Laughter is the Best Medicine

In talking with a co-worker the other day, I was reminded of one of many of my trips to the hospital with my mother. Since I have been living with her, which started in Sept. of 2003, we have made several trips to the Midwest City Emergency Room which ended up in several hospital stays.

Sometimes you just have to remember to laugh, because life is so serious with everthing that happens on a daily basis, if you don’t laugh you will just bring yourself down and everyone around you. This can really give you a bad taste and outlook on different situations that happen in the course of daily living.

I will start this story by laying the foundation. When I was 16 years old back in the 70’s, my Great Grandmother had to be placed into a nursing home. Three days after she was admitted into the nursing home she passed away. She was placed in there because she couldn’t see well enough to take care of herself anymore, other than that she was healthy. She told my mother at that time that if they put her into the nursing home she would die. My mother made me promise that I would never put her into a nursing home. I have held to that promise, but at 16 I really did not realize everthing that could happen and the changes it would make in my life commitments.

I did have to put her into a rehab part of a nursing home for a very short time, it was only for rehab after a knee replacement surgery. She had one knee totally shot and the other one about half as bad as the other. Part of the program after the total knee repalcement in the hospital was a daily excercise class that she was to participate in. She was in so much pain that she refused to participate and she was given meds like the other patients that had the same thing done. I know that it had to have been very painful, but the exercising would have helped to ease the pain. The instructor warned her that she would take longer to recuperate and would have to go somewhere else if she did not start participating in the exercising classes, but she would not cooperate and was very hateful.

When she heard that she was to go to a nursing time for a short time, she came unglued. I could not leave her at home with an unstable leg to get around on all by herself, and I did have to go to work. I still have my own bills to pay.

They were kind enough to put her across the hall from the nurses station since she was only there for rehab and would be leaving soon, she had a telephone in her room so she could call me. The problem was, they put her into a room with a lady who was permenently bed ridden and not in her right mind. And when you put a another woman in a room that is on pain medicine and not thinking clearly and very upset that she is there in the first place, it makes for a very bad combination. This lady started telling my mother that the nurses were going to take all of her pain medicine and give it to other patients, and when I left she would not get anymore and she would lay there in pain. My mother flipped, I talked to the nurses and let them know what was being said, and they informed me that this lady hallucinates and to not listen to anything she says.

I went back and talked to my mother and she calmed down, but in her mind the lady was crazy and she was in a crazy house. I stayed as late as I could without having slept for two days before I left to go home and take care of our pets and try to get some sleep myself. I had just gotten to sleep around 12:30 in the morning when I received this frantic phone call from my mother, yelling at me to come and get her and bring her home or she was leaving on her own. She said that the lady in her room was crazy and was trying to get her to go into cahoots with her against the nurses. My mother had already called 911 on the telephone in her room, and she was mad as a hornet at them , the police said that there was nothing they could do to help her. I called the police department and apologized for my mother and they acted like this is something that happens all the time.

I went back to the nursing home and told my mother that I would still have to go to work and she would be by herself at home, that she should have exercised with the other knee replacement patients and she wouldn’t be in this predicament. Of course she didn’t want to hear that either. After staying home a couple of days with her at home and arranging for physical therapy to come to the house 2 times a week, she finally came to terms with what she had done and what she needed to be doing. Being alittle hard headed at times is not always a good thing, not to mention some of the pain medicine she was on changed her personality, and made her very mean and angry. Of course since I was the one that was always there, I was also the one that received the blunt of the anger and agression.

I have been there for the knee surgery, three back surgeries, a heart attack, diabetes emergencies high and low, difficulty breathing eye surgeries and other aliments. I am still trying to hold onto the promise I made when I was 16 years old, all the while promising myself that I will never do this to my children. Life is too short and I need to learn to relax and laugh alittle bit more.

I never know what tomorrow holds so I enjoy today and smile, and hope that it puts a smile on someones elses face.

I have found that as the years past by, my mother does not like to leave the house for any lenght of time. If she is away from the house she is out of her element and seems alittle lost or disoriented.

Since the Ice storm of 2007, my mother has talked about having a stationary backup genterator built into our house. We were without power for a week and a half to two weeks, and had to leave the house eventually or freeze to death We stayed with my son and daughter in law. She was very uncomfortable because she was not at her home, so that two weeks felt like two months.

We are finally getting the backup standby generator installed! If you have elderly parents at home and the possibility exits that you could loose power for any length of time, then this is something that you may want to consider.

At Lowes: You go to the Seasonal Dept. and tell them that you are interested in purchasing a stand by backup generator. They carry Generac Standby Units. You pay $75. and arrange for a licensed Generac installer to come to your house and estimate what size of a generator you need. They are very professional and courteous. You can ask him as many questions as you like, he is not pushy or make you feel like you are wasting his time. If you decide to purchase a generator the $75. will be deducted from the total price of the combination installation/material totals.

He writes up a proposal for you according to your needs, and what usage you require, and turns it into Lowes. Lowes will call you with his recommendation. Once you decide on the unit, it takes about 2 weeks for the delivery of the unit. The licensed Generac dealer will bring the unit to your house and he will have it installed in most cases 2 days.

The total cost will include the permits required by the city that you live in, plus the materials needed. I will let you know how it turns out when the job is done

This is not a cheap purchase, but how do you put a price on peace of mind, and security for your loved ones.. If you have some additional funds, or can get a small loan this maybe something that you would want to consider for your loved one.

Peace of mind is a blessing! And a smile is good for the soul!

It is so cold for me, when my mother says she is cold I can only imagine how cold she really is. I know the cold does not help with her arthritis, and the arthritis will only get worse with time. Of course when you have had as many surgeries as she has had and look like a road map where the scars are, you would probably have aches and pains too.

All in all she has weathered pretty well through the cold spells that we have been having. I do hope that we can have some kind of a break in this weather soon though, so she can have some kind of relief.

With her being by herself at the house all day long it can make for some very long and boring days. My mother has been a stay at home wife and mother all of her life, so her best friends have always been the Daily Soaps (General Hospital, All My Children, As the World Turns) when I get home in the evening from work she wants me to sit down at the dining room table, so I can hear what each person did on her daily soaps that day. I cannot stand soaps so I sit and smile and nod my head, all the while hoping that the story will end very soon. But it makes her feel good to tell me about them, so I will continue to endure the stories.

Of course this is after picking up the new package that has been left on the front porch from the home shopping network by the UPS driver. All they have to say is daily special on the home shopping network and she has got to have it, although it will probably be put into a bedroom and never opened, because she forgets what she gets until she stumbles over it 6 months or more later.

With the bad weather, she has refused to leave the house if the electric should go out like it did in 2007. So this Sat. we have a man coming out to give us an estimate on what a stationary back up generator will cost to be installed in the house. She wants it to automatically cut on if we should ever lose power. All this will be done on a house that was built in the 1950’s. But this is her home, and if it makes her feel safe and adds to her peace of mind, so be it.

I will have to let you know how this goes next week after I find out all the details. I will let you decide if it is something that you want to try and do.

Everyday is a new challange at my house, but I have learned to embrace each new challange with open arms, it helps to keep me grounded.

Remember to smile, this could be happening to you!

As I sat watching tv with my mother in our sunroom, I was quietly thinking about the things that I have learned from my mother. I always thought that I was a patient person, but since I have been living with her for the last almost eight years, that patience is really a virtue. I think that the good lord must have been preparing me for my duties at home for quite awhile, and I take every lesson that I learn as a blessing.

As she gets older, she wants to argue, I have mentioned before that I do not argue, I walk away. Now I either walk away or just nod my head and not say anything. This stops her argument really quick, since she is not getting any resistance. It almost ruins her fun.

I have learned that if something goes wrong at the house, it is always my fault. I just say that I am sorry and go on. It is not worth me getting upset or stressing or saying something that might hurt her feelings. I am here to help, not try and hinder.

I have learned to take the roll of two people at our house, the one that takes the responsibility for all important issues and major decisions. And the roll of the daughter, that is the roll that is always in my mothers mind. She will try and run my life if I let her, with no mercy. If I even consider going out with a friend, she will try to sabatoge it on purpose. This could be sudden chest pain, trouble breathing, she heard the dogs barking at something the night before and didn’t know what it was. She does not like to be by herself. I found this out by changing my plans on several occasions and staying home and later realizing that she was just fine. She can be a very good actress.

I may manage to have my own time to myself about two times a month if that many. I tend to forget that I have a life too, because I am always taking care of her needs & wants along with all the needs of the house. I do have other family members that I could  call on to relieve me, if I am desperate for a break, but that is only if they feel they have the time for her, or can deal with her wants, needs or attitude, or if she will let them.

I have tried to not let her be so dependant on me, but when she is confused or agitated or not feeling well, this is not a good mixture. She will be nice to other people, but it will be taken out on me later. I really don’t think that she realizes what she is doing at the time. And yes I get my feelings hurt, but she doesn’t know it.

I have decided that I will never let my children take care of me. If I ever get to the point that I need care, I will move myself into a someplace that I can come and go as I please. I will be happy as long as I have people around me to talk to or do things with. I am a people person.

The main difference between myself and my mother she is, she is not a people person and has no desire to become one. Her extent of interacting with people, is people watching.

She still has days where she is very funny and can say the funniest things, and these are the days that I choose to keep formost in my thoughts. I have learned that aging can be done two ways. One way is to not do it with very much grace and resent it. The other way, which I will choose, is to laugh & smile and age as gracefully as possible.

Remember to smile it may not change anything, but it sure makes you feel a whole lot better.