Regina Noctis

I’ve been so busy, I haven’t even thought much about writing here, unless the alternative was to say or do something (usually regarding my grandmother) in real life that I would later regret.

So, the news as of now: Mom’s had several sessions of physical therapy now, and is showing some definite improvement. A brace was custom-made for her left leg, and with it she is a lot steadier on the walker. I follow along behind in case she starts to wobble anyway, but she is able to get around, at least within the confines of the bedroom, much better now than she was before.

The one exception to this was when she decided to use her walker, without me being there to steady her, after she’d had two gin gimlets. I’d seen a couple days before this that two gimlets would make her lose all the command of her muscles that she’d regained. She couldn’t even sit up anymore without slumping over toward the left, the side that the stroke weakened. I was right here, in the room with her, but my back was to her as the only place to set up my computer faces away from the rest of the room, and is not movable since it’s a built-in desk. She didn’t say anything to me, and I didn’t hear her get up. I turned when I heard the sound of the walker, but by then it was already too late. She fell. At first, she landed on the bed, and that would have been okay. But she hit hard enough that she bounced off and landed face first on the floor. I was already moving to try and prevent the fall, but I wasn’t fast enough. And while I can lift her from her chair or the bed, because I can get my legs into it, I needed upper-body strength to get her off the floor. While I’m stronger now than I was before this started, I couldn’t get her off of the floor by myself, especially since she wasn’t able to help thanks to the booze. I ran outside to the men who’ve been working on the roof (we found out that it was sagging badly, had horrible termite damage, and could have collapsed on us at any time) and got them to come in and help me get her back up on the bed. She has been forbidden to have that much booze again.

At the same time that my mother fell and I had to try and get her off the floor, and then get help when I couldn’t, my grandmother nearly managed to set the kitchen on fire. If I hadn’t been trying to deal with the Mom situation, I could have caught it much earlier than I did. My grandmother meant to heat up some stew. She got out the pot of stew, and also a pot of old rice that I was letting chill a little so I could turn it into fried rice. She put both on burners, even though she just wanted to heat the stew. And then she turned on the burner under the rice instead of under the stew. She had the burner going at maximum. By the time I got in there, the rice was on fire. I got the fire out, and started clearing the smoke in the kitchen. The smoke detector didn’t go off. The batteries are fresh, and when last tested it worked. It goes off for too much steam in the house – like when boiling noodles for spaghetti – but when there was actually smoke, it stayed silent. So now it’s going to be replaced.

When I got everything taken care of, I told my grandmother that it would be about an hour before I could cook fresh rice to go in the stew, since obviously she’d wanted some stew. First she got pissy with me that it would be so long, and then she announced that even though she was heating up the stew, she wasn’t actually hungry anyway. She then went on to use her worst tone of voice on me and to make lots of accusations about how I’m ruining her life.

At that point, if it hadn’t meant abandoning my mother, I’d have walked out. I was too stressed, too tired, and too sick of my grandmother’s attitude to keep going, if not for my mom. I actually started to go. I walked out of the house, barefoot, without my purse, and just kept going. I eventually got stopped by the guys who are doing the roof, because they thought I was looking for something and were going to offer to help me find it. That gave me a chance to think about what I was doing. But right that moment, if they hadn’t stopped me, I’m not sure when I would have.

In spite of the fall, Mom’s improving physically. And mom’s fall could have been much worse. Fortunately all she got were a couple bruises, but that was it. And when she hasn’t had the booze, she has come a long way thanks to the thrice-weekly physical therapy appointments. She has begun to get more use of her left hand back. She was able to do some typing today. Not well, but all typing before today had to be done one-handed.

We’ve learned that, unfortunately, the back bathroom is too narrow for her to use the walker. This means that, until she’s off the walker and on a cane, we can’t get her in and out of the shower very easily. We’ve done bed baths, but those aren’t as effective as a good shower, and she’s reached the point that she’s talking about having to use steel wool if she wants to get clean.

To make everything that much more difficult, I injured myself a couple days ago. I slightly dislocated my right kneecap, which is the bad side to begin with. I haven’t allowed that to prevent me from doing the things that are absolutely necessary, but it’s not pleasant. I’m pretty tired of the constant ache. Today is better, though. I’ve stayed off of it as much as I can, when the necessities let me do so, and it’s healing. I can’t baby it any longer though. I absolutely have to go to the grocery store today, as well as pick up prescription refills, and various other errands that are going to mean walking around on it.

I’m constantly exhausted. Constantly. Even if I do manage to get to sleep earlier than usual, in spite of my sleep disorders, those are the nights that the cats decide to yowl all night. Or mom wakes up as much earlier than usual as I managed to get to sleep, so the status quo of getting somewhere between 2 and 4 hours of sleep per night has been maintained. This has gone on for more than a month now. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going at this pace. It’s contributed to my injury, and the other, more minor injuries I’ve given myself. Exhaustion has made me a complete klutz.

I really just want to sleep now, but duty calls. It’s later than I usually do a grocery store run, but it has to be done, as well as all the other errands that have been put off for the last few days.