Memory and Balance

Today, the Great Plotnik is the Great Poopednik. He has to figure out how to stop himself from waking up in the middle of the night, worrying about insoluble things. Everyone he knows who has aging parents goes through the same things. Memory and balance. You can lose everything else but when either of those goes, the other one isn't far behind. How do you maintain a will to live when you're in pain, afraid of falling over, just about blind, hard of hearing, with no friends left and you can't even depend on your own brain to give you a reality check?

What you do is get mad. Down in Stiletto, Mummy P. is alternating between fury and forgetfulness, with enough moments of lucidity to convince herself she's really OK.

This morning she said to Plotnik in great frustration: "Wouldn't I know if I were forgetting things?" Plotnik said "Mom, please don't do this." He listed several recent examples of her forgetting important things. "Well, yes, maybe I did forget those. But listen. Don't you forget things?"

"Well, yes."

"So do you know when you forget something?"

"Usually, but..."

"Well, then. Why wouldn't I know if I were forgetting things? Can't you trust me?"

The rub.

He still believes in her. She's the strongest person in the family. But Plottie needs to pay attention to what her doctor said to him this morning: you attend to what is reversible. And you accept what is irreversible. To do that Plotnik needs better balance himself and sleep is a good place to start.