby if he made a peep I would hear him. It is basically the same now with him and now since my mom has been sick and back and forth to the hospital more times then I can almost count I have developed the same kind of hearing with her. I call that "mother hearing for mom"  I can hear her if she makes a peep too.  When I hear those and look at her face then I know that something is wrong. Usually she will need a Tylenol for an ache or pain that just won't go away without it.  

It is funny how the roles are now reversed. It is like I am mothering her now. In many ways I am doing just that. She took care of me for many years and some ways she still is and now I am taking care of her. It is not an easy job and I never thought that it would be. I don't really consider it a "job" I just consider it something that I do out of love. The rewards are not money. The rewards are seeing her smile when I tell her a corny joke, and see her laugh when my son does something funny, and seeing her put on her coat without too much help from us for the first time, seeing her taking pride in putting her shoes on the right feet in the morning and seeing the glimmer in her eyes when she remembers the date. Those are my rewards. The strokes took so much away from her physically and mentally and on days when more things go right then wrong those are the good days and the days that we enjoy the most. 

Today has been a good day for the most part. All her therapy went well and her blood pressure was good and under control and has been for a while now. (Knock on Wood) She has had less pain today then usual and that is always a good thing. 

We take things one day at a time and today this day it was a good day. And she didn't even mind the nurse or the therapist coming by today. She did well with the therapist and the nurse was pleased with her progress too. And that brought a smile to both of our faces.