About twenty years ago, Mom had open-heart surgery. One day during her recovery, Mom scrawled “RAT POISON” across a notepad.
“Rat poison? Where did you see rat poison?” Dad asked.
Mom scrawled, “Mahatma Gandhi,” then “Maybel. PARROT.”
Later, when they took Mom OFF the morphine, we discovered Mom had been visited by the Mahatma, who stood in a corner with his hand positioned by his mouth as if he were playing an invisible kazoo. Later, her mother-in-law Maybel “stopped by” with a parrot on her shoulder. This one made some sense, given that her diabetes left her with just the one leg. I don’t know what excuse Gandhi had.
So, I was surprised to hear they had started her on even a “tiny dose of morphine.” I asked, and as it turned out, it’s actually a “tiny dose” of opium.
Strangely, she’s still asking for Tylenol. But that’s better than “RAT POISON.”
9 responses to “This is Drugs. This is Your Mom on Drugs.”
I often give my patients rat poison. The common blood thinner warfarin is rat poison. It’s fun to hand a patient his medicine and say, “Here’s your rat poison!”. HAHA. What fun. When my mom got really bad, they gave her morphine. she thought her doctors were speaking French. I could speak French, actually fluently at the time, so just to mess with her I would say a few things in French. HAHA. What fun. A few years back I was in the hospital and had morphine. I had the coolest dreams imaginable. I thought to myself that it was no wonder that people abused that stuff. I liked it.Hugs to the Queen Mum.
I didn’t get further in the wiki link than the 80 times stronger part!Best to your mother.
I made it to the respiratory depression part. Thud.
When they put my grandfather on morphine he became upset that telephone line men were working in his room and had strung so many wires that he thought his family would not be able to get into the room to visit.Best to your mom, Queen.
My mother sat on my couch and picked imaginary bugs off my couch. Lots and lots of them. Her hallucinations were always so sad. I asked her why she didn’t say anything about all the bugs crawling on my couch and she said, “I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
Yeah, I was going to mention warfarin, too…It really IS rat poison. Your mom’s spirit guides may be onto something.
Zayrina – I need you to come over and speak to Mom in Farsi or Urdu or whatever the Mahatma spoke. Mom just had us pull a hair off her tongue and gasped out, “Gandhi. Beard. Hair. … Joke.”Magpie – I know – that’s why its a patch and not a pill. It soaks in slowly.~~Silk – Yes. You are right. That’s where I went thud too.KC – And everyone speaks so highly of morphine. Wires, bugs, French – huh. Becs – Well that’s nice. They could have been giant bugs.Suebob – I think deer must be her guides. I saw one of the Suburb Deer last night.
That is sooo bizarre, because my mother-in-law had surgery about 15 years ago, and she scribbled nonsense on a pad for a week afterwards, including asking what sexes of puppies she had given birth to. I like to think I handle my drugs a wee bit better.
Candy – now that’s funny.