…need special handling.” – Depeche Mode, “Precious.”
I think the brain, and the human mind, could be considered precious and fragile.
SO so much to catch up on, here.
I could go chronologically and tell you all about the day of the burial, but something happened tonight that eclipsed that, altogether. So, let’s start there, instead.
I got a frantic phone call from my dad a bit before 7:15 PM this evening. He said my mom was, I think he put it, “out of this world,” and could I just come over and talk to her and see what I thought and help him figure out what to do.
She’d had a TIA late last summer. Some consider those mini-strokes, but that’s not I don’t think a medical consensus. They can be stroke precursors though and suggest you are likelier to have a stroke. It sounded to me like another one of those.
Jumped in the car immediately and called my daughter via Bluetooth on the way there, so she would know what was going on. She said to keep her updated.
Got there. Mom asked me, “So, what’s up?” as she usually does. But that was about the only thing she said that made any sense. Some of her “words” weren’t even words, more just a collection of garbled sounds. Otherwise, she was using words in ways that were completely incoherent. At one point, she said “cigarettes” quite clearly, in reference to nothing I could identify. She also seemed to be struggling to get the words she wanted, from her brain to her mouth.
I tried showing her a photo on my phone, of the treats I got at Starbucks today. The cake pop was especially cute. Here it is, for the record. All the strawberries! Strawberry Creme Frappuccino, and a Strawberry Cake Pop. Both delicious.
I took that pic at their kitchen table. Stopped there after my Starbucks run to say hello, even though my mom had said she was super tired. I was just going to say hi, then pick myself up Chinese drive-thru, and go home. Maybe share my treats, if she was interested. But no one was there.
I greeted the cat briefly, finished my drink and cake pop, just in case they’d come home soon, then gave up and drove to the Chinese drive thru (no steamed wontons on the menu, for me to see if they are, in fact, identical to the steamed dumplings, just fried wontons, which I didn’t want).
By the time I had first arrived at their house, I had last spoken with her I think just before 2 PM. She’d told me about going to Walmart to look for plants but that they were super crowded, and it was just too much. She’d tried a couple other places (on her own… Dad was at home), then given up, for later or another day, after resting.
She’d specifically said something about dinner and being really tired, so I figured maybe they went out to eat. My dad told me after I later arrived back at the house that she’d said she thought she’d left her sunglasses at Walmart, and they had gone back to look. That could have been where they were when I showed up with Starbucks. It sounded as if she had meant the really dark polarized ones she lost some time ago, which I eventually told him. If I’m correct, they’ve been missing for weeks, if not months. And she already knew that.
I think she was in and out of lucidity before he called me. He was making them chicken on the grill in their garage when I got there, but I told him I didn’t think they should eat dinner before we went to the hospital. It wasn’t until we got to a room in the ER that I learned this had started maybe around 4 PM or so.
I told him today to call me immediately next time. He didn’t respond. Not sure if he’ll listen.
It took some doing to get her to agree to get in the car and go to the hospital. I had suggested to my dad asking her if she wanted to go for a ride in the new car and then just going to the hospital, but he said that seemed “deceitful.” That may be true, I said, but we have to get her there, somehow. He’d said we could call paramedics if nothing else, but eventually, after I repacked her purse (she’d taken everything out of it, and laid out all the bits from her blood sugar testing kit), I got her to the car.
She couldn’t figure out the seatbelt. I helped with that. Then, we were off.
My dad misremembered exactly where this specific hospital was but surprisingly was amenable to listening to directions. He’d wanted to drive. I think it made him feel better, to be helping.
They took some samples, and did a CT scan. She was also given cognitive tests, and they checked her ability to move each side of her body, hands, arms, etc.
The CT scan and such did not indicate a full-on stroke, but when the doctor came back to tell us this, she added that her last MRI when she had the earlier TIA had indicated an old stroke. Something I don’t recall the previous doctor having mentioned AT ALL, last August.
Very slowly, and rather loudly, she informed my mom that she should have been taking anti-stroke medications, like baby Aspirin, and a prescription I forget the name of but that I believe started with “A,” ever since that earlier TIA, that she would have to use these precautions for life.
As soon as the doctor stepped out of the room, my mom informed us she would not take any of the prescriptions, possibly not even the one that was only for 2 weeks.
Will she even abide by a daily baby Aspirin regimen? I’m not sure.
My dad didn’t even try to talk her out of it. He just said, “Don’t tell the doctor that.”
She’s very anti-medication, but willing to try every herbal and supplemental remedy under the sun. As my daughter said, she has a whole natural remedy store in her cabinets. She really does, too. They’re all labelled with an honest to God label maker, with the stickers over the tops of each bottle.
You’d think having had a daughter who was stuck in manic psychosis until the right med combination finally brought her down, would be a strong argument in favor of the proper use of prescriptions. But before I started losing weight, she would regularly say that part of why I was so heavy was probably from “all that crap you have to take.”
That “crap” keeps me in reality, and helps me maintain at least a modicum of functionality, and mitigates the effects of depression.
I don’t know. I suppose lots of people are anti-meds. When I told a coworker I couldn’t function without my meds, she said, “That’s what they want you to think.” But I know better.
A friend of Neva’s firmly believes all psych meds are just placebos, that a diagnosis is just a cop-out that allows someone to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. Despite this, he began with a psychology major, hoping to bring a fresh perspective.
But I’ve never blamed my behavior on my mental illness then turned around and refused to be held accountable. And I don’t think your average therapist or psychologist of any stripe (or any psychiatrist) would advise that sort of cavalier attitude.
I’ve made plenty of apologies for things I did while I was manic, things I said when I was in crisis. And I’ve had to live with professional and personal losses and permanently burned bridges. That’s how it is.
Overall, it’s frustrating. That attitude in general, but coming from my family, especially.
The two cats fight, so I don’t see how I could move in with my parents without first surrendering Unity, which I would hate to do at her advanced age. And she’s got such tummy troubles, needing special food and medicine, etc. She doesn’t need the trauma of being removed from the only permanent living situation she’s known since being taken in as a stray. I would miss her fiercely, too.
But I feel like maybe they need some closer “supervision.”
Another, older coworker had told me, “You can’t parent your parents,” when I had complained about my mom refusing some medical treatment or other the LAST time all this happened. But I don’t think I quite agree with that. Someone has to step in at some point. Maybe no one LIKES it, but it still has to be done.
Like my dad insisting on serving grilled chicken, and leftover restaurant mashed potatoes, etc., before taking her to the ER, until I talked him out of it.
Neither one of them are showing the best judgment anymore, especially in times of crisis.
It’s just a hard situation all the way around. And kiddo is too far away to offer more than moral support. Which is still something, but not as helpful as another adult physically in the situation would be.
They also sometimes listen to her more than to me. I think she believes this is because she’s more empathetic to their advanced age, which could be partly true? But also, we have a lot of godawful history between us. They had their moments with her, too, but by and large, in the long run, they were easier on her.
I don’t know what the solution is. If I lived there, would I have more of an impact on the risks my mom is taking with her own health and safety? Maybe not. But I also would have gotten her to the hospital a HELL of a lot SOONER, which could have made a world of difference, had it actually been a stroke.
I’m not looking forward to the eventuality of living with them, as I think it would be a very contentious situation, but we’ll see. I might not have much choice, eventually.
The day of the burial, a friend of Neva’s family who is essentially a second father to her, didn’t make it to the potluck. She later found out he had pain in his head and felt “funny” on one side. He eventually went to the hospital. I think the final conclusion was that he may have a clot in his brain.
Lotta emergencies going around!
He was also sent home, like my mom was tonight. Neva was still worried but simultaneously relieved nothing more serious had happened that day. Especially so soon after losing her dad.
I had originally planned on describing how healing the day of the burial had felt, but honestly, after everything else, I don’t know that I have it in me to talk about macaroni salad, pulled pork, an endless array of desserts, long walks by the creek, and ghost stories by the fire in the backyard. Smoke spiraling up into the sky. Sparks and bits of ash flying. My clothes smelling strongly of campfire when I got home.
Maybe some other time, I’ll elaborate. It feels like a day that deserves proper capturing, to make sure every detail is properly memorialized. Something I can offer, to honor my friend and her family.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful my mom was able to come home, that we made it to the hospital and back without incident, apart from the both of them being much too cold the whole time. I was only mildly chilly, in a short sleeve t-shirt and shorts, but I’m a lot younger, with more meat on my bones. My mom was really looking forward to getting home to her electric blanket, by the time we were done.
I guess I’ll leave it at that and toddle off to my own bed, to finish reading my latest library book, and get some sleep. It’s been QUITE the weekend. This is probably something that should be followed up by knocking on wood (I do have the particleboard of my PC desk close at hand)… but I DESPERATELY hope tomorrow is a bit mellower, the WHOLE way through.
All the Bright and Sparkly Things 
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