A bit of a challenging week.
I was dizzy for about an hour in the middle of the Sunday-to-Monday night and felt weird (but not dizzy) all day Monday, so my energy was low.
On Tuesday morning, I was in on a Zoom call from 8 to 9 a.m., and by the end of the call, I felt BAD. I was kind of a basket case all day. In bed or on the couch. Pretty useless. Headache, slight nausea, no fever. I think it’s just an exacerbation of allergy/sinus symptoms, but big blech!
At one point, Mom asked something like, “Is it too much for me to be here?” I told her I’ve gotten sick like that before and not to worry, even though I was a little worried: Do I have COVID? Liver cancer? (because I watched a movie about a young man who died from liver cancer) Am I moving toward Sepsis? Will I feel like this for the rest of my life?
This morning I felt well enough to take a shower, eat a little soup, and brush my teeth at the beginning of the day. I helped Mom with her shower and did the little things that make a difference— filling the coffee pot, cleaning up her bathroom, fixing her toast.
When we were seated at the table, I called the home health nurse to ask for advice about a small wound on Mom’s skin. After I hung up, Mom said, “Taking care of your mother is as bad as taking care of a baby.” I said I’d been noticing the similarities, but that neither of those activities felt “bad” to me. I reminded her that when she was my age, she helped take care of my daughter and she seemed to like doing that. I reminded her that she had helped with my sister’s children, too.
Mom said, “When Diana was born, they brought Lee Ellen over and put her into bed with us. It was so early in the morning.” I’d never heard that sweet memory before. My niece, Diana, is 42 years old now.
I told Mom to look at the situation from the point of view of how she had helped when she was younger. I said, “I promise you that when I’m 91, I won’t be taking care of you.”
She seemed less worried after that.