Dementia, Covid, and Creating (10/12/20)

 

My mother has been wrestling with dementia officially since 2017, but (upon reflection) longer than that.
A recent surgery to try to ease the horrible backpain that she has lived with daily for nearly as long as the dementia, has taken quite a toll on her already fragile body and spirit.
In short, she is struggling.
We are all (mom, dad, me) struggling.
 
Being 6 states away sucks.  It just does.  If somebody had told me in my early 20s that choosing to live so far away from my parents would eventually lead to these feelings of sadness/regret/guilt, I may have rethought where I wound up (except...let’s be real…in my early 20s I probably wouldn’t have believed you because I knew everything...still, I wish someone had said it).  So, 3 weeks after my visit home for the initial surgery, I took another Covid rapid test to make sure I was safe, and boarded an airplane bound for 4 days in Minnesota, desperate to be there but terrified of what was awaiting.

 
Driving from the airport into Owatonna, I stopped at Walmart, as I often do.  It’s right on the exit to my parents’ home and I usually have to pick up Diet Coke for the week (the only thing in my life that mom and dad truly disapprove of…diet soda).  I wandered around the store aimlessly for a bit, admittedly stalling, trying to hide for just a moment from the sadness I was feeling.
 
As I walked past the Arts & Crafts aisle, I remembered a promise I had made myself back when Covid started. 
Back in March, when the world was going into lockdown, I was so impressed by all of you who who were spending your extra lockdown time creating.  People were cooking, and sewing, and making music, and reading, and Dave and I were mostly just watching more TV.  I mean binging Community and Battlestar Galactica makes me genuinely happy, but I was envious of friends who were creating beautiful things (especially bread...such beautiful bread).
It had been a long time since I had made something. 
So, inspired by all of you and full of quarantine aspirations, I had promised myself (6 months ago) to use the lockdown to make something.
 
It wasn't a totally crazy thought - I mean, at one point in my life I did create things. In fact, when I was in elementary school I was a 4-Her, and 4-Hers definitely know how to create.
Wanna hear the 4H pledge? There are a lot of things I can’t remember, but the 4-H pledge is burned into my brain and this is literally the first opportunity I have had in 25 years to share it:
I pledge my head to greater thinking,
My heart to greater loyalty,
My hands to larger service,
And my health to better living,
For my club, my community, my country, and my world.)
Ok, so where was I….
When I was in elementary school, I was a 4-H er.  We didn’t live on a farm, so livestock projects weren't really an option, and I focused on projects like Photography, Sewing, Foods, and Cake Decorating.  One year, I haphazardly signed up for Arts & Crafts with no idea what I was going to do.   As the county 4-H fair date approached and I had done absolutely nothing, my Grandmother Ennis (mom’s mom) happened to visit. My grandmother was a woman who knew how to create. She was a seamstress, created quilts, canned vegetables, and cooked amazing rhubarb deserts.  Her ability to make beautiful things was something I didn’t see the value of as a child and not telling her that before she passed away is something I deeply regret. 
Anyway, she happened to be visiting that summer and counted cross stitch was one of her many skills, so we decided I would enter a cross stitch piece in the fair. 
With my grandmother’s help and patience, I submitted a very cute (while hardly error-free) cross stitched carousel horse to the fair that year, which still lives on my parents' shelves right next to the TV. 
 
That was my first and last experience with counted cross stitch and, actually, probably one of my last experiences creating art. 
 
As I got older, my focus and love turned to long-distance running and eventually triathlons.  Training for an Iron Man is easily a second job, and time not training is time recovering from training.  My goals have turned to going further and getting faster.  Creating things just hasn't been a priority. 
Plus, even so much as walking into a Michael’s can be really overwhelming.
Finally, let’s be honest, I lack skills.  Brief and half-hearted attempts at crafting over the years have taught me that I do not have my grandmother’s eye (or patience) for making beautiful things. 
 
So, as I passed the Owatonna Walmart Arts & Crafts aisle (6 months after my promise to make something), I noticed a needlepoint section and small kits, including cross stitch patterns. 
There was a “Grateful” pattern (ewww) and an “I Can’t Adult Today” pattern (ewww), and lots of flower patterns, but what caught my eye (of course) was a black and gray cat pattern with the word "Meow" stitched across the top. A look at my instagram account will show that I am very much a cat lady, a trait that came directly from my mother.  Without a second thought, I grabbed the $7 kit, assuming it would (like all of the other attempts at crafting) end horribly (probably with a tangled mess of embroidery floss) or remain in the packaging indefinitely.
 
With the kit tucked away in my bag (where I was sure it would stay unopened), I met dad and we went to visit mom at the care center: a wonderful, hard, meaningful, tearful, full of love visit.
The next morning, I went for a run to clear my head in preparation for another visit to the care center and got back just in time to answer the phone at my parents’ home.  It was the care center calling to let us know that a resident had tested positive for covid.
Oh, and the resident happened to be my mother’s roommate (whom my father and I had visited with quite a bit during the visit the day before).
Oh, and the facility was going into lockdown and there would be no more visits for 2 more weeks. 
I quickly thanked them and hung up.
It wasn’t until about a minute after the call that the reality of what I had just been told started to clarify in my consciousness, and with that clarity came several different streams of anxiety:
The no more visit anxiety stream – I came to Minnesota to spend time with my mother and now that option was gone.
The last visit anxiety stream – I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye to my mom yesterday and now I may not get a chance.
The my mom has covid anxiety stream – What if my 81 year old, already compromised, mother contracts a virus known to kill compromised people over 70?
The my dad has covid anxiety stream – What if my 82 year old father, on whom my mother relies, contracts a virus known to kill people over 70?
The I have covid anxiety stream – What if I contract a virus that I could then give to my 82 year old father? 
The my 4 day visit is now 14 days anxiety stream – I only packed for 4 days (including medications).
The Dave anxiety stream - Dave and the cats are 6 states away, and I may not get to see them for 14 days. 

The work anxiety stream – How am I going to do my job from here?
The money anxiety stream – If I have corona and have to go to a hospital, will my insurance cover everything? How much would it cost to stay at a hotel for 14 days so I don’t endanger dad?  Should I rent a car and drive back to Virginia?  If I do that, will I then get Dave sick?
The logistics anxiety stream – Flights…groceries…medication refills…re-book my flight for 4 days? 14 days? 24 days?
 
Anxiety has always been a part of my life, but the first 2 hours after that phone call sent me into a dark, miserable, scary cycle of 10,000 “what-ifs?” and “how are we going tos?”, all filling in the cracks of the underlying fears and helplessness I was already feeling about the visit. 
 
It was at some point in those first two hours that I walked to my bag and pulled out the cat cross-stitch kit I had purchased on a whim the day before.
 
For the next 4 incredibly long days, I stitched through anxiety and tears. The questions and fear were still swirling constantly, but counting stitches and untangling embroidery floss kept them at bay and distracted from the big questions that I couldn’t (that nobody could) answer.
With my typical anxiety-busting outlets gone (no bike, nowhere to swim, no running due to an unfortunately timed arthritic toe flare-up), I needed a new and refreshingly different kind of goal on which to focus.  That goal became finishing a silly black and gray cat with green eyes, and, despite my lack of ability, it was taking shape. 

On Monday, the care center called with the amazing news that two more tests concluded my mother's roommate did not have covid.  The first test had been a false positive. For now, mom was safe, we were safe, and I would get to see her again.

With that incredible call, I got to have 4 more wonderful and tearful visits with my amazing mother, before returning to Virginia. I don't know what the next few months hold or how many more visits I will get to have with her, but (for now) on the table next to her bed at the care center is a small black and gray (hardly error-free) counted cross stitched cat, watching over her and making her smile...and I made it.