For years I have been seeing commercials for drops to combat the condition of "dry eyes." When I go to the doctor, they usually ask me (because I'm old) if I'm taking anything for dry eyes and express surprise to learn that I am not.
I can't relate to dry eyes. I tear up so often during the day, my eyes don't have time to get dry.
When we saw Sully this weekend I started with big tears rolling down my cheeks the first time they showed the passengers getting ready for impact and I literally cried for the rest of the movie just because the emotion got me so strongly.
I have often commented here that I cry at supermarket commercials...and especially Hallmark commercials.
As I teared up for the first time today, I decided to keep a record of everything that brings tears to my eyes today.
- I saw a commercial for the upcoming Michael Weatherly show, Bull, which starts next week and which I am looking forward to. But as I watched Weatherly as Bull (I think that is the name of his character), I remembered his finale with NCIS and DiNozzo realizing that he had a daughter with the now deceased Ziva. I am tearing up again just writing this.
- Next there was an interview with Angelina Kerber, who just won the US Open title. I had never heard of her and if you said her name to me, I wouldn't have a clue that she was a tennis player. But she was asked about a note or a phone call she received before her winning game and when she said it was from Steffi Graff my eyes immediately filled with tears. I don't follow tennis. I don't know about either of these women, but the fact that one would call the other just touched me enough to bring tears.
- I teared up 3 times watching back to back recordings of Cooks and Cons, the Food Network show that asks the judges to figure out who is a real cook and who is not. I cried at two of the stories of the "cons" and at one of the announcements of the winner.
- I teared up telling Walt about my mother's dreams about her mother all the time and how much she misses her and how I wished my grandmother would come and take her home and let her be out of the misery she is in these days.
- I teared up when I got an e-mail from Jeri telling me about the good conversation she'd had with her grandmother last night. It made me wonder how things changed so drastically overnight.
- Tears during two NCIS episodes, one when DiNozzo finally decides to put his feelings for Jeanne behind him, and in another episode, Gibbs thinking of his dead daughter when he listens to a message from her.
- Tears during the news and a Trump attack on Hillary. I have tears often when I think of the people who are buying his shit and who may very well elect him president.
- There was something else between the Trump attack and the Food Network kids star that brought me to tears but i can't remember now what it was.
- And of course I cried when they decided which of the kid chefs competing to be the first Kid Food Network Star was to be sent home. She was crying, I was crying and even one of the judges was crying.
But after that I settled in to finish reading "The Girl on the Train," which is by no stretch of the imagination a tear jerker, so I think I have finished my tears for the day.
But this is not an unusual day, so you can see that I have zero need for anything to help me create tears!
I went to Atria this afternoon to get laundry and my mother was "not good," she told me. It wasn't a brain thing this time, but she was in great pain radiating down both of her legs. She could hardly walk. I gave her a couple of Aleve, hoping that would help the pain, and I called Kaiser.
It was too late in the afternoon for them to give her an appointment today, but she has one for 11:30 tomorrow. Of course, if things go the way they usually do, I'll arrive at Atria and she will be just fine with no memory of the pain she is in today and then I'll have the dilemma of whether to keep the appointment, knowing that her doctor can't diagnose a no longer existent pain or cancel it and hope the pain does not return.
The other problem is that her pill container has disappeared.
Last week, I brought the pill container that has her doses for each day in the week. She still had two days left in her old container, so I left that one for her to finish and left the other one as well.
When I returned two days later, all of the pills were gone out of the new container.
But the thing is I couldn't be sure that I had brought a filled container. She has two of the same color and maybe I had mistakenly brought the empty one. (With the signs of my own early dementia, it would not have surprised me). So I didn't stress about it because when she empties a container, she leaves the lids open, and these were all closed and knowing how she hates to take pills, I couldn't imagine her having taken them all in 2 days.
So I brought back a new pill container, which I KNOW was filled, but today, when I went to check on whether she had been taking her meds, the container was gone. I looked everywhere, even in the freezer. I checked every drawer, cupboard, medicine cabinet, linen closet and her purse. It doesn't do any good to ask where she put it because she can't remember that she takes pills at all.
So I decided that the time has come to have Atria monitor her meds. I have a note in to the coordinator to find out how we go about getting that started.
In truth, it will be a relief for me and I won't worry about whether she is taking her pills or not.
By the time I had done all I had to do, and had finished checking all the drawers, my mother had gone back to bed, moving very slowly and painfully. I told her I was going to go and that I would be back tomorrow to take her to the doctor. She said she felt like she wasn't going to get out of bed. I told her that was probably a good thing, then she asked "but what if I have to get up?" I told her to get up, then.
I stopped at the front desk on my way out and explained what was going on and that we had a doctor's appointment, but asked them to check in with her throughout the rest of the afternoon.
I don't have a clue what I will find when I go tomorrow. If she is still in pain, I suspect I will have a battle on my hands because I will insist that she let me push her in a wheelchair out to the car.
Every day is a new adventure. I ache for her and it is so frustrating being able to do so little for her.
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