Well this has been a hectic week, especially for Pearl.  She has been found to have glaucoma in her left eye which was the cause of her "blurry" vision.  She found that when she put her hand over her left eye she could see much better....that happens for me when I cover my right eye!
Anyhow, she has been to the eye doctor twice, using (or missing) eye drops 3-4 x/day but it was found that the pressure was not coming down sufficiently.  Eye docs like to see it around 12 and hers started in the 40's, went down to 24 and then to 20 but stayed there.  The recommendation was for laser (not lasik) surgery to open a drain hole in the eye and that was done on Friday, 7/26. It was a simple procedure, done in the Wheaton Eye Clinics massive offices, and she was checked and released after an hour.  On the way home she even felt good enough to eat out even though her intestines give her problems.  She had to "run" to the bathroom and I took her to show her where it was.  We were done, hands washed and dried, I opened the bathroom door to leave and she turned and headed into the handicapped stall.  I figured she had to "go" again so I left her with the walker nearby and went back to our table.  Minutes went by and she finally came out, plopping into her chair she exclaimed, "I was sooo afraid!  I couldn't find the way out of the bathroom!" I thought I'd die in there!"  I said "Didn't you see me go out the door?"  "NO!", she said "I'm so afraid of everything, I don't know what to do!"  We all chuckled and went on eating........then I started to think, maybe she thought she was leaving the bathroom when she went into the handicap stall!  I started to picture her going in circles looking for the way out..... is it mean that it makes me smile?  Understand that the bathroom in this restaurant is so small, two people at the sink makes it crowded.
Back on track.....the morning after there is a voicemail from 7:20am with a tiny miserable voice saying how horrible she feels. Her eye is so painful that it goes up her head and down her chin, she didn't sleep all night.  I hear her fumbling to hang up the phone.  When I try to call her the phone rings 10 times and then her machine says "Memory is full".  She has never erased her messages!   I try 3 more times and then finally she picks up.  "Oh I feel awful....I called the clinic to ask if I could take a Tylenol but the girl said no, because it would interfere with the laser."  I KNOW that can't be true so I tell her that I will call them,  "Oh no, they aren't open today..."  I say that's fine, they will have an answering service, which they do and the nurse calls me right back.  When I tell her what is going on she says they can see her at 10:15am......it is now 9:10am.  I say she will be there and then go to wake up Rick who can easily be out the door way before me! 
So they get to the clinic and her eye pressure is now in the 40's, something has plugged the newly formed drainage hole.  The glaucoma specialist is not there and the doc brings in 2 or 3 more docs to confer and none of them want to touch her eye.....the laser is a specialty treatment.  So now Rick and Pearl have to travel to a satellite clinic where there IS a glaucoma specialist who tried another, more powerful laser with no luck.  Now her pressure was up to 56!  They sent her to the hospital to have a surgical procedure emergently to make a larger opening and drain the fluid.  It is now 2pm, they expect it to happen at 4pm and luckily Pearl had not eaten all day as she will be put under.  She doesn't go in until 5:30 though and I get a call from Rick at 6pm saying the nurses say she will be admitted.  Good! I think!  However, the doc says she can go home as she is "so perky and active".  Sometimes it doesn't pay to pretend to be something you aren't at the moment!  Especially since we have to have her back at the clinic at 9am Sunday morning!    

Addendum to yesterdays post:

About her painful tooth....."Euuuuuuuuwwwww.....it hurts when I touch it, when I try to eat."  She seems to have managed to eat her dinner but she wants me to know how miserable she is.  "I tried putting some 'Oil of cloves' on it...."  I have heard that that works so I tell her "good idea" and ask if she has taken any Advil for the pain.  She floats off in another direction of conversation, telling me about mail she got from "Marie's daughter - but it just had this in it."  "This" is a prayer card from a funeral for Maries husband and other daughter, obviously they had died.  From the return address it looks like Marie (IJ Bucks secretary from the 1960's) is now living with a daughter in Roselle.  I am afraid she will be asking me to call her like she had me do with another friend.  I end up being in the middle of a conversation(?) between deaf Pearl and her demented friend.....repeating the same stuff over and over again!
Annnnyhow, before I try to get out the door I ask her where her Advil is, "Oh I don't like that, I use Tylenol."  Fine, I take out 2 pills and pour a glass of water.  "2 pills.....nooooo, I don't like to take pain pills."  These are Tylenol, plain Tylenol.  "Well if you don't want to take anything for your discomfort then DON'T COMPLAIN about the pain!!" 
I have to learn how to let her words go in one ear and right out the other.  She is not looking for solutions or suggestions, she just loves to complain!!

"There's singing in my head"!!

"Do you hear the music?  It's driving me NUTS!!"  That is the latest issue with Pearl.  Phantom music, in her apartment, in the hallways, out her patio.....everywhere she goes.  "It was so bad during the night that I put ear plugs in and covered my head with a pillow!" but even that did not stop the music.  "It's religious music....Glory, glory hallelujah.....over and over again! They play the same song over and over all day and even at 2 am!"  Today she called to tell me how bad her tooth hurt (I had made a dental appt. for her weeks ago when she told Rick about the tooth, but she made me cancel it because "I'd rather go to the skin doctor."  She has what is called "senile keratosis" and I have taken her to 2 dermatologists over the years. Since she doesn't like what they tell her she thinks she can continue to "doctor-shop" until she gets the answer she wants!  But I digress......)  As I was talking to her and figuring out when I could get her an appt. at the dentist, she starts complaing about the music again.  "Is it on now?" I asked.  "Yes, and it's all over the place. I can't stand it, it's driving me crazy, I must have lost 4 pounds because I am so upset!"  She claimed that she had gone down her hallway to try and find the culprit.  Fine, I decided to pop over there and clear this mystery up.  Every time I have been to that condo it is very quiet, rarely is there any noise. It is a blessing.
So I get there and I walk the halls of floor #1, #2, and #3.....not a sound, no music, no voices, nothing.  On her floor,  #3, I run into a neighbor of hers just 1 door down and across the hall. A little elderly lady taking her trash out (or was that a body in that big bag???) and I ask her if she has heard any music on that floor.  Her eyes get big and she says "No....are you her friend?"  "No, I'm her daughter-in-law."  "Well she had me come in and listen but I didn't hear anything!!"  I tell her that I know and I have checked it out.  Another neighbor shows up and I ask the same question....negative answer and he sighs "What a shame."  I know what he is thinking.....she has lost her marbles!
  So I let myself in to her place, the only noise a VERY LOUD television show and I go to her patio to check out the area in the back.  Totally silent except for the birds and some people walking to their car.  Now I go in to see her.."HELLO....."  as she turns to me I ask, "Are you hearing the music now?"  "Yes, yes, do YOU hear it?" She grabs the remote and tries to mute the TV, "No, I just hear the TV."  She gets up and goes to the window, "Don't you hear that? La-la-la-la-la......la-la?"  She trills a tune only she can hear.....I try to tell her that it is like tinnitus, a condition that both Rick and I have.  "It's something in your ears, which is why no one else can hear it. You have to learn to live with it and try to ignore it."  Of course, "I can't! It's horrible!"  So I tell her that she needs to start thinking of a song that SHE likes and wouldn't mind hearing over and over again.  No luck.  She can never understand that there are many conditions that cannot be cured, her statement always is  "There must be something!"  She can't be happy that she has lived to 92 with hardly any medical issues except those related to old age.  She can't adapt to changes in her body and so makes her life a continual complaint that only makes us want to stay away all the more.  Just wait until I give her the information on "Musical Ear Syndrome" which has been around for 100's of years or longer!  She, who has always insisted on complete quiet and darkness when she goes to sleep, will find out that she should count her lucky stars that she isn't hearing the "Mormon Tabernacle Choir"!

When poop is your favorite subject.............

I'm not sure at what age the fascination with poop ends (as a baby) and when it starts again (octogenarian?). Most people have the decency to keep their poop habits and descriptions to themselves but not MY old lady! Endless stories of the frequency, color, size, and pains associated with her bowel movements......made even worse when she is in the hospital! My husband (her son) didn't even change his own babies dirty diapers.....he certainly is not a fan of hearing his mother blather on and on about it! First she will complain about being constipated and do all that she can, short of a stick of dynamite, to make sure she has her daily poop. Then we are treated to the story, "First it was loose, then 2 solid pieces this size came out and then loose again. I was really full!!" It doesn't matter that she hasn't been eating well or active enough, a daily BM is mandated!
Today we were trying to get her discharged from the hospital and that was THE topic of conversation. When it was determined that we needed to get her portable oxygen tank, I grabbed the keys and was out the door before hubby could even think about it! Once we got her home and he needed to pick up her prescriptions I could almost picture the two of us fighting to make that trip, jamming ourselves into the doorway, squeezing to be the first one out....... I lost.... and got to witness the first homecoming BM with full color play-by-play.
I promise my kids I'll be better!!

Starting over!

Okay, I am inspired to start "blogging" again as things are changing with Pearl. Since I have last written, we got her to stay pretty independant and then the dominoes began to fall....literally! So she has fallen twice, been in a hospital, nursing home rehab, and now back home. I will begin with the first fall, which was in December. This woman, who WAS 5 ft 2 in in her prime, is now 4ft 6! We have told her to use the "grabber" to reach things or have her son reach them when he visits. But noooooooooo! She tried to get up on a stepstool that was only 6-8 inches high, lost her balance and fell back onto a dresser that she has in the hall. Her pain was real and earned! The fear was that her osteoporetic bones were fractured so she had to go to be checked out. She had a call in to the "girl" she'd been paying to drive her all over hell and back for 2 years, but her son was on his way over to take her to Immediate Care for xrays. Amazingly, she checked out fine but she ended up with some epic bruising.....only a BIG deal to her! Can't say how many times I heard the complete description-sizes and colors, which changed. Up until now she has been doing her own cleaning, cooking, laundry, everything. She had "Mary" to drive her wherever she wanted to go, even though shopping was a painful, time-consuming, useless waste of effort. IF she even found something to buy, she wanted it returned the next day. No clothing fit her parameters.....they had to hide the horrendous hump on her back, "pooched"-out tummy of scrunched organs, and decrease in height. There is no such store on the face of the earth!! But her new "friend" Mary (who describes her as "so sweet!"-barf) brings her plates of food on Christmas Day.....horrible family that we are, we came the day after Xmas! But she is so anti-social that she will not come with us to any holiday celebration with MY family. And I will not give up any more of my time to that miserable woman. So she is recuperating from that fall.....and I am at work.....when I get a call that Mary is at the apartment building and can't get Pearl to open the door. I try calling the son, who can't be reached, but by now they are at her front door and can hear her voice saying "I'm down here!". They want to call 911 but all I can think is that they will smash down a metal door to get in when I have a key!! DO NOT call 911!! I tell them. I am able to rush out and drive very fast to her place. There are 3 police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck outside.....and inside some very annoyed firemen and paramedics lining the hallway!! I open the front door and there she is lying prone in the hallway...her head towards the TV room, her feet towards the front door. She grabs hold of my hand and won't let go even as the paramedics gruffly tell me to MOVE! So I manuever around to the top of her head and try to calm her, they put a cervical collar on her and start questioning her but she is in "loony-land". As they try to get her on the backboard, I'm explaining her back pain due to the hump and could they please put cushioning under her. So they take her out and deliver her to the local hospital, which is where I had been. Now we spend 8 hours in the ER as they check her out (tortoise-style) and finally admit her to a floor. But during the time we are in the ER, Pearl is having the most entertaining hallucinations! Bubbles, and clouds, and bugs. She talks about the "people who were in the apartment and wouldn't help" her, even though she asked them nicely. "They" woul;dn't even answer the phone that was ringing (Mary trying to reach her)! She kept reaching out her hand to "grab" unseen things and then got mad at us when we couldn't see them. We were thrilled when she went upstairs! ........to be continued.................

An Outing With Pearl.....

I have managed to reduce the number of times I have to haul Pearl around-(thank goodness for Peapod!!)- but she does have to go to the bank every so often. We made that trip after I'd worked half a day and from the outset she entertained me with her complaints. As she got into the car..."Oh I don't feel good! My heart, my eyes, my legs...."(She IS 89!!) I asked about the easiest one-"Your eyes? Are you getting those bumps back?" "Oh yes! I have to wash them out 3-4 times a day!" But I know that she won't want to go back to the eye surgeon after an experience that she can complain about forever! I then changed the subject , knowing that there are no answers that will make her happy...as she has said before "Excuses, excuses, thats all you give me!" when I try to explain the medical reasons for her discomfort. Do understand that all major complaints have been checked out by specialists and the overall result is THAT IT IS OLD AGE WEARING OUT HER BODY PARTS!
ANYHOW....I hit it off with the banker we talked to and we chatted about our dogs, teenagers, vacations while we waited for the funds to be transferred from one of her accounts to another. He asked if Pearl and I were friends, or....and I told him she was my m-i-l, his comment was "You get along so well!" I laughed my @$$ off!!! When he left the room Pearl commented "He sure does like to talk a lot!", mainly because she was unable to hear some and she is NOT a dog person. She doesn't like not being fawned over! As we left the bank he said to her "You sure are lucky to have her (me)!" Well, I think she had a mini-stroke with that!!
After a quick stop at Dominicks, I was leaving her apartment but she wasn't done with me. "Look at my legs-they are all swollen and bruised!" I looked- she has varicose veins and spider veins! And I told her so and she didn't like that. She is going to call LifeLine Screenings (they keep sending her brochures and she keeps signing up for the same tests!) and ask them about it! I started to inhale to explain "screenings" and then I thought-Let her call them, they deserve it for trying to suck even more money out of her!
She also asked if I remembered when we had gone out for her son's birthday dinner? I had gathered her food as it was a buffet and she didn't want to get up. Sonny came back with a plate piled high with lox and shrimp and "I could have cried! It looked so good!" I said WHY wouldn't you ask us to get you some, you know I don't like fish and I never thought about it! "Well, I didn't want to bother anyone...." I said "Too bad, 'grandson' would have been more than happy to get you some, he's a very nice guy.." She is a pip!!!!

Last time Pearl was here.......

After we moved the M-I-L from out west to a condo near us, my husband requested that we have her over for Fathers Day. An innocent and easy request for him, a nightmare for me! She is the type of housekeeper who spends her life cleaning and rearranging and tossing things out. I am the type known as a pack-rat....very close to hoarder. As I have said, I am VERY different from the M-I-L! His request caused me to go ballistic trying to clean and cook to "pass muster" in her eyes. Anyhow, the day came and both our kids were present, clean and friendly. Daughter's dog-child was also present as leader of the pack, while my dog was tethered to the deck. We are all on the deck, talking, grilling, enjoying a lovely June day when my dog's leash got tangled around the legs of the other dog. That one promptly began sounding and acting ferocious and as they stumbled up the deck stairs my husband put out his foot to push daughters dog away. Daughter reacts with an angry "Don't kick my dog!" and takes her "child" inside. The party goes on and none of US think anything about it. Flash forward a few months and as I am driving Miss Pearl somewhere she makes a comment about the day. Her view of the situation was that she "had never seen such an ugly face on anyone" as she did on my (beautiful)daughters face when she "screamed at her father"! "I would have SLAPPED her for what she said to her Dad!!" I was shocked, appalled, and speechless.....sputtering something about how wrong she was....my husband and daughter have a wonderful relationship and he thought nothing of the scenario. He knows that she loves him...and that she loves her pet! You would think that my children and I are the bane of HER son's life. She takes any interaction with us and twists it to total negatives with her over-active imagination and internal storytelling. You would never recognize anything that you witnessed after she runs it through her fantasyworld! I'm just really sorry that I care what other people think about me....god only knows what picture Pearl is painting! The upshot of this experience has been that in 5 years (or more) I have never had her back to my house.....and I never will.