Whoopsie Daisy
A few months ago I received a text from my dad, “you need to help me to find Daisy”. In the exact moment it arrived, in the middle of my morning I had a brief panic that Dad also might have been losing more of his faculties. We didn’t know a Daisy. How could he have lost her? All I could think of was Dukes of Hazzard. I continued to meander around the morning patients and then realized he wanted another cat. During Covid, with my gentle insistence they had adopted a kitten and named her Whoopsie Longmire. Funny word + favorite Covid binge show= perfect name. If Whoopsie was ever to have a sister her name would have to be Daisy.
And so it happened, a friend who rescues animals like no one I have ever seen in my life matched them with a local soul who had a 5 month old kitten. And Daisy moved in with my parents. She was soft and snuggly and most of all, loves my mom. 3 weeks later it all began. Whoopsie Daisy has been happening a lot this month.
The last day that I wrote about Mom on this blog, I was hopeful that she would be discharged home quickly, my brother was flying in from California and I was exhausted. I wanted to get the update onto my blog before I left work; I simply didn’t have the bandwidth for questions. It was an easier way to keep people who asked in the loop.
Mom went home that Monday and Jay was there. His comment to me that when he helped her to walk into the house she told him that I was in Florida and would be back soon. As he left 2 weeks later he mentioned that she asked him which house she was in. My comment of course would have been, “is there a country estate you have been hiding from us?”. Humor can be used to allow both people in the conversation to have the space to let the statement happen without correction which provides safety for the vulnerable and grieving space for the recipient. But it is much harder to wrap your emotions around mom’s brain changes when you haven’t seen them as often. Jay was an amazing support and sifted through a ton of emotional weight in a short period of time.
Mom went home to her bed with an ileostomy that was half an inch from an open, packed incision in the setting of Alzheimer’s. The orders for home care were to keep a vacuum dressing over the wound, connected to a suction (thus Vac) pump. A wound care RN changes the Vac three times a week and because it is so close to the stoma (park of her small intestine that comes out of her abdomen) and there is a bag that dad empties and measures multiple times daily. Encouraging her to drink, adding fiber, protein, meds, coordinating the OT, PT and nursing visits is a lot; the dining room table has collected what seems like a warehouse of supplies that no one person likely knows what to do with all of the pieces. So no one throws a thing out.
By the first Friday dad had sent me a photo of a positive Covid test, Jay and mom followed. Dad had a sign on the front door for the lovelies that were dropping food stating John had Covid, then added Jay and finally crossed it out, “everyone has Covid”. I wish I had gotten a photo. Dad responded well to Paxlovid, Jay just got some meth quality real pseudoephedrine and mom was mostly asymptomatic. Though she has had some more “sundowning” and spent one night asking Dad to take her home. Covid? Dehydration? Where we are? Hard to know.
My dad is almost 80 and the metaphor we used in Covid is the best way to describe what is going on in his life. He is in a plane that is in the air and being built at the same time. His learning curve is ridiculously steep but he is doing his best. Mom is much better in her house. But you don’t have to peel deeply to see that she has changed significantly. She cannot mask as she had; I would say that she has lost layers of masking more than had neurological setbacks. With her vulnerability— it is easy to see them. She has Alzheimer’s- or advancing dementia/unspecified. Naming it isn’t really as key as seeing it and meeting her where she is.
Most days there is some unplanned emergency that involves stool….. Leaking stool, dressings getting soiled, stoma components coming off, mom possibly and unknowingly fidgeting with pieces. Staffing isn’t easy anywhere which makes emergency support for a Sunday pooptastrophe more difficult. But we are getting through it. Covid has run through their house and all are fine. And I still didn’t get it. Which is also ridiculous. And no I haven’t had it, yes I really don’t think that I have had it and the only blood work that we know of to date to look for previous infection was negative. But maybe in two years that will be a different blog post.
Lolly is in Poland— waiting for the call. We discuss it somewhat endlessly. It is very hard for me to not have her here. It is hard for her to not be here. She can and will come, but success for mom will be getting to that second surgery which reattaches her bowels and this will require a few days in the hospital. Neither Dad nor I will likely have the energy for nights by then. With every small disaster Lolly tells me that she sees it as another sign that she should fly over, I am terrified of what happens to me when she leaves and I still have months of possible setbacks to navigate with Dad. Knowing that she can come is my lifeline, my security blanket and slightly my sanity.
What I love most with all of this are the laughs, once Dad calms and the stool is where it is supposed to be (contained and out of the wound) there is lots of room for dark humor. I just keep thinking that Whoopsie Daisy is happening all of the time in their house. It has been one long Whoopsie Daisy. I can hear Julia Roberts teasing Hugh Grant about the phrase in “Notting Hill”. No one says Whoopsie Daisy any more.
Unless you have two adorable rescue kittens who help you to snuggle and laugh through what is a physical and metaphorical shit show.
