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The Twilight Zone

Another day, another heartache.

It is too early to tell for certain, but there seems to be some *medical* improvement for my elderly mother. She actually ate close to a normal amount of food today and consumed almost half a normal amount of liquids. This added to the IV drip of saline and antibiotics will allow her to rehydrate well. Blood was sampled to check for improvement in her medication levels and in her kidney function. The results are not yet back.

However, even with these physical improvements, there is still sadness. She would not speak to me today, nor to my sister (the one who she berated so harshly yesterday (Dora), not the one who spent the night (Kate)). However, she was very talkative to the family of the room mate in her hospital room, and she was rather chatty to my sister who stayed overnight and to my baby brother who was only able to arrive today due to his summer teaching load. Other siblings have yet to visit, but have phoned. My sister Dora and I were the outcasts in her mind. It was easy to see the vehemence was still there behind her eyes.

Even though I am a neurobiologist/endocrinologist, I cannot fathom nor explain what sorts of maladaptive circuits fired (misfired?) yesterday to create the illusions that Dora and I were evil, cruel beasts, hell-bent on shuttering her into a beastly nursing home against her will. I cannot tell as yet if those will become forgotten thoughts or are permanently seared into the circuitry of her mind. If it is the latter, then I fear the outcome when she returns home with me after her stay in the hospital. If she continues to hold such rancor towards me or toward other members of my family in the household, it will be very, very sad, harsh, and devastating. I fear I may be entering into a new frame of interaction that may make all other hardships seem like happy times.

If you are a religious sort, please pray for me and my family, and especially my mother. If you are not a religious person, please hope for a positive resolution as well.

The day has been utterly exhausting. I have told my wife that my mind, my psyche and my soul are so spent that I need to take some time to myself. I know I will be unable to sleep for several hours yet because if I were to lay on the bed I would simply toss and turn and would only keep my beloved wife from resting. Therefore I have informed her of my plan, which I am going to pursue after writing it here as well:

I have retrieved a six pack (is it appropriate to call it a six pack when it is actually six glass bottles?) of beautiful LaBatts Blue beer that I have had sitting in the basement refrigerator for several weeks waiting to drink with my baby brother as we are nearing a milestone in the work we are doing on the car we have been working on sporadically. However, the beautiful dark ale will be more helpful for me tonight. My plan is to sit in my den, in the overstuffed Lazy-Boy that is in the far corner away from my numerous bookshelves and my writing desk, by the small television I have in that room. I have a large floor-sized pipe rack/ashtray (similar to this, but with a wooden, circular pipe rack under the ashtray bowl) beside the chair as well as the television. I shall sit back in my chair, pipe(s) and bottle(s) in hand and watch as many episodes of the "Twilight Zone" marathon being shown on the SciFi Channel as I can.

For those of you too young to know or remember, "The Twilight Zone" was a remarkable and brilliant television series that ran from 1959 until 1965 (or was it 1966?). I remember in my youth watching each episode for the first time and being in awe of their artistic, creative, and wholly thought-provoking story lines. It is my hope that the gentle massage of the alcohol, of the nicotine from my pipes and the sounds and images of those wonderful episodes will allow me to mentally transform back to some of the joy of my youth, and will allow me to forget at least for a little while, the pain and worry and grief I have been experiencing.

For those of you who may wish to sample "The Twilight Zone", the marathon apparently continues all day of July 4th, so if you have the SciFi Channel, you could easily catch an episode.

PipeTobacco