Not Sane

That could somehow be the thread that connects many aspects of my life right now. Things are a little crazy in my realm sometimes. Karyn called today in tears because her life wasn't satisfying her, she feels empty and doesn't know what she's doing with her life. This happened while I was hanging out with my little niece Tia painting with water colors, which I have to admit I hardly ever get a chance to do, and it was a great time. I felt quite free from worries while painting within the lines of the walrus I was coloring!
Ima had a decent morning until the nurse showed up to move the location of the morphine pumps needle, and her subsequent visit freaked Ima out and exhausted her. After the nurse left the pump got stopped somehow and started beeping and alerting us to a problem, but it took a while for us to get the nurse on the line to get help with the situation. Meanwhile ima had a minor freakout. Finally we fixed the pump and she got a little shut eye before the Sofer-Geri family arrived.
Tamar kept looking and me asking what was wrong, with her old standard: "you don't look happy" routine. It's a little annoying because she has a way of looking at me for two minutes and deciding that. Then there was a shopping trip I went on, which I was sort of weary of because it included food for Tamar and Co. It seems to be hard to satisfy people these days with products, and no matter what I buy, I might get chastised for not getting quite the right product. Ima is particularly to blame for that, but other people are too. That's one of the reasons I seem to be spending time moving stuff from Nomi's house to my house, from my house to Ima's house, from Ima's house to her car, from Ima's house to my house, and back again. It's maddening!
The visit was fine, but I got roped into staying for dinner, which was kind of what I had planned but then I thought they wanted me to leave, so I was going to go pill shamoo and maybe shower and shave in JP and get K some last minute goodies, but now i'm going to have to improvise those tomorrow somehow. I'm glad I got most of what I needed ahead of time; it's just that there are a couple of bonus gifts I can think of to get her if I can swing by a record store....
Then tomorrow is going to entail a bunch of running around and then not waking up with Karyn to spoil her on Xmass morning, which is really going to bum her out, I think. It's important to have the presents wrapped and at least out the night before so that she can see them in the morning before I come back from weymouth. Meanwhile, i'll get Saturday day and night with karyn and I'll return to Weymouth on Sunday afternoon. What a schedule!

Morning Of ZuZu's Show

While maybe this post could fit in with the Invisible Rays blog, it's really more about me, so it'll just have to live here! I've been "off" of Ima minding duty for a few days now and I can feel normalcy flow back into my life, but I also feel incredible worry when I speak to her and she sounds lost or confused. The new morphine pump treatment was causing a lot of confusion for a few days. While I know that Sue cares for her a lot, I feel a protectiveness towards Ima when I hear that Sue might have neglected her in some way, or rather misunderstood her needs...

How Time Flies

So it looks to me like the last post was after the first time I spent a night at Ima's. Well it's almost a month later, and I've spent many nights at her place. In fact I am posting from there right now. Her health has actually, on the surface of things improved; a more rational way to put that is that she is in less pain, and on many more heavy duty drugs to quell the pain. After my previous post there were about a week and a half or two of severe pain. Those led to the decision to quit the chemo treatment and join the hospice program. That in turn resulted in feeling better with the help of large amounts of morphine, codeine, and steroids. I don't know exactly what's going on in her body, but my understanding is that the steroids are going to give her a lift for a few weeks, but then her body will grow immune to them and she will start to fade again. The deterioration at that time will take a few shapes. She won't be able to get out of bed; swallowing will be difficult; then she eventually won't be able to breath. There are many drugs they can give her that will minimize the various pains and help create the illusion of ease of breath.
Right now she is sleeping peacefully above me. About the hospice nurse: Ima is sadly her first patient. About that Ima said: "it's just my luck." The nurse didn't instill complete confidence early on, but she is getting a little better with time, and is going to visit two or three times a week from now on. Ima and Sue are also having problems with their relationship, and I think I will also have problems with Ima if I have to keep spending this much time here. I know I will have to continue spending a lot of time here for a few months.
I've noticed a regression in her and I know it's not a particularly original thought, that people as they become older and sicker, begin regressing back to childhood. But it's odd to see it in my own mother. First there was having had to dress her. Now, there is the short attention span, the forgetfulness, the lack of dexterity. And then there is the disappointment she seems to experience from many trivial things. Today, for instance, the Netflix movie didn't come, and she was really disappointed. I suppose if I were living one day at a time it would be devastating if something I expected didn't happen.