Growing old isn't easy especially when you get sick in the process and you lose your independence because it's been deemed unsafe. It's difficult watching someone you love go through something you can't fix and make better. All one can do is show support and be a good listener. And that's what I do every time I am with Irene.
Thursday was my day to take the little lady to her doctor's appointment for a checkup. Irene was leaving for California to visit her nephew the next day and needed to see Dr. K before her month long hiatus away from "that place." Unfortunatelly, these are the moments we get to spend time together mainly because the hike up to where she lives is far and I'm lazy. So, riddled with guilt, I go out of my way to make sure our days together are filled with laughter and void of misery. There's something extraordinary about her laugh. It's one of those infectious, heartfelt laughs that fill you up with pride and the satisfaction that you were able to evoke that emotion out of her. It's a beautiful thing.
Her allergy to perfume and congestion in the heart/lung area was the reason for today's visit to Dr. K. The perfume allergy bit is common with Irene. For whatever reason she doesn't take kindly to "smells." They affect her in a way that forces her to close her eyes and clutch her chest in agony and in the same breath make weird noises like she has a hairball stuck in her throat. It's fascinating to watch. When she lived with us, we didn't wear perfume, which was brutal because we each have at least 5-8 different scents that we love to spray. On the flip side, it was probably way more brutal for Irene being allergic and all. The crazy thing is that wherever she goes, she has a problem with smelling other people's perfume, lotion, hair products, cleaning products...anything. So that literally keeps her even more isolated than normal although she's gotten better since she moved to "that place" or so we think. I don't know where the allergy stems from but it's pretty fierce. Mix in some possible depression coupled with anxiety and the early onset of dementia, and you have yourself a pretty interesting individual who happens to be a Sagittarius. And of course it doesn't help that she decided on her own to stop taking her anxiety and memory medication. Awesome!
As usual, Dr. K didn't find anything wrong but didn't want to dismiss the pressure she was experiencing on the left side of her chest area. So per the doctor's incstructions we made plans to get chest x-rays at Radiology Associates. We decided to stop at Target first to drop off her prescription and also pick up a few things for the house. Luckily it was only a refill and the wait was 15 minutes, which gave me more than enough time to pick up what I needed. We made a mad dash to Radiology Associates, which took about 30 minutes for the entire process. They would be faxing over the x-ray results to the doctor so we didn't have to wait around. By that time, the little lady was starved and could talk about nothing else except food. She suggested we have Thai for lunch so I looked up the closest restaurant and off we went.
Now, I should've known better than to go to a Thai restaurant with a finicky eater even though it was her suggestion. But once again, I learned the hard way. What started out as a pleasant experience ended up being a food battle mixed in with a few laughs. The minute we walked in to American Thai she made a comment about how cold it was and went back to the car to get her sweater. By the time she got back and sat down, I noticed that she had missed a button on her sweater, which was pretty funny to watch considering the sweater only had two buttons. I pointed this out to her and she too got a good chuckle out of it.
When it came time to order she indecisively settled on Thai fried rice with no eggs. I, on the other hand, ordered my usual panang curry and jasmine rice. She hated her food and returned the first entree after three bites only to get her second order and push it away because it looked too overwhelming. I had to ask the waitress to bring a little plate so I can ration out a smaller serving. She took a few bites, made some weird faces as if a gun were being held to her head making her eat such horrible food and then dipped her spoon into my curry, after I warned her that it was really spicy, and spread the sauce over her dish. She ended up hating it even more than the first dish she ordered because it was too spicy. Go figure! She did manage to finish her hot water.
Our day had started at 10:45am and by now it was 4pm and the day was slowly winding down. She hadn't eaten a thing and I was afraid that she wouldn't eat at all before going to sleep. I rushed back to "that place" just in time for her to join the other residents for 4:30pm dinner. I hoped to goodness that her recent increase in weight would motivate her to keep it up and not lose any more pounds. Her weight or lack thereof has been a constant struggle until recently. Not too long ago she mentioned that she didn't like the food she was being served at the senior assisted facility and made a big stink about only getting 18 beans. That's right. She counted how many beans were on her plate and didn't think 18 was enough. You can't make this kind of stuff up.
It broke my heart to leave her and it broke hers even more that I wasn't staying longer. It was hard for me to hear her say, "I wish you weren't leaving. I wish I wasn't going back. Sometimes I wish I could just disappear." Yeah, that was brutal to listen to. And maybe I could've stayed considering she was leaving the following day for a month, but by that time I was drained and needed some serious downtime. Is that bad of me? I hope not and even if it is, it's my truth.
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