Dr. Great and Powerful sent me the letter of medical necessity. It’s not got a cc on it so I guess I had best send it on to the surgeon’s office. It’s interesting. I asked for it. It’s necessary for approval for the surgery I think I might want. It’s awfully damned hard to read those things about yourself.
Is that who I am? Can all my failures be summed up in a list of medical conditions and the words “we have not been able to help her lose weight.”
I continue to have mixed feelings and moments of panic about this. It is such a complete lifestyle change. Can I do it?
Mom continues to deteriorate. Sometimes it’s more obvious than others. It is sometimes sort of sadly amusing but I have to be honest, the little bits of amusement get further and further apart and seem less funny and more sad. She has a new thing. She has started coming downstairs when I’m making dinner and telling me not to make anything for them, they aren’t hungry.
The thing is - they have done that for real although it’s been a while. So, I’m afraid I’ve reacted rather badly. It is a pain to have to find out whether I am cooking or not while I am in the middle of cooking. I’ve decided, and told Dad, that I will assume that it is false unless he comes and tells me they don’t want dinner. I’ll tell mom that I will finish making dinner anyway and we’ll see if they’re hungry by dinnertime.
It’s just a little thing, really. A little thing like her pointing at some small red potatoes and asking what they were. A little thing like her not being able to taste the blue cheese in the waaaaay over-powering blue cheese cole slaw I made (Yuck, do not try Smitten Kitchen’s recipe for this one or back way, way off on the blue cheese). It’s just a little thing that takes a hold of my heart and squeezes until the tears come out.
My friend John’s mother died with Alzheimer’s a couple weeks ago. I wonder when we’ll be facing that. She was doing better than mom for a long time and then, kind of suddenly, practically ran downhill.
I’ve been feeling sad a lot lately. There are so many little things. Most of them not worthy of remembering or talking about - but they add up. They add up until they’re big and heavy and I’m very, very tired.











