Mom & Me Five Archive

...who is a caregiver and continuing her education online wrote an essay for a composition class that contains some interesting information about caregiving in the U.S. and other countries and cultures. She mentions that it's a rough draft, but this aspect is easily ignored in favor of the information and speculations it contains, and it cites references. The link to it is here. You do not need to be a community member to access it.
    Later.

    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.

    When my mother sits back in her rocker, or a dinette chair, as she did two nights ago, and asks me this, there's a 50/50 chance that I haven't heard the story she's about to tell. She finished the introduction with, "...[her sister] and I decided to buy a house for ourselves, so we could live together..."
    "Wait a minute," I interrupted. "You mean without Dad and [her sister's husband]?!?" I was incredulous. I hadn't heard this one.
    "This was after Dad died," she said. This pinpointed it for me as the period in which she and her sister made a concerted effort to really bond, which they'd never done, due to an eight year age difference (my mother being the elder) and careers, families, travel, all the things that wedge between siblings. "If the kids and other members of the family (sly way of putting it, I noticed) wanted to come live with us, of course, they were welcome, but we wanted a place where we could live together."
    This, in itself, revealed a piece of information to me that I'd suspected but of which I'd never had proof: That my mother and her sister took after most of the women in their ancestry who considered men handy and entertaining to have around but pretty much an afterthought and children, always, a highlight.
    "So, you and [her sister] decided, after Dad died and before she became ill, that the two of you were going to set up housekeeping alone."
    "Well, yes, I guess you could say that. We fully expected family to be visiting all the time. But, that's not the funny part."
    Oops. Okay.
    "We found a house we both liked..." she continued,
    "...Oh, wow, you guys were really serious..."
    "...Oh, yes! Of course!" She gave me a look that told me my surprise was out of order. "Anyway, it was a wonderful little house, perfect for us..."
    ...this was exquisite...I could just imagine my mother and her sister, sitting at their shared table, coffee cups at hand, feeling smart and oh, so right with one another, planning their adventures, "In Scottsdale?" My aunt lived there with her husband and both sisters loved Scottsdale.
    "Oh, no, this was in Mesa, Scottsdale was a little too close, if you know what I mean..."
    Ah, I thought, yes, too close to, well, to put it diplomatically, authoritative members of the family.
    "Anyway, one of us noticed a for sale sign, so we stopped, went up to the door, tried it..."
    "You mean you didn't knock or ring the bell???"
    "Well, no!" she said, surprised that I'd question their tactics. "Anyway, the door was open, so we went in, looked around, really liked the place. It was furnished, so we assumed it was being sold with the furniture. We were trying out the sofa when a man came out from one of the rooms and wanted to know what we were doing there. Apparently, he owned the house, and it wasn't the house for sale!"
    We both laughed. "So, I guess you guys were pretty embarrassed," I said.
    "Oh, no! We liked the house so much we tried to get him to sell it to us anyway! He was determined to keep the house, but he was so surprised at our insistence that he made coffee and invited us to stay for lunch!"
    Why am I not surprised, I thought. My mother and her sister have, and had, no fear.
    "It seems it was the house next to his that was for sale."
    "Did you look at it?"
    "Well, we tried to. The man went over with us and we tried all the doors..."
    I could imagine them talking him into doing this and he being so caught up in their determination that he agreed.
    "...but that house was locked up tight. We looked in the windows, though, and didn't like what we saw."
    "So, did you look at any others? And, what happened to your plan?"
    "Oh, we talked about it, you know, and when we were driving around here and there..."
    I knew they'd spent a lot of time together, but I had no idea they were regularly cruising the metroplex.
    "...we'd see a house we liked, but the ones we liked were never for sale."
    We laughed again. Funny how life turns out.
    "Then, I decided that you needed to come back home..."
    This was another surprise. Since she initially asked me to come and live with her, she's never, again, referred to her request. I was surprised to discover that I was enchanted by the way she put it.
    "...and [her sister], you know, was always busy with her family..."
    This was certainly true. Not too long ago I was complaining about how little attention our family pays to us, almost as though we exist only at their convenience, and she said, "Now you know how I felt about [her sister and her family]."
    "Are you sorry you never got to do that?"
    "Well, it would have been nice, but this," she waved her hand between the two of us and extended the gesture to include the entire house, "is much nicer, I think."
    Still, I love the idea that she and her sister made a plan like this and revved its engine, even though it never got off the ground.
    Apparently, Mom likes the idea, too, enough for it to still tickle her. It's funny, because the few days leading up to her telling me of this, although she'd been pretty active, she'd also been having a lot of difficulty remembering who was dead and who was alive. She'd asked me several times, "Where's Dad (meaning my dad, I always have to clarify this because sometimes she means her dad)", and "What do you hear from [her sister and her family]?" Strange, and interesting, that when remembering this incident, she was clear on who was and is dead.

    Which leads to a short conversation we had tonight. While we were preparing her for bed, she remembered that her brother is dead and has been "for some time." She asked me to elaborate on the time span and the details, but needed only a little reminding for the episode of his death to flood back into her memory.
    "Well," she said, "it's too bad, but I guess those things happen, don't they."
    "Well, yeah, one of these days they'll happen to you and me."
    She did a hard, long single take, only half comic. "It won't be happening to me," she said.
    "Oh, that's right," I said, "I forgot. You're Methuselah."
    "Mrs. Methuselah," she corrected.
    I left the bathroom for a moment to deposit her clothes in the washing machine. When I returned I said, "Okay, let me get this straight. If you're not going to be dying, what about me?"
    "Oh," she said, matter-of-fact, not even bothering to underline her assurance with a glance at me, "I need you. You'll stay here with me."
    So, folks, it's official. My mother and I won't be dying. Just wanted to clarify that.
    Later.