I hadn't anticipated spending the afternoon
comatose, it's just what happened.
I hadn't been to Atria in about 4 days, so it
was time to go pick up laundry. I got to the apartment at 11:15 and my
heart sank. Was today the day?
My first clue, whenever I go to see her, that
she has survived another night is seeing that her newspaper has been picked
up out of the delivery box. But it was still in the box.
Nervous, I knocked on the door and there was no answer. I got out my
key and let myself in. I could see the bed unmade. I peeked into
the bedroom and she was lying there, eyes opened. I couldn't tell if
she was breathing or not. "Are you awake?" I asked, and she said that
yes, she had just awakened.
Whew. She was alive.
But she was quite disoriented. Said the
last time she remembered seeing on her clock was 3 a.m. (and had been up and
down all night before that) and so slept until after 11, which is actually 8
hours, so a good night of sleep, if slightly off what she expected.
We visited until she began to wake up.
She told me somethig she had never told me before, that she was always
embarrassed that there were so many children in her family because their
family (of 10) was so much bigger than anyone else's in town. Of
course by the time she was born, the oldest 3 or four were already
grown and gone (and my mother had a nephew 6 months older than she was!), so
there were really only 6 or 7 at home.
After she was finally fully awake, she got
her hair brushed and we went off to lunch.
I picked a great day to go to lunch.
Since it was Memorial Day, they had a buffet, but not the buffet they have
on Sundays. This was actually better -- fewer choices, but better
quality. I had 3 slices of a tri tip roast which was rare, just the
way I like it, a bit of potato salad, and half an ear of corn on the cob.
My mother wanted fruit salad and vegetable
soup, but there was no vegetable soup, so she decided to have chicken.
I went and got it for her, since her back was bothering her, and there was
no fruit salad either, but I did get her a couple of slices of watermelon.
The corn on the cob was really good. I
am always leery about that particular food item from a food warmer, but this
was fresh, warm, crisp and sweet. My mother had decided not to have
any but when I raved about how good it was, she decided she wanted some.
I remembered this was the woman who, in her teens, once ate 12 ears of corn
for dinner! When she took her first bite, she closed her eyes in
bliss.
After lunch, I picked up her laundry and was
pleased to see there were clothes in it this time, and no sheets, and
then headed on home.
When I got here, I was feeling kind of light
headed and just weird and shaky. I decided to take my blood
sugar, which was 50, the lowest it's ever been, so I had a couple of
apricots and it started climbing back up again. I took a short nap, and
felt more normal when I woke up. But soon, I had to go
to the bathroom, which is where, alternating with sitting in the recliner, I
spent most of the rest of the afternoon. It got to where I brought
fresh clothes to the bathroom so they would be there if I needed a change --
and I did. Twice.
I finally remembered we had Imodium in the
house and took one of those magical pills. Things stopped almost
immediately (of course by then I was completely empty anyway!). I
wrote a haiku about it for Facebook.
Bad afternoon, then
Along came Imodium
All is well again
(I think)
I told Walt he would have to fix his own
dinner and I just continued to lounge about in the recliner, alternately
watching one of the Outlander episodes from the week end marathon
that I had recorded or a cooking program when I needed a break.
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