The Fighter

He is a fighter at 90. He was down ten days ago, disinclined to eat, drowsy, weak, his bowel was sluggish, stomach bloated, could not move his limbs, he lay stiff and rigid. One night a couple of days later he called his attendant and asked for his wheel chair, he asked to be wheeled out of the room to the sitting room. When he came to the sitting room he lifted his hand and wiped his eyes. He attempted to hold the cup of Complan and drink it on his own: all this after lying rigid for a couple of days. Since then he has been asking his attendant to help him brush teeth, take him for bath. I feel he is giving commands to his body and mind to heal faster, ticking away the  improvements made each day. Though there is a definite setback in not being able to eat solid food and in his inability to walk, he has made large strides of progress these seven days.

Tell Me, Appa

Just when everything seemed normal and manageable Appa had a major setback. He could not get up one morning, I wasn’t worried as it had been like that many mornings. PD brings about stiffness and sleeping in one position through the night makes Appa take some time to thaw in his joints. We wheeled in the chair and started the day. Very soon he vomited and nearly choked on his breakfast. He got drowsy and very weak and could not swallow solids and through the day his stomach bulged. He had sluggish bowels. PD atrophies muscle power through the body, it has caught his bowels now.

Human body is a string of tubes and wires that needs to be kept in circuit. I understand this now even more after looking at Appa’s condition. He is fed fluids orally and very often he has to be kept awake so that he can swallow. IV fluids are given for energy and my husband’s brother who is a doctor is attending him through the day. After a week we are happy that Appa’s alertness has improved though this body is disoriented about day and night. He is alert and awake in the night and very drowsy through the day. He has stopped intake of solids and we watch if his urine output and bowel movement are close to normal. These are the three functions that we are concerned about – his urine output is through a catheter, motion is induced most of the days and we are glad if he passes wind. His pulse, heart and BP are normal. He cannot move his limbs, his feet cannot carry his weight, he has to be carried like a child when moved from his bed to the wheel chair.

It is strange how human body is reduced to these essentials and is fixed the way plumbing in a building is fixed. Through all this I have always wondered what goes on in Appa’s mind.  For three years now since PD advanced Appa has been withdrawn, wrapped himself away in a cocoon. He had remained alert, his memory had remained good but was disinclined to emotionally and socially relate with the family. Nothing elated or depressed him, or at least he did not express his feelings other than irritation when disturbed or asked probing questions.

This withdrawal has its own effect on us. In a way we forget his sense of presence in many things. We stop wondering what he feels about Amma’s illness, about the changes in the household Amma’s immobility has brought about. Amma had an attendant who was rude to her, we had observed this and we spoke to the attendant and warned her. Helplessly Appa had been observing what Amma had to go through and was deeply pained. When we spoke to him about this we realized how distraught he was about the way the attendant treated Amma. We sacked the attendant and found a replacement

Now, inside a body that is failing slowly, what does he think and feel. What runs in his mind when his eyes rest so compassionately on me. Tell me Appa.

Mothering Amma

I touch Amma very often, I hold her hands and hug her. I can see the difference it makes to her. As soon as I go close to her, she reaches for my hands.

Amma has become a child, she has regressed in her behaviour and grasp of things. She cannot grasp complex issues, her attention and interest span is short, she is wracked by worries that relate to her needs. 

She asks several times if we will give her Cremmafin, when we reply in the affirmative, she asks” What about Alprax?’ Will the attendant wake up when she calls in the night? She voices these anxieties the way a child does indifferent to the thought that the caregiver would be upset that trust is not placed on her. I cannot explain this to Amma. She will decode it as ‘The caregiver is hurt’, ‘she is angry’ and she will be gripped by anxiety that the caregiver will leave.

She is adamant like a child, thinks that things should revolve around her. She has had a Stroke and a fall that has pulled her down enormously. She can’t afford to fall again and and we explain this situation to the caregiver. Amma warns the caregiver that she’ll lose her job if she falls again due to negligence. It is not that Amma can’t see what a second fall can do to her. But children can be scathingly cruel with motives misplaced.

So how did I deal with my child? I stayed at zero level in my expectations of reciprocity. We do not reason with children, they do not understand that. I never reasoned with Athreya, never explained when he was a year old why certain things won’t work. If he wanted something that was undesirable to me, I answered in the negative and slowly attempted to take his mind off that.

I go back to all that I did as a mother to my child. I feel I have become a mother again when I deal with Amma.

The Kiss Of Sleep

Amma was agitated when I went home from work yesterday. She had napped in the afternoon and she was worried that she would not get sleep in the night. She complained of back pain and wanted to lie down. When the caregiver pointed out that Amma had rested all through afternoon and should sit for a while, she got angry and said that she didn’t rest at all. She had been in pain. I calmed her and asked her to forget about the afternoon, I made her focus on the present moment. I put on music and we listened to a song sung by Aruna Sairam. We spoke a little about the composition and shared some trivia about the singer. Soon she lost interest and said that she had no interest to listen to music. I got down the volume and asked her to walk a little with me. We walked till the door, she lied down after that. I sat with her for a while, massaged the pressure points on her finger and asked her to breathe gently. She was still restless.

This is pretty much how she is as the day advances. Mornings are comparatively better for her. She enquires if Gowri has left for the day, asks about Athreya, when he will return home, asks me when I will return from work and requests me to talk to her over the phone through the course of the day. She even says that by mid morning she will talk to her sister. By evening she is worn away by pain and discomfort and is tormented by fear of a long sleepless night.

In the night I sat with her for an hour and massaged her left palm. I told her that I would work on the pressure points that control the brain, stomach, intestines and several other parts of her body. I asked her to leave her body with me as I transfer energy to all parts of her body. I asked her to focus on her breathing. For a brief while she appeared unburdened by her body. The massage calmed her and she breathed gently. She got restless a little later and searched for her bottle of water, kerchief and told me she wanted to pass motion. I told her that her body and mind was slowly coiling to rest for the night and asked her not resist the slowing down. She remained quiet for some time. I told her that I will leave prayers with her that will keep her calm through the night and get her some sleep. She asked me after a few minutes to go and sleep.

My Journal

Words are like sand when you want to talk of matters close to the heart, they get washed away. Still I am going to sit on the shore of life and write about the water that recedes and takes away the grains of sand that fabricate my life.

My mother's passing away was too sudden, I had no time to hold her hands, mine was not the last voice she heard. I would have loved it to be that.

My father's closure was slow, painful, burdensome. I think I didn't walk with him all the way, I left him alone at certain stretches of his final journey.

I am now holding the hands of my husband's parents in their final years. I don't want to look away a moment, want to remain mindful of their every breath.

I intend to share these precious moments here.