Mom’s grave

One of the things I wanted to accomplish through visiting Mom was trying to get her out of the house.  On previous visits, I would ask her if she wanted me to push her in her wheelchair down to the boardwalk on the beach.  She always refused.  I thought to myself that if I did not get her to go, she may never see the beach again.  To me her house became the grave.  She would end up never going out of the house, living a life trapped inside condemned to die.

One day Dad pushed the envelope as he too noticed the same thing.  He was trying to get her to go out to lunch with some girlfriends.  She got mad and told him if he had felt like he had thrown up all night, he wouldn’t want to get out of the house either.  We all notice the effects of the disease on the outside of her body but have not thought of what is happening on the inside.  She’s usually very drained and does not have much energy.

Mom has to use a speakerphone because both of her arms are paralyzed and just hang from her body.  When someone calls, we punch the button for her and put the phone on her lap so she can talk.  One day a lady called her to ask her out for lunch.  She said politely she did not feel up to it and thanked her.  After I hung the phone up, she began to cry a faint cry as the disease is taking over the muscles in her throat.  I asked her what was the matter, and she said she hated feeling like that all the time.  I hugged her and tried not to cry.  She did not want to talk about it in anyway.  I gave her some encouraging words that came to my mind.  It was not going to get any better.

U   Are you being sensitive to how the disease makes them feel on the inside?  U