I succeeded in cleaning up in the kitchen after helping the Queen Mother with her "weekly" shower. My job is to turn the water on, set the towels down where she can reach them, and put the soap into the shower itself. Lately I'm also making sure the shower door actually shuts (and opens after she is done), as its starting to stick a bit, and she has trouble working the door when it's not behaving smoothly. She has a lot of trouble with opening sliding doors these days, whether it's out to the patio or out of the shower. After she dries off, I put lotion on her back and legs. Today I also cut her hair a bit shorter and evened out all of the long scraggly pieces that were sticking out a bit further than the rest of her hair.
Whatever tension we might have felt in the past seemed to ease today, partly because Himself was out of the house and out from underfoot - three people living in a 986 square foot home can really get underfoot if we're not careful - and partly because I've been a bit more active in decluttering and cleaning up in the house. It's amazing what can happen when Depression isn't weighing me down and narrowing my vision!
As I've been reading Passages in Caregiving, I've had a pair of realizations. First, I understand now why Himself is always talking about his plans of what he's going to do, or what he wants to do, when he gets his settlement money (whichever comes first): this is his way to cope with his cancer diagnosis and helps give him a reason to keep waking up in the morning, and put one foot in front of the other. Today I had another realization: the less I isolate from the Queen Mother, and the more I interact with her without being angry and resentful, the happier she is and the less likely she is to become depressed herself.
In mom's case, I walk away from intense conversations before I explode in my anger; if I use the tools that are in my toolbox, I can defuse that anger and remember that she is NOT the same woman that she was at the start of this decade. More and more, I am seeing her Dementia instead of seeing who she actually is, and I need to keep this in mind. In Himself's case, I all but stopped dreaming and planning too far ahead into the future because I was concerned about helping him make it through the tests, then the surgeries, and finally the chemotherapy. When I had forgotten how to dream, I became scared of his dreams, because I was afraid he would make some of those dreams a reality and leave me behind! That was a clear case of Stinking Thinking, and now I am remembering how to dream and plan for OUR future together again.
The diswasher is washing, the cats are snoozing, and I am finishing up this blog. I am intending both to do laundry and also to attend one of my caregiver support groups. We shall see what happens.
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