Hannah Craig Nix of Smyrna & Marietta GA

Images of America: The Lockheed Plant

I was walking through the Marietta square a couple weeks ago and saw a poster in a store window for a new book titled The Lockheed Plant.  I researched the book and learned that a Marietta Daily Journal employee named Joe Kirby compiled the 120 page book using hundreds of photos from the MDJ archive as well as photos supplied by Lockheed Martin.  It not only chronicled the history of the plant from the time Lockheed reopened it in 1952, but included some pictures of it being built in 1942, told stories about the many aircraft built there and had some interesting insights on how the plant shaped the development of Cobb County.  Most pages include several photos.

I ordered two copies, one for myself and one for Mom.  When they arrived, I couldn’t put the book down.  I finished it in a couple of days and took Mom her copy and pointed out a lot of the photos I found particularly fascinating.  She couldn’t hold the book or turn the pages, but I still enjoyed pointing out pictures and reading captions.

Mom’s condition is unchanged from last report.  Her brother Henry called Monday night asking whether massage might improve Mom’s ability to use her arms and feet.  That ship sailed 15 months ago when Mom was in rehab at DelMar Gardens but never showed any improvement, but the reason I’m writing about this is we all feel frustration at our inability to help her and her low quality of life.  It’s only natural to look for something that might have been missed.  Many people have told me they never imagined that my go-getter Mom could ever be in her current condition.  Henry’s suggestion was a testimonial to how much people love Mom.

First off, Mom’s condition has not changed noticeably in several months.  Like the Energizer Bunny, she keeps going and going.  She goes at a low-energy level, but she hasn’t gotten any worse and she hasn’t gotten any stronger.  I had concerns that some bug or virus might become a concern during the winter months, but that hasn’t happened.  I’m sure it helps that she isn’t exposed to the general population and has only limited exposure to the other residents.

Mom’s brother, Gordon Craig, called me around 8pm last night.  Uncle Gordon has been fighting health issues of his own and has been visiting a Physical Therapist twice a week for most of 2011.  Gordon told me that last Sunday, January 1, my cousin Dwight (his son) drove him down from Ellijay to visit Mom.  They picked up Uncle Henry (another of Mom’s brothers) from Kennesaw on the way and it was like a reunion in Mom’s little apartment.

I was thrilled to hear about it.  Uncle Gordon is hard of hearing so last summer when Mom’s speech was still understandable, I put a headset on Mom and tried to call Uncle Gordon so she might talk to him.  Aunt Dot answered and said Gordon was napping since he had Physical Therapy that morning, so the experiment was short lived.  Apparently it takes a while to wake Gordon and get his hearing aids installed.

So God bless Dwight and God bless Gordon.  I’m sure the trip to and from Ellijay took a toll on both of them with New Year’s Day traffic.

With Mom’s new bland/soft diet, I’ve found she likes all kinds of soup.  We’ve tried a lot of the soups from Trader Joe’s, Publix and even some homemade soup.  Ann (my wife) made her traditional bean soup on New Year’s Day in a crock pot and an abundance of ham left over from Christmas and I took a batch of that to Mom.  Trader Joe’s sells Maryland crab soup and various seafood stews by the cup and Publix sells all kinds of soup by the cup.  Mom has tried most of those.

Mom also enjoys fresh fruit, especially cubed cantalope and watermelon.

Lenee's wedding ceremony

Barry's "kids"

On a side note, Rachel was staying in Rome while performing clinicals in Cedartown in October.  Uncle Julian (Dad’s brother) and Aunt Marlin invited Rachel, Ann and I to attend the wedding of Sheila’s daughter, Lenee’, in Curryville on October 15.  The wedding was beautiful with the

The bride and groom arrive by buggy

couple arriving in a horse drawn buggy and supper served under a monster tent.  It was a picturesque setting alongside a lake and the weather was just perfect.  I saw a bunch of relatives I had not seen in years.

Rachel had clinical rotations in Augusta last month, but is back in Rome doing internal medicine rotations at their hospital now.  She’s still on track to get her MD degree in May 2013.

I know it’s been nearly three months since my last post, but there just hasn’t been much change in Mom’s condition.  That’s not a bad thing.  There were days about a year ago where I was posting twice a day when Mom was falling constantly and I was blogging from the Emergency Room and the hospital.

Thankfully, I have Jim & Diane Carusos, Margie, Lee, cousin Cathy to remind me that I need to post something on my comatose web site before everyone gives up on it.  Thanks for that keen insight into the obvious guys!

Friday, two days ago, was Mom’s 79th birthday.  She was telling folks it was her 77th and I told her she was welcome to tell people that but there were enough of us who knew better who might conclude she had taken too many bumps on the head.

The folks from Heritage of Sandy Plains had tied three helium balloons to her wheelchair.  I took her a dozen roses and baby’s breath plus a card with a photo of a kitten sitting on a piano keyboard.  She was always a sucker for kittens.  I also took her three new pair of pants and a couple of mock turtlenecks (which my wife was instrumental in helping me choose).

About the only change in Mom’s health has been in her diet.  She kept choking on solids which had to be chewed and was changed to soft foods.  Mom had to give up bacon among other things (so she can eat mushy food) and I’m sure she misses that.

Yesterday, Saturday, November 5, I went to see Mom around 10am and Carol Henderlight was visiting.  Mom was having a banner day; she was bright eyed and I could understand about half of what she said.  It had been several months since I heard her speak this well.  It was nice seeing Carol Henderlight and we had a pleasant chat.

I suspect that Mom sometimes feel that she’s been sentenced to her small apartment to die.  That might not be far from the truth, but I’m not sure what to do about it.

Last month, Margie & Lee stopped by to see Mom before meeting me at a restaurant and told Mom they were meeting me for supper.  Mom refused to finish her supper at that point and made it obvious that she wanted to go with them.  Mom cannot walk or even stand.  I’m sure getting her into and out of a car would be quite a challenge and her high-back reclining wheelchair will not fit in most cars; it really requires a raised-roof van with a lift gate to safely transport her.  I felt awful for Margie & Lee when I heard that story (and I felt bad for Mom too), but there was no way they could have transported Mom to the restaurant.

For the last month or so, I’ve wondered whether Mom has lost some of the energy she found over the spring.  As you probably recall, she went from not speaking over the winter to speaking fairly well during May and June.  Her words proved that her mind was still sharp, and she even stayed awake longer and seemed to be more alert.

Lately, she seems to have lost some of that energy and it’s rare that I can understand her.  She still tries to speak, but we just can’t understand many of the words.  I’m sure it’s frustrating for her to have something to say but we just can’t understand enough of the words to interpret what she is expressing.  It’s frustrating for us too.

Last Friday afternoon, August 12, I went to visit Mom and found Margie and Lee were already there.  The little apartment gets a little crowded with five people in it, but we had a great time.  Margie is looking forward to a church trip to the holy land.

Sunday I got word that Chris Wilson had died the day before in a tractor accident at 45 years old.  I debated over whether to tell Mom; I try to keep things upbeat for her, but I concluded that she would want to know.  I mentioned it on Monday when I saw her during lunch and she just moaned.  I asked her about sending a contribution to the Cure It for Kids fund and she told me how much she wanted to send.  Chris was Carol McAfee’s son and had been a great friend to Uncle Henry.  The obituary can be found here: http://darbyfuneralhome.com/obits/

I’m sorry the news isn’t happier but it’s been nearly a month since my last post and I hate waiting this long.  Thanks to Carol Henderlight and John Downer (who worked with Mom at Lockheed) for visiting recently.  Mom certainly enjoys having visitors.

By the way, I regularly turn the TV off or turn the volume way way down when I visit so I stand a better chance of understanding Mom.  Don’t hesitate to ask the Kadan Homecare employee to mute the TV while you’re visiting.  If there’s any problem, let me know what time you visited and I’ll have a talk with their management.  Seriously!

As some of you noticed, my web server gave up the ghost last week.  I kept finding it powered off in the mornings and it eventually reached the point where it would only run a couple of minutes before shutting down.  I was able to restore this web site on another machine and am pretty sure no data was lost.

On Sunday, July 17, I took Mom a few supplies and a visitor’s register; at least that’s what I’m calling it.  It’s just a book of ruled pages which I labeled as a visitor’s register so others might determine who has been by to visit Mom (assuming they want to sign in).  There’s a box of 24 pens with various colors of ink so you can pick a color that suits your mood.

I was told that Margie and Lee had visited Mom on Saturday, July 16.  Today I was told that her brother visted yesterday, Tuesday, July 19, so I assume that was Henry.  Gordon calls occasionally to ask about Mom but he’s not up to driving to Marietta.  I suspect just riding along with someone else driving is rough on Gordon.

I took Mom some boiled shrimp and cocktail sauce at lunch today along with some fresh flowers and found that Ivy had brought her a beautiful floral arrangement on Sunday afternoon.  So Mom doesn’t need flowers at the moment.   The cocktail sauce was pretty hot and Mom didn’t care for it (but Angie would have loved it); even I couldn’t tolerate much of it.  Mom said she enjoyed the shrimp but had just eaten lunch and only ate a few.

Mom expressed an interest in watching more movies about a week ago so Ann found some classic movies on DVD.  I’ve ordered a Logitech Harmony 650 remote for controlling the cable box, DVD player and TV.  The remote has buttons which say “Watch TV” and “Watch a movie” and then configure the TV to the cable box inputs to watch TV or configure the TV to the DVD player inputs to watch a movie.  So instead of having to juggle two or three remotes and hit the appropriate buttons on each, one remote runs everything.

Several of the folks who watch Mom have told me that she occasionally acts like she’s trying to get out of bed and walk.  I guess she still forgets that she can’t walk and doesn’t remember all those falls she took.  Fortunately, Mom moves slowly enough that there’s plenty of time to stop her but I guess it’s another reason I’m glad someone is with her all the time.

Lilian, who usually takes care of Mom on weekends during the day, told me today that Mom asked about going to the dining area for lunch yesterday, Saturday, July 2.  Apparently, that’s what they did!  After quite a few months of eating her meals in her room, Lilian rolled Mom’s chair to the commons area and she fed Mom there.

Mom apparently enjoyed the social setting and I hopes she gets out of her room more often.  She asked about Mary Frank, but Mary moved out in March and died in May.  I told Mom about Mary moving to another facility, but I have not mentioned that Mary died.

Lilian often paints Mom’s fingernails, so if you visit on the weekend and Mom has freshly painted nails, ask the attendant whether she painted Mom’s nails.

I checked my web server, the machine which hosts this blog among other web sites, on Saturday morning, June 11, and discovered the computer had died on Friday night. It was reporting a memory error. I ordered a replacement memory module on Saturday and it arrived in today’s mail and I rejuvenated the server. So if you were puzzled about not being able to access this web site for the past week, that is why.

No data was lost. Everything came back intact. Neil

Almost every week, I detect some little sign that Mom is getting stronger.  There are no huge breakthroughs.  I’ll be amazed if she ever walks again, but over the past month, she’s found new energy and it’s much more common for her speech to be audible (and intelligible), sometimes over the noise from the TV.

Today I was looking at her hands and arms.  Six months ago they were cut, scraped and bruised and even two months ago her hands were often swollen.  But there were no scrapes, scabs or bruises today and it’s been about a month since her hands were noticeably swollen.  It might be attributable to the fact that she spends much of her day in bed and her hands and arms aren’t being banged against her wheelchair.  It might be attributable to her caretakers feeding her well, i.e., good nutrition.  It might have something to do with her private care overseers applying lotion to her hands and arms and bathing her better than the facility personnel had.  It might be a combination of any of these.  But I can’t argue with results.  I feel much better writing the check for the private care providers twice a month now.

Mom is still very stiff and it still takes several people to dress her or transfer her between her bed and wheelchair.  I doubt I’ll be able to get her in a car anytime soon.

But her appetite has improved greatly.  I take her sliced fruit to supplement the meals provided by Heritage.  She enjoys drinking Boost and Ginger Ale (but not together).  And I’m still keeping Bruster’s ice cream in her freezer.

On Wednesday, June 1, Henry (Mom’s brother) was visiting Mom when I arrived.  Margie and Lee arrived soon after I did and Mom was talking up a storm.  Mom said she wanted to go out for supper (and I’m sure that’s true).

Today, Annie, the caregiver who stays with her most weekdays, told me Mom had announced that she wanted to get out of bed and walk around.  Her spunk has returned, so it’s a new ballgame.

I’ll try to post updates here more often.

As Carol Henderlight mentioned in her April 21 comment, Mom is speaking audibly a lot more.  I first noticed it on Friday, April 22, when I walked in for a visit and started talking to her as usual and she surprised me by responding.

Mom continues to speak a little each day that I’ve visited since.  Like everything else, there are good days and less good days and her ability to project when she speaks and my ability to understand her vary day by day.  I took my plantronics headset on Thursday and decided to see if she could speak to uncle Gordon using my cell phone.  Aunt Dot answered and told me that Gordon has physical therapy on Mondays and Thursday mornings.  Gordon often naps those afternoons, so he was sleeping without his hearing aids.

Correction:  I previously reported that Mom was not longer being transferred to her wheelchair anymore but that was incorrect.  She’s usually transferred to her wheelchair around 10am and returned to her bed around 2pm.  I’m usually working during those hours so I just don’t see her in her wheelchair often.

I’m still stopping at Bruster’s Ice Cream a couple times a week and taking Mom various flavors of ice cream.  We recently tried Galaxy, a chocolate with caramel swirls, Oreo, which is vanilla with chunks of Oreo cookies and Cotton Candy Explosion, an extremely sweet pink cotton candy flavored ice cream with Pop Rocks.  Mom loved them all except the Cotton Candy Explosion.  Mom told me she didn’t like it, but Annie, her caregiver, told me that Mom ate every bite of it.  I keep asking Bruster’s for the Key Lime flavor but they don’t make it very often.

Ivy and Angie sent Mom some lovely flowers about a week ago.  If you visit, you’ll see them on her nightstand.

Thanks for the comments here.  It’s encouraging to know that folks are still following this blog.

There hasn’t been any detectable change in Mom’s condition over the last couple of weeks.  Sometimes she will raise her hand to hold her sipper cup and other days she doesn’t seem able to manage that much effort.  Except for understanding a grunt in the affirmative or negative, I’ve not been able to understand anything she’s tried to say this month.

I took Mom a banana split from Brewster’s on April 7 and she ate most of the banana split!  The banana was firm and cut in large slices, so chewing up the chunks of banana took a lot of effort.  But she seemed to enjoy the scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream, the pineapple and strawberry chunks and even enjoyed the maraschino cherry.  It took her a while to eat all she wanted and I was left with melted banana split soup with chunks of banana when she was done.  So I took her two more on April 14 and put them in the freezer.

I was pretty miffed at certain people at Heritage following last month’s changes, but what’s best for Mom is not to relocate her any more than is necessary.  She seems comfortable in her private room on her mostly quiet wing and she’s being looked after around the clock, so despite the cost, I’m going to leave her where she is for now.  My contention has always been that it’s Mom’s money I’m spending and if it buys her any comfort, I’ll continue to spend it.  I’m confident that moving her to a nursing home where she would be in a semi-private room would be extremely stressful for her right now.

Her caregivers keep a notebook which contains a log of folks who visit and how she is doing.  Her hands continue to swell and the caregivers often keep them elevated to alleviate the swelling, but that has not helped much on her left hand.