Nothing Ever Stays The Same

The frequency of my posts most certainly hasn’t increased and neither has my visits to other’s blogs to keep updated on what’s been happening in everyone else’s life. It’s sad. Sad, because I come back and find that Robyn lost her mother in January during my absence. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you, Robyn. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

I was finding it more and more difficult to find time to spend on the computer, but to come back and read the news of Robyn’s mom and find that many of my friends have quit blogging has saddened me even more. Nothing ever stays the same.

I’ve felt lost lately. During the whole month of January, I had bronchitis and pneumonia again. I placed Mom in the assisted living from January 5th through the 25th so I might be able to recuperate and gain a little energy to bring her back home to continue on this journey of Alzheimer’s with her. We were snowed and iced in the whole week after I brought her home. Unable to get off this little mountain, I spent the last week of January concocting ways to keep her and myself busy. We did everything from coloring to baking and I found myself exhausted again by the first week of February.

Once the driveway was cleared, Mom and I were back on our routine schedule—I took her to day care, spent the days trying to catch up on sleep, grocery shopping, preparing everything for taxes, and all the normal running that one does to keep two households afloat.

On February 11th, on the way to day care, Mom complained of a headache, nausea, and dizziness. By the time we reached the front door of the day care, her legs became weak and she had turned ashen white. The caretakers at the day care grabbed a wheelchair for her to sit for a moment. A few minutes later we had her back in the car and I was on my way to the hospital with her. At the hospital, after routine blood tests, chest x-ray, and CAT scan, the ER doctor said she had a very slight start of a UTI, a very slight start of pneumonia, and no indication of stroke. He prescribed antibiotics and sent her home. He said she could continue going to day care because the antibiotics would knock both the UTI and pneumonia out within three or four days since they were caught very early.

Mom seemed to be doing fine other than an increase in her confusion. Monday, February 16th when I arrived at day care to pick her up, the nurse greeted me at the door. Mom was in a wheelchair and the nurse said Mom was having a difficult time walking and her confusion had increased. It took three of the caretakers to get her to the bathroom during the day and two of us to get her into the car. I called Two Feather to meet me at Mom’s house and he helped get her out of the car, into the house, and onto a chair at the kitchen table. Her legs were very weak, she was out of breath, and she was complaining of nausea and a headache. I called her doctor to explain what was going on and told him I was going to call the ambulance to have her taken to the hospital.

More of the same tests that were run six days earlier came back negative—no UTI, no pneumonia, and no sign of stroke. Yet, Mom was increasingly confused and her legs were increasingly weaker. She was sent down to physical therapy each of the four days she was hospitalized. Her doctor suggested I have her sent to a skilled nursing facility for continued physical therapy. So, on February 19th, Mom was transported to the skilled floor above where she had been in assisted living while I recuperated when I was ill.

Mom’s been there ever since—in a wheelchair. She’s receiving speech, occupational, and physical therapy every day and will through the end of March.

It’s been three weeks since Mom has been home and I find it increasingly difficult to deal with. It’s not like placing her for a respite care where I know when she’s coming home. It’s heartbreaking. I visit her every day. Some days are good visits when I wheel her down to the daily activity, play bingo, or we sit in her room and talk. Other days are excruciating when she cries and begs me to take her home. Good visit or bad, I always come back home feeling empty inside except for the overwhelming feeling that creeps in that I’ve let her down.

I don’t know what will come from her therapy, what will happen next, or whether or not she will regain her strength, but I do know that walking into her empty house doesn’t prepare me for any of it. Everything in the house is the same—except she’s not here. I walk around glancing at her things and cry constantly. Visiting her every day is not the same as having her home. I miss her terribly.


I love you, Mom.

Kawasaki Mule and a Farmall Tractor—More Memories

Two Feather uses his Kawasaki Mule to run around the property and cut up all the fallen trees for firewood. As mentioned in my previous post, he also uses it to transfer the mowers back and forth from our house to Mom’s. He also uses it to plow the snow off both driveways, to grade the driveways when they become rutted from the rain, and to drive back and forth through the woods to see me everyday. The Mule has nearly 700 hours on it from all the work he’s done with it.

Today when we went through the woods to get to the bottom of Mom’s driveway to pick up her garbage can, there was a strange loud scraping noise coming from underneath the Mule. When we got back up to our house, we cleaned off all the mud from the underbelly, cleaned around all the moving parts, and greased all the fittings. Seems once all the mud was removed the noise became louder. When he went to loosen the gear oil bolt so he could check the oil level in the gearbox, the bolt snapped.

Guess we’ll be calling the Kawasaki dealer to come pick it up for service. Not only do we need to find out what the strange scraping noise is, we now need them to get the other half of the bolt out and probably rethread the opening and put a new bolt in.

Good thing we mowed Mom’s grass when we did. Now we’re going to have to figure out how to get the mowers to her place if the yards need mowed again. We were hoping this was the last mowing, but with the way the weather has been it may need done a few more times before winter sets in.

So much for things going smoothly. Two Feather and I always say that if we didn’t have bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all. I’m getting really good at saying, “Oh well!”

Next stop…the auto parts store. Mom gave Two Feather and me Dad’s old ’51 Farmall tractor several years ago, before I started taking care of her. Dad’s old tractor had been sitting in the bottom of the barn for years and didn’t run. The gas tank still had gas in it that turned to gel and rust, and it needed new everything. Two Feather worked on that tractor determined to get it up and running again. He cleaned and scrubbed the inside of the gas tank until he got it cleaned out. He bought a new gas filter and installed that, and fiddled with the thing replacing one part after another. He wouldn’t give up.

After working on it for about a week, one day I heard him yelling from the garage. I couldn’t tell if he sounded angry or happy.

I remember the day so well. As I walked toward our garage, I heard him yelling, “Come on!” and then I heard the sound of the ignition turning. I ran up to the garage and by the time I got there, Dad’s old Farmall fired up, sputtered and spit, and then I heard the noisy old hum of the engine, and watched Two Feather back it out onto the driveway.

Tears streamed down my face hearing the sound of Dad’s old tractor running again. When I was young, I used to ride with Dad and when I got older I’d stand on the back bar and hang onto the seat. Hearing that old tractor again meant the world to me. It would have meant the world to Dad, too. I couldn’t stop crying, yet I was laughing at the same time because I was so happy. My face held a beaming smile as the tears flowed..

“That’s what it’s all about, right there,” Two Feather said.

“What?” I asked.

“That smile!”

Of course, being the sentimental fool I am, I cried harder. Then I ran in the house, grabbed the phone, and called Mom. I was so excited.

“Mom, you gotta here this.”

“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“Hold on a second. Let me get outside where you can hear this.” I ran to the driveway and asked. “Do you hear that?”

“Is that what I think it is?” She asked. “Is that Dad’s tractor?”

“Yesssssss!” I said, and started crying again. “Isn’t it wonderful!”

“Yes, it is, honey. I wish Dad were here to hear that. He’d be proud of Two Feather.”

“I wish he were too, Mom. This is great. It’s like having Dad right here, right now.”

“Tell Two I said thank you. I’m so glad he got it running and I hope he gets a lot of use out of it.”

Mom was as excited as I was and before we hung up the phone, she was in tears as well.

Two Feather got that old tractor running within only a week after we took it up to our house, and it ran for nearly a year with no problem. It didn’t have the power it used to have, but it ran.

He quit using it because it needed the head gasket replaced and about the time it spewed oil I started taking care of Mom, so we invested in the Mule to use for snow plowing, the upkeep on the driveways, and something he could drive through the woods to visit me and take care of things around the house.

Looks like he’ll be replacing that head gasket now and get the old tractor running again. We have to have something to get the work done around here. And as usual, he’s just the man to do it. He’s the only man around here.

Thank you, Creator, for sending him to me when you did. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

****

On a different note, Mom's physical therapist came today. She was showing Mom how to transfer from the car more easily. She spent a good deal of time with that and then they came in the house and worked on those darn exercises Mom hates so much.

Mom was exhausted by the time therapy was finished. Her legs do seem to be getting stronger, though. So that's a good thing. I'm so glad that she's able to get back a bit more of her strength.

The therapist said she had a few more visits left with Mom, but she'd have to call me next week to schedule them.

Mowing & Anxious to Read Into The Mist by Deborah Uetz

Today, we started working on filling in ruts on the path from my house to my Mom’s. With all the rainfall we’ve had lately, the water gushes down the path and has begun to make the ruts larger. We got a good bit done, but we had to stop working on that so we’d have time to get the mowing done at Mom’s house.

Two Feather loaded our riding mower on the wagon and put the push mower in the back of his Kawasaki Mule and we headed to Mom’s house to mow her yard. I mow the small side yard, front area by the sidewalk, and the circle around her flowerbed with the push mower while he mows the rest of the huge yard with the rider.

I trimmed the trumpet vine on the porch, edged the sidewalk, and pulled weeds while Two Feather finished mowing.

We took the mowers back to our house and rode back down to Mom’s to get the mail and paper and put the garbage out for collection. When we got back to Mom’s house, a package was sitting on the table on the porch. I was pleased that UPS had delivered the book I’d just purchased. I’ve heard so much about Deborah Uetz’s book, Into the Mist: When Someone You Love Has Alzheimer’s Disease, I just had to buy it. Can’t wait to start reading it.

This evening I called Angel to ask how Tim was doing. A few days after Mom was in the hospital, Tim went to the emergency room. He’d had a gall bladder attack. He’s scheduled for surgery on the 11th. Angel told me they were coming in this weekend again because she has a job interview. She’ll be leaving for back home on Sunday and Tim will be staying for his job interviews on Monday and Tuesday. They plan to move back to this area as soon as they acquire jobs here and sell their house in Mechanicsburg. YAY!!!

Anyway, Angel wants to visit Saturday with Mom. It will be Mom’s 84th birthday! Angel thought we could take Mom out for lunch or early dinner. Two Feather and I had thought about that too, but we figured we’d wait to see how Mom is that morning. The home health nurse and OT nurse are coming Saturday, too. They won’t be calling me until Friday night or Saturday morning to let me know when. So everything is sort of up in the air until I know when her therapy will be done. Either way, we’ll make sure Mom has a great birthday.

Perseverance

By Joanne D. Kiggins

Just when my life had settled some, and I'd published the last issue of my newspaper and told my readers I was going to work on my book, I found myself lying on the kitchen floor, numb, unable to move or speak.

I know I was crying, but I couldn’t feel the tears run down my cheeks as I watched paramedics attach medical equipment. I closed my eyes and tried to get a perspective of the scene taking place but nothing would register. Fear washed into my throat as I faded into unconsciousness.

When I woke in the emergency room, doctors told me I'd had a stroke. I looked at them through wide, glassy eyes and shook my head "no."

"You're young, so after physical and speech therapy, you'll be almost as good as new," they said. It was the "almost" that made me cringe. I couldn’t feel my limbs but I could feel the chilling, unadulterated fear that flushed through my body. What was the “almost” that I would be left without?

Those who didn't know me wouldn't notice the slight droop in the left side of my face. The slow, slurred speech and long spans of time between sentences, while I searched for words that wouldn't come, made me sound like a second grader trying to talk with a mouth full of cereal.

By the fourth day I was walking with a limp and a cane, my left arm twitched and went wherever it wanted to go, and my smile faded. I was scheduled to see physical and speech therapists three times a week for rehabilitation. After one week I knew there wasn’t anything that I was being shown I couldn’t do every day at home. I insisted on going home where I could rehabilitate myself to gain those things I desperately needed most. And what I needed most was to write.

In front of my computer, in my home office, I sat staring at the blank screen. No words would come. I glanced up and scanned the diplomas, awards, and pictures of me and Senator John Glenn, Charlie Daniels, and Kenny Rogers.

Then, I cried. Long and hard.

I began my writing career in 1981 as a stringer for two major newspapers and two weeklies in Ohio. Since then, I have crafted and published more than 2,500 articles and two nonfiction regional books. I owned, operated and published my own newspaper. I wrote, copyrighted and taught my Sell What You Write course, sponsored writing seminars, spoke at many conferences and writing groups, and won the 1990 Beaver County Times Woman of the Year Award for contributions to the community and excellence in journalism.

Eleven years ago, the reporter who wrote about my winning this award began her story with the sentence, "When there's time she sleeps." She then listed part of my daily routine in one long paragraph, asked the readers if they needed to take a breath yet, then continued, "...she returns to her personal computer where she seizes the late night and early morning hours to do what she enjoys immensely--write. She is as relentless as the pink Energizer-battery rabbit--steady, persistent and determined to succeed."

I received the award in October 1990. In December, at age 38, I had a stroke. My writing career died along with a part of me. My ability to remember what I had taken years to learn was destroyed. That award winning writer no longer existed. I was once again a beginner.

PERSEVERANCE: TO PERSIST IN SPITE OF DIFFICULTIES

Those words are posted in large, bold print and tacked to my bulletin board. When my feet hit the floor in the morning, I walked into my home office, read those words, turned on my computer, then hobbled to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee.

I grabbed my writing course notes and my tape recorder and began pacing and reading my notes out loud. None of it sounded the least bit familiar. When I played the tape back it didn’t take long to realize I never would be the same person I once was. All that I had learned to earn those diplomas and awards had vanished. Being an avid Stephen King fan, I often referred to it as the “dead zone.”

I read magazines, newspapers and books out loud into the tape recorder. All day, every day for the next month, I followed the same routine. I would turn on the tape recorder, read and listen.

By the end of January I began to sound somewhat like myself. But that wasn't good enough. I would pace, cane in hand, in front of the mirror, reciting parts of what I'd memorized and reading parts I’d forgotten. By the end of February, I had gained some coordination, some inflection, some pride.

When the envelope from Slippery Rock came with my spring semester course agreement, my hands shook when I opened it. It was my creative writing course. Every student who had taken the Sell What You Write course was on the roster along with ten new students.

Standing in front of a mirror practicing my teaching skills was one thing, but I wasn't ready to face or speak to a classroom full of people. I set the envelope aside.

It took me six trips from the car, with one hand balancing a box on one hip, and a cane in the other hand, climbing two sets of fifteen stairs each, to get all my course materials into the classroom. I wanted to bolt, but instead I smiled, walked behind the desk and said, "Welcome to my creative writing class." One former student glanced at my cane and said, "It's great to be here, what happened?" I took a deep breath, closed my eyes for a second, opened them and said, "I'm here tonight to learn along with you." Those who had taken my other course looked at me questioningly. "Before I begin, I'd like to tell you that if, after you've finished this course you're not satisfied with what you've learned, I will personally refund your money." The student who had asked what happened said, "Yeah, right, as if we wouldn't be satisfied. You're an excellent teacher and speaker. And what do you mean you're here to learn?"

I thanked him, smiled, and began to tell them what had happened since we had last met in this classroom. I told them that I had almost canceled the course because I didn't feel that I had a right to teach it, since I had just begun to learn what I would be teaching. After I told my story, I assured them that it wouldn't hurt my feelings if they chose to leave.

Not one of the students left the classroom. I paced in front of them, leaning on the cane, repeating everything I had memorized over the past three months. I used the gestures and inflections I had practiced. I tripped over the cane a few times. When they'd all jerked in their seats anticipating my fall, I smiled and said, "Just wanted to make sure you are paying attention." I was thankful that my sense of humor hadn’t slipped into the dead zone. Then, after four hours of speaking, joking and tripping, I passed out handouts, gave the assignment for the next class, and closed my briefcase.

As I began to pack my boxes to go home, I heard chairs sliding, papers jostling and a loud thundering noise. When I looked up, each and every student was standing beside his desk, clapping and smiling at me. It wasn't until that moment that I felt success. My vision blurred from tears that I wouldn’t let drop, but I didn’t need clear vision to see that the months of pacing, reciting and learning had paid off.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't end here and neither did my diversions from writing. Between 1991 and 1992 I had four TIA's (mini-strokes), and went through a divorce. Minor aches, pains, swelling and a few other physical problems that I’d ignored for years were now becoming more noticeable. I’d been tested for everything from lyme disease to lupus. In 1994 I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

For nearly two years, unemployed and at home, I tried to implement mind over matter. I ignored the pain.

After my stroke in 1990, and after the diagnosis in 1994, I continued ignoring the pain, loss of memory and side effects of the drugs, and kept convincing myself and everyone else that I was fine. I continued that daily routine I had started when I left the hospital. The more I tried, the more disillusioned and weaker I became.

My seventy-four-year-old mother drove me downtown for a hearing before a judge, who would determine if I would receive Social Security. My attorney told me just to be myself. I began to wonder what and who ‘myself’ was.

My attorney told the judge I was unable to remember and accomplish even simple chores around the house and medication prescribed limited my ability to drive. She stated that the many ailments and side effects of the drugs forced me to quit my job, but had I not quit, I would have been let go. I listened to her expose all the personal aspects of my life. I knew that I had endured much, but, for me, the humiliation I felt at that very moment was more crippling than any disease.

The judge said he had read my forty-page report but he wanted to hear me tell him my story.
I stood for a few seconds, looked straight at the judge and fell apart.

It’s said that your whole life flashes before you just before you die. Bits and pieces of my life began to flood my brain. My body tensed, my muscles jolted with pain, my legs trembled, my heart pounded against my chest and I felt as if I could die.

I reiterated what had been in my report.

With tears running down my face I said, "I've worked since I was fifteen years old. I don't know what it's like not to work, and work hard. Since I had my stroke in 1990, I've continually told myself I'll be okay. I have convinced myself all these years that I was okay. I've just quit a job that I truly loved I would have kept had I been able to supply my boss with the skills I once had. My seventy-four-year-old mother drove me here today.”

Humiliation struck once more and between sobs I gained enough control only to add, “Sir, how can I convince you that I can't work, when I've been trying to convince myself for years that I can?" Several months later I’d received a letter informing me I’d been approved for SSD.

I use my cane every day now and keep telling myself I’m okay. The pictures, awards, degrees and all the published articles still carry a lot of meaning to me, but hold no validity now. I shake my head in awe of that person’s ability to write and remind myself every day that I am a beginner.

Learning to write had never been easy. Even established writers need to be open to new ideas and learn by practicing. My experience taught me that regardless of the detours my life had taken, I need to continue to set my goals and diligently work toward them. I follow the road to the goal I’ve always had. That goal is--and always will be--to be the best writer I can be.

To be a writer you must have determination and perseverance. Perseverance is to persist in spite of difficulties. It does pay off. Just recently, ByLine Magazine published an article I wrote. It was the first in eleven years.

I love to write. Writing is all I ever wanted to do. I’m still here. I’m still okay. I'm still writing. I’m still learning. And I will persevere.

"Perseverance" appeared in the winter issue of Moondance.org and was honorable mention in ByLine Magazine's Personal Experience Contest.
E-mail Joanne: joannedkiggins@comcast.net.
Visit her site at http://home.comcast.net/~joannedkiggins.
Joanne (Kiggins) Stanko has published more than 2,500 articles. She was award recipient of the 1990 Woman of the Year for Beaver County, Pennsylvania, for her accomplishments in her community and excellence in journalism. She was on the staff of Slippery Rock University teaching her copyrighted writing course "Sell What You Write" andCreative and Freelance writing. She has appeared on television and radio, hosted several Writers' Conferences, and spoke for many conferences and writer's organizations. Her most recent articles were published in ByLine Magazine, Absolute Write.com, and Moondance.org.