Six and a half years ago, my mother had a massive stroke. She requires 24-hour/day care. We have caregivers who come and go, but I spend many hours at her house with her every single day.

To tell the truth, I didn’t think I had it in me to be a caregiver. For years, I worked as a businessman in New York City. I was the controller of a large organization, and I guess I got spoiled. People seemed to actually want to do what I told them to do … when I told them to do it! Boy did things change after the stroke!

A stroke can bring on dramatic personality changes. My mother had been a quiet, prayerful woman before the stroke, but now she’s more like a rebellious 78-year old teenager. I knew I was in trouble the first time they stood her up in rehab. A tissue tucked into her sleeve fell to the floor as her therapist struggled to get her steadily to her feet. As the therapist made an attempt grab at the falling tissue, my mother said, “Oh don’t worry about that, Brandy. I’ll just have Piss-Boy pick it up.” And my new role in life was born!

That said, being Piss-Boy is more fun than it sounds. Thankfully, she has a tremendous sense of humor. So, even though her antics are a clear departure from her pre-stroke personality, they’re pretty funny. A few months ago, I was teasing her at dinner … not a good thing to do with someone who no longer has any filter. In a scant second, she sucked up a straw full of water and blew it into my face. She laughed so hard that I began to laugh too. Actually, we laugh a lot!

Did I mention that my mom’s new personality is a cusser? A while back, I had to be away for the evening, which meant she had to eat someone else’s cooking. In order to make me pay for her inconvenience, she tried to lay heavy mom-guilt on me as I spoke to her from my car. The conversation went something like this:

Me:      So how was your evening?

Ellen: I shit my ears off!

Me:       How many times have I told you to pull your head out of your butt!

Then we both fell into laughing.

You may have noticed that I referred to her as Ellen in the above paragraph. That’s because she now refers to herself as Ellen … NOT the name she used for the nearly 72 years prior to the stroke.

We’re quite a pair, Piss-Boy and Ellen. The truth is that I like Ellen, but I really miss the woman who raised me. This side of Heaven, Ellen will never really understand that it is my loyalty to her former self that keeps me coming around.

In Precipice, Sarah’s mom has a personality-altering stroke. Now you know the truth behind the fiction.