The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day 2

On the first day of Gheorghemas

Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Stories from two three strokes

And much needed hip mo-bili-ty

I planned to tell a few stories stemming from my experiences dealing with my aging mother and her recent second stroke, but she had an even more recent third stroke today so I spend a lot of time in the ER.  My apologies for delaying Gheorghemas but I had my hands full.

I've been fortunate to have some pretty hip hip ladies in my life.  Unfortunately, they didn't take great care of their cardiovascular health.  Much like the woman from one of those songs, they never smoked or drank but they also never exercised and rarely ate anything that didn't come from a can.  As a result they all had strokes.

That's me in the white onesie.

Two of them lived well into their nineties so it's not like they didn't recover, but they were not cognitively the same afterwards.  It's sad and hard to deal with, especially when they're also suddenly crabby when they used to be fun.  My mom had a stroke in 2018 and another one in August this year.  Interacting with her is like reading the back half of Flowers for Algernon only grumpier.  So listen to OBX Dave and take care of yourself.

I had zmom evaluated by two different specialists after her second stroke, and they both said she could return home so long as she has an aide for most of the day.  She was miserable in her assisted living respite stay, so I got her an aide and home she went.  She became highly resistant to having an aide though, and went so far as to call the agency and cancel 2-3 days a week.  Of course, they called me and I uncanceled the aide, and then I told zmom the aide was coming despite her efforts.  zmom is also very forgetful now, and she forgot about this so she was out buying wrapping paper at Walgreen's when the aide arrived and no one answered the door or the phone so the agency called me.  This was the second time this happened in a five day span, and I was pretty sure zmom was ok but I also feared she was injured or dead, so I bombed over to her apartment just as she rolled up with the wrapping paper.  I lost it and she's still pissed that I yelled at her, so much so that she brought it up to the ER doctor this evening.  I noted that it was very fortunate that she had an aide today so she wound up at the ER instead of the funeral parlor.  zmom does not like I-told-you-sos, and she replied "Well the aide was practically useless!  I had to tell her to call for help!"  Of course, when she started feeling weird she went into her room and lied down without saying anything so the aide thought she went for a nap, she can't read minds.  Anyway, I was in the process of moving her to assisted living and this just moves her move-in date up a week or so.

A perhaps more relatable story involves the woman who runs the agency who provides the aides.  zmom and I had the following exchange about her:

zmom: I called the woman who sends the aides.  Broke.  What type of name is that?

zman: What?

zmom: Broke.  The woman who sends the aides.

zman: You mean Brooke?

zmom: No, her name is Broke.  I wrote it down. [Holds up a piece of paper with a phone number and "BROKE" scrawled on it.]

zman: Mom, the woman's name is Brooke.

zmom: I'm telling you it's BROKE!  I WROTE IT DOWN!!  [Waves piece of paper at me.] 

zman: Did you ever consider that maybe you wrote it down wrong?

zmom: Huh.

I love you Mom.  I'm going to get you squared away for Gheorghemas.