The Sunday Report

I may have reached my zenith as a caregiver when I created this--whenever that was.

There were many papers spread out on the kitchen island and on the bed in my mom's old room, and somehow, today,  most of these projects are nearing completion. The things that needed mailing have been mailed, other papers are stored for now in a file box until it seems reasonable to shred them. There is a box of treasures to keep, old photos to organize, and a few things to give away. Leaving this world with such a light load of material possessions is not something I would have predicted for my mom decades ago. I am most grateful. 

 Now, f I can get the U.S. Commemorative Gallery to stop sending their "valuable" collector sets of coins. I sent back their "Eisenhower and Kennedy Golden Dollars" and received a note from them that my mom had pre-paid for them. I may take on a battle with them just to see if I can get any of her hard-earned money back. What a bunch of hucksters. Can you even spend these damn things like regular money? How is it that with dozens of consumer complaints against them, we still let a company like this exist to prey upon the elderly?

I'm in the process of my own estate planning now. Letting my adult children know what is what and what is where. I'm now the family matriarch, I guess....And hoping that I will lighten my load of material goods substantially before I leave the planet. It's all just stuff. And it's stuff that our kids or friends will have to sort through when we leave. Then again, who doesn't like pretty things? I can't even walk by a piece of beach glass without pocketing it.

Postcard from Pillville: A Rant

Chocolate. My current medication.

My mom's regimen of a dozen prescriptions was a bit more complicated. After she moved in with me in August of 2009, it took me at least a month to get acquainted with her routine. She filled her own pillboxes in those early days of living together, but confusion would ensue when the pharmacy re-filled a prescription with a different brand of drug than the one she was used to. When I cleaned her room, I often found pills on the floor or in her bed. More and more frequently she asked me questions that made me worry she didn't quite know what she was doing. Eventually, I became the dispenser of meds, filling three weeks worth of pillboxes at time from a giant plastic box of bottles divided into sections labelled A.M., P.M., and 2X PER DAY. 

Now that she's in a nursing home, I'm relieved of all that. But I've been left with a gallon zip-lock bag of meds. My mom moved out in October and I still have the bag of drugs. No class-one narcotics, mind you, just heart meds and blood pressure pills. Pills to help the sinuses, the digestion, drops for the eyes and the ears, and god only knows what else. Burping, farting, itching, swallowing--name your problem and there's a drug for it. I know drugs are not to be disposed of casually by flushing or in a landfill, but the pharmacy (Vons) that filled the prescriptions won't take them back. The DEA hotline had me on hold today for eleven minutes. The Internet has steered me wrong--Walgreens does not take back meds and they don't know who does. I called 211. Nope. They have nothing in their database. 

But I'm a late-night Google-er and I found a note I'd tucked into the bag that I'd forgotten about. It was the name of a pharmacy in the neighboring town. I called them, and they say they will take back the meds. I hope it turns out to be true.

Caregiving is hard enough. When it's over you want it to be over. Not that it is if you are still handling the mail and the banking, etc. I think all pharmacies should take back what they fill. And yes, I know I could have gone to the Sheriff's office. I did that after Dan died and dropped off the morphine and the Oxythis and the Oxythat into a secure bin, but I didn't especially want to retrace those steps. And by the way, I still have a tub of needles from Dan. The Sheriff's office does not take those, and they're not supposed to go in a landfill either, and I tried taking them to a toxic waste site. That was a no-go. I could, however, send away for a special mailer that costs 20-some dollars, and yes, I have the 20 bucks, but really, this is the shit that just wears you down. 

Thanks for listening. 

Any artists out their who make things out of pills? I have a bag full.

Report from Pillville: The Triumphant Return

My mom is home. A stop for fro-yo, a stop for antibiotics, and zoom. There I was at the kitchen island, figuring out what meds she still needs to take today.

The first thing she did was pluck her eyebrows.

We had frozen pizza and a fruit plate for dinner. And of course she had a martini.

Why-oh-why does it take hours to get released from the hospital? They told me she was going to get released this morning, but the actual process took all day. You could bust out of prison with a file and a shovel in that amount of time.

And what the fuck is up with the bread they serve? The toast is soggy. The hamburger buns are soggy. The dinner rolls are soggy. Is there something about soggy bread that supposed to propel you back to robust health? I don't think so. So stop serving that shit.

Dizziness actually sounds like fun to me right now.

I should probably have some wine.

Report from Pillville: Pills

this was on the wall in the bathroom at the yogurt place where I took my mom after the dentist--which was after the doctor's office for a brief blood pressure check as a follow-up to her new meds

Of all the things I am thankful for, my good health is near the top of the list because it makes it possible for me to participate in many of life's other joys, and to care for those I love. I do a lot of things to care for my 61-year-old self on a regular basis ( yoga, t'ai chi chih, walking 10,000 steps a day, brushing and flossing, putting on sunscreen every morning, eating virtually no prepared or packaged foods), and then, of course, there's just plain luck. There are people who do all of these things and perhaps more, and yet some ill befalls them. When the bad thing strikes, there's always a pill to fix it, or to take away the pain, and then another pill to fix the side effects of the first pill, and then a third pill to fix the side effects of the second pill, etc.

I take no prescription drugs. No over the counter drugs either--except for an occasional couple of Advil. My mom has not been so lucky. I've lost count, but the list that reminds us what she takes hangs in the kitchen next to my drug manufacturing device (espresso maker).

This is just one of the slots in my mom's daily pillbox.

Every now and then, things get changed or the pharmacy fills a prescription with a drug that's the same drug but made by a different manufacturer so it has a different appearance (which alway turns me into an ax murderer for a few seconds)--so we consult my cheat sheet to help sort things out. The Internet is very helpful as well.

I think she'd prefer to just eat one of these every day.

As the man who loves me goes through chemo and radiation, his pills are multiplying, too. When I looked at his list and the pile of pill bottles yesterday, I thought I might need a pill--if they make a pill for anxiety about pills....  would that be pharmaphobia? Did you know that you could get hiccups from chemo? Did you know there's a pill for that?

Report from Pillville: Pills

We drove to the endoscopy in the dark. My mother couldn't have coffee or breakfast before the procedure, so, in solidarity, I had neither coffee nor breakfast. There were forms. There was waiting. Then I walked to Starbucks while she swallowed a camera. Or something like that. I am not curious about medical procedures. I don't really want to know the details or to see what is being done. Afterwards, she was cheery and remembered nothing. Afterwards, I was relieved, but not so much so that I didn't remember my worry. When does relatively non-invasive cross the line into invasive? When you are 88 and somewhat frail, that line is not so much a line, but a hair's breadth, a microscopic filament, a razor's edge.

And now there is the pill to take on an empty stomach. And the pill to be taken with food. And the "poison"powder, which must not be consumed within three hours of other medications, that I mix in the blender with orange juice and banana and serve with a straw in order to bypass at least a few taste buds. There are all the other pills taken in handfuls three times daily. And there is willingness, and a martini, and talk, and work, and reading and crocheting, and pure amazement at herons and pelicans, and waiting and waiting for the little songbirds to discover our new bird feeder.

I sometimes feel that I am living with someone who knows well that narrow corridor that leads to a door with a spiked threshold and a sign that says, "Do Not Back Up!" And sometimes I think she is right there reading the sign, and thinking, well, who cares?--who needs to worry once you've passed through that door? And sometimes I think her eyes are so keen, she sees the sign from the far end of the hallway and has no intention of approaching that doorway. But still, she and I, we know that threshold is there. And once you cross it, there is no coming back.

Caution! Side Effects May Include Growling

4:00 a.m.
I hear growling.
It takes a minute and the smell of cigarette smoke wafting up into my bedroom window before I'm awake enough to realize it's my mother. She's gone out the side door to smoke. My mom has vocalized almost non-stop since her surgery in 2009. Moans. Groans. Growls. In addition, she talks to herself. Sometimes she yells at herself. Sometimes it's more of a gentle reprimand. "Come on, Ethel," is one of her favorites.
Thank God the neighbors on that side use their house only as an occasional week-end retreat. Groggy, I roll through a scenario where someone hears the noise and calls animal control, and the neighborhood is bathed in searchlights. I have to answer the door in my pink tiger-striped pajamas to explain. But I know the neighbors are not at home, and with my pillow over my head, I eventually go back to sleep.

In the morning over coffee, I tell my mother she sounded like a bear, and we laugh. She apologizes.
The next mini-drama is over her pills. "I know I take five pills in the morning," she says. "Why are there six in my pillbox?" I get out the list my brother's girlfriend has prepared. I get out the plastic box with the prescription bottles. I compare the list to the bottles and the pills in the bottles to the pills in the box. There's an extra one, and no corresponding pill bottle to be found. I go online to I.D. it, and tell my mom that I think it's a pill for heartburn and excess stomach acid, and that it's actually the same as a different-looking pill in her box. One is oval, the other is round. One of them is probably a name-brand pill and the other a generic. "I don't have heartburn," she says. But  I know she suffered from GERD after her surgery. "I'll go to the pharmacy and ask the pharmacist if the pill is really a duplicate," I say. My  fantasy is that the pharmacist will tell me she should stop this medication immediately because the side effects cause growling. Yes, it turns out the pills are the same.

Sometimes my mother is fully herself. She hears what I say completely and accurately. Other times her hearing aids fail her. Once in a while she forgets what I just said even though she heard it. I find that I'm really not at all impatient with her. (It's day 3 of this living together business.) It's not so hard to imagine what it would be like to have arthritis. To hobble around on sore feet. To guess at what is being said. To learn my way around a new house in a new time zone and a new climate.

"Winter coat, winter coat," she grumbles as she heads out to the patio to smoke after dinner. I don't let her smoke in the house, but I take her a fleecy sweatshirt and a portable radiator. The ocean air is cool.

"Grandma needs her own YouTube channel," M says from the couch. It does seem a little like a reality show around here.