My basement has been home to law students (ok just one), runaway brides (ditto), homeless friends and now….. the mother in law. Recovering from self inflicted food deprivation and dehydration. No she wasn’t trying to kill herself (us perhaps, not herself) She got a stomach ache when she ate so stopping eating and drinking sounded like the logical solution….until she was near comatose. After a brief stay in the hospital she went home where she would stagger around. It was just a matter of time before she ended up breaking something sooooo as I partied at a B’nai Mitzvah my husband brought his mom home to the ‘everything on one floor’ basement. SURPRISE! (well not really I knew that was always an option)
She is 86. She is half-deaf. (or has selective hearing, my husband suffering from the same affliction) Apparently she hates my cooking, the TV shows I watch, the basement lighting, my laundry detergent scent, the brand of ice cream I bought for her and my Keurig coffee pods. (now that is just crossing the line….I haven’t made coffee in a perk pot in years and I’m not starting now!) She takes a gazillion pills three times a day and each time she counts them one by one…I suspect to make sure I am not trying to speed up the inheritance. Pill taking takes about 20 minutes. Little blue capsule…swallow, little yellow pill….swallow, baby aspirin...swallow, big orange caplet…swallow and it goes on and on.
She is 86. She is half-deaf. (or has selective hearing, my husband suffering from the same affliction) Apparently she hates my cooking, the TV shows I watch, the basement lighting, my laundry detergent scent, the brand of ice cream I bought for her and my Keurig coffee pods. (now that is just crossing the line….I haven’t made coffee in a perk pot in years and I’m not starting now!) She takes a gazillion pills three times a day and each time she counts them one by one…I suspect to make sure I am not trying to speed up the inheritance. Pill taking takes about 20 minutes. Little blue capsule…swallow, little yellow pill….swallow, baby aspirin...swallow, big orange caplet…swallow and it goes on and on.
My husband gave her a bell so that if she needed something she could ring the bell and one of us would come running. One of us??? Running??? Like her Life Alert system, she rang the bell several times at first to ‘test’ it. Since she can’t hear I would have to descend half way down the steps to find what she needed. Just testing. And again. And again. We have caller ID that shows up on the TV. It took me awhile to figure out that the bell ringing right after the phone ringing was her calling me to announce that she saw someone’s name appear and then disappear on the TV set. I have walked up and down my basement steps more in the last few weeks than I have in the twenty plus years I live here. My knees cry out in pain. If ever I needed a 'safeword' it is now...and it would be HOMICIDE.
We show her how to use the TV remote. Cable...click. TV...click Simple. Somehow on an averge of once a day she manages to completely unprogram the remote. And that, somehow, is my fault.
As I sweat in my 85 degree house (since I can’t put the A/C on because it gets cold enough to hang meat in the basement) I have officially been accused of causing her everything from diarrhea and nausea to the nasty dry skin on her legs, hiccups and flactulence. Unlike touch sensitive Christian, she lets me touch every part of her body especially if it needs cream. Ugh
We show her how to use the TV remote. Cable...click. TV...click Simple. Somehow on an averge of once a day she manages to completely unprogram the remote. And that, somehow, is my fault.
As I sweat in my 85 degree house (since I can’t put the A/C on because it gets cold enough to hang meat in the basement) I have officially been accused of causing her everything from diarrhea and nausea to the nasty dry skin on her legs, hiccups and flactulence. Unlike touch sensitive Christian, she lets me touch every part of her body especially if it needs cream. Ugh
While I desperately try to read how Ana and Christian are dealing with the hard limits, I am dealing with my own limits and there is nothing kinky-f@*kery about it. Unlike Ana’s, my inner goddess is happily hacking up my husband into tiny hideable pieces.
We begin our nightly ritual....I sit with her to watch the 10 oclock news. As soon as the weather is over she makes her way to the bathroom. I prepare her morning pills and get the bed ready for her. Pillows for her head, pillows for her swollen feet, pillows so she doesnt roll off the bed. I could think of many ways to better use these pillows, none of which involve sleeping, swelling or rolling.
As I sit down for the night to catch up on DVR’d shows I no longer have the time or the inclination to watch live, I try to distinguish which TV I am actually listening to…mine, the one blasting in the bedroom or the one breaking the sound barrier in the basement. I give up trying and pick up Mr. Grey again. As I turn the pages I am transported to a place where a tie is used for much more than strangling the son of the mother in law in my basement.
Today we are getting the heads up if she can go back to her own house where the lighting is better, the coffee is perfect and the temperature can stay a balmy 85. I think I might miss her.
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