Laughter is the Best Medicine

When I moved in and started taking care of my mother in Sept. of 2003, I really stepped into a New Deminson & The Final Frontier. My mother had been taken care of my father who was diagnosed with Alhizermers Disease since 1995, when I moved in with her in 2003. Her health was not good then and now it is even worse.

When I moved in with her she was a HSN junky, Home Shopping Network, We have a little game that I created called Use It or Lose It. This is a 4 bedroom house and has one bedroom filled to the roof with everything that you could imagine. 75% of it was all new and still had the price tag on it.

I sit a chair in the hall with her in it, I have a new box of garbage bags that I sit on the floor beside her, I pull out a bag and put it in her hands and say I will bring each item out individualy and if she wasn’t using it at that time, we were losing it, that meant it went into the garbage bag.

I loaded my car about 6 times and made 6 seperate trips to the Jesus house in Oklahoma City. I knew that they could use the blankets and new clothes for interviews trying to get a job to better their life. Once my mother realized that she was helping somebody else and getting a tax deduction for doing it she got that warm fuzzy feeling.

Of course that did not stop her addition to HSN shopping, so soon it will be time to play use it or lose it again and make the trips back to the Jesus House and get her new tax deductions for this years taxes.

Smile this could be your final destination.

My mother use to love to play bingo, she was one of the most avid bingo players I had ever known and had the vast array of different colored dabbers in case one color felt luckier than the other. Now it was okay to do this until her eyesight kept getting worse. When you are sitting at a long table with alot of little old ladies and men playing bingo and the caller is calling out the bingo numbers really fast, you really cannot have someone sit beside you asking you what each number is that they called or you are spinning your wheels trying to play or getting some very angrey looks from these little old men and women at the same table. It always amuses me how they all set out their lucky charms on the table, ususally an elephant with the trunk pointed upwards for good luck. But when the caller is calling numbers it is customary that you do not speak, but when you cannot read the number on the ball in the monitor, you ask alot of questions. I think at one point we were almost thrown out OF A BINGO HALL!

Well I like to go and try the casino once in awhile and my mother has really never been into it, but she also doesn’t want to stay home either, so she insist on coming with me. I try and find her a penny game that she will enjoy or understand and it is so tought to do, I like to play a certain game and so I place her somewhere in the same vacinity of course on her scooter.

You really see how fast peoples reactions are when she is on that thing, it is either jump out of the way or be road kill. Several times now I am road kill. Did you ever want to run away and hide from someone because you know that you are going to be embarrassed but you don’t because you feel bad for doing it. Well as I said my mothers eye sight is not that good, so I walk in front of her to keep her from running over anybody else and she will follow me where I go, at least I thought she would. We went to Fire Lake Casino and she was having a really good time and I had only been ran over once or twice and we were heading for the front door, I thought that she was following me.

Until I heard a loud crash and then another one, all of a sudden I got this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I turned around and there she was, she had collided with the atm machine and not just once. She ran into it, backed up and misjudged the distance and ran into it again. I wanted to just slip behind something and hide but it is mom and she is my responsibiltiy. So I went back and said this way mom and got her corrected again, then she drove through a cloud of cigarette smoke, and nothing is quite about her, she says really loud looking at me, people and their cigarettes, how rude.

By this time I just want to get out the front door before security comes and ushers us out and I am so embarrassed that I never want to go back again. But do you know when I dismantled the scooter and put it in my car and had her ready to go home, all she talked about was the good time she had. So I guess it was all worth it. I will remember all of these little trips as I get older and the years go by. Remember to laugh, it is the best medecine.

Halloween can make the elderly anxious, I know with my mother she stopped passing out candy years ago on halloween night. She stays glued to the daily news everyday and almost lets it control her life. We live in an area that was pretty safe 40 years ago when the family home was bought, but today it can be a bit scarry. She is home by herself all day and keeps herself contained behind locked doors. The only door she opens is the sunroom door in the back of the house to let the dogs out to do their business, or to feed the cats.

I live with her so she will not have to go into a retirement home, but it comes with a price. I give up alot of my freedom & time to devote to her , her saftey and the house.

I have noticed lately more and more dangerous things happening in the area that she refuses to listen to. House’s getting broken into, cars getting broken into, someone deliberately trying to incapacitate our security light out in the front of our house. We live on a culdasac so this is very disturbing.

My mother had left our side door open all night a couple of weeks ago and when I went out to get into my car inside the garage and come to work the next morning, someone had been in the garage and tried to syphone gas from my car. Last night I was awakened around 1:00am in the morning to gun shots, I couldn’t tell where they came from and I certainly was not going to go searching to find out.

So this halloween she is very anxious as I am. We will not have our porch light on inviting trouble, all doors will be locked and the out door cats will be in kennels so they will not be harmed by anybody with a mean streak.

I have asked that the police department patrol around the area when they can and I was alittle shocked at what I was told. I had to fill out a formal request. I was told this was because there is so much happening that I don’t know about, that I may be frightened by it and they are short handed.

I have been trying to talk my mother into selling the family home before it loses all of its value, and move with me, I will buy another house closer to work & the grandchildren, but it is not that easy for the elderly. If they have lived in one place for as long as my mother has, and they are taken away from what they are familiar with, it can be very upsetting and disruptive to their everyday living routine. So I will continue to make suttle saftey hints to my mother and keep my eyes wide open and know how to protect us if the time should ever come to do so.

Other than that all is well at our house. Be safe this Halloween!

As we come into the Holiday Seasons, it can be a very tough time for the elderly and the caregiver. This is the time when their memories come flooding to the surface and they start asking themselves why they are here.

In my house, I can be quite annoying for my mother during the holiday seasons, I do not let her throw the pity me party, or try and make me feel sorry for her. I sing and dance all through the Holiday Seasons. I even write and make up songs and sing, just to get her laughing.

When I first moved in with her, the first Christmas I took her on a cruise, that was the year that there were major changes in both of our lives. The second year I started talking about putting up a Christmas tree and boy did I have a battle on my hands. I did manage to put up a 2ft tree but I was met with alot of resistance. The third year the same, but when the fourth year came around, I went and purchased a 4ft Christmas tree and sang Christmas tunes and church tunes the entire time I was decorating it.

Now when I say I am getting the tree out, she just smiles because she knows this is a battle she will never win. I have always loved Christmas because of the meaning of Chritmas, and it warms my soul and makes me smile.

In my quite time, late at night, I write songs and poems about the people in my life that have had the most influence on me. My mother has been one of biggest supporters and I love her dearly and this is reason that I am with her today. Even though, everyday is not a walk through the garden so to speak.

As long as I can make her smile and laugh, I know that all the tough times, sad times & tryng times have been worth it, and just think of all the memories I can tell my grandchildren. Now that brings a smile to my face.

I was reminising about the time, when my mother purchased a her new battery operated scooter. My mother use to love to go and browse around the department stores, just to see it there was some fantastic sale going on, that she didn’t know about.

She has had three back surgeries and one knee replacement so she doesn’t walk as well as she use to. I use to have a Sebring Convertible that I dearly loved, it was so much fun to drive and I would put the top down and throughly enjoy it.

We purchased a wheelchair that would fold down and and only weighted 16lbs and fit perfectly in the trunk of my car, and when I would take her somewhere, all I had to do was open the trunk, unfold it and we were good to go. She started complaining that it was too much work on me to push her around the stores and by the way, her back and knee hurt her when she rides in my car, she feels like she is sitting right on top of the road and she is not comfortable and it hurts her. I listened to this for approx. a year before I couldn’t take it anymore, I traded my beautiful Sebring Convertible in for a Nissan Murano, so my mother would be sitting up highter and it would be a more comfortable ride for her. I have to tell you, even though I like the Murano, I cried as I drove away from the dealership leaving my convertible behind but vowing to myself that one day I will have another one.

After this transition, my mother still complained about the wheelchair, actually I think it was because she did not feel like she had as much independence, and could not move around by herself. So we purchased the Battery Operated Scooter. Now the scooter fits in the back of the Murano and only weights 35lbs, and she has her independence back.

Now there should be certain stepulations with these scooters, like the individual using it should be required to take driving lessons. The first time she drove it, she nearly took out two pedestrians, a clothes rack at Koals in Midwest City and a money machine at Firelake Casino. You push the lever up and it goes forward and you regulate how fast you go. You push it backwards and you still regulate the how fast you go, she has alittle bit of trouble with this function. Now remember her eyesight is not that good either. I have learned to walk in front of her so if anybody gets ran over it is me, not an innocent bystander.

We went into Koals and she was so excited because she could go where ever she wanted to go by herself. I was over looking at the inexpensive jewelry, she took off in another direction. I started hearing this beeping sound like a horn going off, but nobody was turning it off. I started noticing that the noise was moving all around the store. Then I had this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, it had to be my mother. I didn’t know whether to hide or try and find her, so I just stayed where I was and listened to the beeping until it was in my area.

There she was, it was my mother. She looked at me and let out a deep sigh of relief and said that she didn’t know what was wrong with that thing, meaning the scooter, that she was setting off the sensors all over the store and she couldn’t stop it. I looked at her and said mom, if you move your purse stap that you have hanging on the handle bar, off of the horn the beeping will stop. She started to argue with me right there in the store, that it was not her horn, it was the sensors in the store. I walked over and took her purse strap off of the horn and the beeping mysteriously stopped. Needless to say the people watching the security cameras in the store probably had a very good laugh, I did later.

Of course she now thinks that her scooter is faulty, and needs to go back for a tune up. I will comply because of course this is for my peace of mind.

Remember to laugh you get less wrinkle that way!

Since my mother has been ill, I have heard at least 3 times a day when are you going to get you flu shot? Of course my brother has had the flu since last Thurs. and ran fevers with it until Sun. night.

I have called around town to just about every location I have heard is giving the shots to only be told they are out. It is very humbling to walk into the house every evening after work and be asked the same question that I was asked the day before when I walked through the door after work. It is kind of like the movie Groundhog Day, where everyday is the same as the day before.

Last night on my way home I was called on my cell phone and told that they were giving shots at the Midwest City Community Center the next day and I better get one so I don’t bring home the flu to her. The doors were suppose to open at 8:00 in the morning, so I thought if I was in line at 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning I would probably be able to get in and out. Well….I don’t know what I was thinking. I was in line at 7:15 this morning and there had been people sitting outside since 6:00am this morning. I stood in the drizzling rain with my unbrella and hot cup of coffee for approx. 1 & 1/2 hours, watching mothers with children no jackets on in 58% weather and no umbrella to shield them from the wetness and screaming and crying that they did not want a shot. I kept thinking how lucky I was to have grown children.

It is quit interesting to watch people in public. There are the ones that were too lazy to put on street clothes, and came in their pajamas with a blanket. The ones that must be color blind, because nothing they wore matched, they didn’t even take the time to comb their hair. When they got in line, they were on their cell phones calling everybody they knew to try and get them to bring them a hot cup of coffee, a coat & umbrella. Then there were the people like me dressed to go to work, had my hair curled at one time and worried about how long it was going to take to get inside and get my shot and get to work.

But I will have peace of mind when I walk through the door at home tonight and be able to say with enthusiasm I got my flu shot today!

I will go to sleep with a smile on my face tonight, because peace of mind is a wonderful thing.

It is very ironic as hard as my mother has tried to not catch the flu virus, it may have all been in vain. My mother had just finished her third round of antibiotics after having pneumonia for 3 weeks. when my brother took her back to the doctor yesterday for her checkup, they used every precaution not be exposed to the flu from other patients.

Well……. It seems that after she finishes a round of antibiotics within a two day period, she already has some nasty sounds coming out of her lungs. So she came home yesterday with a fourth round of a different type of antibiotic.

I received a phone call this morning from my sister in law, my brother was at the same doctors office this morning after running a 100% fever all night and was diagnosed with the H1N1 Virus. That means that as hard as she tried not to get it, by not leaving the house. It probably came to her. He was hugging her and was in a closed vehicle with her and was all through the house.

This is what I found out about the virus from my sister in law and the doctor. You are contagious 24 hours before you start running a fever and you need to keep yourself confined at least 24 hours after the fever breaks. Everything that is touched has to be decantaminated. That means door handles, toilets, knobs on the washer/dryer, stove. The refrigerator and everthing you touch inside of it. If you touch ice in the ice drawer throw out the entire tray of ice. Think about it, what do you touch all day long and how much lysol or how many lysol wipes do you need. The doctor recommended, buying ahead of time these items.

Lysol wipes, liquid lysol, bleach, pepcid, pepto bismo, rolaids, tylenol or some kind of fever reducer, gateraide for electrolyte loss, sprite, plenty of bottle water to flush it through your system (bottle water is for using the bottle and throwing it away do not reuse the bottle) nose tissue, toilet paper, soup etc. Once you have the flu its too late to go shopping.

Good Luck. And remember to keep smiling!

My mother is finally feeling better and the reason I know this is, she does not hold her words when she is expressing herself. When she feels good, she really likes to argue once in awhile to see if she can get my blood pumping. I am a very laid back person and as I mentioned before , I will walk away from an argument instead of  joining the argument.

When she is sick she is never happy but when she is well, you don’t let anybody get cross with her or she will embarras you to death. An example of this, she does not like her doctor but , she says that at this stage in her life it is too late to find a new one. She doesn’t want to break in a new one!

The last time I took her to the doctor, we were in the examination room and the doctor was facing me explaining something about her to me, while she was sitting on the table behind his back rolling her eyes at him and making faces. It was one of those Kodak moments when you are praying that he dose not turn around and see what she is doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother, and I also know that her attitude was not always like this when I was growing up. But there are often times that I feel like Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz, where Dorthy is clicking her heels together and saying there is no place like home. To myself in my head I am saying, this is my life for a  short time,  and my responsibility at this time, and I will continue to do so until I am not needed anymore.  Its also very comforting to  keep my dream picture of, the A frame house by the lake that I want to own someday in my thoughts. It makes me feel like, Yes Virgina there is a Santa Clause.

So try not to get frustrated, have a plan for the future where you can escape and be at peace. Remember to smile!

I know in living with and taking care of my mother, I have to let her know how important she is to me and the rest of the family at least once a week, but I try and show her as often as I can.

When I try and put myself in her shoes and imagine having just part of the illness’s that she has, it could be very depressing. If my eyesight was really hazy and I dropped almost everything I picked up or stumbled alot because I could not feel the end my fingers or the bottom of my feet from my diabetes or have trouble breathing everytime the weather changes, how would my out look on the world be!

I think that it would be very depressing, and my out look on the world would be entirely different. I can walk around the block and breath at the same time if I want to, but she can’t. I can eat basically what I want, but with her diabetes she can’t. I can read a book or pay my bills in the dim light, but she can’t.

But when I want to know things about the past when she was a young girl, her memory is sharp most of the time and can tell some pretty humerous stories.

I remember one story that she told that I just rolled on the sofa laughing about. I love to picture in my mind as I am being told a story or telling a story. This paticular story involved one of her sisters.

My mother was raised in a small town called Pond Creek Oklahoma, this small town ship is approx. 30 miles N. of Enid. Back in the time that she was a young girl , 1930’s-1950’s all you had to do on a Friday or Sat. night was drive down Main St. which was a blink of an eye long, or drive to the next small town 15 miles down the road, go roller skating in Enid or drive down this really long dark dirt road to the town cemetery, about 7 miles outside of town. Where most towns had a lovers lane or a lake to go to, Pond Creek Oklahoma had a cemetery to go to. It seems that the young couples would go out there and sit on the tall tombstones and neck. My mother and her sister would drive out there and turn the lights off on the car about 1/2 a mile before the cemetery and walk the rest of the way up to the cemetery.

Evidently they thought it was really funny to scare the girls in the dark, you see there were no lights except in the middle of town and that was one light. My mother and her sister would throw small stones and hit the tombstones in the dark and make the girls scream. They thought this was really funny except one night ……… my aunt stepped on the bottom of a hard rake, that the care taker of the cemetery had left out and when she did, it hit her in the back. She thought that she had been attacked by a ghost and took off like a flash of lightening screaming bloody murder. My mother jumped in the car and tried to catch her, but my aunt actually beat her back to my Great Grandmothers house where they lived before she got there. To this day my mother gets a smile accross her sweet face when I ask her to tell the story.

Remember to laugh it makes each day a better day!