1. How are you?
2. How are you doing?
3. Are you OK?
4. How's it going?
5. What's up?
6. Would you like to talk about X?
7. What's new with you?
8. It's been a while!
9. What have you been up to since we last talked?
It's funny how you don't think about how often you're asked how you're doing until you don't want to be asked how you're doing.Oh, me? I've been better. I've also been worse. I'll be worse again, I know. There are others out there right now at this very moment who are far worse than I could even imagine. But it's not a competition. I'll also be better again. That's how life works: peaks and valleys, ebbs and flows, the tide goes in and the tide goes out, and so on and so forth. Sometimes you feel like you're on top of the world, and sometimes you don't. And this week, I don't.
But it's one of those internal-only things, KWIM? On the outside, things are fine. No one has taken any turns for the worse lately. Dad's doing alright, slowly regaining strength -- he's not going to be 100% back to where he was pre-COVID but at least he is awake most of the day, most days now. He is working with PT again, has a good appetite, and most importantly to me and my selfish self, still knows who I am :). He doesn't seem to have suffered any great cognitive setbacks from having the 'vid and being bedbound for a couple of weeks, and for that I am thankful.
Mom's doing...eh. This has all been very hard on her, which should come as a surprise to no one. I'm trying to help her get some help in the form of counseling, or something, but that is very difficult to do because that is something a person has to do on their own. I can't do it for her. And even though I'm a rockstar nurse (ha, ha, ha), I can't provide counseling for her. I just can't. That's like the blind leading the blind. I know a lot about treating depression and anxiety from the PATIENT perspective only. And I know what has worked for me, and I know how to refer people to professionals to discuss treatment options. I do not know how to treat depression and anxiety. I feel like I am barely managing my own depression at this point, most days. It's just a whole emotional mess.
Max is...I haven't even written in here about Max yet. The week before our birthaversary, I thought we were going to lose Max. Max is our 11yo Boxer. That morning, my hubby had gone to let him outside and Max apparently just collapsed and wouldn't stand up. I spent the day lying on the floor with him. He wouldn't/couldn't stand up, wouldn't eat or drink, wouldn't even go outside to pee. Now, he's old for a Boxer and has been having worsening incontinence issues for a while -- he's been to the vet and checked out and determined to just have weakening muscles, for which he does take medication to help with those urinary incontinence issues, and it does help some. But this day, we really thought he was going to die. I thought maybe he'd had a stroke or something. He tried to stand up once and like couldn't get his feet under him and just kept falling over. Another time he did manage to walk to the other room but then fell over and had what I swear to God looked to me like a seizure. I was thinking we would need to take him to the vet and have him put to sleep, but the hubby is very much against that, so we didn't. And later that night, Max seemed to recover -- he got up, he still seemed to be weak but his balance was much better. He ate some, drank some, went outside, and crawled up in his chair to sleep. He's been mostly OK ever since, although he is slowly declining as well. His balance still isn't great. He sleeps a LOT. I know dogs sleep a lot anyway. All that seems to interest Max anymore is sleeping and eating. Sigh. The hardest part of having a pet is when they get to the end of their lives.
Speaking of which, did I also mention that my horses are 30 and 26 years old? Yep, they're senior citizens as well. I thought Nicker (the 30yo) was going to die late last winter. She had lost a lot of weight over the winter, which she hadn't done before, and all of a sudden it hit me that she was 30 years old and wasn't going to live forever. (I seriously overhauled her feeding program since then, and she's been doing much better. But I'm still hyperaware that one day...never mind.)
So! This is where my thoughts are this week. I know death is part of life, obviously. I don't normally fixate on these things, but this week, little things are bothering me more than usual. Here is a short list of things that have made me cry lately:
1. I was visiting my Dad and he picked up my keys, and was fascinated with the small flashlight I had on my keyring. When it came time for us (my Mom and I) to leave, I asked him if he wanted to keep the flashlight. "I would love that," he said, so I unclipped it and let him keep it. I figured I would probably never see it again, because that's the way things go at that wretched place.
The next day, and ever since, whenever I think about it, it makes me cry -- thinking about how my Dad was fascinated by a stupid little purple flashlight. My Dad -- who was once a master mechanic who could fix ANYTHING, who taught me how to drive, who could explain in detail how exactly an internal combustion engine works, is now reduced to a man who is amused by figuring out how to push a button to turn a flashlight on and off, and watching the light shine on his leg. It's not right!!! It's an awful thing to watch your parent go through. I don't want to see my Dad regress back to infancy. My 79-year-old father should not be as amused by my keychain the same way my infant son once was. It just breaks my heart. I don't want to remember my Dad like this. I don't want other people to know my Dad like this.
2. I can't even think of the other things right now because thinking of that one made me cry again, and now it's time to get back to work. Luckily I'm working from home and am done with clinic for the week and have to enter some orders and such for a while, so probably by the time I need to make phone calls I won't sound like a basket case anymore. But damn. Dementia just sucks, in case you didn't know that already. If you've never had to experience it first-hand in someone you love, I hope and pray that you never, ever do.
'Til next time...
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