Sleep to Dream

Last weekend was spent visiting Aunt Ruth. I had wondered why the flight to Indianapolis was so pricey. As it turned out, it was the same weekend as the Indy 500. I perplexed more than a few race fans on the plane when I said I was planning on spending a nice, quiet weekend in a retirement home rather than watching the race.

Last fall, Aunt Ruth suffered a hip fracture from a nasty fall. She made it through surgery, and finally rehab, but she's definitely slowed down quite a bit from my visit two years ago. Since the fracture, she's had three more falls, but luckily hasn't broken any more bones. For me, the weekend was an opportunity to see her at her baseline. With my grandparents, there was always that expectation of an upcoming visit that was canceled abruptly by death. At least for me, visiting Aunt Ruth is somewhat awkward as in my head, I am always expecting it to be our last meeting. Happily, so far she's proved me wrong.

As it turned out, she had full-blown hip replacement last fall, which is kind of shocking given the high mortality rate (up to 35% in the first year following surgery) and her age (105 this past February!). I am sure that she made the decision as she would have hated to be bed-ridden, but it seems like most orthopedic surgeons wouldn't touch someone her age. Now she is clearly having balance issues and the long walk to the dining room now has to be interrupted by rest breaks.

Her remote memory is now being affected. She introduced me to a lot of other residents. Sometimes I was a doctor, sometimes I was a nurse. Sometimes I was from Washington, sometimes I was from Arizona, or Louisiana... it's a good thing we sat with different people at each meal, so nobody caught on!

Our days were full-- with meals at 8 am, 11 am, and 4 pm. In between there were 3 or 4 naps a day. It was a good visit and she reminisced often, sticking to the same memories that she felt comfortable talking about. We talked of Appersons and life on the farm.

Like my grandparents before her, Aunt Ruth is withdrawing from the world around her. The woman who used to read three newspapers a day still has a picture of Ronald Reagan at Camp David from 1984 on her desk.

Luckily, although she never had any children, one of my uncles checks on her several times a week. The staff at the assisted living center also seem to be pretty good about checking up on her several times a day. The day is soon coming when she will have to move to the nursing home wing, and she seems to be all too aware of that, but is putting it off for now.

I prefer to think that her mind works better when she drifts off to sleep, returning to a time of antiquated behaviors and expectations, a world where she makes decisions rather than having them be made more and more for her.

The Dress

Last week I drove a couple of hours away from here to catch up with Ru. Her boyfriend proposed over the holiday and we were now on a mission, a mission to find her dress. She already had some ideas about what style she wanted, so that made things easier.

I enjoyed the drive out to meet her. It had been a while since I had driven anywhere far enough away to actually enjoy the drive. It was kind of foggy out, with a mist that was just slightly too warm for snowflakes. Bare trees lined the road, and snow still covered the ground. Between the poor visibility and the somberness of winter, it was almost like I was driving in a monochromatic world. The trees are in that completely state of dead right now, with no promises of spring. It's almost like looking at their roots, and if you could just flip them upside down, maybe you could find some leaves and life somewhere.

Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks were in a neck-and-neck competition, alternating their wares at progressive rest stops along the toll road. The further east I drove, the more country music stations there were. The snow accumulation also started to grow, and I began to pass evergreens with branches so laden with snow that they stooped like old widows.

The dress shop turned out to be a perfect midway point, with Ru and I arriving within minutes of each other. We found her size, and begun the process of heaving plastic bundles containing precious volumes of lace, beads, and satin on a rack. (My shoulders are quite thankful that she wasn't interested in the full-skirted dresses.)

She stepped out of the dressing room with the first one and it was amazing. Gone was the girl with the rainbow t-shirt and sneakers I had walked in with. The first dress fit amazingly, so well that it blew the next several out of the water... but it wasn't quite right.

We went back for more, gleaning the rack of everything in her size that wasn't immediately offensive to the eye. A few more dresses, and then there it was. When she stepped out of the dressing room, she suddenly looked like a bride, instead of a pretty girl in a pretty dress. I was pretty sure that we were on to something because she kept that one on longer and endured more of the banal chatting from the saleswoman. Reluctantly, she took the dress off and tried a few more, but clearly we had a winner.

I couldn't believe that we had found her dress in one outing, and Ru was hesitant to make any rash decisions. So, we went out for an early dinner, scarfing obscenely potent garlic bread, spinach salad, gnocchi, and chocolate cake. Ru was back to her quirky self, asking the waiter to bottle up the quart of milk they brought her with the cake. We went back to the shop, made arrangements to pay for the dress, and because I had to work early the next morning, we parted ways. Mission accomplished.

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In other news, Army Guy came back early from Ranger School this past week. He was disappointed to return not having completed the training, but it boiled down to a whole lot of unfairness on the part of the instructors. While I'm disppointed for him, I am glad to have him back early, and have promptly responded to his returning by getting a nasty runny nose and cough, and being great fun to hang around with. Sigh.

Queen Bee

Somewhere along the way, I am sure that I have mentioned Aunt Ruth. Aunt Ruth has been the head of my mother's side of the family for the past six years since my grandparents both passed away. She is the reason the family still gets together once a year in the summertime.

Aunt Ruth is 104 years old. She was driving and living in her own two-story brick home until she was 99. She knows exactly who is in charge, and she doesn't let you forget it.

This past weekend she fell in her apartment and broke a hip. We were afraid that given her age, no surgeon would want to touch her, and she'd be confined to her bed. However, my mother told me last night that they operated on her yesterday and expected her to be back on her feet TODAY. She must have just needed some minor pinning rather than actual joint replacement, but I still can't believe they operated on her.

Just a couple of weeks ago, she was giving her visiting nurse Hell because a state inspector came through the facility and insisted that she had to have someone dispense her medications for her because of her age. I think that this was a wise decision because last year she had some problems when she mis-dosed her meds... and then there was the episode of setting off all the smoke detectors on her floor when she forgot about some prunes that she left boiling on the stove.

Aunt Ruth is ticked off though, as "I don't want any govenment making decisions about my healthcare." So now there is a long recovery road ahead of her, and all I can say is good luck to her nurses!