Mom's Mad

I'm visiting my folks. Mom's mad at Dad.

Mom: What are we going to wear tonight?"

Dad: It's still warm. We can wear our summer pajamas.

Mom: No! What are we going to wear?

Dad and I were confused until she came to the cupboard, grabbed the vitamin jar and said "Isn't this what we usually wear?"

Dad : Oh, you mean what vitamins we take.

Mom: You say things like me like I'm stupid! (storms outside)

I swear there's an "I'll show you" gene on her side of the family. She knows if she stomps out of the house that we'll worry about her. Her mom was the same way. Worse. She'd get mad at her husband and vanish for days.
"They're really a lot alike," I told my dad, recently. "Stubborn, paranoid, and quick to strike back at any real or imagined offense. "Will I end up like that too?"
"Not for a long time" Dad said.

Nuts

My mom is back in the hospital. They think she had another seizure, but they're not sure what's going on. I'll add more when I know more.

More- 7:30 p.m. Sept 18
It's official, it's "only" a seizure and not another stroke, which means she'll recover much sooner, usually within a few days. She's a bit confused has trouble talking in the meantime (the wrong words came out), but made it very clear that she wanted out of that hospital a.s.a.p. This morning she insisted on changing back to her street clothes. No hospital gown for her! She was cooperative with the speech therapist at first, than got snippy- she decided the tests and exercises were a waste of time. She even kicked at me a few times when the nurse and the speech therapist questioned me about how she'd recovered when it happened before. I think she thought I sabotaging her escape from the hospital. Or maybe telling the nurses stuff that was none of their business. Other than that she was happy to have me around.
They sprung her from the hospital this afternoon so she's back home and I'm back at work. I offered to come by their place and help out but my dad insists they'll be okay.
11:45, Sept 19
I spoke to my mom on the phone today. She picked up the phone and sounded pretty normal. Hard to believe that 48 hours ago she could barely talk. I like it when things change for the better.

Not Again!

My mom's back in the hospital. She and my dad were on vacation in Las Vegas when she had strokelike symptoms again. The last time this happened it turned out to be "only" a seizure and she was discharged the next day. She'd recently stopped taking her seizure meds because she didn't like the side effects. Whoops. My brother and dad and I talked and the plan is for me to wait until they know for sure what's going on.
I hate waiting.
The whole stroke ordeal was like a bomb going off. She was in remarkable good health last November until the stroke struck. Like a rug being pulled. Ever since I've been nervous about what the future holds. Even the calendar displays at the book store make me nervous. It reminds me that the future is coming. Who knows what it holds?

24 hours later update:
Yep, it seems to have been another seizure. The good news is she should recover within weeks, being much better within days (a stroke takes much longer and damage can be permanant.) The hospital sprung her and she's on her way back to Los Angeles.

The Big Game

Sunday night means I'm visiting my folks and it's time for us to go to King Cole's for a round of gin and tonics.
Distant sirens wailed as we parked.
"That'd be funny if it was coming to King Cole's" I joked, "Frank's cooking got another one!"
It wasn't funny when it did come to King Cole's. The ambulance pulled up. EMTs ran in.
"I guess we'll have to go somewhere else," I said.
"Nah," said my dad. "I don't smell a fire. We can still go in."
"With an emergency going on!?"
"Hurry up," My mom said. "It's cold out here."
I was sure we'd be thrown out at the front door, but the waitress flagged us in. The place was packed with Super bowl watchers and only one table was available.
The former occupant of the table sat ten feet away, surrounded by medics.
"They think she's having a stroke," the waitress said. "Three gin and tonics tonight?"
EMTs and a crowd glued to the superbowl screen. blocked my view of the victim. Collapse anywhere else and you draw a crowd. Collapse in a bar and no one notices. She probably had to call 911 herself. Even the paramedic guys were stealing glances at the T.V. Not that I was any better then them. Football bores me. I was gawking.
It was weird. A few months back it was my mom being hauled off in an ambulence with a sroke. Now she with us, back to normal (mostly), in the same seat of someone else who'd just been yanked into a their surprise medical crisis. Tessts, needles, procedures, paperwork, pills, physical therepy, disability and possible mortal danger awaited. Meanwhile Mom was squeezing her lime into her drink, chit chatting and blending in with the world of Everyone Else.
Fate can be such a smartass.

How was Rehab? (the stroke, part 12)

I'm back at home, back at work.
Most people didn't know what happened- how my mom was hospitalized for a stroke, recovered in a rehab hospital (where I sometimes stayed over to keep her company), and how until recently it took both my dad and I to keep her out of trouble.
Most co-workers don't know what happened. I kept my mouth shut except for a few friends. The two or three who did know asked me for updates.
"Hey Namowal!" one guy said. "How was rehab?"
I almost replied "How'd you find out about that?" until it hit me that he was kidding around, as if I'd returned from drug rehab. Had I said that, I'd have "admitted" to cooling my heels in a dry out clink. In front of a bunch of coworkers. That would have been... awkward.

That's Macaroni Salad! (The Stroke, part 11)

My Dad, my brother and I are word manglers. When we're talking, sometimes the wrong words come out. Nothing's officially "wrong" with us. Everyone screws up words now and then and we're within the normal range, just close to the edge.
For example, my dad looks at our grapefruit tree and remarks about all the onions on it. I'll say something's "full" when I mean "empty", or refer to the refrigerator as the sofa.* Yes, I know the difference between a refrigerator and a sofa, but I open my yap and the wrong word flies out. We're not constantly doing this. Just enough to get the occasional odd look or the "being on something" accusation.
My mom was articulate one. The one who corrected our flubs. Then her stroke screwed with her speech. At first she couldn't say anything. Then came words that made little sense. To add to her frustration, my dad and I didn't make much sense either. Household conversations sounded like Abbot and Costello's "Who's on first"
Namowal's Mom (wants to say we need to go to the hardware store): We need to get, you know, the thing you wrap around your neck, a tie- no wait, not that. We need to go to the place across the street from Ralph's.

Namowal (wants to say the shop down the highway): Oh, you mean the shop down the sideway?
Namowal's Dad (wants to say hardware store): You mean the houseware store?

In spite of this nonsense, her speech improved. The other day we were in a restaurant and my dad returned from the salad bar with a plate of macaroni salad.
Namowal's Dad: I got myself some spaghetti.

Namowal's Mom: That? That's macaroni salad!
This was good. She'd turned another corner. She's correcting us again.
*I really said this a few days ago. I suppose I should be glad I'm not putting milk in the sofa and sitting on the fridge.

The Birthday Fix (The stroke, Part 10)

"Let's go to Lucky's Drugs," my mom suggested.
I looked up from my sudoku puzzle. "We just went there yesterday. You want to go again? What for?"
"Well, you have a birthday coming, don't you?" she smiled.
She remembered! This was good. Since her stroke a month earlier her speech and thinking had been convoluted. Her doctor said it would improve with time, but for now we had to watch her. The fact she remembered I had a birthday coming was impressive, considering she didn't know what year it was a few weeks earlier. It's like old times! I thought. She remembers my birthday! She wants to get me a card!
At the drug store she insisted I stand back and let her get my birthday surprise. I waited, wondering what it would be. Cards, gift books, stuffed toys and corny "To my dearest daughter" trinkets lined the shelves. What did she have in mind? I wondered.
Ten minutes later she hadn't returned. Was she still picking out the perfect card? Maybe there were two she liked and she was still deciding which one would be the best?
I checked on her. She wasn't in the card isle. She wasn't in the gift isle. Where was she? I searched further. Had she wandered out of the store? Was she lost?
I found her at the pharmacy, paying for a box of Nicorette Gum. She caught my eye a minute later and said, "Let's go."
I'd been had! Birthday card my butt- it was all a ruse to get her nicotine fix. She'd quit smoking years ago but we never knew about her gum stash until after her stroke. She got careless about her hiding places. I tried to take her gum away from her once and damn near got my arm dislocated. I think if she had to chose between rescuing me or the last box of Nicorette gum from an oncoming train, the gum had a good chance.
Not to be too hard on her- many (current or former) smokers I know say that nicotine craving is an insidious thing that hangs on like a turbocharged robo-tick. It nags, prods, harasses, calls way past midnight etc..
I checked with my mom's doctor about the gum. He said that while it wasn't exactly healthy, it was better than smoking, so she could chew it in moderation if she chose. Oh well. At least you can't burn the house down with gum.

Holiday Wishes (the stroke, 9)

My mom has an interesting way of coping with her stroke recovery: It never happened.
Or more precisely, remind her that it did happen at your own peril.
The other day we walked past a neighbor* whom we hadn't seen in awhile.
"Hi there," she called from her doorway, "It's nice to see you up and around again."
Mom waved, but said "Shut the fuck up." under her breath.
Except she forgot that remarks under one's breath should be out of earshot of the target. She was pretty loud. Had the neighbor heard? What was I to do? If I knew for sure she had heard the insult, I could explain that the stroke had impaired both her manners and her choice of words. But what if she hadn't heard? Was I supposed to go up to her and say "Listen, I don't know if you heard my mom throw the Big F at you, but if you did, she didn't mean it...?" Yeah. That'd be a new way to get a door slammed in my face.

*They now live in a much friendlier neighborhood than the one from the "Fear thy Neighbor posts"

Tis the Season to be Nasty (The Stroke, part 8)

My mom is still recovering from her stroke & seizure package. The speech therapist says she has Anomic Aphasia: trouble with talking and understanding people. From her point of view, she's fine and it's me and my dad have gone batty.
She was outraged when we insisted she go to speech thereby this morning.
"How put the belt in the stupid belt when like an animal when she didn't animal need" she said, which translates to "How dare you make me go to some stupid thereby that I don't need?"
I thought she was done sulking by the time we arrived.
Namowal: You still need to tell me what you want for Christmas
Namowal's Mom: Don't you ever speak to me again!
Whoops. Still sulking. Nice to hear a coherent sentence from her.

It's War! (The stroke, part seven)

Here's the nutshell. Last month my mom had a stroke but had recovered remarkably well. Her attention span needed work, otherwise she was fine. Then a few days ago she had what we thought was another stroke but turned out to be a seizure from the first one. The good news, the doctor said, was that he expected a full recovery. The problem was that said recovery would take days, and my dad and I had to deal with her in the meantime.
Her strength hand coordination were fine, but her thinking and speech were a disaster. She'd think she was talking to us when in fact she was babbling nonsense. When we told her we didn't understand she got incensed and repeated the same nonsense more slowly.
Typical conversation:
Namowal's Mom: Freshious, freshious, freshious, in the freshious freshious?
Namowal: I'm sorry, I don't understand
Namowal's Mom: Freshious, freshious, freshious, in the freshious freshious!?
Namowal: Can you show me what you mean?
Namowal's Mom: (glaring at me and gesturing angrily) Freshious, freshious, freshious, in the freshious freshious!!?

War was declared when more words came back. We'd thought her anger was frustration at not being able to talk. As she regained more speech, we found that she viewed me and my dad as the problem. We'd committed some heinous deeds including:

• taking a paper towel away from her (she was eating it)
  
• not letting her take some cold medicine (she didn't have a cold)
• wiping cream of mushroom soup off her hand after she plunged her fist into the bowl
  
• taking away the jar of pistachios because she was eating them with the shells and wouldn't let us unshell them for her
• generally keeping an eye one her so she wouldn't burn down the house

Well! Did she have some things to say. She couldn't say much, but she made it clear that

• She wanted me to leave her house and never come back
• She wanted to spank me for being so horrid
• My dad and I were "rude" and made her "mad"
• This was all our fault
• I was a terrible daughter and he was a terrible husband
• We were both "stupid"
  
• We could go fuck ourselves

I couldn't believe it. All the trouble we'd gone through, the sleepless nights, the worries, helping her stay clean and safe and my only feedback was what a shit I was. Normally she's very sweet and loving, so it was trippy as well as hurtful. So out of place. Like Santa Claus cooking and eating little kids or something.
D-day of the war occurred this morning. She was in the middle of a temper tantrum and we had to get her to her physical thereby appointment. She wouldn't budge and told us to scram. We insisted. I took her by the hand. She started hitting me.
My dad lost his temper.
"You knock that crap off and get in the car, now!" he told her.
She eyed him as if he'd slapped her- a mix of fear and disbelief that he'd dare raise his voice to her.
It worked. She cooperated, sort of, grumbling insults under her breath and giving us dirty looks as we took her to her appointment.

Surprise! (The Stroke, part six)

Tuesday got off to a bad start. Had to report to jury duty in Beverly Hills. This would ge great if I was commuting from my West Los Angeles apartment, but I was currently staying with my folks to help look after my mom, who had a stroke recently. They lived twenty miles away. Twenty traffic-clogged miles. I gave myself almost two hours to get there and was still running late.
As I seethed in gridlock on Santa Monica Blvd, watching a distant light cycle through red, green and yellow, my cell rang. It was my dad.
"We're at the emergancy room," he said. "Your mom had another stroke. I'll call you back when I know more."
Another one? So soon? She'd come so far from the first one.
I told him I'd explain the situation to the jury dudes and get over to the hospital. I couldn't find the damn courthouse. My map was terrible. I considered just ditching the whole thing and turning around, but thanks to a mail screw up my jury summons was the "get your butt over to the courthouse or you're in big trouble" variety.
Fifteen minutes later I found it. I was sure having your mom in the emergancy room was grounds for postponement.... but there was no one to grant it. It was the 3d version of trying to speak to real person on the phone and getting voice mail. I couldn't find anyone running the place. The halls were empty and the only people in the waiting room were fellow would-be jurors and a video telling us how swell jury duty was. Then a flesh and blood robot lady waddled in, avoided eye contact, and read from a script that there would be absolutly no questions until she said so. And to turn off our cellphones.
I left my phone on. Fuck, I wanted to know what was going on with Mom. It rang a minute later, making me the insensitive ass who couldn't follow simple instructions. I walked out on the lecture to take the call in the hall. It was my dad again, reporting that she seemed to be having seizures too. Seizures!? That did it. I wasn't waiting any longer. I scrounged up a postponement form and put my name and number on it, with a note that I had an emergancy.
I rushed back to the hospital. Wait. I couldn't rush because the roads were jammed.
After some tests the doctor determined that this wasn't a second stroke. It was "only" a seizure related to the first stroke, which produced temporary strokelike symtoms. By the next day she was recovered enough to go home. Trouble was, the "temporary strokelike symptoms", while fading, were still there to keep us busy...

The Coupon Caper (The stroke, part 5)

Mom's mostly recovered from her stroke, but is a bit absent minded and tires easily. She was determined to walk to the local drugstore to get her meds. She hadn't excercised much in the hospital and wanted to get back in shape. My dad and I came along. On the way back she spotted a flyer to Rudy's Rack Shack* on the ground. It had some half off deal.
"Keep your eyes out for more of these," she ordered
We couldn't find more in the street, so they schemed to detour down Dardut St, the local apartment strip. Why? Because they wanted to go to the outdoor mailbox clusters and snatch all the Rudy flyers they could find.
I couldn't believe it. "You're serious? Isn't that stealing?"
"Lighten up," said Mom. "It's just junk mail to most of them. Who cares?"
"What if someone else besides you guys wants to eat at Rudys?"
"They should check their mail earlier" Dad added, dodging into the next pack of mailboxes.
About half way down the block my folks had a stack of fliers, but Mom was leaning slightly to her right. Ever since the stroke she starts to lean a bit when she's tired. Dad was alarmed. Had their wild spree put her in danger? Had they risked her life for a few racks of discount ribs?
The bandits couldn't agree on how to get home. Mom wanted to walk back, Dad wanted to run home, get the car and drive over to pick her up. They argued about this all the way home. I tried to stay out of it, but was dragged in.
"Namowal" Dad ordered. "Run down the street and get your car. I'll wait here."
"Don't you dare!" Mom countered. "You stay with us!"
Which parent should I piss off? I wondered. On one hand, my mom was known to downplay any problems. She could be on fire and not complain because she "didn't want anyone to worry". On the other hand, she'd learned the hard way about how dangerous it was to ignore stroke symptoms. Plus she seemed plenty strong and articulate in her defense.
We were home within minutes. To be safe I ran her through my hack stroke symptom drill ("any weakness? Can you wave both arms over your head? Any headache? Can you tell me where we are? Etc..") She did fine.
To celebrate, we went out for cheap ribs.
*Name changed

The Bounce House (the stroke, part 4)

Last week the hospital deemed my mom recovered enough from her stroke to be shipped to rehab. Word must have gotten out about her penchant for sneaking out of bed, as her new bed was in a mesh cage.
It looked like a bounce house. Or one of those playpens at Chuck-E-Cheese minus the plastic balls. My mom had regained enough verbal and cognitive skills to object to being "zipped up in there all night," waiting for a nurse to spring her whwn she needed to use the bathroom.
So we struck up a deal with the staff. My dad and I would alternate staying over with her if they moved her to a normal room. The nurses agreed. They needed the cage bed for a new patient who was worse off anyway.
My mom recovered so quickly that she was mistaken for a visitor. I, on the other hand, was actually mistaken for a patient . I'm lucky I wasn't zipped up.
After a week in rehab they sent my mom home. She walked and talked fine, but the rehab crew warned that her attention span needed work. This probably explained what happened when she wanted her favorite snack- a slice of cheese. Except instead she grabbed an open can of coke, tipped it on its side and tried to slice it. It wasn't until it spilled on the counter that she noticed it wasn't cheese. Whoops.
Then came the shoe incident. As she put her sneakers on my dad suggested we water the plants before we went outside. After a dispute about which watering kettle to use she took a shoe to the sink and began to fill it with water.
I braced myself for similar incidents but in the last 48 hours she's been doing well. She's back to brushing her teeth (instead of her paperback books). She's back to using eating utensils properly (and, might I add, using the correct end of each) A bit careless, perhaps, but if you met her on the street you wouldn't think anything was wrong. Not bad, considering two weeks ago she didn't know who I was.

Hospital Food (the stroke, part 3)

Hospital food scares me. I was eating some the other day, marveling at how it looked like dog food. I thought: Why am I eating this? It makes roadkill look like potpourri. If food was a circus, this would be the sideshow blowoff that bit off chicken heads.
Look at that stuff. A vulture wouldn't touch this. The Donnor party wouldn't touch this. It belonged in a biohazard bag, not a food tray.
Even my mom, who was recovering from a stroke (and had a better meal) was goofing on it. I was forbidden to dispose of it in her hospital room and had to dump it down the hall. Probably not a bad idea, since it looked capable of crawling away and attacking someone.

@#!#$%^^&!! (the stroke, part 2)

It's been a week since my mom had a stroke. The day after she was wide eyed and bewildered, couldn't talk, sit up, or follow basic commands. As the days passed, ability trickled back, but not in its most useful order.
Strenth came first. She still wanted out of her hospital bed and was soon strong enough to fight anyone who dared to hold her back. She fought dirty, and wasn't above belting me or scratching my throat to show her displeasure. Then there was the stealth approach. She'd close her eyes and act like she was sleeping, but as soon as you looked away she'd be out of her bed and/or tugging at her I.V. and feeding tube. My dad said he'd stepped away for one minute and she yanked everything out.
Her speach returned before her judgement did, but she was capable of negotiations. One night she turned to me and suggested we "go downstairs to the casino and get some drinks." When I told her there wasn't a casino, she suggested a bar. Another time she said the building was on fire and we should get out. I brought some magazines from home to help jog her memory, but she just gathered them up, tucked them under her arms and said "Let's go." The worst incident was when I ignored her request that she "just get up to have a look around" (remember she was a high fall risk and was ordered to stay in bed by the doctors). I said no. She started to get up anyway. I tried to push her back but she was as strong as I was. A nurse jumped in to help and sent me down the hall for backup.
I returned with extra nurses and it took three of them to keep her in place, all while she thrashed in bed, enraged, babling "C'mon just a look around I wanna look around just a look around O.K. etc..?" Another nurse looked at me and said "Is that your mom?" in a gee, you're fucked tone. Yep. That's my mom. Hell, that's probably me in a few decades.
By day six she was calmer and more coherent, but still didn't exactly know what was going on.
Since this started I spent most of the day at her side and we had this conversation 100 times:

Namowal: Do you know where you are?
Namowal's Mom: [looks around, shrugs]
Namowal: We're at the hospital.
Namowa's Mom: The hospital?
Namowal: You had a stroke
Namowal's Mom: [incredulous] a stroke?

It was also on day six that they discharged her from the regular hospital and sent her to a rehab joint. She gets several hours of speech and physical therepy to bring her up to speed. Now way more lucid, she occasionally still lapsed into dreamland. One minute it was a normal conversation, the next minute she was a college student trying smoke a stump of tubing like it was a cigarette. It's unnerving, but each day it gets better.
One more thing. She doesn't surf the internet or use a computer, but if she finds out about this blog, she might get pissed off about the last two entries, perhaps misinterpreting them as having fun at her expense. I hope it's clear that the tone of these posts is more "This Sucks!" than "Ha ha ha". With my luck there's probably internet access at the rehab place and internet access is part of the program and she's probably typing "stroke" into the Blogger search engine and my blog just came up. Whoops.
If this is my last post, be assured that she recovered fully, got wind of my blog, and strangled me.

@#!#$%^^&!! (the stroke)

Seconds after I hit the post button for my Sea Monkey entry, my Dad called and dropped a bomb: my mom, a healthy fit woman, had a stroke and was in the hospital. Apparently she'd experienced weakness on one side and had speech problems earlier in the afternoon, but insisted nothing was wrong. By the time my dad convinced her to go to the hospital, she could barely talk.
By the time I got there, she could answer questions with "Well," like she was going to keep talking, except that she couldn't find the words.
The next morning the speech therapist showed up. "Do you know where you are?" she asked? No answer. My mom sat there looking agitated and confused. The therapist pointed my way. "Who's this? Is this your daughter?" She looked at me like I was a space alien. Ouch. My cynical side chipped in. I risk my life speeding in rush hour traffic to be at your side and you don't know who I am!?
This wasn't good. I loved my parents and tried to visit them as much as possible. My mom was very supportive and always listened to me, no matter how much I rambled on. Now she was a stranger.
As I paced in the hall like a frustrated zoo animal my dad filled me in on some things I wasn't aware of:

1. A few years back she'd had strokelike symptoms (one sided weakness and slurred speech) but refused to see a doctor, insisting it was no big deal. Huh!?
2. Her doctor had prescribed high blood pressure medicine but she stopped taking it because it "made her dizzy".

The whole disaster could have been prevented! Fuck me and the horse I rode in on.
Yesterday she started talking again, but it didn't make much sense. The stroke must have hit the left side of her brain (speech and logic). She seemed to have a vague idea where she was but didn't get the entire picture. She did know that, where ever she was, she wanted out.
The doctors ordered her to stay in bed for safety- her coordination was poor, but not poor enough to try to sneak out of the bed repeatedly. Either she didn't get that she had to stay put or knew that she was supposed to stay in bed but the emotional "I want outta here" impulse overtook the logical "I'm s'posed to stay here" impulse. She was sneaky. She'd weasel one leg over the side and then the other. We'd put the legs back and tell her no. This pissed her off but elicited a coherent sentence. "Don't say no to me!"
Later she decided the oxygen nose tube had to go. She couldn't comb her hair or brush her teeth but she know how to unhook that tube. I put it back on. She took it off. I put it back on. She took it off. As I struggled to put it back on the zillionth time she called my name in an exasperated tone I hadn't heard since I was a teenager.
That was ok by me: she knew who I was!