In Which I Fall Off a Ladder and Get Laryngitis

This is me.

I fell off a ladder on December 23rd while putting Christmas lights on top of the armoire in my dining room. I didn't do anything ridiculous like standing on the step inscribed with the warning, "This is not a step." The tree was already up, and there were Christmas cookies in the oven, and I had a friend over---and so I was excited to  be finished with the lights, and I simply backed up to admire my handiwork. But I was still two steps off the ground. When I fell, I collided with a dining room chair which tipped over, and I planted my ribcage onto its edge, and the ladder planted itself on top of me.

The treatment for broken ribs is the same as the treatment for bruised ribs unless you can't breathe or are coughing up blood or you have a bone poking out (so says the Internet) so I didn't go to the ER. I did the things Dr. Internet said would help. Rest. OTC painkillers. I did a ton of OTC painkillers.  My ribs got better, but the hip I'd landed on (the left one) still hurt so I took more painkillers. And it was Christmas so I ate five dozen Christmas cookies and special desserts, and I was tired from not sleeping well because of the hip and rib pain so I drank a lot of coffee. A lot of coffee. And a lot of wine. So much wine. And after I did these amusing and entertaining things, I napped (on my right side, which is the side to lie on if you want to be good to your heart, but the left is the side that is good for your stomach.) And I didn't go to yoga and got fat.

All of this led to acid reflux (all the while my stomach felt fine) which irritated my vocal chords and  little growths formed and my voice got huskier and huskier. I couldn't sing. Wait. I could never sing. The only songs I can remember the tune to are Happy Birthday and Jingle Bells.

The irritated voice was irritating. But then my knees swelled to the size of grapefruits and I was as stiffer than I'd ever seen my mom. And my fingers were swollen and stiff too. The knees and fingers are improving, but the confluence of the many symptoms led me to go to the doctor. The swelling and the stiffness is still a mystery in progress, but I am now officially on my first prescription med. And the medication can deplete your body of calcium so now I have to take an OTC med for that. It's probably temporary. But there you have it. Don't fall off a ladder. Because one  thing leads to another.  The next thing you know, you'll be taking drugs and more drugs.

And meanwhile, I've now had a total of three bad dreams about my mom. Two in which I woke up crying for help because 1) she was a zombie trying to drag me off  2) a ghost controlling things in my house 3) spending all my money.

The therapist from my bereavement group says I'm going through a kind of post-caregiving collapse. But I'm really okay as long as I'm not having a nightmare, and I'm doing more yoga (with a billion modifications) and following the lifestyle changes for acid reflux as best I can. Don't Google all the yummy things you're not supposed to eat or drink. The thought of giving them up will give you nightmares.

Read this quote by Rumi instead: This day of sunshine will not walk to you; you must go to it. And that's my rough paraphrase because I couldn't find it on the Internet. But the yoga teacher read it to us today at the end of class.

Report from Pillville: How my hair stood up

I wish I still had the Christmas lights on my bed.

I am listening in the dark. My mother is quiet at the moment. If I listen a little harder I can hear the click and hiss of her oxygen machine.

Earlier this evening as my friend Ellen and I sat on the couch, my mom was talking in her sleep. Not just a mumbled word, not just a line or two, but a monologue. Excuse me, I said to Ellen. I have to check out what's going on in there. I stood to the side of her partially open door and listened.

"And now they roam the house at night. Two of them. And they're not really fond of each other." My mom was speaking in a dramatic voice like she was telling a ghost story. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up. I can't even watch TV because the commercials for scary movies terrify me. Now I'm imagining Thing One and Thing Two roaming through my house, stalking one another--stalking me.

If there ever was a night to have a friend staying over, this is it. A few months back, Ellen and I both leapt from our beds and nearly collided at the top of the stairs after my mother yelled at the top of her lungs. For a moment it sounded like my mom was arguing with someone and we thought there might be an intruder in the house.

I may have to sleep with the light on. But then again, that might make it easier for Thing One and Thing Two to find me.

Report from Pillville: Ghosts, the Grim Reaper, and Other Thrills

my mother and her twin Millie

If you're a regular visitor here, you've probably heard that my mother frequently yells in her sleep. Or maybe you've just plain heard her. She's loud.

One morning just past dawn I heard her proclaim, "I really don't know all that much about baseball," and then proceed to sing "Take Me Out To the Ballgame." Mostly though she yells things like: WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? WHO ARE YOU? AAAARRRGG. NOOOOO!  GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW! I'm usually awakened from a sound sleep sometime between 3 and 4 a.m., heart pounding, adrenaline rocketing through my body. Fight or flight, the horrified brain and body ask each other. Don't know. Pantpantpantpant. Don't know. 

Last night it was 4:45 a.m when she screamed all of the above. I leap out of bed and run to my door to lock it, considering that there might be an intruder downstairs. I dash back to my nightstand, grab my phone, go to the keypad and dial 9 to get a head start on 911. I listen. More screaming. Do I grab the martial arts stick of Dan's and go downstairs? Hahahaha. (Anyone who's seen me actually panic is laughing right now.) But, hey, I do grab the stick--I just continue to cower behind my locked door, a third of the way to an emergency phone call.

Holy shit, right?

Well, I determined that it was just my mom yelling, and I got back to sleep and then had a ridiculously stressful dream wherein I drove to Phoenix to help my friend P with her mother, knowing full well I had less than 24 hours to do so while M was here with my mom. I got lost. But finally found P's apartment which was massive and shaped like a Mayan temple with narrow curving driveways to each of the levels. It was so confusing I parked my car down below and then realized there was no way I could walk to the top. Plus, I had my cat from decades ago, Little Guy, with me, and he was squirming in my arms and I was afraid he'd run away, and then trying to get back to my car, I forgot where I parked it and then, in a panic, called M who was completely unsympathetic, but I found the car, and drove it up the terrifying driveway and found my friend P. Maybe I helped her, I don't remember, but when I went to leave I accidentally let her chihuahua, Max, escape, and he went running down the street with a pack of dogs who were chasing a car. But when a car came toward me, they turned around to chase that car, and I somehow grabbed him before P noticed and put him back on her patio, but I got lost again, this time in the network of courtyards and nearly bumped into an old tattooed woman who called me stupid. When I finally got to my car, driving down was more terrifying than going up, and I kept thinking that I must be on a pedestrian path instead of a street, so I kept turning onto an intersecting route every time I had a chance, but the roads kept getting smaller and smaller until eventually my car was squeezed and tipped onto its side, wherein a grumpy old guy with a narrow trailer just wide enough to hold a Prius on its side, said he'd take my car down the hill for me. But when I turned my back, he'd pulled it into his garage and covered it up with an old carpet and said he didn't know anything about my car. I realized he was a thief and then I woke up, horrified that I'd lost track of my cat.

Today I asked my mom what she'd been dreaming about, thinking maybe she'd seen a ghost or the grim reaper. "Oh, Millie and I were lost in the woods again," she said. "I thought we'd never find our way home."

Report from Pillville: the ER, the pharmacist, the nightmares, and the nose

I used to travel.

Let me begin by suggesting that you read  THIS. I had two dogs and two cats then. All of them getting older with a myriad of problems. By some stroke of incredible luck my lovely niece and her fiancé were willing to pet sit while I was out of town for weeks. I think I may have gone to Greece.

I may be completely under the control of an overactive ego, but I'm pretty sure I am now irreplaceable. My human "patients" can not be sated by meds tucked into jerky treats.

The man who loves me had a typical rocky night last evening. Up and down with opiate nightmares and pain. Last night was night six post-hospital. He's in command enough now that I pretty much roll over and sleep through most of his getting in and out of bed. Guiltily. But I have no musical talent. I cannot paint or draw or design costumes. Sudoku is a mystery. I am, however, the world champion of sleeping. So I do what I am good at.

The plan this morning was that I would go off to the blood lab with my mom for a routine blood draw and leave him alone for an hour. Which turned into four hours because after she threw up in the wastebasket at the blood lab and complained of a splitting headache, I drove her to the hospital. The man did fine while my mom was rehydrated, given anti-nausea meds and some morphine. I did less well while there in the ER cubicle, fantasizing about nursing homes in Iowa while I simultaneously trembling at the thought that she might be dying. My own heart was racing, and I wondered about the physical toll on me  of all these ER visits. For my mother, a CT scan of the  head. X-ray of chest. Swab of nose to test for flu. EKG. And a paper cup of water for me. It turned out my mother was fine. Maybe a stomach virus, they said.

And when we got home, I found her morning meds still in her pillbox. She interpreted her orders to fast for her blood test as no water--and so did not take her pills. Which would explain her to the moon blood pressure this morning. Closer oversight on my part is now required.

While my mom slept most of the day, the man and I sat on the couch calling his doctors and the insurance folks. How to get his check-up x-ray here in the county where he is recuperating instead of in L.A. county. What do the instructions "take 3 times a day" really mean. What is the difference between hydrocodone, oxycodone, and oxycontin? Is there any difference at all between Percocet and Norco? His eureka moment that the reason he isn't sleeping is his nose. And that he needs antihistamines.

I was thrilled to manipulate a trip to the pharmacy into a dusk walk (only a tad guiltily) under billowing clouds  to discuss the nose with pharmacist, who, after considering the myriad of meds, cautioned against antihistamines.

Somehow we all managed to eat dinner together. And now I sit here on the couch with the one remaining resident of the old Pleasure Palace and Pet Hospice. Piper, the ancient cat, just sneezed. But she's okay. Nearing 100 in human years, she's heartier, I believe, than the human residents of this house. My mother is in her room murmuring, the man upstairs searching for a way to comfortably breathe while his body adjusts to the absence of a section of his left lung. I am neither murmuring, nor missing a body part. My body is not racked with pain. And I know that I am kidding myself when I say that I am irreplaceable. I could go nuts and hop a plane to Greece tomorrow, and love and care from others would fill the void. Love and its path of least resistance. I bow down to the love. I bow down to the path.