MAiD Dispatches: Everything and Nothing
It is on my second 12-hour day at long-term care with my mom when I lean against the window in her room, my forehead touching the winter-cold glass as I gaze out onto the rose-gold sunset, and realize that these final three weeks with her look nothing like I expected they would.
Our days revolve around two principle activities: eating and getting her to and from bed and bathroom.
Meals require installing her in her wheelchair — lock wheels, snap in foot pedals, help her get seated, arm her with her tablet and sunglasses — and rolling her to the dining room. Once there we inspect her two spoons to ensure they’re acceptably clean (my mom is a Taurus…), make sure her stack of napkins is adequately fat, and carefully eyeball her glass of thickened cranberry juice — it must be half full only, in order for her to be able to control the flow of the liquid without choking.
Between meals I imagined she’d rest while I clacked on my laptop during the day, but it didn’t take long for that self-centred fantasy to shatter. Email has made way for the bed ritual. It entails adjusting the bed height so that when mom shuffles to its edge from the wheelchair while holding my hand, she can sit without too precipitous a drop. Then I swing her legs up and onto the mattress, which I’ve flattened so I can then hoist her towards the top. I press the “up” button to raise the portion closest to the headboard so she’s in a seated position, then boost the section under her legs so it’s at the angle she likes best. Finally, I pull up her socks, straighten the hems of her pant legs, and cover her with a knitted shawl that keeps her feet extra warm.
So when I sink into the chair next to her bed and begin to type, only to see her hand raise almost immediately to get my attention — she points to herself and then to the bathroom door — I try not to sigh in exasperation. Getting her to the bathroom, the entire bathroom routine, and settling her back in bed takes more time than I ever could have imagined possible.
But when I do get her re-ensconced comfortably after one of these Herculean efforts, she asks for her tablet: “You are so careful about things like the bed. I treasure you. You spoil me.”
And that, I realize, is everything I wanted these three weeks to be: Giving her comfort, making her feel safe, showing her how much she is loved.
