Opthalmologist Visit

photo by V2OSK on Unsplash

I was hoping I'd have more to report at this juncture because on last Friday we got another appointment for this week.  But the doctor's office called on Wednesday morning assuming, rightly, that after our big snowfall I would not want to take my sweetie out -- nor did I want to go ANYwhere that day.  So, only the one visit so far.

Turns out Will's eyes are more messed up than the Costco optometrist had seen.  He has a semi-detached retina in one eye and the other eye is also full of cataracts.

The visit didn't go as badly as it could have but he did use his harsh voice with both the nurse and the doctor and almost went off into one of his long stories about the past.  He also had trouble following directions, tilting his head when he was told to just move his eyes.  I had to hold onto his head at one point.  It was very stressful for both of us, I'm sure.  He showed his stress by using his angry voice when he told the young woman assistant that he was yelling at her because she was yelling at him (she was speaking loudly because he is so hard of hearing and had been saying, "what?").  Granted, she did have a rather grating vocal quality but that wasn't her fault -- just nature.  He also was fierce with the doctor and acted insulted a couple of times.  I sat there occasionally putting my hand on his arm and trying to get him to calm down. 

The doctor said that she wanted her colleague who has more experiences with retinas to look at him and she also suggested we go to Portland.  We'll see.  I can't imagine him at OHSU.  But I also can't imagine me taking care of a blind person.  But then, I could never imagine me taking care of anyone so miracles do happen.

Off to the Opthamologist

Still from L'Age d'Or

Well, I'm not looking forward to taking him to the ophthamologist today.  I told him we had an appointment and reminded him that he said he wanted to see out of his right eye and he immediately said, "I don't want surgery."  As a former film teacher he probably thinks of it as the scene from Luis Bunuel's L'Age d'Or (1930). 

I called them yesterday and warned them that he won't want to be there and that he doesn't like doctors (except for Dr. Thakur, his concierge physician).  I also told them I'm his Power of Attorney.  I've filled out all the "new patient papers" myself and signed for him.  I'll need to take the POA in along with those papers.

I am not looking forward to this appointment.  I don't want him to be afraid.  Today is just the examination.  His doctor is recommending that he have the surgery because he's extremely hard of hearing and right now he's blind in one eye and very cut off and it will make his life better to have the surgery.  But if he doesn't want to go somewhere there's absolutely no way I can push him out the door.  So we'll see what happens.

I've been sad much of this week and my tinnitus has been more annoying.  The acupuncture didn't work for me so I'll be trying some online activities next (head thumping) and also trying to manage my chi deficiency with herbs.  As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "It's always something.  If it ain't one thing, it's another."

The Devil Finds Work

Is the Devil in the details?  Does the Devil find work for an idle mind?  Is grief devilish?

My view

The weeks that I was busy promoting my book and preparing for my various ministry activities I didn't have time for grief.  Now this week seems slow and devilish.  I felt sad all day yesterday in spite of the 100 mg of sertraline (generic zoloft).  Maybe because instead of coming here to my office above the river, I went to Les Schwab to have my tires put on.

But I'm now looking out on the dark Deschutes slowly turning silver and seeing the car headlights slip down Reed Market Road as the red lights slide up.  There's something about this view in the morning and the sight of these cars on the hill that touches the place in my brain that vibrates with nostalgia.  The cars in the semi-dark of approaching dawn remind me of travel, of all the places I've been, of all the places Will and I have been together. 

Will these memories make me sadder?  Lead me to hunger for numbing through food or drugs?  Is that devilish?

I miss my husband as he was.

Numbing

I'm sure I used to have a button like this one when I was in college.  I would have gotten rid of it, however, after I was busted for trying to carry marijuana onto a plane in 1972, the very fist year of required security screening of passengers.

I wound up spending all the following year's school money on paying off the lawyer who got the charge reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.  Since then my relationship with the "weed with roots in hell" has been an off and on thing.  I was never high on the job, whether I worked at McDonalds, as I did in 1979, or at the University of Utah.  But I did enjoy a weekend high or the occasional one week blowout to shake the dark stuff of reality out of my head OR to deal better with it.

 A typical one week blowout during my working years occurred in 1980 when I was staying with a friend's folks near Santa Cruz, California.  I remember one night eating pasta at the bar of a restaurant near their house and watching Ronald Reagan accept the GOP nomination for president.  As I listened to him in my altered state of consciousness (which increased my ability to recognize powerful rhetoric, and I said, "Well, he's going to be the next president of the United States."  And it didn't bother me.

Sadly, my occasional use turned into a problem with the "perfect storm" of Will's failing brain, my retirement, and legalization in Oregon.  Occasional use turned into every day then, over time, a couple of times a day, then all day.  This didn't happen all at once.  I started a business and took some web classes.  I got free training in dementia care through Oregon Care Partners.

But I kept falling into the addiction cycle of relapse and recovery. I recently listened to a wonderful book by Leslie Jamison that explains this cycle:  The Recovering:Intoxication and Its Aftermath. 

I have, since the first time I got high in 1971, used weed because I liked the experience of the high -- the insights it gave me into the power dynamics of the world, the release it gave me from always having to care, and the simple experience of enhanced physical pleasure.  But beginning in 2014 I was using it to escape my reality, the everyday complicated grief of the long goodbye of dementia.  I allowed myself to be triggered into smoking or vaping every time Will told the same story three times or put dishes away in the wrong place;  every time the slow dissolution and approach of death appeared in front of me.  In spite of the warnings of my therapist, I was numbing myself, not "being present to my grief."
I used to hate that concept.

I'm in recovery again but, sadly, I've noticed that I am drinking too much -- and for me that means having two drinks a day.  I have one with dinner and one before going to bed. The one I have before bed is one of those "drinking alone" things -- not a good sign.  I'm not happy about this.  I know I "should" be distracting myself with something else that's fun but so far it's been difficult.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm not all that good at living with the grief from day to day.  There's only so much heartache I want to carry.

by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Fortunately, I am working again, facilitating a ministry course for my church.  And I'm writing this blog.   And promoting my new poetry book.  I'm keeping busy.  I hope all these activities help me better resist the sometimes overwhelming temptation to numb myself into happiness.

Depression, Dementia, and a Buddhist Thought

Back to the book Caring for a Loved One with Dementia by Marguerite Manteau-Roa.

In her chapter on "Clearing the Mind" she asks us to watch out for depression both in ourselves and our loved one.  I myself have a biological disposition in that direction and so for decades have taken SSRIs in the winter months.  I'm on them all year now because the grief that is part of dementia care hangs around my biology and weights it toward melancholy and despair.

The author offers a shorthand depression screening (p. 106) and asks the carer to make regular self-checks on our cognitive state.  She also suggests that we tell a good friend about the warning signs of depression so that we have someone looking out for us.

She offers "Six Ways to Prevent Depression:"

1. Get enough sleep, exercise, and eat well.
2. Socialize; do not isolate yourself.
3. Force yourself to be active, even if you don't feel like it
4. Put some structure into your days.
5. Recognize negative thoughts and try to cultivate healthier thoughts instead.
6. Be on the lookout for warning signs and get professional help early.  (p. 110)

I'm hip to five of these methods but I dislike #5 -- I'm not sure that "positive thinking" is all that helpful for dealing with the mix of complicated and anticipatory grief that is part of dementia caregiving.  But more on that in a future post.

The part of this chapter I like the best is it's insistence on recognizing reality.

"Sooner or later your mindful journey through dementia care you will be faced with the wall of the reality of life's impermanence." (p. 122)  Then she offers this Buddhist contemplation that we can think on to help us accept what so many people in dominant America culture try to refuse.

Buddhist Contemplation

by Benjamin Belazs on Unsplash

I am of the nature to grow old.
I cannot escape growing old.
I am of the nature to become ill.
I cannot escape becoming ill.
I am of the nature to die.
I cannot escape death.
Everyone and everything I love are of the nature to change.
There is no way to escape being separated from them.
There is no avoiding mistakes.
I am doing the best I can and I hold myself with compassion.