Oh, My Aching Bones!

My Mom is NOT a complainer. She handles pain and stiffness pretty well and will always answer the questions of how she is with a "Pretty good!" response. So when I hear her saying "Oh, my bones!" or "Oh, my aching bones!" or "Oh, I'm so stiff!" or "Oh, my muscles!", I know that she has to be in a lot of pain. She has been saying some variation of this every day for the past week.

We did some weeding in the front yard the other day, so I expected her to feel some consequences from doing yard work. But I certainly didn't expect the winces I saw when she got into my vehicle and started to reach for the seatbelt. Her arms cannot move in those backwards, twisty directions any longer! Looks like I will be getting the seatbelt into position for Mom when I help her into my vehicle now. ;-)

Most mornings, Mom wakes up with pain. I've heard tales from former professional athletes about how they take an hour to get out of bed in the morning because they are so stiff and have to warm up their muscles to get them moving. Maybe that's why Mom lays in bed for awhile in the morning! This morning, Mom actually told me that she would start taking a Tylenol before she went to bed in order to help the pain. This is a MAJOR win for us!!!!! However, on the way to her doctor's visit this morning, we had a bit of an "argument" because she did not want to tell her doctor about her stiffness because "she did not want to deal with getting x-rays or anything like that". Did I mention that my Mother is STUBBORN???

In addition to the "argument", we talked a bit about grammar schools (we passed a few on the drive to the doctor's office) and Mom talked about her grammar school days. My Mom grew up on a farm in Iowa. She is one of 15 children. They all walked to school (a couple of miles) and attended a one-room schoolhouse. Remember what school was like on "Little House of the Prairie"? That's the kind of grammar school my Mom attended. One of her favorite memories is of her dipping Alice's (the girl who sat in front of her) pigtails in her inkwell. Apparently, my Mother was a "stinker"! Some things never change.

Aging and the Art of Weeding

The weather has been absolutely beautiful in Chicago this past week, so the dandelions are out in force this weekend! Our front yard was a sea of yellow, so some serious weeding was on the "to do" list for today. Mom enjoys getting out in the front yard to get some sun and enjoy the outdoors, so she was ready to get outside and weed with me. I knew that I'd be doing the majority of the work, but I wasn't ready for what actually happened.

I went out to the garage and got a couple of weeding tools for us as well as 2 pairs of gardening gloves. We had some trash bags for the weeds, so we were ready. Mom started on the lawn closest to the house. If you have not seen front lawns in the city of Chicago recently, they are small. Each of the front sections takes about 5 passes with the lawn mower to complete the area. Mom's section has just a few dandelions. She handles that pretty well. She just bends over from the waist and does her weeding. She works slowly, but steadily, and got the job done. She then came over to stand near me and takes a break. She says that she has heartburn. The bending over has caused her to have heartburn. She tries to do a bit more, but I can tell that she is hurting. I tell her to take the first filled bag and put it in the garbage can in the alley. She does that and then sits down on the front stairs to "supervise". The other section of the lawn took quite a while. I was on my hands and knees weeding. I had to take a couple of breaks to stand up and stretch. Mom was really stiff and hurting. She didn't get up to help me again. She just sat there and enjoyed the breeze. And at age 83, she certainly deserves to supervise our yard projects!

The thing about this that makes me pause is that just last year, she'd been right out there with me weeding away. She had to take a break or two, but she'd do it and really enjoy it. This year, her bones, muscles and joints are protesting! She just can't bend down to do the weeding anymore. She is not able to get on her hands and knees... she'd never get back up! ;-) It's certainly amazing what can happen to one's body in a year. Now, Mom's weeding days are over and her supervisory role has begun!