Early-ish in the morning – I’ve returned from the follow-up visit to the sleep clinic via a pause to buy gas and run the pollen and smut drenched little blue car through the unsatisfactory car wash.

I am SO tired, which you wouldn’t think I’d be after a night devoted to my sleep and its quality. However, sleeping hooked up with about 20 wires, multiple straps around my chest, oxygen sat monitor taped to a finger, and a big honking nose mask just doesn’t lend itself well to blissful relaxation.

Having things stuck to my head/hair and face with goo made me feel itchy and in need of a shower, and the mask made me feel a bit isolated from my surroundings.

I think I feel asleep earlier than last time. I couldn’t read as couldn’t figure out how to insert my glasses through the mask apparatus, and the soft flowing of the overflow air flicked at the edges of my eyes anyway, which made me a bit sleepy. It seemed to me that I went easily into sleep and slept well until about 2 in the morning when I started waking up, checking the time, and willing myself back to sleep, only to do the same thing again numerous times until about 5:15 when I just couldn’t doze too much anymore. Finally, a bit after 6 I got my “awake!” nudge, and shortly thereafter got unhooked from my data stream. 

I didn’t realize until I was driving away that a whole lot of adhesive goo had been left on my face. I touched an ‘itchy’ spot absentmindedly and then had to contend with trying not to get that on the steering wheel or elsewhere in the car until I could find something to wipe my hand (and face!) off with.

Don’t know if they will have found that I was helped by/with the CPAP machine. I don’t know whether it stopped any of the unhelpful nighttime stress I put myself under with the apnea (stopping breathing, snoring, pulling up of the LPR, etc.). I felt like I was attached to / as a vacuum cleaner with the long bendy hose and the sound of blowing air. Sigh. We’ll see what comes next. I wouldn’t mind being helped, but if this is the answer, it will take some getting used to.

Not sure how much these cost or how I will pay for one.

The kitties of my tribe were glad to see me (“FEED THE KITTIES!!!!!!”). The rest of the household is still asleep.  I’m not sure I have time to shower and scrub all the goo out of my hair before we’ll need to leave for Chick to go to her OB appointment. (We are ONE WEEK away from the calculated due date, but don’t know when HE will actually decide to make his appearance.)

With our visit to Snowy yesterday, she was in her bed having a miscommunication with the Hospice aide who had come to bathe her. She never wants to put anyone out (when she’s thinking about it), so she could not bring herself to definitively say she was okay to have her bathing. She says things, instead, like, “Whatever you think” or “I’ll do what you tell me” or “Give me the papers to sign.” And the aide, who is so sweet but not one I’ve met before, was equally being as accommodating about, “Only if you want to” and “I’m not going to make you do anything”, until they were adrift in polite indecision.

Fortunately we came at the right moment to gel the situation into yes, she wants her bathe (a version of a shower). After we swore on a stack of 10 pretend Bibles that we would STAY and NOT LEAVE while she had her ablutions, Snowy finally was borne off into the bathing chamber.

Chick and I kept exchanging glances as we overheard the conversation between Snowy and the aide: “Oh, that jacket [sic] is so pretty!” (said about 15 times) “Oh, you shouldn’t have to do this for me!” “You’re going to get wet!” “You are so beautiful!”

Over and over, too, she reached out to the aide, from her chair, from the bed, and when the aide was close enough, she embraced her with hugs. As the aide was finally leaving the room, Snowy cooed to her, “I love you!”

Chick said later that it made her feel a bit jealous to hear Snowy saying those things that she used to say just to Chick, but that she knew that when she had to give up her status as primary caregiver, this would happen. It’s just another slap of reality with this situation we are dealing with.

When we finally were able to ’start’ our visit, Snowy was again a bit goggle-eyed (staring with big eyes, barely blinking) at us, and especially at me whom I guess she perceives as the key to handling her situation. She started to tell us the “Oh, you just don’t know what goes on around here!” and the like, but suddenly stopped and put her hand over her mouth as if she ‘got’ that that topic didn’t bring her the results she wanted.

She was most interested in Chick and her progress, and bade her several times to take care of herself and to be careful. 

When she started getting a bit edgy again, I tried the trick of not engaging (much) with the delusions and paranoia. Instead I asked Chick to let me borrow the book that she keeps stashed in one of the drawers in the bedside table, Miss Fannie’s Hat, by Jan Karon. Chick has read this book to Snowy so many times over the last year or so, and as I began reading it out to Snowy, she began to get into it once again. She couldn’t really ’see’ the pictures because she didn’t have her glasses on (and didn’t want them except for a few moments to know they were there), so she stared hard at my face as I read. I tried to put some good ‘dramatic’ feeling into the little story as I read, and at certain spots Snowy relaxed into a smile or a chuckle. 

Afterwards, Chick told me that she had read the story so much that the kidlet ‘knew’ the sound of it from inside and he’d started perking up, too, as he heard the familiar tale. As she headed into the bathroom, Snowy asked worriedly where she had gone. When I explained, and then told her I needed to get Chick home so she could put her feet up as they were indeed swelling painfully, Snowy was okay with that. She settled back against her pillows and begged that we would ‘come again’, and we assured her we would.

And we will!