At the Foot of the Stairs

*Just so I won't forget: Yesterday was my late Grandpa C's 103rd birthday. Happy Birthday, Grandpa. Yesterday, I spent about three hours looking through the house in every nook and cranny you can imagine for two boxes of my mother's pain patches. She would hide them from us, and then we would find them and hide them from her. Last time, I think I hid them from her. But I cannot find them ANYWHERE. This led me to believe that she must have re-found them and taken them with her, but when I called and told them to look among her things, they could not find them either. So, Matt is heading up there now with one of the fifty or so lower mg patches we *did* find. It will work-- we think the patches are mostly psychological in benefit anyway. Her pain doctors told her that they wouldn't up her meds anymore without a psychiatric evaluation. While I was searching, I found myself singing over and over again, "Children, don't let your parents grow up to hoarders....

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that we got my mom settled just in time so that we can fully focus on our next leg of the journey here at home. Yes, it feels a little weird to call my parents' house home. However, since I'm living here right now for the foreseeable future, I suppose it's apt. Last week, he was so strong that I thought somehow that he'd continue like that for awhile. However, this week, his decline daily is visible-- at least if you are his children and watching him sharply. Yesterday, he was starving when we got home from the nursing home, so Matt went out and got him a burger. My dad had been hanging out with his brother-in-law and then two neighbors while we went up to Sunrise, and he had stayed awake all afternoon. He said that surprised him. It surprised me too, because he has been sleeping so much throughout the day. However, even when Matt brought the food, my dad vanished into his room for awhile with the door shut. His incont...

Today, my beloved puppy, Minnesota, threw up at home, and then passed blood in the kitchen. He is at the vet now, and they are not sure what is wrong. I'm hoping that it's curable. Earlier today, a volunteer arrived and Matt and I got a brief break. We went and got some food at Wendys and then walked around for a bit, just kind of shell-shocked. We packed dishes for the kitchen, prepared paintings to be moved, and bickered back and forth with Pat. She figured that she needed a new bed, new chairs, a large couch for a small space, and she was absolutely living when I put my foot down and said NO. Matt got her a television yesterday at Costco that she will never be able to use and never watch, but maybe it's a small price to pay for just getting her out. But she has a $2K bed that she doesn't like because my dad researched and picked it out. It is a full-size, not queen, and it will fit, and it will be better for her myriad health problems, including her back pain. That...

I'm so sad tonight. Everyone is in bed except me, and I'm sad and lonely. Talking on the phone is hard because nobody can hear me. The smoke from the garage is eeking into the house, so that's hard too. My brother has been having these hour-long conversations with my dad. Twice yesterday. But when I go in to sit with him, I struggle to make conversation-- and he doesn't make it at all. I'm not really sure why, but right now it just makes me sadder. All my dad has seen since I've been out here is a strung-out daughter who is completely frustrated with his wife and not making a very peaceful environment. When I talk to my younger two kids on the phone, it's so hard. They are begging me to come back. It's not even because they miss me-- they just aren't happy at their dad's right now. Part of that is because Tommy is failing two classes and dealing with some consequences that, frankly, their dad is better at meting out than I am. I tied myself u...

How to Put Your Mother into a Nursing Home Friday night Lie awake until 3:00 a.m., intermittently crying and smoking cigarettes in the garage with the baby monitor on so you can hear your dad when he calls you. Feel like you are the most terrible person in the world for ripping a helpless old lady from her home, her possessions, and her dying husband. Give up sleeping and start making lists of everything you think she will need in her new home to feel at home. Hair done Thursday a.m. to see Mandi? (No, because Mandi is going to Hawaii Thursday. Go, Mandi!) phone line cell phones for seniors? Ensure diet coke for Mom's fridge dreamsicles-- stock for awhile cereal vanilla soy milk snacks plates glasses mugs silverware napkins eye drops (systane) makeup brush microwave? little bistro type table and chairs for eating? What bed for Mom-- new mattress? Nightstand, bureau The Bose? CDs DVD player DVDs Sound of Music? birth certificate wedding photos dish...

Pat: "Tom, I'm leaving. In two days." Tom: "Well, who cares? I'm doing the big sleep. I'm going back to bed." That, my friends, pretty much sums it up.

I don't think I can update today. I spent the day with my mother. I took her to the doctor to get papers saying she is incapacitated and to get her into the nursing home. Then we went up to the nursing home for an intake interview and took measurements. To say that she is furious and lashing out is an understatement. See The Longest Day. Redux.

"Who says you can tell me I have to move out of my own house?" "I dunno. I guess it's the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood vested in me."

It is getting harder to update. This is mostly because I am exhausted, and reliving it all seems to just exhaust me a little bit more, but maybe if I can write a bit, I can fill in the gaps later. Or maybe I won't want to. I am torn between feeling a personal responsibility as a writer to document this and a personal responsibility as a person to rest. Yesterday was a long day. Matt and I rode up to Sandy, UT to tour another assisted living facility . It was beautiful. The woman who gave us the tour was sharp, responsible, compassionate, warm, and reassuring. Everyone we met was happy, calm, and like the Hospice people, just the nicest people you'll ever meet. The people who live there seemed engaged and happy, not just staring into space. They were participating in a social gathering that seemed like something that my mom could also participate in. It smelled good throughout-- like potpourri. I loathe the way assisted living facilities smell, but I couldn't get over how ...

"The first appearance of the concept of the "red pill" in the 1999 film The Matrix . A hacker named Morpheus offers a choice to the film's protagonist, Neo, to take the blue pill, where "the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe", or to take the red pill, where "you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." These days, I sleep on this foam, mattress top thing on the living room floor with a baby monitor on. My dad's room is only about ten feet away, but last night, the monitor was on too low, or I was too tired. I thought, drowsily, at one point that, wow, my dad was really sleeping well. Um. Apparently, he was a little freaked out when he called repeatedly and nobody came. I feel horrible, but he was able to get out of bed and take care of what he needed, so there is at least that. Right now, the monitor is turned on HIGH, and Matt has a monitor in his room too, in the basement...

Tuesday Just as the other night I felt crushingly overwhelmed and sad, I am amazed today by the difference in my mood and how happy I am. After I wrote "Odyssey" I went to bed and read for awhile. Then, I tried to sleep. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. I texted Dereck in the middle of the night that I missed him and was sad, and then I went out to the garage to my smoking corner and had a good boo-hoo for awhile. Then I went back and tried to sleep again. Then I got up and went upstairs and listened to my mom breathe and wished my brother would have insomnia too. I finally got to sleep somewhere around 4am, without turning off my alarm. It went off at 8:30, and again, I couldn't get back to sleep. So, I went upstairs. After Sunday, I walked upstairs into a sniper's den. My mother woke up with a target on my forehead, and there was a little red light on it all day as she took shots at me. I am not sure why she singled me out particularly, but we do push each...