On How Jean Travels

As a follow up to Jean’s recent flap surgery to close the wound left by a bedsore, this morning we went to see her surgeon, Dr. Ravi, at the Advanced Wound Care Clinic at Methodist Hospital in Sugar Land. 

And to have Dr. Ravi look at a new development.

Our visit, which began with Jaki Jean putting her dress on backwards & only noticing as I climbed into the ambulance & the EMTs taking the longest route out of Meadows Place to the Southwest Freeway to avoid construction, went well.

When we returned home I positioned Jean according to the instructions given me at the Wound Care Center.

Twenty minutes later, I left the kitchen to check on her & her position had changed.

This was not the first time I had noticed that I would place the wedges to position Jean & find her position changed.  In the hospital & at the Long Term Acute Care facility, I attributed this to the nature of the sand bed.  Her body was slipping.

But today, because of questions Jennifer, my favorite nurse at the Wound Care Center, asked, my care giver spidey sense was heightened.

So I comment:

I think you move when I am not looking.

Silence.  And a look I have come to recognize. 

I ask:

Do you move when I am not looking?

Yes.

Do you move yourself?

Yes.

As I  move to re-position Jean with the wedges we use for that purpose, I explain why it is important for her to not to rearrange herself.  I tell her about the new development, not a bedsore, but a tender place on her body that we need to allow to heal without pressure.

And because I remember that this woman is not just my mother, but the amazing Lavera Jean Sims Ettinger, whose kindness, love, intelligence & sense of humor are still with us, I apologize for not explaining why positioning is so necessary.

I remind myself that repositioning  herself, moving herself, is still a control my mother possesses.  Jean cannot get up out of her bed & walk out of the room.  But she can decide exactly where in that damned bed her body dwells.

Today, I took that control from her.

And once again, my heart breaks a little bit more.