WORST CHRISTMAS EVER

Around 12:30 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve my mother choked. This was not a new occurrence since she has Parkinson’s. It makes throat muscles weak. She choked on a pulled pork sandwich of all the fucking things. The pickle…my dad yelled he needed my help. I ran down the steps, we were trying to get the food to come up. I screamed for my husband to call 911. We have done this before and it has worked. We get the suction mask for chocking that helps to pull the food out. It is working – food is starting to come up. She takes 3 breathes – my dad and I think we did it again. Except then she is not breathing. I run up the stairs for the EMTs – I heard the sirens.

SHE IS NOT BREATHING I frantically yell to the EMT who is quickly coming up the driveway. I let him inside and pause momentarily for the other EMTs further behind him. As I am walking behind the other 3 EMTs we arrive to see the first man pulling my mother’s body out of her wheelchair. I run upstairs to put my dog in our bedroom to keep him out of the way.  When I return 3 police officers and about 6 more EMT have arrived. There is a group around her working frantically. The police officer asks my father, husband and I questions. I worked on procedural shows for years. Does he think we killed her? What the…

They’re able to get her heart beating again but they are breathing for her. Now this happened before. And an hour later she was on the phone, completely fine. So my Father is feeling optimistic that she will bounce back. I am not. This seems different. This seems like the moment we knew would arrive. One of these times we were not going to be able to help her.

We call the hospital – she just got there the woman at the desk angrily tells me. She will tell the doc to call us. They call about 25 minutes later, the doctor is solemn, he says that they have her on a ventilator and what is concerning is that she has not breathed on her own. They are moving her to ICU. A dear friend of my family accompanies my dad, and I stay are home with my husband and kids so they can open their gifts. Keep things normal for the kids. Months of my shopping is laying on the floor. My feelings were weird. I retreated to the place I have been storing my feelings for years. They are frozen in some sort of vacuum.  

My dad still thought she would bounce back. On Christmas Day my dad and I went to the hospital. She was hooked up to all of this equipment mapping her brain. It was causing her to have seizures and her eyes were rolling back into her head. We spoke with the doctor – my dad wanted an answer from them. A definitive answer. Dad, they won’t give you one. She is not there anymore – you need to call people and tell them if they want to see her again they need to come tomorrow. We need to end things. The decision was not hard to make. We would wait for my brother to show the next day and then we would end her life. I have been mourning this moment for 25 years. Now that it was coming I found myself unnervingly calm.

the hits keep coming

I was laid off the other day.

My first thought was YOU ARE BREAKING UP WITH ME???? Uhmmmm…I am the creative piece of brain here, not you. 

I worked at my company for 14 years but the last 4 have been miserable blur of buzzwords and corporate jargon. It’s amazing how so many words can come out of someone’s mouth and they have said nothing. 

I have found since I have got laid off a week ago that I have started listening to break up music. My 14 year job became an increasingly abusive relationship. As much as I wanted to leave I couldn’t leave the money. Just like a shit marriage. 

My husband and parents were stricken by panic. My daughter was thrilled. She said, “does this mean you are a stay at home mom?” I guess so. She pumped her fist and yelled “yessssss”. 

I was going to retire in 2 years so they speed up my timeline. They also blew the door wide open for me to reclaim my creativity. 

I am not concerned - my comebacks are epic! 

enter the red dragon

My daughter has crossed to the other side of being female. 

I walked in to her room one night to announce bed time had arrived. 

She was in a very deep conversation with her 10 year old brother. 

He left to go to his room and looked at me with an expression that was just bizarre. 

Ah…good night son? I turn to my daughter. 

My daughter said I think I got my period. 

Okay - go the bathroom and we will establish that is true. 

I ask when did this start? 

Yesterday. 

Why didn’t you tell me. 

Well I told my brother. 

Your 10 year old brother!? PERFECT. That makes complete sense. 

Then I had to explain hygiene to a girl that finds it challenging to rinse all the conditioner out of her hair and wear deodorant.

I am not sure if tweens have a sense of smell. My daughter goes to school without wearing deodorant on occasion. When I picked her up, she got in the car and smelled like there were rotten onions in her armpits. And she is SHOCKED that I say you did not wear deodorant. I don’t think I have a particularly good sense of smell but HOW CAN THEY NOT SMELL EACH OTHER? I guess because the majority of them smell revolting?! 

I have turned into the mom who throws out your appearance is a reflection of me! And don’t even get me started on dirty fingernails. My daughter figured out if she kept her nails painted I could not see the repulsive amount of dirt and paint that have permanent residence under her finger nails. In spite of myself, I applaud her problem solving skills. 

things are not getting better

There were layoffs at my place of employment yesterday. The day began with a note from the top man telling us that we were going to have to say good bye to some colleagues. If you were one of the people being kicked to the curb you would know by EOD. If that isn’t a way to insure NOTHING GETS DONE ALL DAY I do not know what is. WTF. Was I one of them, no but the entire day was like a natural disaster check in. 

My mother is sleeping all the time. She has this gnarly sore on her ass that won’t heal. It hurts to sit. She is passing out on the toilet. She has no strength left. Sigh. Every time I go downstairs she is asleep. Her shoulder also hurts and the only way to fix it is surgery. Clearly she is not interested. The Parkinson’s has really taken a hold of her this past year. She shakes like crazy and leans over to the side. Degenerative diseases are so fucking sinister. They chip away at someone for years and chips away at everyone around them. 

I just returned from a work trip to LA. The most relaxation I have had was at work on a stressful shoot. The shoot actually turned out to be great. Being away from LA for over a year and going back is so odd. I have no clue how I could live there as long as I did. I couldn’t find a fucking juice at my hotel that didn’t have turmeric in it. To be fair, I do miss the sushi.

I digress because thinking about my life right now is emotionally difficult. How can my mother’s body keep on going with all it has been through. My mother-in-law told me when I was pregnant and worried that “I CAME FROM HEARTY STOCK” like I am a prize cow. I guess she was right as it turns out,we are very hearty!

pubic hair on my cheek

Pubic Hair on my cheek!?

You are already getting the wrong idea - there is nothing remotely sexy about this. 

I went to put make-up on and on my lower cheek was an insanely long curly black hair. It just appeared there. It was not there moments before when I washed my hands in the sink.The most terrifying thing was the length, it has 3 full curl swirls. The aging process is complete shit!

Speaking of aging people my mother is saying she has a spaceship in her eye. Uhm…we are thinking it is ANOTHER UTI , she just had one about a week ago. She was also petting  parakeets, telling us how beautiful they are. Then she decided her aide was trying to kill her,there was a man behind her computer with a knife. Later that night she knocked over a lamp and told my father she fucking hated him. That escalated  quickly. Can we hop a ride on that spaceship in your eye and get out of here crazy lady? 

911 was called. I heard something in the kitchen, I thought that my daughter had started cooking in the middle of the night again. God Darn that kid! Oh wait no, that is a stretcher with my mother.  I see my dad. Why didn’t you call me? He did, I guess you didn’t hear me. (Sigh). 

She has been looking pretty ragged lately. She does this thing where she passes out and is unresponsive for at least 2 or 3 minutes. Every time something happens I just think - is today the day? Is this finally going to happen? When you have been mourning and preparing for someone’s death for over 25 years, it will still be a shock at the moment it happens.

The diagnosis, she has another UTI! They give her a different drug and send her on her way. And we are back to where we left off somewhere between hopeless and pathetic with zero spaceships.

urine on my foot

I believe that my mother’s behavior in old age is what she was like as a child. She is deeply concerned that she is going to miss something. She is wheelchair bound and in the past 3 years transferring to another seat from her wheelchair is increasingly challenging. So, I believe when she is around other people or out on the town in The ROC she doesn’t want the good times to end. Therefore she holds her urine to the last moment. Consequently she gets nasty with us to “hurry up” because she “has to pee”. And lastly when she has to transfer she has to use her muscles and because she is pushing…yes! you guessed it…she pees on the floor and inevitably my foot. And when you clean that up you may use your husband’s new Shark Water Cleaner floor thing and forget that you were going to ask him how to clean the machine. Then as it turns out the cleaning thing smells like piss and said husband angry cleans his new machine and he himself becomes pissy!