My Mommie's Grip Part Two--Plus The Events Of My Day and The Perfect Poly Lover

Wow. This was a fairly crazy, productively fun, little sad, and varied day. It began at 4:30 a.m. when my twenty year old son's friend showed up inebriated outside his bedroom door. This woke both me and Jerry up and neither one of us were able to fall back asleep. I tried to enjoy floating in a meditative state but after awhile I was just annoyed. Jerry had to get up and go to work all day so he was more displeased that I was. So my plan was to sleep in...but I get ahead of myself.

My mother called at 6:45. Usually this call would be waking me up but as I've already explained, I was awake. But before I tell you the nature of her call I suppose I should update you on my recent post called, "My Mommy's Grip", which was actually written in August 2006, almost one year ago.

While I was at Burningman in August/September 2006, my mother took it upon herself to get the ball rolling for her to move out of the retirement home she abhorred. She found an apartment and took the process far enough that it was basically a done deal by the time I returned home. I let it be rather than try to force the issue and make her stay in a place she hated living. I didn't know what was best for her but I did know I that this was going to be one of the last significant and independent choices she was going to be consciously making for herself. I figured it best to allow her to seise her day. I helped her move, hoping for the best. In October she was diagnosed with both Alzheimer's and Conversion Disorder. Here's some background on Conversion Disorder:

Conversion Disorder is one of the Somatoform Disorders (Somato means "body"). Basically it's a psychiatric disorder that manifests in the body. It's characterized by physical symptoms that are related to psychological factors and conflicts rather than any pathological physiologic disorder. Here's some historical background.

The ancient Egyptians attributed somatoform disorders to a "wandering uterus." Rene Descarte studied it back in the 17th century with his "reductionistic " medical model which doesn't interest me and it very boring so I won't write about it ( besides I don't really understand it much to write about it even if I wanted to). In the 18th century the new ideas surrounding disease included "humoral theory" which basically says that the brain influences the organs of the body. This evolved into the 19th century "reflex theory" which says that every organ can influence every other organ independent of the mind. By the end of the 19th century they got deeper into the psychology of it all. In the 20th century Freud influenced this area of study with his psychoanalysis model and then the Behavioral models of psychotherapy described conversion symptoms as "diseases of communication" which I do find interesting but still don't know much about. Freud also coined the meaning of the term conversion to relate to symptoms in the body that arise from repressed emotions. This sounds just like my mother too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
Years ago after all us kids had moved out of the house, my mother started this inner journey work. She was writing poetry and looking at some of her deep shadow stuff. She discussed it with me a little and I was excited for her. She had taken to wearing sunglasses around all the time because she was crying so much. She didn't stick with the process long because she couldn't handle doing the intense inner work while trying to maintain her external life and the associated duties of her job and keeping up the facade of "all is well" for others. She returned to her old way doing things, the tried and true pragmatic pattern of handling both the daily stresses as well as the occasional crisis with a level head and stoic resolve while avoiding as many of the the unpleasant truths as possible. She denied what she refused to look at and repressed her emotions with only occasional outbursts and minor meltdowns.

The current DSM IV R (Diagnostic Statistical manual, 4, revised) explains Conversion Disorder as a loss of physical functioning which is suggestive of a physical disorder along with a clinical indication that it is an expression of psychological conflict or need.

So, back in October 2006. My mom called me one morning and told me she couldn't walk. She was scared and stuck in her chair. She woke up that morning, got dressed, eat breakfast and sat down in her chair. When she tried to get up and walk she couldn't move her feet. When I got there she was very frightened, anxious and depressed. She wanted to go to the hospital. I could get her to stand up just find and she could hold her body weight but it was like her feet were glued to the carpet. I figured it was "all in her mind" but thought it was possible she had had a stroke or something so I called the ambulance and they took her to the hospital for a barrage of blood tests, scans and an MRI. They were amazed at how healthy she was actually was but the MRI showed signed of advanced Alzheimer's and the doctor diagnosed her with Conversion Disorder. She was walking again in a couple of days and we took her home.

That was eight months ago and although she's been taking medication to slow down the process of brain deterioration it's obviously on its course. She very confused and it's sad to watch. She still remembers all of us, she just makes up crazy stories.

So, back to my life yesterday...my mom calls at 6:45 and wants to know when I'm coming over to supervisor the move and take her to the new condominium she bought. I get this call most mornings and I tell her she's not moving, that I'm still sleeping and I'll be over later to see her. She argues with me a bit and then agrees to eat some breakfast and take her medicine and wait for me. I finally fall back to sleep (remember, I've been awake since 4:30) until about 9:30 and I have a 10:30 dentist appointment. I talk with her again as I'm on my way to the dentist and she is very adamant about moving today and threatens to call a taxi if I don't get there soon. I'm adamant too and insist that she not call a taxi, that I will be there after my dentist appointment. As soon as I'm done with the dentist my phone rings and it's my daughter who tells me "Gramma is really angry with you and is going to call a taxi to take her to her new condominium." I tell her I am on my way. I arrive and give her kiss and start cleaning up a bit, checking to see that she eat and took her medicine. She isn't saying a word to me but is obviously upset. My daughter arrives and the three of us sit there with an elephant in the room. I ask her "Are you angry with me mom?" She says she isn't angry but is not happy, that she wants to move and I don't know her business, that I'm the one who is confused. The three of us discuss this for awhile and finally we agree to take her to the condominium she is sure she has bought. She knows the complex and the apartment number. Problem is, when we get there, the apartment number she has given us is too big. She thinks she is moving into number 130 but they only go up to 75. We drive around and she is confused but not ready to leave so we sit in the parking lot for awhile and discuss it. Finally she realizes that this is a futile attempt and she wants to go home. Once home she has calmed down and and it's past lunch time and she wants to take me and my daughter out to lunch. We agree that we all deserve this and we take her to the new vegan raw food restaurant in downtown Chico called Nature's Own.

The name of this place sounds like it should be on a shampoo bottle but the food is outrageous and the ambiance very nice. This is the second time both me and my daughter have eaten there and we plan on going back until we've ordered everything on the menu, and then some. So we order 3 meals and share everything. My daughter and I are overly stuffed and my mom eats every last bite, consuming more than both of us. Then we start talking about the how good we hear the key lime pie is but we don't really want to order it because we are already so full but my mom tells me to order it too. We each take a couple of bites of the pie and she eats the rest of that. She raves about how good the food was all the way home. When I got her back in her apartment she told me she was exhausted, was going to get naked, crawl in bed and take a nap. It's funny, my mom sleeps naked a lot lately. Never in her life before have I known her to do this.

My sweet mommy is losing her grip.

OK, so on with my day. I go home and start working on my CD mix. I had so many songs that it turned into two CDs. Jerry comes home and I light our polyamorous love candle and we start listening to the songs but I had to leave because I had a client--two actually, a couple. So on to my office and they no-show. I walk around the Thursday Night Market and the the streets are packed. Jerry and I meet up and head over to the ChicoPoly meeting that happens at the lounge in Hotel Diamond on the first Thursday of each month. It's crowded in there too but we find a nice table right in front of the piano where some friends of ours are playing jazz. We wait for awhile but no one shows up so we leave and eat dinner elsewhere and head over to the open mic/poetry reading/talent show at The Has Beans Coffee Shop and read a couple of my poems before we head back home. Remember that my office is just three blocks from my house so our adventures are all on foot, in the glorious weather of a cool, early summer night. Lovely.

We head into the bedroom a little after 9:00 with our candle and love songs with lots of time to play before we sleep. And play we do. At one point, Jerry says to me "Tell me what a perfect poly lover is." I tell him "You are baby. You are the perfect poly lover. And me too. I'm the perfect poly lover." "Yes" he says.