What's a Dry Run? Feeling Duped

Caregivers who have made it to the end stage are fitful, worn out creatures who shouldn’t be messed with.

The "dry run" I’m talking about when you think your loved one is going to pass away, and you call all the family, cry, say good-bye…and then they rally back to health.

You think you’d be relieved, but you’re exhausted, and if you’re like me, I felt a duped. Punked, like the new TV show calls it.

We had already called hospice which was extremely upsetting because it means you face that the end is near.

I could barely say the word, “hospice” at first.

Calling all my mother’s family was grueling–to say this again, and again–”I don’t think mother’s going to be here much longer.”

I cleaned her room, bought new curtains, made things simpler, gathered photos for her memorial service, prepared my kids.

Things got worse: she wasn’t eating and I sat by her bed and drizzled melted ice cream bars into her barely parted lips. My back ached. I grappled with the idea of a feeding tube and decided not to. She had stated on her living will not to, but it was excruciating to wonder if I had done the right thing. I wiped her face, stroking her tissue paper skin.

I stopped everything–going anywhere. Cooking–my daughters took over for me. Church–we all felt weighted and no one knew exactly what to do with ourselves. Everyone just sat on the couch…waiting. I lived off of strong coffee.

That lasted for about three days–and nights.

I wake the next morning, and she’s standing next to her little kitchen area.

She looks alert, asks, “What’s for breakfast?”

Now, see the whole picture before you judge my reaction:

My hair is matted to the back of my head from sleeping in the recliner next to her bed, I’m in rumpled clothes, and my mouth feels like I squeezed white glue in it. I haven’t seen the sun in days and I have no idea if my family is still in tact.

Breakfast!

I'm pretty sure I let a few curse words fly.
I was a bit miffed. Confused.

What day was it? Where was I? I scrambled eggs, made her a tray and took a shower.

Yes, I was angry, but it was good to be angry.

What do I mean by that?

Anger, ironically is a positive emotion.

You can only get angry at something you believe you can change.Apathy is when you’ve given up.

I didn’t want my mother to die, but I felt like someone had tied a rope onto my ankle and kept pushing me off a ledge over and over again. Caregiving had taken its toll. My emotions were strung so thin I had nothing left.

I hope letting you know that a “dry run” might be in your future will give you the heads up you need not to wear yourself slap out.

You never know what’s going to happen, but many people experience a “premonition,” an event that precedes the actual time of departure.

I believe it happens for a reason. It helps us get our thoughts and hearts aligned. It helps cushion the blow.

I actually walked around for a few days a bit ticked at her.

My life felt like I was walking into a room and knowing I went there to get something/do something but couldn’t think for the love of kittens what it was I wanted.

She toodled in her apartment (built onto our house), dozed, and we chatted. It’s hard to stay mad at someone who’s living on borrowed time and doesn’t know who the heck you are.

By then, she was referring to me as “little girl,” when she could find words at all.
What did I learn?
The will has more to do with life and death than a diagnosis.

A “dry run” is a lot like what you do when you're a little kid and you go in your mom or dad's closet and try on their shoes, coat and hat. You didn't know it, but you were practicing being grown. You were trying on your future.

And besides, it felt good to be mad. I can deal with mad. ~Carol D. O’Dell

Author of Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir

Available on Amazonwww.mothering-mother.com

www.kunati.com/mothering

If I Ran the Zoo: How I Would Run a Caregiver's Support Group

Remember the Dr. Suess book, If I Ran the Zoo? Well, I guess I've always wanted to be a zoo-keeper.
Lions, tigers, and support groups, oh my!

I have to admit, I didn't attend a monthly caregiver's support group while I cared for my mom. Why?

I guess you can chalk it up to my preacher's kid background, but I'm about meeting'ed out. I was a notorious school skipper in high school and I still have problems sitting through events where one person talks and everyone else has to listen, stand up, sit down, and clap on que. (Unless I'm the one doing the talking...and even then, I'm sensitive to people's time and attention spans).

For some reason, I'm either the slacker in the back of the room doodling on her notebook and making snide comments about everyone in the class--or I'm the front-row suck-up nerd hogging all the teacher's attention. One or the other--on any given day.

When I walk into a room with a banquet table and metal chairs placed around it, lit by a flourescent light and tired looking folks staring at one another--I want to go screaming out into the sunlight, find the nearest park, beach, or river and take a walk, that or go buy a triple expresso and power shop.

It's not that I don't realize that sharing your experience and working through the stresses, frustraitons, questions, and heartaches of caregiving isn't important. I know it is, but as my southern Mama always said:

"There's more than one way to skin a cat."

So, here's how I would run a support group. (dream scenario)
There would be couches, not metal chairs.
There would always be food and drink--and not just grocery store bought cookies.
There would be beautiful artwork.
There would be fresh flowers.
There would be music playing (sometimes jazz, sometimes, oldies, sometimes classical).

Stickers would be given out for doing things for yourself--making a phonecall, signing up for a class, etc. You would get to stand up, announce what you did for you, and get claps and/or hugs.
There would be show and tell--your latest photograph of your garden, a drawing, mom's broach, Dad's WWII medals, etc.
We'd share our favorite poems, books, and movie suggestons.

We'd have a gripe session and start off with cues such as:
"You wanna know what bugs me?!"
We'd throw eachother a potato to keep it going and anger would get a clap--we need to use our frustrations as energy so they won't implode on us.
We'd have guest speakers occasionally--but not all doctors and elder-care based. We'd have life coaches, a performer from the circus, a juggler who would teach us how to juggle, a policeman teaching us safety practices, a wardrobe consultant for you and your loved one...
We'd plan events--like a mother-daughter fashion show, or a WWII gathering of all the vets in the area--or a vintage car show and ride. We;d raise money for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's--or to sponsor a road trip!
We'd finish each session with either yoga or a walk or dancing. Movement is vital!

There. I might actually attend a group like this.
How 'bout you?

Carol D. O'Dell
Author of Mothering Mother: A Daughter's Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir,
available on Amazon www.mothering-mother.com

Care Giving--Care Receiving

We've now turned the words "Care Giver" into a compound word.
Caregiver or caregiving is now written as one word.
Two words smeared together. Apropos. Two lives smeared together.

A Jackson Pollack painting is a great metaphor for Alzheimer's--layers of chaos--some beautiful, others haunting.

I wrote in my book, MOTHERING MOTHER that I thought that caregiving was such a sterile term. Mother has bonded well with her child makes me want to ask if bail has been posted.

I used to teach my daughters that family was an acronym for "Father and Mother, I Love You." It sounded really sweet when they were four and five years old.... Now they roll their eyes and give me a smirk.

Now I have a new word--Care Receiver.It's a two-worder. It looks funny as one word:Carereceiver. Care-receiver.

I prefer, "Loved One."

I'd like to be referred to as the loved one--the one who is loved.

Giving and receiving are reciprocal terms.Someone smiles, the other tears...or just sighs.
m
Carol D. O'Dell, author of Mothering Mother, available at Amazon

Mothering Mother--The Truth Behind the Book

Mothering Mother is my first book. It's my first book published, not the first book I wrote. Like most writers, I have a couple of "dry runs" in the desk drawer. Mothering Mother was published first because I needed to understand myself and my role as daughter, mother, wife and woman. And if I needed it, I knew others did as well.
After seven years of writing and publishing, my own artistic journey was put on hold as my mother moved in. Caregiving is all encompassing and I didn't have enough brain cells to create fiction. So, I did what an artist does.
I turned my surrounding, my present condition into my art. Artists have to create. Boundaries create channels for energy. What I thought was a set back to my writing and my artist self turned out not to be a set back after all.
It wasn't easy either. Writing (or eating, bathing, having a life whatsoever) wasn't easy around my mother. She could suck the air out of tornado. I had to fight for any moment for myself.

I wrote in snatches for over two years--I'd run to the computer and type in a few lines. I'd write on the back of an envelope and stuff in my pocket. I wrote in my thoughts. The irony was that I was too tired to edit my thoughts. I told the truth--the raw, honest, gutsy, imperfect truth. Because I was too exhausted and frustrated not to.

Artists struggle with how to create art in the midst of life and reponsibilities. We struggle with how to tell, to show the truth. We struggle with how to be authentic and how to create beauty, clarity, flow and insight. We do that best when we don't (or can't) get in our own way.
.