Set My Heart on It

With only twenty-four hours in a day, I don’t get nearly enough done. I move from project to project trying to keep one step ahead of the next deadline. I have so many things that I have my heart set on, that sometimes, I just mentally flip a coin to see which project can wait—or be cancelled.

This weekend, I hustled to get a bundle of stories to the post office, and headed to the lake to watch my youngest granddaughter cheer at a basketball game. It was fun to watch her shake her pom-poms and chant cheers through a megaphone. My grandson played with his cars on the bleachers where the grownups watched the game and, of course, the cheerleaders.

After lunch at a Mexican restaurant, I decided that while I was in the neighborhood, so to speak, I’d drop in on my brother at the nursing home and see my mom at her nearby apartment. I called my mom since she doesn’t just sit at home, in case someone wants to drop by. She assured me that she would be home soon. Rather than wait at her house, I decided to make use of the time to visit my brother, Donnie.

“My roommate needs help,” Donnie said when I walked through the door. His strokes have interfered with his speech, but he was sitting in his wheelchair, bright eyed. He certainly looked much better than he did a few weeks ago when I visited him in the hospital. At the hospital, he was so miserable that he just kept saying he wanted to die.

“Okay, I’ll go get someone,” I told him.

When I returned to the room, he looked at me and said, “Who are you?”

“I’m your sister, Linda,” I said. Donnie is nearly blind so I knew it wasn’t that he didn’t know who I was, he simply could not see me well enough.

“Oh,” he said. When the aide came in, she mentioned that Donnie’s light wasn’t working. This started him on a rant about everything that wasn’t working in his room: the nightlight, the door that wouldn’t shut on his closet, and his opinion of housekeeping for not fixing everything.

“I’ll tell them,” the aide said, making her exit when she realized Donnie was past teasing and had become angry.

“I can’t walk, can’t move my arms, and can’t fix the things that are wrong. They haven’t even turned my calendar,” he said. Sure enough, the calendar with giant numbers was still on February. I flipped the calendar and sat down on his bed.

Now that he was a little calmer, I told him how much better he looked. I asked him if he was eating and he started telling me about refusing to eat the “pre-chewed” food as he called it.

I knew what Donnie was talking about because Jim’s food was eventually “mechanically softened” and later pureed. It never looked appetizing, and I told Donnie how my niece referred to Jim’s “mystery meat” when we couldn’t determine what kind of meat it was.

“Are they giving you regular water now too?” I asked.

“Hell, yes,” he said. “I told them to leave that thickening out. That stuff just made me thirstier.”

That reminded me of when Jim strangled and choked too easily and his liquids were thickened. I always thought that his thirst could not be quenched and felt bad that he couldn’t have his big travel cup filled with ice water.

After our visit, I hugged Donnie and told him I wouldn’t stay away so long next time. “I want to spend more time with my family,” I said.

“Family is the most important thing,” he told me. “If it wasn’t for mom and my brothers and sisters, I would just give up.” He wiped tears from his eyes with his left hand, the one he uses the best.

By the time I left the nursing home, the soft rain had changed to a torrential downpour. I didn’t let the rain delay me from visiting my mom and merrily splashed through the puddles of water on her walkway. When I set my heart on it, a thunderstorm and downpour won’t even slow me down.

Copyright © March 2011 by Linda Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/

A Long Drive, Deep Thoughts, and a Cup of Joe

For a short delusional period this morning, I thought I had a day to just kick back and relax. Then I remembered I was taking Mom to the hospital to see my brother. So rather than drifting back into the dream I was having about going on a trip with an empty suitcase, I staggered to the kitchen to fix a pot of coffee. I just can’t pry my eyes open until I’ve had a cup of coffee.

When Jim and I were first married, I didn’t drink coffee. I thought the stuff was a bit on the bitter side and just didn’t have any appeal for me. I blame my coffee drinking habit on Jim’s grandma. Apparently, she thought everyone drank coffee and as soon as we walked into her house, she plunked a strong cup of coffee in front of me.

The conversation always went something like this:

"Grandma, I don’t drink coffee.”

“What? You don’t drink coffee?” The look on her face was priceless. She would look at Jim and say, “She doesn’t drink coffee?”

“No Grandma, she doesn’t drink coffee.” Then Jim would look at me and grin because he knew what was coming next.

“But, I’ve already poured it!” Like that was the final say. There I would sit: cup of coffee in front of me, Grandma expecting me to drink it, and husband who thought it was funny.
So, I would take a small sip and try not to shudder. First chance I got, I poured it down the sink. When we went for the next visit, the scene played again. Eventually, I just drank the cup of coffee treating it like a dose of medicine. Get it down and get it over with, except, when she kept refilling my empty cup—then, I learned to make it last longer.

Now, I need no urging to drink coffee and feel downright deprived if I can’t have a cup of Joe in the morning. After coffee and a quick shower, I was dressed and out the door. On the long drive to my mom’s house, I roamed through the XM stations on my radio trying to find something she would like to hear. I just knew she wouldn’t appreciate the Classic Rock channel. I came across enLighten and knew the gospel music would be a hit with her.

Listening to the sweet, almost angelic, harmony, I found myself thinking deep thoughts. The kind of thoughts Jim and I used to share about life, death, and all the unexplained things that happen in between. Of course, one of the first things I question is why did Jim develop dementia and why did his life end at the age I am now. I wonder why my brother keeps having strokes. It seems that if I think things can’t get any worse, they can and sometimes do.

My brother already lives in a nursing home and can’t walk, has constant pain, endless headaches, and basically a pretty miserable existence. He is in the hospital because of more strokes. His speech is slurred and hard to understand. He has trouble swallowing and has to be on thickened liquids and mechanically softened foods.

When Mom and I walk into his room, we find Donnie twisted to one side of his bed. He asks us to straighten him up. I push and Mom tugs and we get him in a more comfortable position. After Food Service brings his lunch tray, the nurse wants to move him into a more upright position in the bed. She calls an aide to help her.

“She can help you,” Donnie tells the nurse pointing in my direction.

“Can you?” she asks.

Of course, I can. After all the time Jim spent in the nursing home, I learned how to do everything to make him more comfortable.

On the way to Mom’s house, the hospital called to tell her Donnie had been released. He has to return in about a month for surgery, but for now, he is headed home.

After I dropped Mom off, I did more deep thinking to the backdrop of gospel music. The trip home seemed faster than the trip down. When I reached Sedalia, I stopped by McDonald’s for a cup of Joe—only I got a Mocha Frappe. I can only imagine what Grandma Fisher would think of such a sissy version of coffee. I don’t think Jim would be impressed either—he liked his coffee steaming hot and black. He would appreciate the gospel music, I’m sure, and he would have enjoyed the long drive on a beautiful October day.

Copyright © October 2010 L. S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com/