It's very quiet here today. No nurses or home health people come by on Fridays. Mom is napping and my husband, Furly is out. I have a baby monitor set up in her room, but only the sound of the oxygen machine is coming through: every few seconds it makes a sound like a short, exasperated sigh, and over time this sound has become weirdly soothing to me. Even her dog is sleeping, which tells me for sure she is sound asleep.
I'm glad she's asleep. She has had a rough day. She is really having a hard time coming to terms. No one could possible blame her. She can't get out of bed. She can't even sit up by herself. The worst part of this limitation is she can't take herself to the bathroom or even change her own soiled briefs. This obviously brings up some awkward feelings, as her mind is as nearly as sharp as ever. In addition, the pain of her hip makes her reluctant to "go." The nurses are getting concerned.
They tried to put her on her side yesterday. It did not go well: even though they used all kinds of cushions for support, by the time they were out the door for 10 minutes, Mom said she was too scared to be alone because of the pain. I had to put her back on her back. Later on, her massage therapist came for the first time. She gave Mom a special foot rub that was supposed to help her go too, and taught it to me. She's had prunes and prune juice and a daily laxative- long story short we've tried everything.
There's a long list of humiliating things about getting older and needing care. I think we can safely put having to talk about your bowels all the time to that list.
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