That Sneaky Old Reality

It’s so easy to live in your own little world of hopes, dreams, expectations. Then, suddenly, Reality sneaks up behind, puts hands over your eyes, and says, “Guess who,” just like that game we played as kids. When you open your eyes, there’s Reality staring you in the face.

That’s the way I felt yesterday as I left the hospital with Dad and Sis after a visit with Mom. The Reality staring me in the face is that Mom – even if she survives this bout of acute lung problems and the upcoming radiation treatments for cancer – will never be the same.

In some ways it was a fun, uplifting visit. Mom was awake, alert, and funny. It was as though she had spent all day working on her stand-up comedy routine. She had a one-line comeback for everything we said, and even Dad was laughing. It started with her sitting there with the hospital telephone in her lap. When we walked in the door, she said, “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you all day!”

“Who were you trying to call, Mom? What number?”

“Well, I don’t have any of your numbers. I could hear someone talking, but they couldn’t hear me!”

We wrote down all our cell phone numbers on a pad of paper, and told her not to call in the middle of the night. We joked that we’d have the nurses remove the speaking valve from her trach tube if she didn’t behave.

Her pent-up conversation took a number of wild curves as she told us about something she’d overheard about hospital paper procurements (new paper not as good as the old paper); her worry about George Bush leading the country (what’s going to happen to us, she wondered); and her determination not to have a new Olin Mills portrait taken for her community directory (apparently confusing something I had said about my new church directory). There was an edge of paranoia and dementia in these ramblings, which may be due to long days with nothing but the TV and an occasional busy nurse for company. But Sis and I later shared our realization that Mom and Dad will have to go to assisted living – not just short term while Mom recovers – but forever. Of course, this was always a possibility that we acknowledged, and we had been researching various facilities. But deep down, I think we both thought/hoped that Mom would be able to live independently again.

Dad and I spent the weekend at Sis’s. After a fabulous dinner, I was in desperate need of a brisk walk to aid digestion and burn at least a few of the calories. Dad stayed with Sis’s partner, and Sis went walking with me. We returned to a paranoid Papa, who couldn’t be persuaded to go to bed until after midnight. He thought I was leaving. He heard noises in the house. He felt the need to hide his wallet. That was all he managed to articulate; only God knows what else was on his mind.

Was it Mom’s confusion that set him off? Was it the change in environment – staying a Sis’s house (even though he’s done that many times before)? Was it anything else we said in his presence (though we try to avoid talking about the future to spare him anxiety)? What kinds of strange imaginings will the two of them cook up when Mom and Dad are back together again?

Sue