TARDIS in progress

The TARDIS is not finished yet, but I've uploaded a few pics.  

I have a tiny piece of Mommy news too :-)  Today, I decided to leave the raisins out of her oatmeal to save her the trouble of picking them out - lol.  I think she appreciated it.

And, I'm with Jeanie, if we get it operational, I want to visit all the people we're learning about in our genealogy.  But, I don't think the TARDIS will take us there - although it would be heavenly.* 

*in the true, and perfect sense, of what heaven will actually be!

Out in the Sunshine!

It's such a beautiful day today, and Mommy and I are enjoying the sunshine together on the porch.  In a few minutes, Stephan will be joining us, and he is going to put together the TARDIS!  I am so excited for us all to be enjoying this beautiful day.  (And, I'm very excited to get the TARDIS up.  Stephan will be using it for his tools and parts storage for his job.  So, it will clean up the porch - where those things are now located - and it will add a certain "Laura Peters lives here feel to our front porch.")

Mommy is really enjoying her time outside.  She's so interested in all the bees and the flowers and the cars and people going by.  I ask her every once in a while if she wants to go back in the house, and she says she'd rather stay out here.

Another Wonderful Visit

Mom has been having a wonderful visit with her grandson.  It was really nice for all of us to get a chance to see him.  (This is just a quick post to get the pic up since I know that Jeanie is going to be so happy to see it :-)  )

Mom's dozing and I'm playing catch up

I'm just going to take a few minutes to write a quick update.  Mom's dozing, and I'm trying to get a little caught up on things around here.  This post is a little personal, but I want to open up a little and let you all know what's going on with me.

If you haven't heard already, I got pretty badly burned a few days ago.

I wasn't having a good day.

The burn happened just a few minutes after I choked, and both those things really made an impression on me about how unexpectedly short life might be, and about how important it is to be prepared, and mostly, about how important we all are to those who love and need us.

The choking happened when I was putting away some chicken that I'd boiled on the stove.  I'd lifted the chicken out of the water, and I'd turned the heat up to start boiling the liquid down for borth.  Then, I picked a couple pieces off the chicken to nibble on.  I was in a hurry, and I swallowed one piece too quickly.  I remember thinking as it was going into my throat, just as it was too late, that the piece was way bigger than I'd realized.  After a second, I knew that I was in trouble.  I couldn't breathe, I couldn't yell.   I couldn't even choke.  I was just standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator door hanging open and the container of chicken in my hand.  I'd put the lid on it, and I'd gotten it midway to the fridge.  I was frozen in that moment in time.

Stephan was sleeping upstairs - he'd had an early morning job - and he'd just gotten home a little while before, and David was watching a movie upstairs.  I knew that I had to get upstairs because that's where all the arms that could perform the Heimlich were located.  (Side note:  Amanda is planning to review with me how to do a self-Heimlich using a chair . . . )

It seems, as I think back on it, that it took a long time, and I remember everything in slow motion, but it must have been almost instantly that I was bounding silently up the stairs.  I couldn't make a sound.  Everything in memory of it is so silent.  It's terrifying to think about.

And then unexpectedly, halfway up the stairs, the meat was in my mouth instead of in my throat.  I could breathe again.  I was shaking all over, and I still start shaking when I think about it.  I'm shaking now, days later, as I type it up.

Life is really not a sure thing.

So, a few minutes after I'd choked, while I'm still shaky and not thinking very clearly, I decide to sip some chicken broth to try to calm down, and I ladled boiling broth into a coffee cup.  I turned and picked my devotional up off the island so I can read it while I sip, and pray, and calm down some.  Then, without any warning at all, the broth is all over the front of my shirt, and I'm burning.  I ripped my shirt off and ran to the bathroom to lean over the sink and have cold water run over the burn.  My skin blistered right before my eyes.   I can think of no words to describe the feeling this gives a person.

I think I might have already been in shock, and I just sunk.  I couldn't function.  I didn't know what to do.  I called my mom-in-law (Thank God she answered her phone), because I was paralyzed.  She told me what to do, and hung up and did it.

Things happen so fast.  You can't know what the next moment will bring.

I learned that it's important to have things around the house like burn pads and big bandages and that's it's important to review things, like the Heimlich maneuver.

I learned that I'm fragile, and I need to be more careful with myself.  I learned that maxims like:  "Chew before you swallow" and "Hot! Hot! Careful!" are words of wisdom.

But, mostly, I learned that I can count on those I love to be there for me.  David and Stephan both offered to drive to CVS to pick up burn pads for me.  My mother-in-law told me quickly what to do.  Mommy spent most of the evening trying to get out of her chair and worrying over me.  (Even after she forgot that I'd burned myself.  She just wanted to get up.  She knew that somebody needed help.)

I'm still really woozy, even today.  I keep making mistakes.  (I've burned mom's oatmeal TWICE in the last few days!)  I couldn't figure out how to make an angle cut in the right direction with Stephan's skill saw.  Then, I was shocked when he came home and turned the board over and made the cut.  He teased me . . . asking me if the hormones I'm taking (progesterone) are "female" hormones . . ."  implying that I'm making myself a little more stupidly feminine.  :-)

I'm not myself even yet.  Maybe it takes a few days to recover from a shock, but, in a way I'm more myself than I've ever been because I realized that I'm really important.  I haven't thought very positively about my own value for the last couple years as I've looked to my past with so much regret and shame.

But, in a moment of clarity when I thought I was going to die, I realized that if something happened to me, you guys would miss me.  I'm not perfect, but I am missable.  And, Mommy needs me.  I think many of us who have a tendency toward melancholy, as I do, . .  those of us like that often think as Orlando voiced in "As You Like It" just before he entered the ring with the king's wrestler.  (He is responding to the ladies who are begging him not to do this foolish thing):


"I beseech you, punish me not with your hard

thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny

so fair and excellent ladies any thing. But let

your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my

trial: wherein if I be foiled, there is but one

shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one

dead that was willing to be so: I shall do my

friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the

world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in

the world I fill up a place, which may be better

supplied when I have made it empty."


But, he was wrong. He was valuable, as are we all, faults and all.

Flower power :-)

Last night Mommy fell asleep just looking so happily at these flowers.  This morning, I could see that she was reaching for them.  So, I put her bed railing down to let her be able to reach.  Then she spent several happy hours trimming the dead leaves from the plant. She managed to find a small handful of dead leaves.  (BTW - I hadn't seen any dead leaves at all, but she found them.)  Stephan says that we should just give her more and more flowers.  But, unfortunately, when I brought in the blue flower pot of these (that I got to match the pink), she wasn't interested at all.  So, I suppose it's win some, lose some with flowers same as with anything.  I've got these flowers out in the sunshine right now, but I'm planning to bring them in again tonight and see if they will make another magic.

A few days ago she told me that she kept trying to figure out how to touch the things she could see in the TV.  Maybe these flowers sort of made that wish come true.

quick update

Yesterday evening I made the decision to stop applying the progesterone cream on Mommy for a few days.  This made me really sad, but she's been very agitated, in a different way than I've seen her since she came here, and I'm worried that the progesterone might be making her sad.  I'm a little unhappy about this because she also seems much more mentally present, and I think that I'd do just about anything to have her be more "with us" mentally, but I realize that making her sad isn't one of the things I'm willing to do.

This morning she seems back to her regular self.  She spent about forty minutes examining the flowers on her applesauce bowl, very intent and happy.  Then, when I brought her Boost and poured it into her glass, I asked if she wanted me to "take that bowl to the kitchen," and she said, "No. I want to keep it here."

So, I'm a little depressed - just a little - that the progesterone didn't give us the miraculous kind of results that Dr. Lee talked about in his lecture.  But, of course, there's not a good way to know if it was the progesterone cream or if it was something else that made her agitated.  Her leg was hurting worse than usual.   Maybe it was that.  Also, I've been sick, myself, maybe she's just empathizing with me.  Or maybe it was just something in the air, or something she could hear.  Maybe the birds outside were singing a different tune, and she picked up on that.  Who knows?  Everything is so complex, and with Mom, it seems like she changes so much herself.  A thing that was wonderful yesterday is just terrible today.  It seems almost impossible to keep good track of what works and what doesn't.

But, for now, we're going to wait a bit on the progesterone cream and see what happens if I try it again in a few weeks. For sure, in the last couple of days she seemed much more aware of her surroundings, but she also seemed much more aware of her limitations.  If that's all that the cream will do for her brain it isn't worth it.

What do you guys think?

I feel like now, this moment, is what matters with Mommy.  She doesn't have yesterday, at least not in the way that you and I have yesterday.  She might have tomorrow, but she doesn't know how to look forward to that.  But, she's got NOW.   And I want this moment to be a good moment for her as much I can facilitate that.

Brain Games

I'm trying to think of ways to play the sort of games I play on BrainHQ with Mommy.  So, here is one of my attempts.  I think, "I'll just have her pick out the letter that's different."

Very clever, yes?

Not.

So, I give her the rack, and I say, "I think one of those is different."   And, I wait.  She says, "Yep, might be."  And, then she looks for a long, long time.  We are talking minutes.  All the time I'm thinking, "This is big flop."  She can't even tell the D from the A."  Then, she says to me, "I don't think we're going to need all these A's."

So.  Success, just not the exact success I was thinking of.

  After that I changed tactic.  See pic above.  I'm feeling pretty clever about this one, but after a little while, I start to worry that maybe it's too difficult.  I get bored, and I go to the kitchen to get her some kefir, and when I come back (a few seconds later).

I said, "What does that spell, anyway," and she said, "Mother."  So, I think this might be a good game, I might try to put the tile in a different location later.  She was able to spell out mother, and mom, and dad, but she didn't recognize "Laurie".  Oh well.  I think if anybody is to blame for me having a name that is difficult for a brain in the throes of Alzheimer's to recognize, it is her or Daddy.

Hints for other brain puzzles accepted with great happiness below in comments or sent to my email or call me.  Also, did one of you send me a link to my email of brain games or exercises to do with Mom?  I can't find it.  I might have accidentally deleted it in a purge.  Please, if you did and you remember, send it again.  (Sorry, whoever, probably Jeanie)

PS - I think her hands are looking even better than above (yesterday) this afternoon.  I'm so excited about the Bentonite clay, the Magnesium, and the hot water bottle.  BTW - after I washed the clay off this morning, she wanted the hot water bottle back.  I guess it must feel really good.  :-)