From June 24

In the 35 years my mom had to parent me, she was constantly trying to train me to not HAVE to have the last word in an argument. Unfortunately, she never broke me of the habit. I think I would have the last word if it meant losing every tooth in my head. Even more unfortunately, I have passed that same trait on to my beautiful daughter. Even worse than that, I have realized this all came from my Grandmother, who now also lives in our house. 3 females in the same house, 3 different generations, all insisting on being right, and having the last word. And, let’s be real, we all know the only one of us who wins this argument is the one paying the mortgage. So, the other two in theory should shut up before they even get started. But, none of us do….. And, it makes for lots of foot stomping, eye rolling, and storming off around here.
This past weekend I broke down and took Grandmother back to Mayfield. It has been 2 months since she moved in, and we have yet to go back. Life has just been hectic, and we kept putting it off. I got back from New York the Thursday prior, and Grandmother had been a complete pill all week. I thought maybe a trip home would help her get it together. Our trip went a little something like this….
Back up a minute. Thursday night before we left, I had gone to a party, and left Sam home with Grandmother while Jeff picked Lexi Kate up from skating lessons. Sam was out playing with my neighbors, they were fine, he was fine. At some point things went south, ending in my neighbors calling to tell me something between WW3 and a bar side brawl was going down in my driveway. I come home and Sam is squalling and Grandmother is speaking some foreign language and making absolutely no sense whatsoever. I put her to bed and took Sam back to the party with me.
I had told Grandmother and the kids we would leave around 9:30. I had to do a little work before leaving. Grandmother called me no less than 17 times while I was at the office asking when I would be home. I about lost my mind before I ever got going. I get home to pick everyone up, and Grandmother hadn’t even packed a suitcase. For the life of me, I couldn’t get her to pack a clean pair of pants. I finally gave up, and just told her to wear the same pants the whole time we were there. Considering her bladder control tendencies, this was a terrible plan, but see paragraph one above. I let just let her win that one. Pulling out of the neighborhood, the dog pees on Lexi Kate in the car. We turn around and come back home for her to change. So, by 10:15 we are finally pulling out and ready to go. We have 1,897,465 conversations on the way down about where we were going and what we were doing. For some reason, Grandmother had it in her head that we lived in Mayfield and were going to Nashville to visit. Then, she was insistent that her sisters didn’t live in Mayfield. It was crazy town in my car. Once we hit the Purchase Parkway, the rains came down. I am pretty sure it was very reminiscent of the 40 day flood Noah experienced, but we got that much water in 10 minutes. I couldn’t see 5 feet in front of me. At that point. We had another potty accident. This time it was a people accident. To protect the innocent, I won’t name names. But, let’s just say it wasn’t a person with extra pants to wear. Heaven help me! We finally made it to Gibson’s Pharmacy, our drop off location where my Aunt Peggy was picking up Grandmother for the weekend. She was staying with Peggy and I was taking the kids to visit with Dad and Papa for Father’s Day. She really didn’t want to go with Peggy one bit. I was totally baffled, as that is all she had talked about for the last 2 months.
I went on my way. The kids and I took new flowers to put on Mom’s grave and my Grandfathers. Then, we got some lunch and went to hang out at Papa’s for a bit. That evening, we had another new experience. We took the kids to meet Papa’s girlfriend. I wondered how they would take it. Thankfully, they handled it well. They were very talkative and engaging. Maybe, too talkative. But, at least they didn’t tell her to fly a kite. I was terrified they were going to say something to embarrass all of us. Lexi Kate was really upset with the whole situation. She cried a good bit on the way home. We talked a lot about Mimi being gone and no one ever could take her place, but Papa didn’t want to be lonely.
Friday evening Peggy called me to report on how Grandmother was showing out. She was so unsettled. And, couldn’t get it in her head where she was and what she was doing. She was worried about her medicine and me not knowing where she was. I got her on the phone and tried to settle her down some. We repeated the same things over about 10 times and I just hung up. Apparently, Grandmother was up all night insisting that I had ran off and just left her. She felt like she was in a big mess and the world was pretty much coming to an end. Poor Peggy sat up with her from 2-5 trying to calm her down. She finally let it go for a bit and they went out to eat breakfast and she got to see Mr. Johnson again, as well as visit with more family and friends. She misses Mr. Johnson so much and talks about him every day. I thought seeing him would help her feel better, but I am not sure. I picked Grandmother up from Peggy about 3:30 Saturday afternoon. She was one hot tamale!
She fussed the entire way home. She basically told me everything I was doing wrong in life, everything her sisters were doing wrong, and that she never wanted to go back there again. Grrrreeeaattt! It made for a super fun car ride. Once again on the Purchase Parkway, we had an interesting ride. The car beside me decided to cut in front of me. Trying to not kill us all, I slammed on the breaks and went into the median. Our Dr. Pepper, the dog, and my purse went flying through the car. Who knew what a mess one can of Dr. Pepper would make? Once we got into Nashville, we got stuck behind some construction traffic. One of my passengers was literally about to die from needing to potty. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We tried the pee in the bottle trick for the first time. All went well, until….. someone dropped the bottle. Again, names removed to protect the not so innocent. So, now my car is covered in Dr. Pepper and pee.
We made it home around 7:30, and I vowed never to get in my car again…….
We have a series of doctor’s appointments tomorrow. Please pray that I am able to talk to the doctor about the progression of Grandmother’s dementia without a total breakdown. We really need to discuss her maintenance plan and our long term options. We also go back to see the back doctor. Grandmother is still in pain, so I am not sure how the broken vertebrae and ribs are healing. But, I don’t really know what they can do about it either. Finally, we go back for another INR check. If this result is within range, we can extend checkups to monthly instead of bi-weekly. This would be a huge relief for all of us. St. Thomas is fairly close, but it takes a whole morning to get up there. And, it makes Gran totally foul to have to go.
And, we are another day closer to Glory Land, and I have never been more ready to get there in all my life. You can have your gold streets, dancing, and feast. I just need you to show me my heavenly bed and let me nap a little.