January 18th

Dying sucks. Try dying with dementia of any type, deafness and cancer. Try being one of those looking after said person. For all involved, it isn't pretty.
God has reversed my Mom's train, and trust me, I don't wish her dead. I think He and I might just be involved in a bit of a shoving match, and hey, it's God, you have to let Him win.
In the meantime, I have been forbidden to:
a) Bring in a pillow from home. Her pillow. After she complained of neck pain - she has osteoporosis. I gave her one of those u-shaped neck pillows, but that combined with plastic pillows makes her feel too hot. Hence the suggestion of bringing her one of her pillows, met with a "They won't like it!" - who's they? and "DON'T YOU DARE!!!!"  Apparently I have been forcing her to be, oh, comfortable, and that doesn't seem to sit well, as if being uncomfortable will make her die faster as is her wish. So of course I ignored her wish after a week, brought in her feather pillow from when she got married in 1955, and she exclaimed "It is sooo soft!"
And now she cradles it around her neck. All the time.
b) Order TV for her. "DON'T YOU DARE!!!"Well, this one I've heeded, but when her few friends and neighbours come in and admonish her for not having it, it makes you feel badly. But she would notice a TV if I brought it in, unlike the pillow, even if I gave her headphones to go with it. So at the moment, the seemingly neglectful family is heeding that wish. But there is only so much of the Young and the Restless you can discuss without her actually watching it. As she proclaimed to the Bean, the storylines are "S-H-*-T".
c)Ask for a walker for her. I haven't totally lost on that one as I have resources, like her doctor, although I have been forbidden to "PUT THE BUG IN THEIR EAR." Make no mistake, the cancer is going to get her, or the heart or something else. She is not dying fast enough to be on the palliative floor, and she is losing condition. Because she is palliative, no one makes her do anything, but such has been our dance and relationship through the beginnings of dementia. I am now the bad cop, making her do what she can even though she doesn't want to do it. Anyhow, an e-mail to her doctor will start the ball rolling.
d) Take concerns to the nurses. "DON'T YOU DARE!" Yeah, well she loses big time on this, because you can't out nurse me. I will never stand for sloppy nursing. And it doesn't matter her wishes here. I'm paving the way for when we are old and decrepit. I have reminded them that we will be her age sometime, with the fallen bladders, the funky bowels, brains that seem to be on the Enterprise, far, far away, and the ears that seem to ignore all. That's why you treat the elders well, because that is how you you want to be respected. Someday.
On the other hand, she knows I am going insane being here for so long. I love my Credit Valley friends, I don't love my Credit Valley work, so now I have her blessing to go back to work that I love.
In the meantime, I will take her to the bathroom, flush the toilet, get her ice, put the garbage can up, put the rails up, put the oxygen back on, take the ears out, put the pillow on the feet, and turn the lights out. One day, forever....