little white lies

I’m starting to feel like now might be a good time to start a coke habit, or some other drug that could give me delusions of grandeur. I’ve never done cocaine and the (thankfully) few drugs I have tried have never given me any sort of lift, more paranoia (pot is an absolute torturous nightmare for me) or nothing. Maybe I could find some psycho-pharmacological drug that could give my ego a boost since it’s really in a fragile place right now. I continue to feel like less than stellar Mom material with Owen. Toby tells me it’s nonsense, that I’m a good Mom but that Owen sees me as a pushover and he’s bright so he knows how to push my buttons and make me feel guilty. Plus I’m always trying to talk, in a therapist’s couch sort of way, with Owen, let’s discuss what happened, our feelings while I look less than receptive, my brows are permanently knit in exasperation. And, once again, Toby’s (rightfully) like, he’s five you need to take something away from him and punish him for bad behavior not talk things over. I tend to be a bit of a doormat in life but I learned from the best, my Mom, who learned from the best, her Mom. The thing is my Mom doesn’t feel she’s like her Mom or me, she likes to think the neurotic, overly-sensitive gene skipped her generation.

On Tuesday I had to take my Grandma to the dentist because she needed a tooth extracted and a filing. I had marked on her calendar that I would be taking her to the dentist and talked with her repeatedly about it but her memory is declining rapidly while her anxiety increasing, so she always tends to call me a lot the day before a big event, which leaving Sunrise (her care center) to go to the dentist qualifies as. When the dentist had come to Sunrise a couple of weeks earlier to do check ups on the patients she was beside herself. Oona and I arrived to find her close to tears, hands in fists, arguing with a care manager that she wasn’t going to see any dentist when her granddaughter was visiting, her teeth were fine. She was very upset that no one told her earlier about this, which I’m sure they did but she couldn’t remember. I convinced her to go see the dentist saying it would be quick and Oona and I were fine waiting in her room. She came back relieved but still talking about how no one had told her a dentist would be visiting that day and then she started worrying that she hadn’t thanked the dentist for what I nice job he did on her bridge (her six top front teeth) over the summer. I hate to see her get so upset.

My sitter came to watch Oona on Tuesday. I dropped off Owen at school and headed over to my Grandma’s early because I knew she’d be excited. She wasn’t too nervous but was very unsure of what to wear since she stays inside all the time, and is birdlike thin now, she wasn’t sure if she’d be warm enough. We got her into a corduroy skirt and sweatshirt and put on her winter coat and I got her into the car easily enough. The whole ride over she’s asking me how far it is (8 miles) and if this is my dentist (yes I lie, he’s very good) and why does she have to go there’s nothing wrong with her bridge (he want to look at a couple of your teeth). If we sit at a red light for longer than 5 seconds she gets angry and starts muttering ‘oh come on already’ and I try to tell her not to worry that we’ll get there in time. I walk her into the office, up the elevator and into the waiting room where her anxiety spikes, ‘Look at all these other people, am I going to have to wait long?’ I tell her no praying that that’s true because last time I took her here we waited a half hour which is like a lifetime to someone with memory loss, anxiety and a prolapsed bladder, and I had Oona with me then too! But the gods are smiling on us because as soon as Grandma sits down a hygienist says Dr. B is ready for her.

Dr. B is great with Grandma and I sort of worried initially because he has a slight accent and is Middle Eastern, my grandparents have never been the most open-minded individuals, but she likes him. He’s charming, handsome with a warm smile, and very gentle with her as he asks after Oona while urging me to take samples of toothpaste from a bowl next to plastic displays of teeth. Dr. B takes an x-ray of Grandma’s tooth and it definitely needs to be extracted but he’s going to hold off on the other than that he thought might need to be filled. Now the whole time I haven’t told my Grandma that she needs a tooth removed because I knew she wouldn’t consider going to the dentist then. I feel horrible lying to her, well not outright lying but huge omitting of fact by saying Dr. B need to check a tooth, but with her memory impairment and anxiety I try to gauge what is the best way to handle things. I hold her hand when Dr. B numbs her mouth and continue to hold it while Dr. B gently rocks the tooth (#18) back and forth with a pair of metal forceps while I marvel at the nerve you’d need to first try an extraction as a dental student. The molar comes out with little blood and Dr. B wedges a piece of gauze back there for my Grandma to bite on. She still has no idea what just happened but smiles and offers a garbled thanks again for the bridge. The whole ride home I tell her she’ll need leave the gauze in for an hour and no, the dentist didn’t mess with her bridge at all.

Once back at Sunrise I sit with my Grandma in her room. After ten minutes of small talk I finally tell her that Dr. B tried to fill the tooth but there was too much decay, it broke and he had to remove it. She nods with a smile, ‘oh, really?’ A nurse comes in to see her and I hand her the sheet of post op instructions. She sweetly yells at Grandma, she’s got pretty bad hearing loss but won’t think of getting a hearing aid, that she can’t brush her teeth, no drinking with a straw and they’ll bring her a meal in a couple hours, after the numbness goes away. ‘And if you feel any pain you need to let us know.’ Grandma nods to everything she says, smiling. After she leaves we go to the bathroom to take the gauze out. It’s no longer bleeding, thank God for small miracles. I go over the instructions with her again and write when I’ll next be out to visit on her calendar. I give her a hug and a kiss, tell her I love her, and lock her door for her before going since there are men, ‘they’re not right’ she says with a point to the head, that wander in her room from time to time.

About an hour after I get home the calls start. She can’t understand that a tooth has been removed, ‘but I’m not bleeding, where was it?’ she thinks it was removed from her bridge ‘he didn’t mess with my bridge at all did he?’ and ‘what do I tell everyone that’s asking why I went to the dentist?’ My responses contradict each other, they would collapse in a heartbeat if I was being interrogated by the cops but as long as there is an answer and a familiar voice telling her not to worry she gradually tapers off with the calls ‘oh, I don’t mean to bother you.’ And I tell her it’s okay. She called me yesterday asking when she might see me next and I said that I had just been there the day before and she couldn’t remember. The visit to the dentist, the tooth, the lies, it all just fades away.