He's no problem during the day but nights are bad. Lena has taken charge of him the last two nights, so I'm rested. Last night I went to bed as soon as we'd tucked Dad in, around 7. After 9 solid hours, I got up and told Lena to get some rest.
We tried to see if Dad's primary care physician could prescribe him a new sleeping pill but that was a dead end. Even in the age of zombie flu, Doctors aren't willing to write up scrips for tranquilizers without a thorough going over of the patient. I guess that's a good thing.
Yesterday may have been the first really beautiful day of spring. It was 60 and sunny! it was also Babalouie's 6th birthday. I spoke with him on the phone at length and he gave me a detailed description of every present he'd received. I promised him that as soon as I could, he'd get a giant candy bar from me. He asked for Hershey's chocolate.
Josie came by with emergency supplies: we needed another warm blanket. With three of us here now, there weren't enough and even with the thermostat set at 70, sitting around all night is enough to freeze your bones. It was good to see her: she waved at her Grandpa from the sidewalk outside the patio windows and passed the blanket over the rail. Another young family stood on the sidewalk and had a conversation with their grandparents, who live right above Mom and Dad.
We received more good news yesterday: Mom is being discharged!
There was some consternation in the family when it became known that the city was planning to move all the Covid 19 patients to the same hospital for treatment. This is a good idea; isolate and concentrate on them, but with Mom 12 days into her isolation and clearly on the mend, we didn't love the idea of moving her. Fortunately, neither did her doctors. In fact, since she's doing so well, they decided there was no reason she couldn't finish her isolation at home, so that's what will happen. She'll return to Dad and spend the next two days in the unit. She is so happy to come home I'm sure she won't even be tempted to step outside.
I really believe (and desperately hope) that Dad's current sleep disorder will go into hibernation when Mom is back. I think just having her here will be an enormous weight off his mind and get rid of the lion's share of his anxiety.
I know it will be an enormous burden off me.
Turns out I'm a big baby. Here, I've been stuck in a luxury apartment, where the meals are delivered to my door every day and I've got newspapers, the internet, streaming TV and about 2000 books of every description and if I don't get out of here soon, I'll go bonkers. I miss my husband. I miss sleeping in my own bed. I miss my porch, my chair, my office, my work, my views, my coffee machine, my own tv, my other clothes, my backyard, my front yard and having enough room to be alone once in awhile. I miss quiet. I miss having no one demanding anything of me. I want to take a long bath. I want to stay up late and sleep all morning. I'm tired of being exhausted. I'm tired of being cheerful for my Dad so he'll stop worrying about Mom. I'm not worried about Mom but he is and I try to defuse that. It's exhausting. I suck at this. There are many jobs I could never do; being a teacher is one and being a companion is another. Pretty much any job that requires I be around other people is a job that is NOT for me.
I've always known this about myself. Some of us are made for solitude. Not all the time, but some of the time. I realized years ago that my favorite thing is when all my kids are at home but none of them are in the same room as me. I know I'm not alone in this; where do you think the fad for big, spa-like oasis bathrooms came from? Mom's who want to get away from their families.
My Dad is like me: a career in writing requires one to be comfortable in one's own company. Even with Lena here to allow me to sleep long nights, I feel like I've been 'on' for eight straight days. I'm nearly out of juice.
I reminded myself this morning that during war, young soldiers are trapped in situations and places infinitely less comfortable than mine for months and even years on end. In the battle fields of France over 100 years ago, thousands of them were stuck in muddy trenches as their feet rotted right off their legs and they had no choice but to stick it out. I've been here for one week, my feet are fine and I'm already thinking that if I were one of those soldiers, I'd be grabbing my rifle, jumping out of my trench, figuring I may as well kill a few Germans and if I was really really lucky, some German might kill me.
Maybe that's why 60 year old grandmas aren't conscripted into battle. We're wimpy that way.