I was so excited to get the package in the mail the other day - I knew exactly what it was. It's called a "Chillow." It's a type of pillow that cools you off, when you're sleeping. It helps people like me whose heads explode with sweat. I quickly tore open the box to find a plastic blow-up kind of thing and I was disappointed, because I thought it would have gel in it or something. I was surprised to find out that it had to be filled with water. So I followed the directions carefully, filling the thing up with the right amount of water and letting it sit on the countertop to even itself out, for 4 hours. It was a very technical procedure. After that, I was to roll it up and push the air out of the little spout like thing that has a plug on it. I did that, but water also came out, spilling all over the place, but I managed to push as much air out of it that I could and happily went to use it the other night. You're supposed to be able to slip it in the pillowcase and lay on it, which I did the first night. It felt fantastic when I went to sleep, but by the time I woke up in the morning, it was all bunched up in the bottom of my pillow. So, I thought I would out smart this thing and lay my head on top of it, instead of putting it in the pillowcase, the next night. There is a plastic side and a soft side, like fake suede, and I laid on the plastic side to get all the coolness I could. I had a dream that night that I was, well, making, as I used to call it, and when I woke up, the whole front of my nightgown was soaking wet. "Oh no," I thought, thinking the obvious. I stood up and the whole side of the bed was soaking wet and lo and behold, the "Chillow" was almost flat with no water. It had leaked during the night, and had slipped down off my pillow and created a huge wet spot on the sheet and mattress. Needless to say, the "Chillow" was cheap and is now in the garbage can. So much for my initial excitement and hope of a better night's sleep. I will just have to sweat on.
I turned the ceiling fan on higher last night, but it sounds like it will fly right off the ceiling, so I am a little leery of that. It wobbles around and around and the lamp part is crooked. I think the fan came with the house 38 or so years ago when my parents purchased it. I would say it's time for a new fan, so I don't get chopped in half in my sleep.
I went to see my dad on Saturday. He has lost so much weight that he looks emaciated. They weighed him and he weighs 136, which would normally thrill my mother, but in this case I think she is just worried about him. He says he's just not hungry and eats very little. His cheeks look sunken in and his legs, although they have always been skinny, looked like sticks. He sat up in the bed to talk to my mom and I and he was clearer than on other days, however. His mind seemed to be back to reality for the most part. I just wish he would eat more so he could gain strength. He says he can't walk because his legs "don't work." I'm not sure what that means, but I do know he is very weak so maybe he just doesn't have the strength to make them work. He is in his own room now and in seclusion because he has an infectious disease in his bowels; but, that's okay - he actually prefers being alone.
My mother questions him, every day I'm sure, about his bowels and the details thereof. She keeps close tabs on that as well as how much and what he is eating. The two go hand in hand, of course, and she has always been the Food Monitor in our house, but now she has become the Bowel Movement Monitor as well. It gives her something to do, as I know she feels pretty helpless. The nursing home did an x-ray of his stomach today and they found nothing abnormal about it. In other words, the balloon is no longer in there, but the question remains why he isn't hungry.
It's so incredibly difficult watching my parents become this old and broken. I know I signed up for this, but I didn't know it would affect me in such a powerful way. It would have been a lot easier to have stayed up in Madison and try to ignore what was happening down here, but then that wasn't God's will - and I knew it. Sometimes, you just can't hide from the hard stuff. Sometimes, it smacks you right in the face and your response to it makes all the difference in the world.
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