The World will Not End just because I Cannot Taste Cookies Anymore

Michelle can wear white and still look like a rail.  I can wear the darkest black and one can still see every cookie I have tasted throughout my life.

According to my mom (long before her dementia kicked in) my very first word was “Cookie” Even then I knew a good thing –though probably it was not the luscious chocolate chip that I prefer to bite in today – at that time it was probably a biter biscuit or some Gerber product that from an adult’s point of view seems rather flavorless.  And perhaps it was.

I was seven when Sesame Street first aired.  I suppose I still could have been an inpiration for Cookie Monster

During my lifetime I’ve encountered all kinds of cookies that bring pleasure to my pallet.  At first they did not show. I’ll admit I’ve never had the best eating habits.  For years many individuals thought I was anorexic or anemic because I was actually skinny for quite a long time. 

                                              my absolute favorite

ever taste girl scout Samoas?  They are SINFUL

I don’t think I ballooned out until my early to mid thirties.  And than it happened – just like Violet Bowregard  from Willy Wonka – when she put that gum in her mouth and plumped up in seconds (though I have never turned blue – but I’ve experienced being blue – not necessarily from the fat) nor have I been able to restore to my youthful skinny shape as oompa loompas squeezed the juice out of me (rarely have I had cookies with juice in them – in fact the closest I think I’ve gotten is applesauce – but not apple juice)

 The rest of my body doesn’t seem to be near as fond of cookies and other goodies as my pallet – especially with each passing year.

Shortly after I started my blog last year, I created this post about my lack of smell (which I think Jenna must have somehow inherited what I lost as she seems to have an overly sensitive nose) Sadly, I think my taste buds are disappearing as well (could it be all the saline that has leaked from my eyes have been a contributor?)

It hasn’t become so bad that I  no longer enjoy cookies.  But I think I’m headed there.  The sodas that I used to enjoy (which I really have tried to drink sparingly – as I know that soda is not good for any of us) taste rather dull – so really, what’s the point in drinking it now?  And that is a good thing.  

Perhaps not being able to taste anything will be a good thing.  For I will be able to do the diet thing.  I’ll be able to eat lima beans probably and they will be just as tasteless as anything else I put in my mouth.  I won’t force myself to eat so much because it taste so good and I just can’t help myself.  I’ll eat for survival and that’s it.  I’ll probably lose weight.  Perhaps I’ll even look anorexic again. 

Dilemma: Where do I start?

Today’s visit has been quite the interesting and somewhat traumatizing.  No easy way to explain it.  I have made mention of my great Aunt Gertrude in a couple of my posts – but I don’t know that I went into detail about the “great” part.

Aunt Trudy is the youngest of four children.  Three brothers: Harold, Earl and Ted.  My paternal grandfather is Earl.  He fathered three children, my dad, my Uncle Ross and my Aunt Alice.  Each child has four children – many of whom are close to Aunt Trudy and may have more knowledge of the intimate details of her life than I.

Harold had one son who in turn had four children.  It is through this line that Aunt Trudy would like to handle her affairs.  But I don’t know.  She was talking to me through medication – sounding so much more confused than mom ever has.

Uncle Ross and family had invited Aunt Trudy and Uncle Ted to an Easter Brunch.  It was during the Easter festivities when Aunt Trudy fell and was taken to the hospital.  Uncle Ross checked her in and she was treated for a hip injury and now needs rehab.  They need an answer now (well, a couple of hours ago is when the therapist said it was crucial to pick out a facility as they would like to move her there tomorrow.)

Aunt Trudy is in no position to make the decision herself as she is on very strong pain killers that seem to be removing more from her mind than her pain.  Mom, of course, has dementia and can’t even make decisions for herself – let alone somebody else.  And so I look through her list of choices and make a few suggestions but as I don’t know the pros or cons or the financial aspect of things or Aunt Trudy’s medical background  I’m certainly not in a position to make that kind of decision.

I know Uncle Ross’s phone number – but it escapes me as I start to dial the numbers.  I KNOW his number.  What is it?  I dial his daughter, Michelle, as hers is the only number I have programmed into my phone.  And she calls Uncle Ross and says that he and Uncle Ted will be there to visit at 5:00 today.  But that’s too late for the therapist.  She needs to find a rehab right now to make sure there’s space available.  I am at a loss.

As I’m talking to Michelle over the phone, Aunt Trudy is telling me to be sure to contact Harold’s family -   I can try (try being the operative word) to contact them when I get home.  I have to look them up first and see what options I have – perhaps facebook is not the best way, but dex is not bringing up the second cousin by her husband’s name.  I can’t seem to get a hold of her dad.  He may be a better source as he has had to go through all of this with his own mom.  But he is getting up there in years.  I don’t know if he is in the right frame of mind to relay all of the needed information.  But I don’t know that Uncle Ted is either.  But he probably does have a better handle on her health status than anyone.

Anyway, I just found it awkward, interesting, and terrifying at the same time to be a contact.  I added Ross and Michelle to the list and gave them the name of my second cousin whose number I don’t have. 

The therapist gave me the impression that she may be in rehab permanently and may never return to the house where she’s lived practically all of her life (if not all her life) just like mom.  Only her mind will be there when the drugs have worn off.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could move her and mom in together?  Down the road I mean – when rehab isn’t necessary but assisted living is. 

Poor Aunt Trudy.  I feel so bad. 

Getting Old Sucks Big Time

          There are some who age gracefully – some whose minds and bodies appear to be so much younger that many are surprised to learn that they are actually older than they appear.  And then there are those who seemed robbed of their minds and or bodies long before their prime and often give the illusion that they are much older.  And then there are those who don’t appear to be that old but their minds seem younger than their bodies – much younger.  How did Corey put it?  Elderly children.

  Leon Goodman described Alzheimer’s in this way:   Her life is being chomped away from present to past by a voracious PacMan which cannot be stopped. My mom does not have Alzheimer’s, but I think the comparison here is just as accurate.  Only it’s not so much from present to past as it is just a very different time frame.  A time frame real to her but in an imaginary zone from the average view.

          As we age there are many among us who lose strength that perhaps many of us have taken for granted.  For example, having the ability to stand up and move from the bed to the toilet without losing our balance or the cold that seems to last longer with each passing year because somewhere along the line our bodies have slowed down and don’t seem to have the same ability for fighting off infection.

          I’m only 50.  I think I will die young.  Sometimes it feels that way.  Some days when my head is clouded and I’m burdened with physical pain, I would just assume die.  When my body and spirit separate, I won’t have to experience the physical pain anymore.  But I'm told I’ll be taking my emotions with me.  Hope that umberellas are provided.

        On January 31st I wrote this post about my desire to ease into another routine – or attempting to rather.  I posted entirely too soon.  I have not made a routine for myself.  I have not put in any volunteer hours at either the cannery or the school.  I haven’t been to the temple.  Nor have I been out to see my mom.

          I’ve been nursing my cold and now Jenna.  She would rather be in school.  So would I.  I’d like to be able to sleep through the night again.  I would love to feel good again.  I would love for all of my household and other family and friends to all feel better and stay better.  I would love to get back on schedule – like I was when Jenna was in first grade.

          Actually, we are both feeling better.  But I am still in a fog.  Returned to the doctors for an ear flushing.  And there was a lot that came out.  But not all of it.  My hearing is exactly where it was two weeks ago.  I am so sick of being sick!

I Would Like to See Someone Murder Germs - Permanently

Crime doesn’t seem to take a rest.  Rarely takes a holiday.  Germs at least seem to take breaks.  Maybe not.  There is always somebody who’s been invaded by germs. So often they can make us miserable. 

I haven’t blogged for a while for that very reason.  Icky, ugly germs – that hadn’t been detected in my own personal body until I went to the doctors to have my ears flushed.

It doesn’t set well with me that I feel worse leaving the doctor.  It doesn’t set well with me that I would feel even more miserable after starting the antibiotic treatment.  I’ve had pressure in my ear, in my eye, in my head, and in my throat.  I’ve had a cough and am now experiencing a runny nose – which is a good thing.  A runny nose indicates it’s finally coming out.

Unfortunately I forgot to turn on the humidifier on Saturday night and woke up with a dry throat on Sunday morning.  I took the last antibiotic.  And now I’m probably experiencing strep.  I hope not.  I return to the doctor’s on Thursday.  I can’t take anything stronger.  Not like last year.  Don’t want to be nauseated in addition.

So I was actually feeling better this afternoon.  Roland had given me a blessing.  And I felt well from about 11:30 to 3:00 – when I had to meet with my sibs and an attorney.  Kayla and I left the office first and bam -  I’m sick again.  Miserable sick.

At least I’m hydrated.  Jenna checked out of school early.  Dehydrated and throwing up.  I thought she was sharing my cold – our cold (Roland had it, too) as she was coughing this morning and crying – she does not deal well with being sick.

I’ve been catering to her needs – puppy sitting a few hours and rolling my eyes at Trume who wants to play with Jenna and doesn’t believe she is sick.  Reminding her that I had been sick and I’m sorry she had to get sick herself to understand the pain I experienced when she would barge into my room and ask, “Mom, do you want to play a game?”

I didn’t want to play a game.  But I didn’t want to neglect her either.  I wanted her to understand my position – but not necessarily my pain.  Damn those germs!

I Can’t Hear You!

          Last year I had a sinus infection that put pressure on my eyes.  This year it’s my right ear.  It’s been clogging and feels like it does when I’ve been on a plane.  I thought it was the air quality that was turning me deaf.

          Jenna happened to be sitting next to me when she looked in my ear and told me it was pretty bad.  Apparently it’s a wax build up.  It didn’t hurt – but has been greatly annoying as my hearing’s been distorted, my thinking has been distorted and my balance has been out of wack.

          So I set up an appointment to get my ears flushed (I had thought it was both ears) believing that the doctor’s office may be equipped with a greater tool than a syringe.  This particular clinic is not. How pathetic.  The water that was used wasn’t even that warm. 

          I remember when I was in junior high, I had the same problem.  An ear, nose and throat specialist swiped his tool over the blobby wax several times- removing it in pieces.  Finally he was able to grab what remained. It hurt when he pulled it out.  He said it had been as big as an eraser – I would imagine one that is purchased to top a pencil – not the one that comes with the pencil itself.  What had been pulled from my ear was larger than the canal itself.

All the sudden all noises around me were extremely loud.  Even toilet paper was loud.  And I feel like the wad of wax in my ear today must be the same size – or larger.  The syringe didn’t work (what a surprise) nor the sticky substance that was put in my ear beforehand.

It may have loosened enough for the doctor to look to the canal and see it had been inflamed.  Evidently the wax had been damming a large pool of blood. So now I have pain in addition to the vermin that is plugging my ear. (I imagine it feels like a pencil eraser has been crammed into my ear) I am now emotionally out of wack as well as annoyed.  (But then I’ve been quite emotional all year)

The doctor prescribed antibiotics which I started taking yesterday.  There is also an eardrop prescription that I can’t start using for four days (the canal needs time to heal) meanwhile I feel like I am in a fog.  I feel what my mom must feel with her dementia.  

I don’t wish to socialize or clean or drive or even Blog.  At least I can sit still with the latter two – but still need to have some degree of being focused. Thank heaven for spell check and proof reading (perhaps I should have posted how it originally read so that you can see for yourself how fantastically wrong my mind seems to be working)

Birds Gathering in Mom’s Backyard

          In 1963 Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” was released in movie theatres.  My mom didn’t seem like a thrill seeker, but had gone to see “The Birds” and was quite freaked out about it.

          For years there was an apple tree in the backyard of the house where I grew up.  I recall several years when birds would fly overhead or gather into our yard as if it was the designated place for the birds to hold their daily or weekly conferences.  And mom would be freaked. 

          It seems quite hilarious really – by today’s standard’s I mean.  I remember mom checking out the video perhaps just a few years and decade after its release.  She sat Patrick and me down to show us this “very scary” movie so that we might understand her fears. 

          Well, it backfired.  The idea of the film was completely silly.  And everything looked fake.  (As an adult, I find the “making of the Birds” so much more interesting than the movie itself.)

          Patrick and I laughed – and even mom could see that it wasn’t really as scary as she had led herself to believe.  But we were watching a video in Patrick’s room with his two large windows and in the middle of the day with lots of sunlight streaming in.  Surely a dark movie theatre with these “bigger-than-life-sized-birds” (as they would appear larger on the big screen) was a lot more scary.  But Patrick and I believed that a large screen would only enhance all the flaws that we saw.

          Oh, I’m not knocking what may have been a horrifying chiller in 1963 – but by today’s standards – or even just the late ‘70’s, it seemed more like a comedy than a thriller.

          When I was at my mom’s house the other day, she pointed out the window and said to Jenna, “Look at all the birds!” 

She took pleasure in the fact that so many birds had gathered outside her window.  She wasn’t scared about or bothered at all.  And I thought back into a time when her reaction was always so much different.

          There has been a plus to the wicked health issues that have seemed to rob both of my parents of their yesteryear’s strength.  And that has been in seeing my parents behave in a different a manner unlike their old selves – but allowing themselves to express new emotions – or one’s that seem to have been buried away seem to rise to the surface.  I don’t often welcome the changes, but sometimes it brings me joy to see an unexpected behavior.  Such as welcoming the birds and not fearing the idea of what could happen (or at least did in someone’s imagination)

If He’s Just Going to Die Anyway . . .

My dad had had a series of strokes later in life.  Some of them were so “small” that they went undetected.  The first one I remember had temporarily paralyzed the left side of his jaw.  Not realizing the magnitude of what was happening, we made jokes about it.

Because he was such a quiet man, we commented that his jaw was sliding off his face as he never used it. It eventually returned to his normal appearance.  It wasn’t until later on that we learned his downward jaw had been the result of one of the strokes he had had.

Dad started keeping odd hours.  He’d be awake while the rest of us were asleep and vise-versa.  He was in need of care 24-7 and it became too overwhelming at times.  We were told that the insurance he had would not cover a live-in aide – but they did have a list of nursing homes.  We did our best to avoid it, but it finally got to the point that we needed assistance.  I don’t know how we ended up with the facility that we did.  It was depressing.

He actually had strength left in his hands as he would hang on for dear life to any person who would assist him in walking out to the car or whatever.  We called it “the death grip”.  I would always stop in our tracks and tell him, “If you would like to continue moving, you will have to ease up on your grip because you are hurting me!” 

He’d laugh and his juices would come out and he’d start to drool. It was painful watching him go downhill.

We took my dad to therapy.  He was a favorite patient as he was very cooperative to do everything he was told. Except for one time when my mom took him out of bed and tried walking with him and decided to put him back before someone came in and caught them doing something that they weren’t supposed to do.

Mom would push on one side and race around the bed to pull him.  He laughed while she frantically moved from one side to the other saying, “Someone is coming. I don’t even know if we were suppose to get you out of bed”

Mom had done therapy with him.  They were both quite worn out when an orderly came in and brightly asked, “Are you ready for physical therapy?”

Mom looked at dad and nodded “yes” while he shook his head “No”.

Because the muscles in his mouth weren’t working the way they should, it became difficult to swallow anything.  We started out with thick juices and nectars to a no liquid restriction. He was given wet sponges to suck on in order to quench his thirst.

Each stroke left him paralyzed just a little bit more. He walked with a cane.  His speech became difficult to understand.  So difficult that many didn’t realize he still had the ability to think and still had a sharp mind. 

One time my brother’s family brought to him a vase of flowers.  When he was alone in the room, he removed the flowers and drank the water from the vase.  My sister-in-law was upset.  She said she hadn’t even cleaned the vase all that well, and would have done a better job had she known.  It was dirty water.  He was desperately thirsty though.

He would get out of bed and fall and was restrained and would cry that he was being tied up.  And we would cry with him.  Sometimes we would loosen the bands and then report our deeds to the nurse. 

I really don’t remember how long he’d been there.  But the insurance company gave us a deadline for when they would no longer supply payment for keeping him there. Eleven days before the deadline he had another stroke.  An ambulance took him to the hospital that was near the house of my family.  Someone went to see him every day.

We were able to teach him some finger spelling – which of course came slow.  And if we asked a question that wasn’t a “yes” or “no” question – it became quite a game to figure out the answer.

One time my mom went up to one of the members of the Church to thank him for visiting my dad.  He was taken aback and asked sincerely, “How did you know that?”

“He told me.”

“He told you?”

“Yes.”

“But when I saw him . . . I didn’t know he could . . . How did he tell you?”

Dad loved chocolate milk shakes and hamburgers.  He had been hooked up to a feeding tube.  Daddy had already lost so much weight.  His legs were thin – like arms. He still had tastable desires.

Once my mom asked, “If he’s just going to die anyway, what difference does it make whether we give him a milk shake or not.”

The comment brought on some cold hearted stares, but seeing the sadness in mom’s eyes, they knew she was right.  It was highly probable that he would not be leaving the hospital alive.  And he did get at least two milk shakes out of the deal.

My dad never returned to the nursing home.  He spent his 54^th birthday in the hospital – he was laid to rest a month later. He’d been released from his physical body.  He had endured to the end.  And he hadn’t complained.  How amazing is that?

It was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining.  My brother, Patrick, and I both gave talks. We played a recording of Corey reading his poem (as he was on his mission at the time) and my sister, Kayla sang Amy Grant’s “Father’s Eyes”  It was a really nice tribute.  I miss my dad.  I think of him quite a bit on really awesome days that take place in the fall.