Detours

On January 31, 2007, my father passed away after a long fight with Alzheimer's. My mother was doggedly determined to keep him at home as long as possible and did so until the day before Dad died in a hospice care facility. While we had a person who came several times a day to help Mom with grooming Dad and some other issues, Mom bore the brunt of duty, and it took a noticeable toll on her. She had some major adjustment issues after his passing, as it was the first time in her entire seventy four years she had lived alone. But she persevered.
It was maybe a year later that we all began to notice changes in Mom's behavior, mainly that she was becoming less able to mantain a conversation. But in all other things it appeared that she was functioning fine alone. But the downhill slide in her ability to interact with everyone continued.
Then in June of this year, while we were in the New England area, my sister Cynthia called. She is a teacher in north Georgia and not able to get down to see Mom on a frequent basis. My niece Kimberly and her husband Tim live near Mom and she had called her mom (Cynthia) to tell her that they had taken Mom to the ER because she had been trying to cut the grass with the riding lawnmower (something she wasn't supposed to be doing any more)and had rolled it. She wasn't hurt other than bruises, but it came out that also that same week she had a fall in the yard and had a minor car accident and hadn't told any of us.
Cynthia was out of school and was able to go to stay with Mom immediately. Mom was scheduled for an appointment with a neurologist already but not for a couple of months, so we made some calls and got it bumped up to that week. Cynthia took her to the appointment, the doctor diagnosed mild Parkinson's Disease and dementia, put her on Aricept immediately and scheduled a MRI for the following Monday. We drove home that Friday evening/all day Saturday from Buffalo NY and relieved Cynthia so she could go home and take care of some issues. Donna and I took Mom to the MRI appointment on Monday, Donna went to spend Monday night at our house to straighten things up there and I got up Tuesday morning with Mom. I got her breakfast and gave her her meds and sat down in the recliner next to her and asked her a question. What came out of her mouth was a garbled collection of disconnected words that made no sense.
Now I had worked for four years as a therapist at a rehab facility and three years in the assisted living business and knew full well the symptoms of Cerebral Vascular Accident, or stroke. But the only symptom she was presenting was aphasic speech. There were no swallow issues that I could detect, no paralysis of the arms or legs. But I knew of course that SOMETHING was wrong so I told her I would take her to the ER. I started calling Donna to tell her what was going on, and Mom got herself up and got fully dressed on her own, which furthered my belief that she wasn't having a stroke. And the ER doctor, after performing his assessment, said he didn't think so either, but they would do a CT scan anyway. Long story short, Mom HAD had a stroke, and according to the doctor, it was still "evolving."
It's a scary thing as a "child" to be unexpectedly holding your mother's hand in the ER wondering if this is about to be it. With Dad, the entire family was at his bedside when he passed away, and his passing was inevitable, indeed even a blessing. But this was different. Here I was, alone except for Donna, who was in and out taking care of phone calls and all other manner of details. I was remembering what was in Mom's Living Will, and considering the possibility that I might have to make "the" decision in the event of a furthering of the stroke and a crash. But what I remember most about that was looking into my mother's eyes, and seeing the fear in them and knowing that the fact that she couldn't communicate was making it all the more fearful for her. But I know that I was thankful that I was there and able to hold onto her hand and comfort her as she had done for me all through my accident-prone childhood.
The stay at the hospital lasted from Tuesday a.m. and ended Friday afternoon. (The stay itself is a blog in and of its own!) Cynthia and I began to make arrangements as we knew Mom would be unable to live alone anymore and she wanted to stay at her house, if at all possible. Which I really wanted to do after all she sacrificed to keep Dad at home. We located a local woman who did 24 hour in-home care and who knew Mom already. She had been the caregiver for two of Mom's closest friends at church and came highly recommended. She agreed to stay and it looked like Donna and I would be back out on the road in a week or two, tops. Then the woman called and said she had a family crisis she had to attend to and would be unable to work for us. So, not knowing anyone else that was doing 24 hour care, we contacted an agency. But, not surprisingly, the rate was double what we were going to pay the other lady. And Donna and I came to the realization that we could stay with her, she would pay our bills and it would be less expensive than the agency. Plus, the freight business had gotten so bad that all we were doing was little more than just paying our bills anyway. It was a win-win scenario. So we decided to stay with Mom and our trucking career had run into a detour.

Cliches become cliches because there is a nugget of truth in them. The cliche I am thinking of now is "Life turns on a dime." Because it does. Any slight variations in time, space and circumstance, and life careens off in another direction that was not expected. Sci-fi movies and books often use the time-travel plot device, so much so that when you are in a group and say something about the "time-space continuum" people actually know what you are talking about. In the stories, one has to be careful when traveling into the past not to change or alter anything or the future you return to could be completely different. Indeed, in "Back to the Future" our hero Marty would have no future in which to return. This is also sometimes referred to as the "Butterfly Effect."
Of course, the same applies to the present. Slightest variations in any and all details of our daily lives send shock waves through the future and alter our lives in ways that often we are not even aware. This occurs even at the celular level of our bodies. A jarring blow to the body dislodges a few small cells of plaque in our blood vessels which travel to our brains, causing a clot which can bring about life-changing complication, yes, even the end of life itself. Or in my last post, if the doe had entered the roadway a second or two later than she did, how could that have changed everything? And God only knows how many of these events occur and we have no idea we just dodged or encountered a life event by a second, even a milli-second, that could have, or even did, alter our life path without us even realizing.

So, it appears Donna and I have returned to the main road after our "detour." After nearly five months at home, we are back on course. A lady who had been staying with Mom for a few hours at a time when Donna and I needed a break decided she could stay 24/7 with her. And I am pondering what it all has meant, and will continue to mean, as I know this has sent shock waves through our future. I know that I am thankful for the time we had with her. I will remember the few comments she was able to make and the times I was able to make her laugh. When the Falcons played the Bears on Monday Night Football this year, she and I watched it together. Towards the end of the game it got really tight and I would jump up out of my chair yelling at the TV and Mom was laughing at me. Finally the Falcons pulled it out at the end and I flopped back in my chair and told her I thought I would be the one needing a sleeping pill tonight (she had some insomnia issues and wanted a sleep aid every night) and she laughed heartily. I will remember forever our daily walks around the neighborhood. I would always say something before we left to go walking about making sure I had my cell phone with me, and one day during the walk she asked if I had my phone. I said, "Yeah, you need me to call a cab?" She smiled and chuckled a little and kept going.

So we are back, awaiting the next new course, or detour, and life keeps going.