Report from Pillville: The CPAP, Blood Pressure Parties, and Oxygen

It's been a bit busier than usual here in Pillville. My mother's blood pressure was too high at her last cardiologist visit. Buy a blood pressure machine, the doctor advised, and check her a couple times a day. Then she pulled out her pen and wrote my mom a prescription for yet another medication. If she has to add anything else, the list may need a second page. I'm happy to report that the medication has had the desired effect, and I've been able to monitor my own slightly troublesome blood pressure as well--and it's been mostly fine, too. 

I'm skittish about hospitals and medical equipment. Where am I going to keep the blood pressure thing-y, I wondered. I didn't want to leave it out in the living room or kitchen, and my mom's room is just too full of stuff already. With the pots and pans? In the armoire in the dining room where I keep the device that checks her INR level? That thing only gets used once a week, but we need to check the blood pressure a couple times a day, so I  relented and keep it on the kitchen island next to the iPad. So, come over. Have a seat and read the newspaper on the iPad and see how your blood pressure is doing. We'll make it into a party. Maybe there could be alcohol involved, and I'll get a breathalyzer and we can test each other's blood alcohol levels, too.

And I'm thinking maybe we should have a Star Wars dress-up party now that my mom is going to start using her CPAP machine again. 

She looks like Darth Vader in that thing, but it's worth it if it helps her sleep without waking up shouting. Sleep apnea is a weird condition. If one is troubled with erratic breathing while trying to sleep, it's no wonder nightmares ensue. Who wouldn't wake up shouting? My mom never remembers any of it, however.

My mom also uses oxygen at night, and the CPAP will soon be hooked up to that machine. During the day, while she is unattached to any medical devices, we could have oxygen parties.

Let me know your favorite flavor so I can have it on hand. Do you suppose there's one that tastes like gin?

Blood is Thicker than Water, but Smoke Looks a Lot Like Fog

I smelled it. That chimichuri sauce I put on the fish seems smoky, I thought. I was at my desk juggling  a pile of paper with making dinner. My mother was talking to herself  in full voice, and it had been going on for hours. I needed a little space. I put on NPR. Turned off NPR. Put on music. Turned off the music. Finally I went to my room and closed the door, and turned on my computer. I could hear the fog horns--they'd been making noise for long while, but it was only an hour or so ago that the fog really began to roll into Margaritaville. I wanted to stay in my room and watch the fog blanket my corner of the world. C'mon, muffle everything. Wrap me into silence.

But there was dinner.

My mother was standing at the kitchen island with her martini when I went downstairs. She was still talking. Something about cheese. She'd had enough cheese. It's even foggier than it was a minute ago, I thought. When I opened the oven to test the fish, a cloud of smoke rolled out. The pyrex dish that the fish had been in had spit in two, and the fish now sat in a crevasse, its juices dripping to the bottom of the oven, a slick back stain solidifying into a smoky crust.

I'd already had a fairly stupid day. I'd walked into the sliding screen door and wrenched my neck. I'd sunburned myself while oiling my teak table and chairs on the patio. Not being able to tell the difference between smoke and fog while incinerating dinner was not really necessary to bring home the fallible human shit.

Dinner, surprisingly, was not bad. The fish was not ruined. The roasted carrots and sweet potatoes survived. The avocado was perfect. My cheap red wine tasted expensive.

After dinner I decided to walk--fog or no fog. Afterwards, I picked up our mail and came in through the back door. My mom didn't hear me come in, and there she was, drinking right from the bottle of cheap red. Caught you, I said, and left it at that. She keeps her martinis pre-mixed in the freezer. Maybe she's been tipping that bottle right up to her lips, too. Maybe that's why she finds herself a scintillating conversationalist.

I don't know why her talking to herself gets on my nerves, but it does. About half of it is moaning rather than articulated words.

The good news is that when I went back to the doctor's office for my blood pressure re-check on Thursday, it was normal. The nurse gave me all the blood pressure hand-outs anyway. How you're feeling isn't a reliable indicator of blood pressure, apparently. Which is good, because today I felt like my head might just blow off and go straight through the ceiling.

photo credit: dance.net