COMING TOGETHER--30

Today is Friday. I am up early, taking out the garbage. Mom is asleep. I'm trying to get my throat well enough to get Dr. Drum's permission to go back to work.

I have been going to the exercise room nearly every day now. I think it has helped me a great deal.

As far as her body is concerned, Mom is no better and no worse than before. She doesn't seem to be aging in the short term, but just the same every day. I'm sure that my making her eat breakfast every day has helped her body recover.

But her memory is a little worse every day. She has forgotten to pay bills and made checks out she forgot about. This may mean that her brain cells are shutting down and at some point they will stop sending messages to her bodily function.

She woke herself up and ate well. Now she is laying down watching stupid TV shows. We don't have any special thing to do today. We're laying around like cats on a summer day.

But this afternoon, while I was out doing errands she got herself drunk. She's depressed and lonely. Last week the drug to kick her up was chocolate; now it is wine. We had a good dinner, but she kept sipping wine. So after dinner she fell down on her own. I don't think she has bruised anything or broken anything, but she couldn't get herself up. She tried to get up by taking her pants and underwear off. That didn't work. I had to pick her up, naked as she was. I had to make her go to her bathroom to put some sort of clothes on before she got into bed.

She was remorseful. She knows that getting drunk does not make her less lonely. She slept for an hour, then got up on her own, seemingly back to the way she should be. She came out of her bedroom for a drink in the kitchen. She seems to have recovered. Now I find out she cannot control her urine movements; there are urine trails on the bedroom carpet.

I may have to quit my job to take care of her. I don't want to quit the job but my mother needs care 18 hours a day. We can work out the money, but this is such a drain on me. I don't know how bad my mother's bodily situation is or how to rate it. I will have to talk to some people about it.