Monday, May 11, 2009

A sense of humor helps....

Thank you to all the well wishers. My Mom is doing physically well but is experiencing dementia brought on by the medications and trauma. I spent the entire night at the hospital in order to continually reorient her through her confusion and avoid further drugs. The evening consisted of responding to 'Why is there a monkey on your head?', 'You shouldn't be naked', 'please move the cow, I don't like it' and many more non reality based conversations.

You have to laugh while fervently hoping that a return to routines will restore normal functioning. A move to rehab with more staff and better routines is expected to be helpful and we're planning that.

I knew that having fiber on the needles would be helpful for me, but for some reason I hadn't travelled with any appropriate knitting. A quick trip to the yarn store, The Golden Fleece in Santa Cruz, yielded a lovely deep red variegated hand dyed sock yarn and a pair of addi-turbos in size 5 (note to self, ALWAYS travel with yarn and needles). A quick search of ravelry, I needed something interesting beyond straight knitting, but not a full on lace pattern.



This Feather and Fan scarf pattern did the trick.

For right now I am back in San Diego getting ready to put together kits for Bead and Button. I need to double up on getting things done since more time will be devoted to getting Mom settled somewhere comfortable for her recovery.

Today a much needed haircut and a little rest are on the schedule.

3 comments:

Becca said...

Hope you had a nice mother's day of some sort. YOur mom is very blessed to have you as a daughter. Does she know what a wonderful teacher you are? Enjoy your time at home. Becca

Jean Hutter said...

Be sure to take care of yourself too - this sounds like my experience 5 years ago. My mother was also in another city and I had to travel back and forth. I am an only child and it was very difficult - but things did turn out OK.

Beverly Ash Gilbert said...

Oh Marcia,
I feel for you and hope that her med-induced dementia fades quickly. It is such a disorienting feeling for her and so hard to watch her go through. If you are like I was with my dad, it is really trying on your patience (my dad's dementia was permanent).