Mom & Me Five Archive

    I felt that merriment would preserve her dignity, and mine. It is not easy, I reasoned, to be a long ago fully fledged adult who could no longer be trusted to wipe her own ass efficiently enough to keep from developing UTIs. As well, my part in the Evacuative Operation isn't pleasnat, either, requiring that I usually fish her shit out of the toilet. The consistency of iron laden shit is a sure fire recipe for constantly clogging pipes, if allowed to flush normally.
    My merriment has gotten us through years of performing this disgusting scenario at least once every other day; sometimes more often. When I realized what would be necessary to keep my mother and our plumbing clean and healthy, I faced it without a problem. Yes, the smell is nasty. Yes, the idea of it is disgusting. But a little loopy humor, usually droll, ushers the Operation into and area of manageability for both of us. I greet each bowel movement (which my mother never realizes is going to happen until she's on the toilet) with inappropriately funny celebration. I have a stock of phrases and terms I use to keep the mood light and easy. Lot's of spontaneous jokes are involved, as well, depending on how the Operation is going, and, occasionally, if neither of us is in a particularly accepting mood, I'll pilfer tunes from Mom's past and pull lyrics from the bowels of my imagination. These techniques always work.
    Well, almost always. Lately, I haven't been quite so merry. Over the last couple of weeks, each time I notice my mother's face gather into her bowel movement mask, each time I'm in the bathroom and get a whiff of what she's depositing in the toilet, each time I contemplate reaching in there and fishing out the contents, I've had to stifle an urge to gag or wretch.
    Last night, I guess you could say I hit my limit. For the last week or so I've been scrutinizing her bowel movements for potential flushability. Just looking into the toilet has been enough to make me have to work extra hard to keep the contents of my stomach where they're supposed to be. I have, however, figured that if that's all I have to do, I can quickly flush and forget. As it turns out, I've probably flushed more than I should have. Last night the toilet refused to completely swallow a small, normally easy to flush contribution. She'd evacuated just before dinner, during her usual pre-dinner bathroom visit. I was overwhelmed with the realization that, this time, boweling wasn't going to be business as usual; and would probably spoil my appetite for the lasagna I'd been baking and over which we'd both been salivating. I stood there, watching the bowl fill inches above the hard water line, knowing her shit was lodged in the pipes, caught in the detritus of the past days unwise flushings lining the pipes, beyond reach, knowing I'd have to clear out the bathroom and force it down, or up, with the plunger, and burst into tears. My mother, standing next to me, paper underwear around her ankles, ass waiting to be wiped, heard my uncontrollable sobbing, turned to face me and exclaimed, "My goodness, girl, have you hurt yourself?!?"
    I couldn't help it. I let loose with a barely intelligible litany that consisted of the following: "I just can't do this! I can't handle your shit anymore! I know I have to, but if I do I'm afraid I'm going to vomit!"
    My mother was astonished. She had no response, except to stand there, patiently, while I blubbered away and slammed the toilet lid down. During times past, in an effort to help preserve her own dignity, she has, while I'm wiping her ass and apologetically joking about the process, talked about how, that's okay, we'll both get through it; nothing more than mother's wiping babys' asses, after all. Although this isn't true, I always let it go in the interest of much needed civility. I was hoping that she wouldn't offer this, last night. I knew that, if she did, I'd launch into a tirade about the evils of senior shitting. I got lucky. She remained silent and stupified.
    Once I'd calmed down, wiped her, still fighting the urge to gag, and gotten her out of the bathroom and to the table, I decided to just let everything sit until I'd calmed down and a few hours had passed. We proceeded with dinner. My mother ate lustily. I took a few bites and could pass no more. Most of my dinner ended up in disposal.
    Finally, having set Mom up with a bible movie, I headed back into the bathroom, still sick to my stomach, and spent the next half hour forcing her shit down and cleaning the bathroom floor, crying the entire time. When I returned to the living room I was wiping tears off my face. My mother thought it was sweat and commented, "That was quite a problem, wasn't it?"
    "This isn't sweat, Mom."
    The light of recognition flooded her eyes. "Oh," she said, as she turned back to her program.
    I spent some time, last night, trying to figure out why, suddenly, after years of handling Evacuative Operations with aplomb, I was, now, having a problem. I admit I went overboard, considering all kinds of vaguely related psychological underpinnings that would explain my sudden inability to perform this task. Finally, sanity took hold of me and I realized, "Wait a minute, there doesn't have to be an ulterior reason for my reaction. The smell, the feel of slippery, rock-hard shit in a gloved hand, smear after smear of it on baby wipes inches from my nose, the idea of depositing turds in plastic receptacle liners and dropping them in the garbage, the peculiar fragrance our outdoor garbage can every time I open it, freshening the toilet day after day by wiping thick smears of black, sticky shit off the walls of the bowl...the truth is, this is a repulsive business. No amount of humor is going to camouflage that."
    I'm feeling better, now, I'm sure of it. This morning my mother awoke and discovered that she still had a little of last night's movement to deposit. Merriment again reigned. I didn't gag. Didn't have to attempt to stifle wretching.
    Sometimes, problems have deceptively simple solutions; most times, probably; but caregivers can get caught up in all that psychological relationship shit and fool themselves into thinking they've got a bigger problem than they really do. Every once in awhile, you have to face the truth, accept it and go on from there. Amazingly, when you do that, you find yourself back where you want to be.
    Later.