Elderly Mothers

November 30, 2017

Elderly Mothers and Battling Back

The reinforcements have arrived. The herbal witchdoctor is with us. I will be the first to admit that I know very little about herbs and essential oils and all the physical or metaphysical aspects of wound care. There is an entire field of herbal healing out there now. Who knew? It seems there are schools […]

Elderly Mothers
November 26, 2017

Elderly Mothers and Old Habits

It’s a certainty. Old habits don’t die, dementia or no. I lift Mom’s arm to put her bathrobe on. Her other arms comes up automatically to slip into the other sleeve. Same with underpants, or shoes. Same with food. She knows how and the habit is there, her reactions just don’t always work the way […]

Elderly Mothers
November 23, 2017

Elderly Mothers and Thanksgiving

I do have a great deal to be thankful for. Mom is 98 years old and her blood pressure is 125 over 91, heart rate 101, oxygen level 98%. More or less, gets herself up at night to use the bedside commode. Is lucid some of the time. Sleeps most of the time. Doesn’t argue […]

Elderly Mothers
October 19, 2017

Elderly Mothers and Besties

Best friends have a completely different way of talking to each other than do acquaintances. Yesterday, the trip to Brennan’s in Houston to connect Lady Y and Lady M went swimmingly. Except, of course, for the traffic jam on I-45 that held us up for almost two hours. Stop and go traffic is miserable especially […]

Elderly Mothers
October 17, 2017

Elderly Mothers and Their Friends

One of the regrets I have about my 98 year-old mother was her request several years back to go to Mexico to see a dear friend of hers, Martha Gottfried. Martha passed away before we could get Mom a passport so they could get back to share a last few moments together. Both had been […]

Elderly Mothers
October 12, 2017

Elderly Mothers and the Food Riots

Last week one of the truly beautiful ladies—sweet, kind, pretty and polite—called me over to her table in the dining room. She still has all her marbles and is only in residence because her husband has lost most of his. “Do you want to sign a petition with us?” she asked. “What on earth for?” […]

Elderly Mothers
October 11, 2017

Elderly Mothers and Quarreling Kids

“I haven’t seen your son lately,” I said to Lady J. “Ugh,” she says. “I don’t want him around.” “Oh,” I said, looking startled. I waited for the rest of the story. Of course, it came. For several weeks Lady J had suffered from a relapse of some sort and her son had taken a […]

Elderly Mothers
August 28, 2017

Elderly Mothers and Safety

I spent the day yesterday “hunkered down” as those of us in Hurricane country call it with my 98-year-old mother in the safety and comfort of @CarriageInnHuntsville. I had not thought about the safety of the elderly until now. Mom’s Residential Facility sits high on one of Huntsville’s seven hills, secure and safe from flooding. […]

Elderly Mothers
August 11, 2017

Elderly Mothers and the Battle of the Pews

We need a seating chart to designate the participants. Perhaps the seating is based on their faculties. And new arrivals need to know. I whispered the advice over and over as Mom and I approached the table “Don’t sit there! Don’t sit there! Please don’t sit there!” Lady O, a new arrival, was about to […]

Elderly Mothers