Pneumonia Falls

Pneumonia Falls — it’s the dystopian anti-vacation destination my mom has been visiting for the past several days. First she spiked a fever, then she got weak and dizzy, then she fell. Nothing broken, so I guess that means her osteoporosis medicine is working.

After a series of tests, it was determined she had a mild case of pneumonia. Antibiotics have taken down the fever and cleared up congestion. But neither her strength nor balance has returned. She’s fallen two more times and is now under injunction not to walk anywhere without the accompaniment of an aide.

Yesterday she told me she has to stop and rest on her way to the dining room and asked me to bring her wheelchair the next time I come. This feels like a big step down to me, as she’s been adamantly anti-wheelchair up until now. But she’s looked a lot closer to the edge of death than this in the past and then bounced back.

I guess we’ll go on the way life has to go on anyway. One day and then another day and then another until eventually there isn’t one more.

Oklahoma City 20 Years Later

I don’t usually reblog myself, but this is one I feel like sharing on both of my sites.

Nomadic Noesis

Where were you when…? 100_0699

On the morning of April 19, 1995, I was at work at an office job when I overheard colleagues talking about a bombing somewhere. I was slightly more than 8 months pregnant with my first child. 450 miles away, my sister-in-law was at home, taking a personal day off from her job in the Murrah Federal Building.

Neither my husband nor I knew she hadn’t gone in that day. We had no cell phones. Phone lines were jammed; we couldn’t reach anyone in Oklahoma. There was email, but it was accessed through dial-up connections – same problem.

As everyone in my building listened to their different news sources and conferred back about the latest, the pit of despair began to seem bottomless. A daycare in the building? I put my hand on my belly, feeling my baby kick, willing the report to be wrong.

At OKC Memorial

At OKC Memorial OKC Memorial. Each…

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Entrance Ramp to a New Decade

90 is the degree of every angle in a rectangle. The Kansas City Royals came within 90 feet of tying the score in the bottom of the ninth inning in the last game of the World Series. A score of 90 gets you an A in many academic classes. 90 is a highway in the southern part of the United States. Most importantly, my mother is 90 years old today.

When we moved her to town three years ago, I didn’t expect we’d get to celebrate her 90th. She seemed too frail. She’s still here, though, and even using a walker instead of a wheelchair. She’s one of those tiny old ladies, struggling to maintain a weight that’s at least as high as her age. But she’s always been tough at the core, and she comes from sturdy stock. She has an older brother who is still living in his own home. Her own mother lived to be 94, and two of her aunts also survived more than nine decades.

Mom made it through a childhood marked by hunger and hard labor during the Great Depression, maintained the fortitude to raise six children, despite the immense grief of losing two, worked long hours at whatever she needed to do to keep us fed, clothed, housed and healthy. She’s picked cotton, worked as a welder, run a dairy farm, managed a cafe, assembled suitcases in a luggage factory, had a home daycare, and always kept her house clean (something I can’t manage.) She’s made the “final move of my life” four different times over the past 15 years and has adapted every time.

We’d planned a big party for her, slated for yesterday, but the weather had other ideas, laying a coat of ice on everything. A handful of us still made it to the nursing home yesterday for cake. Through the miracles of Internet and Skype, even more loved ones were included. We’ll try again for a big gathering with extended family, maybe after spring is officially here. Meanwhile, every day I still have my mother feels like a bonus. I’ll try to remember to celebrate every one of them.

Liebster Blogger Award

Thanks, Coach Kathy, for nominating Gen BLT for the Liebster Blogger Award. I’m happy to know my words mean something to somebody. It’s especially nice coming from someone offers so many insights, both profound and practical, into the business of daily life. I appreciate her sharing of the lessons she’s learned on the nature of giving, saving, personal growth and more.

The Liebster Blogger Award

~A Writer to Watch~

The Liebster Blogger Award rules are:
1. Thank the one who nominated you by linking back.
2. Nominate five blogs with less than 200 followers. (I’ll do my best, but I don’t know the number of followers on all of these blogs.)
3. Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
4. Add the award image to your site.

I assume there’s no obligation to accept the nomination and come up with five of your own, but I’ve decided to.

Numbers 1 and 4 are done. On to the nominations:

1. readncook. Amy is a teacher who has excellent taste in books and keeps up with her blog much better than I keep up with mine. All teachers should care about their students as much as she cares about hers. She also writes about a variety of eclectic interests, including food and Harry Truman. This blog is always interesting.

2. Early Onset Alzheimer’s L.S. Fisher knows what she’s talking about. She lost her husband to early-onset dementia. She’s one of those inspiring people who are able to use tragedy to spur them on to activism. A blog full of information and love.

3. Caring for Our Parents Another sandwich generation blog I just discovered. The full gamut of feelings can be found here – humor, frustration, love, acceptance, worry – you know, life.

4. Andrea’s Buzzing About – I started following this blog because of Andrea’s posts about auditory processing disorder, something she lives with. You may remember my son does, too. I’ve found her posts on the topic enlightening; her words help me understand a little more what my son’s life is like. But she writes about many other topics as well, including the insect world, which I find fascinating.

5. Mindful Poetry – The title explains the blog. Susan puts a lot of energy into her poetry, and a lot of thought. I particularly enjoy her work with formal poetry.

On Becoming a Sandwich Filling

My mother is 87 years old, a fact that perpetually surprises her. “I never imagined I was so old. Maybe 82,” she told me today, after once again inquiring about her current age. For the past couple of years, she had been living with my oldest sister, a ten-hour drive from my home. Then Mom fell. And fell. Now she’s in a nursing home in my town, and I am taking over her affairs.

I’m in my mid-40s, the youngest of her living children. My two kids are teens. Helloooooo Sandwich Generation!

On this blog, I hope to share experiences, information and emotions that come with being double-blessed and double-tasked – caring for a parent while my kids are still at home and need me. I know many people around the world are in the same situation. Thanks to the Internet we can know how unalone we are. Helloooooo Fellow Sandwich Generation Members!