HondaReport.com - Hour by hour

The therapists, doctors and surgeons have had their work done on my octogenarian mom, especially in the past five months. Today, however, my simple plan involves nothing more than hourly checks and, maybe, a bit of caffeine.

Nobody really thinks about it, not seriously, not until it becomes as common to daily living as the next meal.

Or whether there's enough toilet paper. Or rice. Getting old can get pretty old, and it's unavoidable. Over the past five months, caring for my mother has been quite a task for my sister, who is older than me by 11 years. Months before my mom fell and severely fractured her left shoulder, my sister took her in.

They barely get along, but it was much worse when I was a kid. Back then, it was an all-out feud. No one would ever imagine they were related, let alone mother and daughter. In spite of that, my sister has a way of harboring the lost and wayward, whether they be close relatives or stray cats.

Which brings me to tonight. My mother is 80, and when she remembers her age, even she is in awe of this feat. That thought is usually followed by a sense of sadness, but that's my mom for you. Changing her diapers isn't a new chore. In the weeks following her accident, I learned quickly that without the use of her left hand, she was almost entirely dependent on us for the most mundane things, like bathing, eating, and yes, No. 1 and No. 2.

With rehab work, her shoulder and left arm have improved slowly, painfully. The bigger physical problem remains, though. Overnight, while the world rests in a darkened stupor. That's when my mom has no sense of control when it comes to her bladder or whatever it is that informs us that No. 2 is on the way. Embarrassing? Hell yeah. But my mom has gotten over that. Plus, her dementia — she has constant short-term memory loss — make it easier to forget this minor curse. Lord knows, if I'm still writing on this site in my diaper-wearing years, you'll be calling me the whiniest Depends-wearing bastard on Planet Earth. And I will enjoy wearing that crown.

In regard to this specific problem of my mother's, I say it is minor only because there are at least three people, friends or close relatives of friends, who are battling cancer as I speak. That's why I feel thankful — not always, but often — that my mother's worst problems aren't life-threatening. In fact, when her mind is sharp, she's as commandeering and combative as ever. Now and then, she'll burst in to laughs over a not-really-that-funny moment on TV. Or the cats will simply amuse her.

Yes, the cats, one an aging, roly-poly, neurotic and paranoid Siamese named Joey. Cody is the 1-year-old, highly lovable and cuddly though he is quickly growing past that stage the way a pre-teen gets wary of mommy's overtly outlandish hugs and kisses in front of PAL baseball teammates and elementary school classmates. You know the deal.

The cats, particularly Joey, have their quirks. Earlier tonight, Joey showed off his nimble feet by leaping to the top of a bookshelf in his quest to paw a large cockroach. Once satisfied, he leaped back down. Of course, his problem with extra weight was never a consideration, perhaps because he is vain as any cat can be. He landed on a stack of desk trays, shattering the top one into six pieces. Disturbed and shellshocked by his own impact, he sprinted to safety in another room. A minute later, he returned to the scene of his crime, where I showed him a dangerously sharp piece of the mess. His eyes widened, and he sped off to the bedroom again, knowing quite well that I am not pleased by this behavior.

This time around, though, I wasn't mad at him. I was actually hoping he'd kill that damned cockroach. And the lack of exercise he gets, being a full-time housecat, is a big reason why he's carrying a sumoesque figure. That plastic tray never had a chance, no matter how softly Big Joe tried to land.

I've been playing with the cats every night, even as their complete focus is always on the Outside World. Joey has been out there, gotten his tail kicked around, even lost a collar. He doesn't long to escape the house anymore, but the tease of the street is always there until the doors close late in the evening. Cody has no desire to really stay out, though he'll jump out if the door somehow stays open long enough. He finds the bugs and geckos near the house windows entertaining enough. Cody is always happy to rip the tail off an innocent gecko — doesn't he realize that these bug-eaters are our friends? — but he isn't bloodthirsty enough to actually eat them. For him, fun is in the chase, and he always knows how to get his neck and head rubbed just the right way from a nearby human. Simple pleasures for a simple cat.

Even the cats seem to know that Grandma, my mom, is different. She shoos them off the dining table with persistence, but her lack of direct physical presence leaves them undeterred. Joey will watch from the top bunk sometimes as I tend to her, talking to me in God knows what kind of language. Maybe he knows she has special needs. Or maybe he's just bossing me around and unsatisfied with my work.

As of 1 a.m., I have begun the experiment. Mom's poopy (and shishi) problem are the focus of the experiment. She was in bed for 2 hours, and when I woke her to go use the bathroom, she had already done a bit of No. 1 into her diaper. (More like two diapers and three extra pads.)

At 2 a.m., I'll wake her again, and the experiment will continue every hour until the sun rises. Until I learn exactly when it is that her poop chute lets loose as she sleeps gently. Once I get an approximation of when that happens — I'm guessing that it will be between 5 and 7 a.m. — then we'll be able to time her BM each morning. Have her wake up and go do her duty on the throne. And most importantly, save her and my sister (and me) from the indignity of cleaning a stinky mess nearly every morning.

Why do I write about something so blatantly disgusting? Because it's a part of my life that I'm pretty sure isn't limited to me. Many of us who are creeping into middle age have similar challenges. Problems. Situations. Dealing with those problems isn't something we can run away from, not for those of us who care. So we face them and be thankful that it isn't worse.

On Thursday, I take my mom in for a full round of tests. The doctor and his staff will find out a lot more about her plumbing downstairs, and what can be done. It's the least we can do. Maybe sometime soon, she'll be relatively normal, living without a diaper, without the frustration. Maybe then my sister will have a little less stress in her life.

The maybes are worth the effort. I think about it, how it all adds up between me, my sister, our mother, my brother, his loving wife, my perceptive nephew and these rascally cats. Somehow, there's an equation threaded through all this. I think about it, not knowing or needing the answer, But I have to think about it.