A few years ago, my mother, in the midst of one of her meltdowns, answered the telephone by "answering" the tv remote. I remember being pretty amazed, at the time, that my own mom was capable of such profound confusion. Of course, I had no way of knowing then, that that was just the beginning.
This past week (and still) Mom has been riding a wild roller coaster of emotional meltdowns. In the past few days, I have observed more neural short circuits, detours and dead ends manifesting themselves in my mother's erratic behavior than I can shake a stick at.
There was the night she tried to change the tv channel by pointing her mechanical pick-up stick straight at the tv screen and squeezing the pick-up claw. Seriously. Have you ever SEEN somebody attempt to, with FULL commitment, change the tv station using a mechanical pick-up stick? The phrase, "What's wrong with this picture?" doesn't even cover it. I'm serious here. Picture it in your head. Visualize the commitment. When I saw my mother doing it......well.......my brain didn't know what to make of it.
Then there was the afternoon she wanted to change her tv to the classical music station. Mom keeps a little post-it right next to her bed, with her three favorite channel numbers written on it. She kept pushing the channel number written on the paper and couldn't understand why the tv was still on CNN. Again.....you really have to picture the sense of commitment.
Then there was the morning I came in, like I always do, to say good morning, see how she was doing, etc. She was in good spirits and all seemed okay, until she looked long and hard at me and asked, "Are you the one who's in charge of all the shenanigans around here?" (And quite honestly, I didn't know how to answer that question. How do you answer any question with the word "shenanigans" in it?)
But there's more.
Just the other afternoon, Mom was "this close" to pressing her Lifeline button (the "Help, I've fallen and can't get up" button she wears around her neck) because she couldn't get her shoes on. She actually wanted the EMTs to come to the house to help her get her shoes on. Epilogue: Dad has confiscated Mom's Lifeline button.
And most recently (just a couple of hours ago in fact) Mom was wailing from the bathroom (specifically, from the toilet) for help. I ran in, asked what the problem was, and she said, "I think I'm having a BM."
And I said, "okay....."
And she just sat there.
So I said, "So.......why did you call for help?"
And she said, "Because I need somebody to come in and do it for me."
And I said, "....do what?" (Because I couldn't imagine she meant she actually wanted somebody to "do" the BM for her.)
And she said, "The BM." (Okay, so I was wrong)
Dad and I have developed a sort of unspoken communication between the two of us that we use to convey what we're "really" thinking when Mom says or does something that's, uh, shall we say, "off the charts." It's nothing elaborate, just a few finely-tuned shoulder shrugs. But it's how we let each other know how we're thinking, without having to say anything out loud. The most casual one, shrug #1, is just a simple shirk of the shoulders that generally means "Whatever Mom just said/did makes no sense, but it seems harmless enough so just ignore it." The next gradation up from that, shrug #2, is a more pronounced shrug, usually coupled with a double-eyebrow-raise--this is the "What the hell did Mom just say/do?!" shrug. Finally, shrug #3, the shrug we reserve for only the most off-the-wall stuff. It actually has a sort of desperate head-roll added to it. This is the "I have no idea what Mom just said/did and.......screw it, I'm going for a walk" shrug.
Like I said, I love the shrug. I walked 36 miles last week.
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