Boredom, 2

I’m not the only one who suffers from boredom. Ma Schmidt is frequently bored as well.

The details of each day are different, but the broad outlines are the same. She wakes up in mid-morning. In the last few days, she has generally been able to get herself to the toilet by leaning on her walker. Then she comes out to the family room—still leaning on the walker—and settles on the sofa. She turns on the television, and there she sits for the day.

Schmidt and I bring her food to nibble, water to sip, coffee with half-and-half, Ensure. She samples it all, not eating or drinking a lot of any single thing. But we leave them where she can reach them throughout the day.

Meanwhile, she watches television. But her heart isn’t really in it. Several times a day she’ll ask me, “Do you want to watch something else? It’s fine if you do. We don’t have to watch this if you want to see something else.” I tell her that I don’t know what there is available to watch, because I don’t have a television at home. So whatever we’ve got on right now (at the moment it’s a wild animal documentary) is fine with me. Then she sighs and smiles and settles back down.

Would she be less bored watching something else? Maybe, but I’m not convinced. Her hearing is very poor, so she would certainly need closed-captions to understand what was going on. Her short-term memory is very poor, so I’m not convinced that she could follow anything more demanding anyway. The Schmidts live out in the middle of nowhere, so she doesn’t have friends dropping in to visit; she’s got one friend who calls regularly, but at this point Ma Schmidt can’t hear well enough to talk on the phone. (Her son takes those calls, to give the friend an update on Ma’s condition.)

All this means that there are no obvious quick-fixes. But the consequence is that—not only is she weak, easily confused, and taking in minimal food and liquids—but Ma Schmidt is chronically bored. She’ll turn to me and say, “This must be a great vacation for you, acting as a nursemaid for your friend’s mom. But don’t worry; I’ll die soon.” I always reply that I’m doing just fine, and she shouldn’t be silly. 

I wonder though: when she remarks that she’ll die soon, is she trying to reassure me? Or is she trying to reassure herself?

The documentary is saying something about meerkats. Ma Schmidt is dozing gently. We’ll see how it goes.