Saturday morning

Yesterday morning Mom gave me a real scare--I thought there was a very good chance we could lose her at any moment.

At about 7:30 I heard her call out and immediately went to her. She was disoriented, frightened, and felt, as she said, "like I want to get the hell out of here." I pulled a stool up to her bed and held her hand and tried to find out what was going on. It took some convincing to get her to believe that she was at home in her own bed. She was so happy to see me, but in quite a bit of pain--first her ear, then her chest, and wondered why her doctor would "do this to her." I'd told her a day or two ago that she was on some new medication (a patch that has the potential to slow down her dementia) but that I was going to discountinue it as it might be causing her dizziness--she's had several episodes of feeling very dizzy and unable to get out of bed or out of her chair in the last few weeks. At any rate, she connected that to the idea that her doctor was responsible for how she was feeling.

I reassured her that the doctor has kept her alive this long by prescribing the right medicine, and Mom finally seemed to believe me. I told her that her heart is in very bad shape but is doing the best it can, and that it is the reason she sometimes feels uncomfortable--sweaty, confused, weak, etc.

She was very distraught for about an hour, although she had a few moments of levity--she said, after about 45 minutes,"I feel like singing." I asked her what she'd like to sing and she said, "Guess!" I correctly guessed How Much is that Doggy in the Window and we sang a couple of verses.

During the worst of it, she wondered what we should do and I asked her if she wanted me to call the doctor. She asked what the alternative was and I said, "we could just sit here awhile and see what happens." She said she'd like to do that--she didn't really want to go anywhere--so that's what we did. I honestly thought that she might close her eyes and be gone at any time so I told her that we loved her and put a cold cloth on her head and kissed her and waited. After awhile, she opened her eyes and asked if she'd lost her trade-in value, I told her I thought we'd gotten a pretty good deal since she'd given birth to the four of us and had wonderful grandchildren and even great-grandchildren and that she'd been a great wife to Dad so she'd earned her keep.

Earlier, she'd asked me if I remembered her husband. I reminded her that he'd made quite an impression on me, what with being my Dad and all, and she laughed and said, "Oh, yeah! I'd forgotten that!"

She slept, with me standing guard, until about 4pm when she said she felt like getting up for awhile to watch TV and eat some dinner. Needless to say, when I asked her what she felt like eating the answer was....chocolate! I gave her soup first, but then loaded her up with chocolate and she went to bed happy at about 8:00.

She slept until 11:30 this morning and has being dozing in her chair during episodes of Murder She Wrote and Perry Mason. She's still dizzy when I help her to the bathroom, but has color in her cheeks and a ready smile when the occasion calls for it, so it looks as though we've dodged another bullet for the time being.