Five for Five

Today was the fifth out of five  days when I have had something to do with my mother, whether taking her to appointments, sitting with her because she was too upset to leave, going to meetings about her, or talking with many folks on the phone about her.

There is a perk to all of this:  I haven't seen or heard from Trump in at least three days.

I had a terrible time getting to sleep last night and it was well after 1 a.m. before I fell asleep and my alarm woke me up at 5:30 because I had to take Walt to the airport at 6;30 for his flight to Santa Barbara.  I went from the airport to Atria, where I had to wake my mother up at 8 so we could get on the road by 8:30 for her 10 a.m. EEG.  I was worried about waking her up so early but someone from Atria was there to check on her and she helped me up.

My mother when awakened two or three hours early is actually quite docile, because she's so confused.  This morning he leg hurt so badly that she said she wouldn't be able to walk.  We did get her up, however, and I called for the Atria person to brig her meds so she could have a pain pill before we left.

But, since we were going out, she wouldn't give her Norco because it might make her dizzy and instead just brought Tylenol, which I know from experience does zilch for her pain.  I was miffed about it, but realized I had to let it go, so I did.  I just listened to her pain for the whole morning and felt helpless.

An electroencephalogram (EEG) is a test that measures and records the electrical activity of your brain. Special sensors are attached to your head and hooked by wires to a computer. The computer records your brain's electrical activity on the screen or on paper as wavy lines. Certain conditions, such as seizures, can be seen by the changes in the normal pattern of the brain's electrical activity.  The reason for all this is to find out if she is having seizures, which are causing her to pass out so often.

We got to the EEG lab and they took her back to attach the 25 electrical sensors to her head.

The tech said that the substance used to attach the sensors was like shortening.  This is what you look like after they are all removed

My plan had been to stay in the room and read for the 30-40 minutes of the exam, but the idea is for her to go to sleep so they turned off the lights.  I also started coughing and coughing and the tech had told me that if I coughed I'd have to leave the room because they wanted her to sleep.  I left the room and passed by the room where they were monitoring her.

I sat and read for half an hour and she eventually came out, still not sure where she was or what she was doing.  

I took her to lunch at Denny's and she ate a lot, though could not get comfortable in the booth, or in the car on the drive home.  When we got to Atria, I walked her to her apartment so I could carry her laundry for her, but I didn't stay.  I figured she needed a nap...and I definitely did too.  I came home and slept for two hours.

Tomorrow I am doing a theater interview at 11, though I've been so preoccupied with my mother, I can't even remember what the show is about.  The interviewee is someone I've known since he was a little kid and I'm doing the interview at his parents' house so they can babysit while we talk.  I must read up on this play before I go!

But then in the afternoon I'm taking my mother to the hairdresser's at Atria to get all of that goop out of her hair.

Saturday I have absolutely nothing to do and I don't intend to go to Atria.