For those of you who have been patiently waiting for an update, here it is. I am still at Mom & Dad's, taking care of them until we can decide, as a family, what the heck we're going to do. Even my parents reluctantly agree that they cannot continue living by themselves any longer, given the physical limitations of both of them coupled with the mental confusion/dementia (?) that my mother has been exhibiting to a marked degree since the surgery. Her doctor ordered a CT-scan last week to determine whether the surgery triggered a stroke — he said that was a very real possibility, and isn't unmusual in older persons who have surgery. We are waiting for the results of the scan and the follow-up appointment with her doctor in a few days.
Mom is doing much better on the physical level. She is finally eating and drinking again as she should be, and is able to move about the house on her own. The fecal incontinence has come to an end, thank goodmess, but we still have small incidents of urinary incontinence. She isn't doing too well on the mental level, though. She is able to carry on conversations, but gets confused easily about where she is and what is happening around her. She can't usually follow even the briefest of new stories on the television without scrambling some of the details or becoming completely lost. Sometimes she thinks we're in another city or state, and seldom has any true concept of what time of day it is (even if she is looking at a clock). She also has no memory of anything that happened in the month or so after her surgery and remembers nothing about her behavior, refusal to eat/drink, and so forth. This is what led the doctor to suspect a stroke.
So, I am here, doing the cooking, dish-washing, laundry, grocery shopping, appointment keeping, and other daily tasks to keep the household running. While here, I have no Internet connection unless I schlep the laptop to McDonald's, the library, or some other location. McDonald's is the closest, even though I have to pay $3 for a 2-hour block of time. To get a FREE connection, I have to drive to the next town over which takes more time and gas, so it's a toss-up as to which is the best option. When I hit McDonald's to WiFi, as I am doing tonight, I call it McWebbing. So, that is the reason for the spotty blog posts lately, the lack of my presence online, and my failure to keep up with the blogs of all you good peeps. I am anxious for this nightmare to be over and to return to my own home, my darling husband, my own bed, my job, and my life!
I have spent the last eight weeks or so, nonstop, taking care of my parents at their house. The weather is getting cooler day-by-day and all my warm clothes are back home in Kingsport. So is my sweetheart, whom I have not seen since the first of September. My brother is in town for a couple of days, so I took the opportunity to dash up to Kingsport and back — very briefly — to get some clothes and spend a couple of hours with my hunny!
I literally drove up there, went out to eat with my husband, packed some things, and then drove back, all within the same evening/night. It was rugged, but gave me a very happy heart to spend some time with my wonderful man again!
Last night, I washed a few dishes in the sink and setup the coffee pot before going to bed. When I pulled the handle downwards on the kitchen faucet to turn the stream of water off, it would not stop. I played with it for a bit, but there was always a steady stream of water coming out of the nozzle regardless of how the handle was positioned. I finally discovered that if the handle were pushed downwards and held very firmly, the stream of water reduced to a rather steady drip. Being that I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Jury Rigging (courtesy of my father's genes), I took a piece of sewing elastic from my mother's stash, inserted a couple of safety pins to make a tight band, and wrapped it around the faucet's nozzle and handle, making as tight a seal as I could to keep it from running all night.
I have never repaired a faucet in my life. That task has always been performed by my father, a husband, a clever female roommate, or a plumber. Today, though, my gift of sight coupled with my father's expertise allowed us to change the seals in the faucet together and get the water working properly again!
There once was a boy from Quebec Who was buried in snow to the neck When they asked, "Are you friz?" He replied, "Yes, I is, But we don't call this cold in Quebec!"
Speaking of the cold, today a cold front is moving through the area and the temperature has been dropping sharply the past few hours. And speaking of Quebec, I heard the first Canadian Goose this morning, honking on its migratory path towards warmer weather. Would that I could go south to warmer weather with him.
A closeup of a flower that appears as a design on one of my nightgowns. I thought it was pretty. So there.
Two blog entries in a row with the title "Duck" — do you know why...?
One of the many mountain panoramas visible within the county where my parents live. This particular one is about eight miles from their house. From the spot where the photo was taken, the mountains appear much larger and closer. The combination of crappy capture with a camera-phone coupled with the exaggerated width-to-height ratio of the panorama rendition makes them appear smaller and less impressive than they do in person. If you click on the small image here, an enlarged view will open on a new page.
Went to Wal-Mart in the evening to get BOOST® for Mom, EQUAL® for Dad and me, and duct tape for Dad. Duct tape used to be available only in silver, but nowadays they have blue, red, yellow, green even hot pink! A couple of extra dollars would even give you a roll with a floral print on it! The mind staggers...
If you don't get it, you need to get out more. Srsly.
For the first time in several days, Mom got up today for more than just a visit to the bedside potty. She allowed Dad and me to escort her to the table where she ate a small bowl of homemade soup with Dad and me. She spent the whole afternoon in the den, first in her recliner and then on the sofa. She ate a little more soup with Dad and me for supper before going off to bed. Wow.
The view of Glassy Mountain shown at the top of this blog entry is about as close as one can get to the granite face of the mountain from public land. To get closer would require hiking through people's private property, or ascending the mountain via the public road on the other side and hiking down to the granite face. Hiking down from the summit is easy, and one time I enjoyed a picnic with a friend while we were perched atop the granite face admiring the view of the piedmont below.
If you examine the enlarged snippet (shown at right) of the main photo, you might catch a glimpse of some white paint on the granite face. As far back as I can remember, high schoolers like to paint the last two digits of their graduation year on the mountain as a teenage prank. Most of the numbers are painted largely enough to be visible from miles away. Examination of the mountain in aerial photos or Google Earth will also easily show the numbers.
It seems a shame to have a lovely little mountain defaced in such a way, but at least it gives the kids something to do to keep them from getting into worse trouble. Although I was not one of the party who did it, I have to admit to a grin and a bit of pride when I finally saw the giant appear on Glassy's face thirty-five years ago.
All day long, Dad thought it was Tuesday and was getting ready for a visit from the Home Health people. Even after I told him it was Monday, not Tuesday, a few hours later he would say, "Since today is Tuesday..." and I would have to remind him again that it was only Monday.
The neighbor across the street, Mrs. Brown, is so sweet. She called on the phone and asked Dad to come over because she had something for us. He returned a short while later with a bag containing one quart of homemade soup starter (stewed tomatoes, corn, and okra), a pint of stewed tomatoes, three potatoes, and a mess of freshly-picked okra. I washed, peeled, and chunked the potatoes and got them cooking in a soup pot while Dad washed and slicked the okra. Once the potatoes were cooked, I opened the home-canned goods and dumped them into the pot along with some water and a smidge of pepper. In very little time, we had a wonderful pot of soup!
Mom hasn't been in a frame of mind for us to discuss her surgeon's recommendation that she undergo a bit of chemotherapy to be certain that the cancer is gone. Since her scheduled appointment is tomorrow, Dad and I thought it best to try to talk to her. I explained to her that the surgeon removed all the cancer he could see, but that sometimes a few cancerous cells can remain undetected. She had trouble understanding this concept, so I used a gardening analogy, something with which she has had plenty of experience in her life. If one is pulling weeds, it is easy to miss a small piece of root or a seed that has dropped, and another weed plant might grow from it. A little weed-killer can go a long way to be sure nothing is missed. It seemed that she understood that analogy perfectly. She said that she would have to — and I quote — "think on this with my fingernails." When I checked-in with her later in the day, she thought she needed more time to reach a decision. I, too, agree that decisions are not her forte with her present frame of mind, so I called the oncologist's office and asked that we defer the appointment until a later date when her mental and physical condition are more stable. Whether we ever reach that day remains to be seen.
A small, two-lane country road winds around the north face of Glassy Mountain. This is the view presented when one is approaching the mountain from the west.
Dad woke me up just past 7:00 am by coming through the living room to go outside to catch his ride to church. When I saw him in his suit and tie, I told him it was Saturday, not Sunday, catching him by surprise. I guess the stresses of the past few weeks have gotten to him, too, causing him to get the days-of-the-week mixed-up.
He was horrified that he had made such a mistake — he's always been that way, very logical and more like a machine sometimes than a man, it's just his nature.I assured him that everyone gets a little confused like that sometimes, especially when life is heaping stresses upon us. If it weren't for his temper, Dad would be Spock.
Caring for Mom is getting to be quite a chore because she changes her mind so often. For instance, she seemed excited about eating two particular foods for supper but by the time I went into the kitchen and cooked them, she decided that wasn't what she wanted after all. So, she ate only one bite of one item and three bites of the other and would not eat any more. And, of course, nothing else in the way of food sounded good to her, either.
Today, we move closer to Glassy Mountain (see yesterday's blog entry) and see it as it appears from atop Crescent Hill. When the new Junior High School was built not far from my parents' house, I walked to school most days over this hill and saw this very view of Glassy Mountain.
It was also from atop this hill that the previous photo of "The Three Sisters" was made (see blog entry: DEJA MOO, 10-07-08).
Today was a relatively quiet day. Mom was much more docile and cooperative with Dad and me, thankfully. After the day we had yesterday, we definitely needed a more laid-back kind of day through which to recuperate amd recharge.
I had to go to the store, buy some birthday cards, and get them in the mail. My father still keeps in touch with a guy (Curtis) who was in the Army with him back in the 1950s, and his birthday is on the 14th. My dear friend and "sister" Toni is having another birthday on October 16th, along with my father's younger sister who stayed with them for a couple of weeks at the end of August. So, I picked out cards for everyone, addressed them, and got them in the mail before the last scheduled pickup time of the day. Then I came back home and watched a DVD movie on the laptop, and talked to my husband and brother on the phone.
The Blue Ridge Mountains, a subset of the Appalachian Mountains that stetch from northern Alabama to Maine, pass through the northern portion of the county in which my parents live. As one travels downwards in elevation from the larger mountains into the piedmont region of South Carolina, many smaller, isolated mountains called "monadnocks" dot the landscape. One of the most prominent is Glassy Mountain (elevation 1,647 feet), seen here from atop another, smaller monadnock called — I kid you not — "Tater Hill." The bump on the horizon to the right of Glassy Mountain is Paris Mountain, in Greenville (SC), another monadnock about 20-ish miles away.
I always thought Glassy Mountain was a cool-looking little mountain, with the long, casual slope, the bulging crest at the summit, and the exposed granite "face" on the north side. I always fancied that it somewhat resembled a happy slug, watching out over the folks who lived nearby. Yes, I was also warped and twisted as a child, I know, I know...
I hadn't been up long and only had one cup of coffee in me when Dad announced that we needed to check on Mom, assist her to the potty, get her breakfast ready, and perpare for the visit with the Home Health nurses. So we go back to the bedroom and discover that Mom has already gone to the potty. #2, not just #1. In the bed. In her nightclothes. Leaking out all over the toweling underneath her as well as the sheets and blankets. In fact, she somehow managed to get it all over both of her hands, smeared everywhere.
Cleaning up this sort of job would normally be a nightmare. However, Mom's horrendous attitude made it much, much worse. She was not in her right mind, refused to believe that she had pooped in the bed, was mortified that we were trying to expose her body by taking her clothes off, and fighting us every step of the way. For instance, when I tried to lift her foot off the bed a couple of inches so I could slide her pajama bottoms off, she was firmly pushing her foot downward, grinding it into the bed to try to prevent my succcess. My parents jointly taught my brother and me not to curse — even mild expletives such as "Darn!" were prohibited in the household — but this morning, multiple, "Damn!"s were issuing from my mother's mouth, much to my surprise. Somehow, though all of her fighting and cursing, we managed to wrestle her pajama bottoms off her, remove the heavily-soiled disposable underware, and clean up her front-side the best we could.
When my father tried to get her to roll over so he could clean her backside, she snarled, "Damn you!" at him with intent that dripped of poison. At one point, she even threatened to kick him so hard it would cripple him again if he touched her. We finally reached an impasse and could get no further with her. I quietly pulled Dad out of the room and told him that we were not going to be able to handle this situation ourselves, and reminded him that the Home Health professionals would know better how to handle it. It was still about an hour before they were scheduled to arrive, and I hated leaving my own mother to wallow in her mess, but we had no choice under the circumstances. I knew that my mother wasn't in her right mind that morning, but her behavior and words hurt just the same.
I met the Home Health nurses on the front porch and apprised them of the situation inside, with much apology. They assured me it was okay and that they would deal with it. At first, Mom was as nasty with them as she had been with Dad and me, but she began to calm down when they started working with her. They finished cleaning up the front of her body and managed to get her rolled over onto her side. She started to get nasty again when they began wiping the poop off her bottom and asked what they thought they were doing. The head nurse calmly told her they were wiping the poop. Mom flatly stated that the poop wasn't hers. The nurse asked her whose poop she thought it was. Mom said it must be "that other woman's poop," making a reference to the other nurse that was in the room. The nurse assured Mom that it needed to be cleaned off, wherever it came from. So, Mom finally began to cooperate. I had clean sheets handy, as well as clean pillowcases, pajamas, a fresh pair of disposable underwear, clean toweling to put underneath Mom, and a clean blanket. The nurses got Mom off the bed so I could change the linens, then got her situated again.
The head nurse instructed her junior to check Mom's vitals (blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature, and oxygen level) and nodded to me to leave the room. She followed and we sat down in the den with Dad, who was sitting quietly in his recliner, arms folded across his chest, obviously deep in thought.
The nurse stated the obvious, that this sort of situation could not continue, and that we needed to seek more intensive care for Mom. Her recommendation was short-term, in-home Hospice care, providing that the doctor approved. She said that the Hospice care would provide for someone to visit five days a week on a regular basis, rather than the two or three days that Home Health professionals would be able to visit. Dad said that we would think about it and let her know. Late in the afternoon, the nurse called and said that the doctor approved her recommendation of Hospice assistance and Dad's decision was the only thing remaining. Had the decision been left to me, I would have agreed immediately. *sigh*
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave." That is how I am beginning to feel here, dealing with layer-upon-layer of issues...
We woke up this morning to a drastic change in the weather conditions. This past week, the nights have been in the 50s and a bit chilly outside, but tolerable for stepping outside to smoke, talk on the phone, and peek at the stars. This morning, however, the temperature was still in the 50s but with drizzling rain, a slight breeze, and higher humidity that drove the chill deeper. I stood outside to taste a few puffs of smoke with arms hugging my torso underneath my breasts, legs smushed together to hold in body heat, and ready to dash back inside to my waiting coffee.
This morning, I was able to shower, dry my hair, and even eat a bowl of cereal before my father announced it was time to wake Mom, see if she was wet and needed a change of clothes and/or change of sheets, and try to get her to take her morning meds and eat something. It is very unusual for me to have anywhere near that amount of time or even be able to eat anything before he launches us into the "taking care of Mom" tasks. Perhaps he has come to dread those tasks as much as I have. If she would just cooperate with us, tending to her would not be so hard.
Mom woke up much more gently and sweetly than usual, so I should have known something was not right. She usually seems more like herself in the mornings and drifts off into increased mental confusion as the day wears onward. Today she awoke in her own little world rather than our world, and seemed to stay there most of the day, snapping back briefly and sharply like a rubber band popping against the skin. As much as it pains me to see Mom slipping away to her alternate reality so often, she is more docile, pleasant, and cooperative when she is that way — her other persona lately is argumentative, resentful, and uncooperative. Or is it the other way around...? Sometimes I can't tell which is which.
Thankfully, today was not so hard a day dealing with Mom as some days have been — at least on a physical level. Her disposable undies were not wet when we woke her this morning, and we managed to get her to the disposable potty to pee and back to the bedside with a relative minimum of effort (it only took about 30 minutes this time! yay!). She drank about seven ounces of apple juice and ate a small dish of banana pudding for breakfast, not the most healthy of breakfast foods, perhaps, but at least she ate something and there was a lot of banana in it. She ate nothing at lunch but was hungry again for an early supper, eating a few bites of pound cake, four bites of baked fish, five bites of stewed apples, and drank another seven ounces of apple juice.
The disturbing thing was that she was in a flaked-out state of mental confusion virtually all day, rather than becoming increasingly that way near the end of the day as usually happens. She was chattering about all sorts of strange things that seemingly had no relation to one another. Sometimes mental confusion of this sort can be caused when anesthesia is administered to senior citizens, and sometimes the effects are long-term or permanent. It could also be the result of some early-stage dementia or Alzheimer's Disease (AD) that develops in some people as they age. At this point, we don't know what it is, but it is definitely frightening and difficult to handle.
Based on all inputs, my brother is leaning towards the conclusion that Mom has simply "given up," even though she came through the surgery successfully. With each passing day, I am more convinced that he is correct.
Three small mountains, called "The Three Sisters," as seen from a spot near my parents' house. _____
And now for a bit of much-needed levity, gleaned from T-shirts for sale in a catalogue that my mother received in the mail:
I TXT THERE 4 I M
Sometimes I wonder, "Why is that frisbee getting bigger?" and then it hits me.
Can I blame my hot flashes on Global Warming?
I'm going compostal for the environment
Careful, or you'll end up in my novel
To err is human. To Arrrr is pirate.
What I really need are minions
Even my imaginary friend doesn't like you
I'm so far over the hill I've started up the next one
Just be happy I'm not a twin
Come to the dark side. We have cookies!
I'm sick of political ads (and I approved this message)
I have a perfect body; it's your vision that's shot
I'm not Obsessive-Compulsive; I'm Super-Meticulous
Deja Moo: the feeling you've heard this bull before
and, finally a shirt my husband would appreciate, because he reminds me frequenly:
Today is the day when we can request a Home Health Aide! However, Mom woke up earlier than usual this morning with her Depends® disposable underwear, pajamas, padding, and sheets all soaking wet. Dad and I have to go through the ordeal of trying to change her ourselves. Mom is lying askew on the bed with the Depends® disposable underwear and pajama bottoms half-on, half-off, but she won't cooperate enough for them to be pulled all the way up or for us to get her straightened on the bed. She also would not raise-up or roll over enough for me to get a pad underneath her, so the sheets and mattress pad will be soaked if she pees herself again while lying there. She flatly accused Dad and me, believe it or not, about not having any compassion for her since we tried to move her while she is in pain. She is not in her right mind — a show of non-compassion would be to let her lie there all day in pee-soaked clothes and linens until she gets a rash from it, and neither Dad nor I are that lazy or heartless. I hope the Home Health Nurse will assist us in getting Mom more completely dressed, pad undereneath her, and in a more normal position in the bed.
This morning, she ate five bites of oatmeal, four bites of pound cake, and drank aqbout 8 ounces of apple juice. At least that is more than she ate or drank all day yesterday.
The Home Health nurse (Carolyn) came by this afternoon and I gave her a written list of all the food and drink Mom has had since her discharge from the hospital. Carolyn was appalled at how little it was. She went into the bedroom and saw how Dad and I were only able to pull the Depends® disposable underwear halfway up Mom's butt. She started to pull them up the rest of the way (as only a nurse apparently knows how to do) when she realized that Mom's clothing was wet again, as were a second set of sheets. She asked didn't we think of putting a pad under Mom, and I told her that we usually do put one under her, but she would not cooperate today for the few seconds it would take to do it. The nurse shook her head in a commiseration of our efforts, and began the task of getting the wet undies and pajamas off Mom.
Even though my father was the only other person in the house and he was in the den, Carolyn closed the door to the bedroom to make Mom feel more at-ease. She did this without my mother's even having to ask and announced, "Okay, now it's just us girls." Mom seemed pleased, so I told Carolyn the story that happened recently when Mom's pajama top fell open and she was horrified. I told her, "Mom, I have them, too, and Dad can't see, so what's the big deal?" and she laughed. In no time at all, Carolyn had clean disposable undies on Mom. I reached for the pajama bottoms, but Carolyn said to just leave them off for now. Mom pulled the same "You're killing me! Stop!" line when Carolyn and I rolled Mom over, but Carolyn just calmly had everything done so quickly and professionally that Mom couldn't really argue when all was finished. I was so relieved to be working with someone who knew how to do this, and with someone with whom Mom would not argue as much as she does with Dad and me. Carolyn checked Mom's blood pressure, pulse rate, oxygen-intake level, and spent a little time trying to get Mom to eat a little something before she left. In a brief moment at the door, she agreed that Mom was being unreasonably manipulative.
I had showered right before Carolyn arrived and got all dressed to go out this afternoon after Carolyn left. We need more Depends® disposable underwear and a couple of other things, plus I had to run some mail by the post office and take a bag of garbage to the dump. Came home and cooked supper. Dad and I had a Boca® meatless "chicken" pattie and some killer mac-and-cheese. After we ate, I took a lovely little piece of baked fish to Mom with some mac-and-cheese and her evening meds. She refused to open her mouth to take them, so Dad had to *gently* force them into her mouth. She took a sip of the iced tea I had brought her, but I honestly don't know if she ever swallowed the pills or not. She refused to eat even one bite of the fish or mac-and-cheese.
The frightening thing is that she looked at me with this wide-eyed stare like she didn't know who I was, or was either angry as hell at me; I couldn't decide which. So, I just tured and walked out of the room to clean up the fucking kitchen. Now I feel emotionally numb.
I have them, too — a little peek at "the girls" for the boys. And for the lovely ladies who like that sort of thang...
For brunch, Mom ate two bites of an over-easy egg and drank four ounces of apple juice. That's it. She asked for the egg — and toast,too — and I prepared them exactly as I have done for her in the past. After her two bites of egg, however, she started yelling about how "horrible" it was and demanded that Dad take it away. There was no cheese in her breakfast, only an over-easy fried egg and a piece of toast, but she mistakenly thought the yolk of the egg was cheese refused to believe otherwise. She insisted, "I know what cheese looks like, and that is cheese, and it is horrible!" She wouldn't even take a bite of the toast she had requested.
Changing her clothes & bedding was as big an ordeal as it always has been. I can hardly wait for tomorrow when we can request a Home Health Aide.
One of the ladies at Mom & Dad's church enjoys baking homemade bread, and often brings loaves of freshly-baked bread for the folk there. When I saw Dad coming in the door with a small bag in his hand, I knew Mrs. Campbell had been baking again!
Mom took her evenings meds, but refused to eat any supper. Evenings are not good for her to interact with the real world, as her own little world holds too much sway.
I was telling at least one reader of this blog about the computer carts that the hospital has for staff to wheel their computers about from room-to-room. Each cart has a space for the CPU, keyboard, flat-screen monitor, and a WiFi anmtenna thingie. From anywhere they are within the facility, they're connected to the hospital's network without having to schlep a laptop!
Mom had a good brunch this morning — one egg over easy, a piece of toast made from Arnold's potato bread, about 4 ounces of apple juice with her morning meds, and about 6 ounces of an 8-ounce BOOST® drink. She refused to even try to sit up in bed to eat it, though, because she said she was hurting too badly. So, I stood beside the bed and fed it to her, bite by bite, as if I were Mama Bird feeding my baby bird. It was good to see her eating again, even if it had to be fed to her instead of her feeding it to herself.
There is no doubt that we need a Home Health Aide to assist in changing Mom each day. Whenever she wets her Depends® disposable underwear, it is always a two-hour ordeal — literally, no exaggeration — to wrestle Mom's pajamas & wet Depends® off her body, put on a clean set, and get her off the bed long enough to change the padding & sheets underneath her. No matter how we try to roll her over or lift her, she complains that the pain is so intense that it is "killing" her. She begs Dad and me to leave her alone and let her rest, but we have no intention of leaving her lying in pee-soaked clothing on a pee-soaked bed. It isn't sanitary, it isn't humane, and has to be cleaned-up and changed. She refuses to help in any way, so it is like lifting a dead weight. It is freaking ridiculous. So, on Monday, I am requesting the Home Health Aide, whether she likes it or not. It simply has to be done.
I got four of Mom's pills in her at suppertime, but she refused to open her mouth for the last few, or for any food whatsoever. She kept saying things like, "Give me a minute" and "Don't rush me!" but never complied. So, all the food & drink she had today was what she had at brunch. Sheesh.
Then one of her brothers calls and Dad hands the phone to Mom. She looks at it for a moment like she doesn't know what to do with it, puts it to her ear and says nothing. Dad lets her know that the cordless phone is turned on and all she has to do is say, "Hello." She snarls at Dad, "I know what to do with a phone!" She finally greets her brother, pauses a moment while he asks about her, and then she says, "Oh, I'm doing okay."
The doorbell rang late in the afternoon and a lady from the church (Ellie Gardiner) had stopped by with a big container of soup, a sleeve of crackers, and four slices of homemade pound cake. Wow! I already had supper going, so I will fix the soup for our lunch tomorrow.
Now some snippets of Life with Dad...
Dad lost his dentures. He told me this morning that while I was at the pharmacy yesterday getting Mom's discharge prescriptions filled, his dentures were bothering him. So, he took them out, wrapped them in a paper towel, and placed them on a table in the hospital room. Since I wasn't there to see him do this and remind him of them when we took Mom home, he left them behind. I immediately placed a phone call to the nurse's desk this morning in hopes that housekeeping had found them when the room was cleaned, but we never got a call back saying they had been found. Dad says he can't afford a new set.
Dad woke me up this morning coming through the living room on his way to church. I told him it was Saturday, not Sunday. He was embarrassed that he had the days wrong, but our days have been so mixed-up lately with Mom in the hospital, that it's no wonder this happened. Heck, if my watch didn't tell me what day it was, I might have had it wrong, too.
Dad has the annoying habit of waiting until I in the middle of something to want my help with something else. For example, he knew I was in the kitchen late this morning, preparing lunch for him and me while Mom was still asleep in bed. I was prepared to fix something different for her later when she woke. However, within five minutes of my having lunch ready for Dad and me, he goes into the bedroom, wakes Mom from her slumber, and then announces to me that Mom is ready to eat right then! He does this sort of thing so often that I decided to teach him a lesson. I immediately halted our lunch and began to prepare Mom's, take it back to the bedroom, and feed it to her while letting Dad know that I would finish fixing his lunch in an hour or so after Mom had been fed.
A happy little butterfly, perched on the side of a white rose in a flower arrangement sent to Mom.
Mom was very alert again this morning and talked to Dad and me with no confusion in her speech or thought-patterns! She also worked with the Physical Therapists today and did walk and do the exercises without any problem or complaint! She did complain of pain afterwards, though, so we put her back in bed rather than the recliner. Before long, she had to use the bathroom, so the nurse unhooked her IV tube so that Dad and I could escort Mom to the bathroom. She was a little unsteady on her feet, but made it all the way to the bathroom and back to bed without much grumbling.
The issue of dehydration (the major thing that landed Mom back in the hospital this time)is under control and the urinary tract infection is also under control. Those two things, coupled with the fact that Mom seemed better today has led the hospital staff to plan for her discharge this afternoon.
I spoke with the Family Nurse Practitioner (the one with the awesome skirt collection) at length today about Mom's medicines and about my misgivings about her being at home again, lest we have a repeat of what happened last time. She save us lots of advice, and we had a good conversation about what to do. She said that having Mom transferred to a rehab facility is an option, but the familiar surroundings of home would probably be easier for a 77-year-old woman to handle; the unfamiliar environment of a rehab facility would likely cause more confusion than we had seen previously, not less. Having a Home Health Aide come in daily to bathe Mom and help feed her will be ultimately easier than having Dad and me try to handle it — plus, she is MUCH more responsive to strangers than she is to Dad and me (a phenomenon that is reportedly common among individuals needing this level of care). A short run of antibiotics should ensure that the urinary tract infection is completely gone. The addition of one medication to Mom's daily regimen should stimulate her appetite so that she will eat more normally. The removal of one medication from her daily regimen should take care of the indigestion/heartburn problem Mom's had for the past few months. Two other medicines in her daily regimen might have contributed to her dehydration problem and will be discontinued until her recovery is more complete. So, that's what we're gonna do, take Mom home, arrange for visits from the Home Health nurse & therapist to continue, arrange for a Home Health aide to come by for bathing/feeding assistance, get the new prescriptions filled, and tweak her medication regimen accordingly.
So, we will be driving back home this afternoon, slightly earlier than usual, which is good because — although the town where my parents live is small (official population in the 2000 census was 3,000) — downtown becomes a little congested every Friday night during the school year as the mighty, mighty Blue Flame burns the competition on the football field.
Mom was sitting up in bed this morning when Dad & I arrived at the hospital. She looked and sounded much more alert today than she has in a long time, thankfully. Her breakfast tray had already been removed by the Food Service staff, but she reported that she had eaten "a good breakfast" but wasn't able to remember what was on the tray or the quantity that she had consumed. She said she needed to use the bathroom, so two nurses came in and assisted her to the bathroom where she peed a good quantity (judging from the sound of it, which drifted through the almost-closed bathroom door). Although she wanted to return to the bed — of course — the nurses convinced her that she really needed to sit up in the chair for a bit. Not long after they got her settled, she requested another dose of medication for the pain, which they administered. Shortly afterwards, she drifted off into a fitful sleep in the chair, waking periodically for brief moments to ask about noises in the hallway, etc.
When lunch arrived, we could not get her to wake up enough to eat, so we kept her tray off to the side so it would not be collected. She finally work up sometime later, almost mid-afternoon, and one of the nurses and Dad managed to force her to eat about three bites of the "Lemon Baked Trout" and a couple of bites of her dinner roll, plus she drank a few sips of her iced tea. That was all she would eat, but at least it was something.
After being given more medication for pain at her request, she drifted off to sleep again until the Physical Therapists arrived. She complained when they insisted that she needed to walk with them, but finally allowed them to help her to a standing position and grabbed onto the walker. She would not take any steps, however. Each time they instructed her to move her feet and take a tiny step forward, she just slowly leaned into the walker with her head bent way down towards the floor. They asked her if she was looking at something, and she stood up straight again and replied, "Of course I'm looking at something!" When they asked what she was looking at, she just closed her eyes and didn't respond. It almost looked like she went to sleep again standing there beside them. The whole scenario repeated a time or two, and they could never get her to take a single step.
They finally gave up on the walking and allowed her to sit down again, thinking they would try a few exercises. After asking her to extend her right leg straight out in front of her and repeating the request with much prodding a coule of times, she finally complied and did it beautifully. But when they asked her to move her other leg, she just sat there with her eyes closed. One of the therapists gently touched her left leg and repeated the request a couple of times. Without opening her eyes, Mom raised her right leg again instead of the left. Repeated requests from the therapists got no response from her whatsoever and she remained immobile with her eyes closed.
They asked her if she wanted to get back into bed and she finally roused herself long enough to answer Yes!" and let them help her over to the bed. As soon as they left, her IV started beeping. I've been watching the nurses carefully and figuring out how to check the line for kinks and which buttons on the pump to restart the IV, but this time my attempts brought no success. Even one of the nurses was unable to get it fixed, so she just turned-off the IV pump for a bit until someone else could look at it.
Based on all the events of the day so far, I am very frustrated that Mom would not eat much for us or drink much, that she was unable to work with the Physical Therpists at all today, and that she is constantly complaining of pain (even moaning in her sleep sometimes) and just not doing very well at all right now.
Another addition to the frustrations of the day was that a cold front came through the area last night and it was 45°F on our front porch this morning, according to my outdoor thermometer. Sheesh. At least I have a couple of warm items of clothing to wear, although most of my cold-weather clothing is back home, of course, in Tennessee. Since it was much cooler today, I decided to wear something other than my staple flip-flops. I my pink crocs!
During the week after Mom's surgery, she saw something in the room that she thought was a piece of cake and commented on how good it looked. It wasn't cake, by the way. Once she went home, she there was no mention of cake. Then in the Emergency Room a couple of nights ago, she saw some medical supplies on a shelf out in the hallway and thought it was a cake and asked for a piece. Dad and I told her that it was just medical supplies and not a cake. She was moved from the ER to a regular room in the hospital. When Dad and I walked in to see her the following morning, she straightaway told us that someone had brought in a cake ealier that morning and was planning to cut it when Dad and I arrived. Apparently we didn't arrive soon enough, so the cake was taken away, uncut. Cake. Hmmm...
Today, Mom seems slightly more alert, thanks to the IV solution. She was sitting up in the recliner when Dad and I arrived this morning. She managed to eat a few bites of scrambled eggs, grits, and English muffin for breakfast. Later, Physical Therapists got her to the door of the room and back (about seven steps for a normal, healthy person), but she only got a little over halfway there before she tired and had to sit down. At least that is further than she's walked in the past few days. She was in pain from sitting in the chair and the walk with the therapists, so she had to lie down afterwards and asked for a pain pill in lieu of lunch. Other than some lingering mental confusion at times, she seems to be doing better, all-in-all.
And now for the inconsequentials of the day...
When I got my nails done recently, I selected a very different color of polish than I've ever worn before — Silver Mine(see photo)! I usually opt for more traditional colors such as garnets, berries, roses, pinks, and mauves. For some reason, though, it seemed time for a change, something different and off-beat. I like it. Sometimes, change can be good.
I dunno why Dad does this, but he has the habit of turning on multiple sources of noise at the same time, like running the television & weather radio at the same time in the den, or the FM-radio while watching the news on the television in the same room. Gawd. WTF?
One of the women on staff at the hospital is an FNP with the Internal Medicine department. She's made some of the daily rounds, checking on Mom and other patients. Like me, she wears skirts almost every day and has quite a collection of pretty clothing. Our tastes in colors, patterns, and styles are quite similiar, so we've had fun checking-out each others' outfits when she stops by!
Mom has been refusing to eat or drink properly the past few days. When the Home Health nurse came today, she noticed how pale and weak Mom was and witnessed first-hand some of Mom's mental confusion and stubbornness to cooperate with Dad and me in taking care of her.
The nurse has to report her findings to Mom's surgeon, of course (because it was he who ordered Home Health for Mom as a post-surgical care). The doctor was explicit with the nurse that he wanted Mom transported via EMS — not by our own car, much to my father's chagrin — to the Emergency Room so he could examine her and run some IV solution into her antecubital vein as nourishment. They are also processing urine and blood samples to make sure there is no infection or other complications with her condition.
Another phycician, who is overseeing all patients in the ER tonight stopped by and said that we needed to be sure there was always someone at the house to make Mom eat and drink properly. DUH! With all I have done lately — leaving my own husband and home behind in Kingsport to stay long-term at Mom & Dad's house, taking over the cooking & cleaning & laundry & grocery shopping for them, keeping track of medications for Mom & Dad, chauffeuring them to appointments, as well as making honest attempts at getting Mom to eat and drink properly after her surgery and subsequent discharge — his allegations that we "...need someone at Mom & Dad's house to take care of them..." was like a slap in the face to me.
Thanks for that advice, Dr. Dickwad. Next time, how about asking about the situation rather than passing judgment so quickly and then disappearing.
Oh, and now Mom's urinalysis showed that Mom has a urinary tract infection on top of everything else that's going on. Sheesh.
Anyway, the decision was made to keep Mom for 24-48 hours, continue the IV solutions, and try to get her back on-track with pain management and exercise. How long she is kept at the hospital, as well as whether she will be discharged to a rehab facility before coming home remains to be seen.
The days here at Mom & Dad's house are beginning to meld together and each day is much like the previous, but with a slightly different set of circumstances with which to deal. Therefore, I went through my blog and added the "day of the week" to the last few entries. Perhaps continuing to post the "day of the week" in addition to the date will help me keep straight in my head exactly what day it is.
Since today was Sunday, Dad went to church. He always rides to the church with the lovely neighbor lady across the street and rides home with various folk that went to church that Sunday. With Mom sleeping very late, this gave me a teensy bit of time to myself with a quiet house. To me, that is essential once in a while, lest I go completely nuts.
Speaking of nuts, there are several small, unrelated things that I'd like to mention now, things so inconsequential to the big picture that they have been neglected.
I had forgotten about all the oak trees around my parents' house. At odd times of day during the early autumn, and frequently at night, acorns can be heard falling off the trees and rolling down the roof. The first time I heard it this year, I thought, "WTF?" until I remembered that sound from my childhood.
It was my aunt — not my father — who stuffed the shirt in the back door. I had wrongly assumed it was my father because it is just like something he would do, but Mom told me about it one day. I keep meaning to tell my brother that little tidbit, but forget to mention it every time we talk 'cuz we're usually talking about more important stuffs.
As far as (E.F.) and (R.F.) know now, I am my own wife. ~cough~
Tinkerbelle. I Tink! Heck, I want to be Tink when I grow up.
Most of you probably know this already, but virtually every photo that accompanies this blog has a purpose or some significance to what is being said. Very rarely, if ever, is a photo truly random. Sometimes the intent might be evident, but sometimes it is more subtle and requires a reading between the lines. Occasionally it might just be a personal thing that only I would understand in some abstract way and would have trouble putting into words; but those times are rare, too, like the idea of a random photo.
Likewise, each blog entry's title has a purpose, too, either evident or hidden between the lines. Or some sick pun that is floating through my twisted mind, of course. If one digs deeper, one might induce more understanding into what is being said.
All of this said, mind you, assuming that someone cares. Meh.
Anyway, today was a frustrating day which tried my patience. Yesterday was much more a difficult day on a physical level because of the major cleanup of floor and linens. But today tried my patience on a level that was more mental, or emotional, or somewhere in-between.
I really began to wonder what on earth my mother would do if she had to serve as caregiver for someone like herself. What would she do if her patient refused to eat after having a major surgery? What would she do if, when her patient did manage to eat a few bites, that she had to idly stand beside the bed while the patient would only accept one bite perhaps every five minutes or so? Furthermore, what would she do if her patient continued to make chewing-motions with her mouth even after it was apparent the teensy little bite of food had already been swallowed? What would she do if her patient refused to even attempt to sit up a little every day and had to be practically forced to get up occasionally and use the potty? What would she do if she had multiple loads of laundry to wash each day becuse her patient refused to wear Depends® disposable underwear while wetting and soiling herself at night (which apparently is common right after colon surgery)? What would she do if she handed the telephone to her patient, whose brother were calling to check on her, and the patient held the phone as shown in today's image — no joke — repeatedly saying, "Hello? Hello?" and wondering why she couldn't hear anybody?
If I am at such a loss as to how to get Mom to eat like she should, drink enough fluids each day, and get up to walk and exercise as she is supposed to be doing, I seriously wonder how good a caregiver I am.
Was up this morning for almost an hour before I had to kick my butt into high-gear to prepare for visits from the Home Health nurse and the Physical Therapy Assistant, both on the same day. When I got Mom out of bed to get her ready for their visit, I discovered that Mom's sheets, pajamas, underwear, and the huge mattress pad — so big that it, alone, takes up a single load in the washing machine — were all soaking wet, stained yellow, and have to be bleached and laundered yet again. I will be so glad when this issue of incontinence is resolved.
Mom did as many of the "sitting" exercises as she could handle while the therapist was here, but tired waaaay too easily again because she has not been exercising in the absence of the therapist as she should be doing, and because she refuses to eat properly. Not too long after the therapist left, the nurse arrived. Mom's blood pressure reading was normal since she has been back on the Toprol for a couple of days, and her pulse rate and oxygen intake level were normal.
She wanted to go back to bed right after the nurse left, so Dad assisted her. She decided she wanted to sit up for a bit on the edge of the bed rather than lie down, thank goodness! I showered, put my freshly shampooed-and-dried hair in curlers, donned makeup, and was ready to get dressed. Suddenly, Mom appeared, wandering down the hallway wearing nothing but a pair of panties that were badly soiled and bulging in the back. Very badly soiled. In fact, spots on the carpet behind her were soiled, too. Dad jumped into gear immediately to get her cleaned up while I cleaned up the carpet and changed all the bedding in the Master Bedroom for the second time that day. It was one of the worst cleanup jobs I think I've ever encountered. Armed with corn starch (to soak up some of the moisture), paper towels, spray disinfectant, bleach, a stiff scrub brush, and about an hour-and-a-half of elbow grease, the mess on the carpet was cleaned up and I began doing the resulting laundry. Once the worst of the bedding had been through the washer a couple of times and still wasn't clean, I left it to soak in hot, soapy, bleach water in the washer.
By this time, I really needed a break to keep my sanity. After making sure that everything had finally settled down, I got dressed and ducked out to get my nails done. On the way home, I talked to my brother on the phone and filled up the gas tank of my little car. Fortunately the house was quiet and appeared to have survived my absence without further incident, and I fixed myself a small supper and ate while continuing to work on the laundry.
This whole situation is so strange and twisted that it feels more like a dream than real life. I long to wake up in the arms of my husband, with his soothing my cries and telling me that I was just having a bad dream and that none of it was real...
THE PRICKLY STICKLY CACTUS • 09-25-2008 • THURSDAY
Spent the morning around the house and the afternoon running errands in the neighboring town, the most imporant of which was getting two of Mom's meds refilled. Dad usually asks her frequently whether she is running out of anything, but one medication slipped past without being noticed. There are some meds Mom does not "like" to take, some that she thinks she does not need despite what the doctor says, and some she forgets to take because she doesn't keep the bottles in the same place (we're working on that one). Most of her meds simply improve her well-being if she takes them, such as the Synthroid that boosts her energy by supplementing an underactive thyroid gland. However, the two meds that she needed were probably the two most important meds she is supposed to take. So, I made certain to get those meds refilled at the expense of anything else I had on my ToDo List today.
During my break between visiting the doctor's office to request the prescriptions and going back to get them, I stopped-off at a second-hand store and got 7 items of clothing at $1 apiece — including a cute little summer/fall dress, a heavier wintery dress, a short-sleeved sweater-top, a nightgown, and this stupid short little dress that I am going to wear as a nightgown.
I second-hand stores!
Then I talked to my husband on the phone, went by the hospital to InterWeb, talked to my brother on the phone, picked up the prescriptions, went to Wal-Mart's pharmacy to get them filled while I picked up some things at Wal-Mart, went by the grocery store, rushed home to fix supper, cleaned the kitchen, took the garbage bag to the dump, then finally returned home to chill.
When I left the grocery store tonight Ow!, this little prickly, stickly cactus Ow! followed me home. Ow! It is so cute! Ow! And sharp!
Shortly after I woke up this morning, Dad discovered that Mom had messed up the bed again. This time it was #2 instead of #1. The towel underneath her, the sheets, her pajamas, and underwear all came clean in one washing, thankfully. However, the mattress pad, being considerably thicker and as white as snow, took THREE washings/soakings in bleach as well as quite a bit of scrubbing with a brush, to come completely clean again.
Mom drank almost half of a small BOOST® drink for breakfast and took her morning meds, but would not eat any food.
Wayne, a PTA (Physical Therapy Assistant) from P.Co.Home.Health, visited today with a set of "sitting" exercises for Mom to perform. She tired very quickly and wasn't able to complete all of them. When he asked Mom if she was eating properly, she said she was.
Jim, the installer from Lowe's came by late in the afternoon to replace the bulb-cover on the cooktop that shows us if one of the burners is on. It looks so good now, and it is easy to tell if one of the burners is on by a glance at the little indicator light! Yay! He came by a day or two ago to fix the "popping" noise that the fan in the range hood was making, and found debris in the vent-pipe. After he cleaned out the debris, the fan stopped making the noise. Before he arrived today, the fan started making the noise again. This time, he said that the air-flow wasn't great enough to keep the damper open except if the fan were on "high" speed and that there was nothing more he could do. The noise really isn't all that bad, so I guess we can get used to it.
Mom was so tired after the visit from the PTA that she slept all afternoon and into the evening, never getting hungry enough to want food.
A shot of beautiful roadside greenery on US Highway 178, called "Mountain Road" by the locals, because it heads straight into the most mountainous section of the county. The highway passes near the highest peak in South Carolina, Sassafras Mountain (elevation 3,547 feet). When I was growing up here, this was one of my favorite roads to hit for a joyride on a Sunday afternoon!
THE 10 HIGHEST PEAKS IN SOUTH CAROLINA
Sassafras Mountain ........ 3,547 feet
Hickorynut Mountain ....... 3,488 feet
Pinnacle Mountain ......... 3,415 feet
Coldbranch Mountain ....... 3,333 feet
Slicking Mountain ......... 3,323 feet
Bradford Mountain ......... 3,317 feet
Rock Mountain ............. 3,291 feet
Fork Mountain ............. 3,255 feet
Battered Rock ............. 3,215 feet
Caesar's Head ............. 3,215 feet
Mom was visited by Michelle ("Mikki"), a Physical Therapist from P.Co.Home.Health today, to assess Mom's level of energy and physical condition as part of her post-surgical care. After hearing of Mom's recent surgery and host of other medical conditions, she prescribed a routine of daily "standing" exercises which include walking short distances each day. She stressed how important it was for Mom to get excercise to boost her energy level, as well as fresh air and sunshine to assist in lifting Mom's spirits and energy.
These were things that I have already mentioned to Mom and Dad, but were dismissed as quickly as I mentioned them. ~cough~ When the licensed Physical Therapist mentioned them, however, Mom and Dad offered no arguments as they did with me. Mom did as many of the exercises as she could do while the Physical Therapist was there but became tired and had to stop before finishing them. The therapist also stressed to Mom the importance of proper nutrition and that she eat three balanced meals each day.
Soon after the therapist left, I prepared a half-sandwich and a few pretzels for my Mom's lunch, the first food she'd had all day (not counting the very few sips of BOOST® she counted as her "breakfast"). Soon after I handed her the plate, my brother called and I spent a long time catching him up-to-speed on all that had transpired since he left last week. When we hung up the phone, I discovered that my mother had not touched the food, not even one little nibble. It was almost as if the therapist's talk about the importance of nutrition went in one ear and out the other.
Mom went back to the bed to lie down. I made a phone call to Wal-Mart with my cell phone to see if any TV-converter boxes were in stock — they've consistently been out-of-stock every time we've gone there recently, and said that their weekly shipment of 100 boxes always sells out in 2-3 hours. This time, they had them! Whoo hooo! I grabbed my purse and made a bee-line to Wal-Mart and managed to snag two of them for Mom & Dad before they disappeared!
I rushed back home to fix supper. Mom managed to eat three or four bites of fish and a couple of bites of her mashed potatoes, but that was all. I have reminded her that she needs to eat in order to have energy and in order to heal, but she won't comply. I feel so helpless and don't know what else to do. How does one get their elderly, sick mother to eat when she refuses to even try?
When Mom
& Dad went to bed after supper, I hooked up the new TV converter box in the den and it works beautifully! Several channels in the area have already begun their digital broadcasts, and two of the channels have 24-hour weather, too! The picture is much clearer than any TV picture that I've ever seen at my parents' house.
While I was setting up the converter box, the telephone rang three or four times but I didn't answer it, of course (those who "need to know" will understand why). The answering machine's greeting had somehow been erased, so there were only three short "beeps" to indicate that the caller should leave a message. The beeps must have confused them, for they hung up without leaving a message. So, I quickly recorded as generic a greeting as I could and tested it. The caller called back again a couple more times and the greeting played peerfectly, instructing them to leave a message. However, they continued hanging up without leaving a message.
Next thing I knew, there was a deputy sheriff pulling in the driveway. He said he had gotten a call from one of my uncles (R.F.) who was concerned because no one was answering the phone. I played the part of the "dumb blonde" beautifully, explaining how my parents both went to bed at 7pm each night, so I was outside on my cell phone so I would not disturb them. He insisted that I dial my uncle's number on the phone so he could talk to him, then instructed me to take the phone to my parents' bedroom and wake them up so my uncle could talk to them. I complied, so the deputy seemed happy and left. I just can't believe that my uncle would call repeatedly after the time he knows my parents are in bed, refuses to leave a message on their answering machine, and then calls the sheriff's department to come out to the house! In my humble opinion, that takes a lot of freaking nerve.
As irksome as the arrival of the sheriff's deputy was, my uncle and aunt sent Mom the most stunning arrangement of flowers today! It is so huge, that today's photo is just a small piece of it.
Mom ate a very light breakfast this morning — only a few pieces of canteloupe and a few bites of the Multi-grain Cheerio's cereal that I poured for her. The indigestion/heartburn problem that she's had off-and-on for the past few months returned in full-force last night and this morning. Her GP (Chang, Internal Medicine specialist), thought it might be caused by a stomach ulcer, but the endoscopy showed none. Dad thought it might be due to her scant eating habits not putting enough food in her stomach at a time, thereby causing an overabundance of stomach acids that had no food on which to work. My brother and I are thinking it might be due to the shocking quantity of salt that she adds to most of the foods that she eats. She's had an intermittent history of GRD ("Acid Reflux") and it might be that problem surfacing again. She has another appointment scheduled with her GP in a little over a week, and I definitely hope we can revisit this problem with him then.
Carolyn, an RN from P.Co.Home.Health came by the house today to talk to Mom, Dad, and me. She is a lovely lady and we had a nice, relaxed visit with her while she became acquainted with Mom and Dad's health situation. She inspected the incision left from Mom's colectomy and said that it was healing very nicely. After all the paperwork and questions, she said that one of their nurses would stop by the house two or three times a week to check Mom's vital signs, inspect he incision, and access Mom's progress.
Due to the indigestion/heartburn, she ate an incredibly sparse supper — only a couple of bites of au gratin potatoes, a bite or two of a salmon pattie, a few bites of a piece of potato bread, and one bite of yogurt. That's it. Srsly.
Beautimous daisies on a birthday card, snagged by my trusty camera phone.
Dad woke me up at 6:00 this morning with a request for help getting Mom and the bed cleaned-up, again. Ack! It wasn't too bad, though. Afterwards, I fixed breakfast for Dad, had one cup of coffee myself, and then went back to bed for a couple of hours while he got ready for church.
Even though we are 150 miles apart, my husband put a smile on my face first thing this morning by leaving a "Happy Birthday" message in my VoiceMail. He actually sang to me in a way that reminded me of the famous Marilyn Monroe birthday song except it was his sexy voice instead! Whoo hooo!
I checked on Mom mid-morning and she was hungry, so I fixed breakfast for her, too. She ate pretty well and Dad returned from church as she was finishing. He helped her to the bathroom. I filled the hummingbird feeder with nectar and then moved it to a branch of the fig tree so Mom could see it while she is in bed. Then I fixed lunch for Dad, grabbed a cinnamon bun for myself, washed dishes, did another load of laundry, wrote out a grocery list, took a little nap, showered, dried my hair, fixed supper, cleaned the kitchen, and now I am InterWebbing...
On the way back to Mom & Dad's house, I will stop by the grocery store and do our weekly shopping. If I have the energy this evening, I might make myself a birthday cake when I get the groceries put away. If I don't have the energy, then hey, I didn't need it anyway 'cause I don't wanna be a fat chick, yanno?
Every year on my birthday, my friend Karla shares a beautiful photo with me from the collection that she has made! This year's knockout image is a Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly on a tiger lily. Awesome! THANK YOU, Karla!
One of Mom's oldest friends (E.C.) called during the morning to check on Mom and offered the loan of a "potty chair" to keep beside the bed. Dad accepted the offer, and some other friends (T.&.C.H.) picked it up and delivered it with their truck a short time later. Before we could get the "potty chair" setup in the Master Bedroom, the sheets had to be changed again.
One of the Home Health nurses called to verify that someone would visit the house daily to check on Mom and change the dressing on her surgical incision beginning on Monday 09/22. Mom thought she was too weak to sit up in bed, so I stood beside the bed and spoon-fed her bites of canteloupe for lunch, followed by a BOOST® drink. I did three loads of laundry, which included two sets of soiled sheets from the past 12 hours plus everything that had accumulated in the clothes hamper over the last few days. Mom got a nap during the afternoon, as did Dad in his chair, and me on the living room sofa. Supper was a simple meal of soy "sausage" patties and grits, at Dad's request. It was so very nice to have a relative day of rest for a change!
A pretty painting of a restful courtyard that was hanging in Mom's room at the hospital... snagged by my camera phone...
I honestly don't think Mom was strong enough to be discharged, but they let her go home from the hospital late in the afternoon. Dr. Wheeler (Mom's surgeon) had come by about mid-afternoon and asked Mom if she was ready to go home. Her face brightened and she quickly said, "Yes!" and my father agreed that he also wanted her back home. He added that it was difficult for him to come up to the hospital each day, and it would be much easier for him to look after Mom if she were back home. Since Mom and Dad were both emphatic about discharge, I said nothing of my misgivings and figured we could handle it, one way or another. Dr. Wheeler said he was on his way to the Operating Room to perform another surgery, but he would check back with us afterwards and approve discharge if we still wanted it. Thus, it was decided.
I could write at least two or three paragraphs about the ordeal of getting Mom dressed and ready to leave the hospital. Suffice it to say, however, that it was one of the single most difficult tasks I think I've ever had to do in my entire life. No joke. She was confused, delusional, uncooperative, and disagreeable about every tiny little thing. I don't know if it was residual effects of meds she had been given, residual effects of the anesthesia left over from surgery, or something else. Once we got home, it took two hours to get Mom out of the car, into the house, cleaned up a bit, and into bed.
Dad woke me up at 3:50 am with the report that Mom had fallen out of bed, couldn't get back up on her own, and he needed my help to lift her. Once she was back in bed, he dismissed me, but he still worked with her between 30 minutes and an hour getting her settled back down again. Then she wet the bed, which nurses told us was a common occurrence for several days after having a catheter removed. Dad didn't tell me about that incident until the following morning, preferring to change the sheets and get Mom cleaned-up on his own. Sheesh.
One of the many birdhouses my father made for my mother to hang in the yard.
I had a talk with Dad yesterday about how he always seems to be waiting, very impatiently, for me in the mornings. Even when I am ready by the designated time that he has chosen, I can't seem to be ready soon enough to please him. So, I asked him, point-blank, yesterday if he wanted me to be ready to leave the house by 8:00 am or whatever. He said that NO, leaving the house around 9:15 - 9:30 am was good, which always gets us to the hospital by 9:45 or 9:50, and that any earlier would make for too long a day for him to handle.
So, it was a friggin' shock this morning when he went outside just after 8:00 am as usual, raised the garage door, and stood on his crutches out in the driveway, waiting for me to back the car out of the garage. I was still in my nightgown, hair in curlers, no makeup, and it is still over an hour before he said we needed to leave the house — yet he is standing on his crutches beside the garage door, doing nothing but waiting for me yet again. OH.MY.FUCKING.GAWD. This crap, over and over, is getting old. I WILL be ready to walk out the door by 8:00 am tomorrow morning, by god, and he fucking goddamned better be ready at that time and not a fucking minute sooner or I am going to go fucking ballistic.
Now, since that is out of my system, we return you to the regularly-scheduled blog, already in progress...
I took Dad to an appointment with one of his doctors this morning. He arrived in their office 50 minutes ahead of his appointment time because he insisted that we leave so early. I dropped him off to wait that 50 minutes plus whatever time the staff at the office needed to treat him. I gave them my cell phone number and went across to the hospital to visit with Mom. She was awake this morning and partway through a decent-looking breakfast of scrambled egg, cheese grits, toast with jelly, and apple juice. She didn't end up eating all of it, but she did eat a decent amount for someone just coming back onto solid foods after major surgery. After we wheeled her breakfast tray aside, I showed her all the "get well" cards that accumulated over the past few days (she didn't feel like looking at most of them, until now). Her mood was good, gentle, and loving, but she was definitely in a confused, flaked-out state.
Several people called our house last night and this morning to ask about Mom. There were reports that they could not get a telephone call to go through. So, I checked the phone, found it off-hook, and asked Mom about it. She said that it was intentional that it was left that way. When I asked her why, she took about 20 miutes to ramble through pieces of stories about one of my uncles, an apple-cinnamomn dessert pizza, a short woman without a husband, my brother's cell phone, and she kept trailing off and getting distracted without ever reaching the point of the whole thing. So, I am leaving it off-hook until she comes back to this world and can talk clearly to folks.
When I got the phone call from Dad's doctor's office that he was ready to leave, I went over there to get him. There had been a mix-up, however, and he was not ready after all, but sitting in the waiting room for a piece of equipment to be fixed. Instead of going back to the hospital and returning again later, I decided to just sit there and wait with Dad becuse they said it would only be "a few minutes". After waiting an hour-and-a-half, he lost his patience (and was probably afraid of missing the free lunch at the hospital) so we went over to Mom's room.
It wasn't too long before lunch arrived. They brought a tray for my mother and father, but said that mine would be along a little later. Mom wasn't hungry and didn't touch a bite of her food. Dad ate his lunch. Just as he was finishing his food, my tray was delivered. However, he was hell-bent on getting back over to his doctor's office immediately, so I took him back over there without eating. Fortunately, my tray was still there when we returned so I finally got some food in me. Now I am just sitting here — thankful that I have a computer to play with — because my cranky-as-hell father is napping in the recliner and my mother is still off in her own little world and much too flakey for carrying on a meaningful conversation.
What a day. Fuck.
* Comment from Chris
Sounds like you're having fun
When Dad and I arrived at the hospital today, Mom had a tray of solid food in front of her! She ate a few bites of the scrambled eggs, quite a few of the grits, a couple of bites of toast, juice, and coffee! That is her first solid food in a week and five days (since Saturday, 09/06/08)! She had another bowel movement this morning, so her body seems to be recovering nicely after the surgery!
A "Family Nurse Practitioner" (FNP) made the rounds this morning and said that Mom was doing very well in the opinion of the hospital staff. She also reported that Mom's hemoglobin was in the "normal" range, although she didn't have the exact number at her fingertips.
Mom wasn't very hungry today when the lunch tray arrived. They brought her mashed potatoes, green beans, a wheat roll, jello, and tea. She nibbled at the roll, slowly, and finally got it all down. Dad offered to feed her forkfuls of mashed potatoes and she ate a few of those, but wasn't interested in anything else. At least it was something. Unfortunately, she threw up about four hours later, but hopefully it was just a fluke because her tummy is getting used to solid foods again.
Mom and Dad took a walk together down the hall this morning! He was holding onto one side of the walker, and one of the Physical Therapists was steadying the other side. Everyone thought they looked so sweet together!
Got up at 3:30 am this morning to take my brother back to the airport. We left the house just after 4:00 am, drove to the airport, and I was back at the house by 6:00 am to get in the shower and begin getting ready to visit Mom at the hospital today with Dad.
Mom slept a good bit this morning until the Physical Therapists got her up for a walk and a trip to the bathroom. She mostly dozed for quite a while afterwards. During the early-to-mid afternoon, she began flakingout and getting confused again. She kept picking at her IV and wouldn't stop until she finally pulled the damned thing out. Completely.
Because they took the catheter out of her yesterday and knew there was still a chance of her wetting herself until she gets used to being without the catheter again, they had this "Depends" thing on her. It was a good that they did that because she used it, and not exactly for the purpose for which it was originally intended. On the good side, she did have another decent bowel movement.
I rang for the nurse who came to the room, took Mom back to the bathroom and helped her get cleaned-up and settled afterwards. She reported to Dr. Wheeler that Mom had pulled her own IV out and that Mom's bowels were working more normally now, so he suggested that we try moving her into juices, jellos, and broth immediately. It is almost suppertime now, and I am curious to see what they bring her. I just hope they remember that she is on a "Fish-a-tarian" diet (vegetarian, but will eat fish).
A smiley-face made from pepper, left on his plate by my brother to brighten the day of the kitchen staff at the hospital. It seems he succeeded — one of the kitchen crew told me this morning that his smiley face made a HUGE hit yesterday evening! One of them made a photo of the plate with their camera-phone, and they plan to print it out and hang it up in the kitchen!
The physical therapists came back today and had Mom walk from the chair all the way to the door of her hospital room and back, assisted by the two of them and a wheeled walker. As they were getting her back into the chair, a nurse came around and said that Mom actually went to the bathroom this morning and had a small bowel movement and expelled some of the gas that has been inside her since the surgery! They took out the NG tube that had been pumping out the stomach acid to keep her from throwing up, and let her have a popsicle! The last check of Mom's hemoglobin was 11.1, and they are planning to draw some blood and test it again, as well as other things, later today. It is great to see such progress!
She still seems a bit "out of it" today, but that is because of an unrelated medical condition.
Two more positive notes...
My brother is in town for a short visit! I picked him up at the airport last night and he is up at the hospital visiting Mom today with Dad and me. Mom was visibly cheered by his visit! Unfortunately, he has to return in the morning because of some business that requires his time and attention. He brought a lovely pink azalea plant today for Mom (see photo, although my little camera-phone doesn't do it justice).
Also, my hip is doing much better today! It still isn't back to 100% as it was before, but it isn't hurting nearly as badly as it was!
I'm not sure how it happened considering that they are still giving her the Ativan, but Mom was awake this morning when Dad and I came in! She knew who we were, and was able to carry on a normal conversation with us for several minutes! Yay!
I forgot to mention this in my blog yesterday, but the hospital's Internist (Botts) listened to Mom's abdomen with his stethescope and reported that there were a few sounds like her bowels might be trying to "wake up" and "move" again! That is awesome news, and coupled with Mom's awakeness today, we are truly stoked!
My brother has been calling every day to check on Mom. Last night, he told me that he might be able to come today for a two-day visit! So, I am keeping my cell phone close so that I don't miss his call and know what time to meet him at the airport.
I love the beautimous placemats that grace eaqch tray of food! The colors and the flowers are gorgeous!
* Comment from Rose
Well that is awesome news, girlie...I am glad to hear it.
Mom sat up in the chair today in the corner of the room and talked to Dad and me all afternoon. There were several moments when she was not fully aware of what was going on, but she was aware for the most part. Two physical therapists came to the room at one point and got her out of the chair and let her take two or three steps forward, and then two or three steps back to the chair. She did that several times. Then after she was sitting back down again, one of the therapists helped her do some exercises with her feet and legs.
After they left, however, she wanted to get up again and go to the bathroom. I reminded her about the catheter that was still inside her and said that she was supposed to use it instead. She didn't put up any further argument right away, but kept repeating this scenario all afternoon, about asking me to help her up. I thought she had finally understood what I was telling her because she sat quietly for a long time. I finally had to get up to stretch my legs, so I went downstairs for a smoke break. I wasn't gone but five or six minutes, literally. When I returned, she was half-in and half-out of the chair with Dad holding onto her to keep her from falling to the floor and pulling her tubes. We got her back into the chair until a nurse was available to get her into bed again. She would not keep her arm straight so the IV kept kinking. The nurse had to put a gizmo on her arm to keep it straight. Mom did not like that one little bit and kept glaring at Dad and me for allowing the nurse to do that to her. As the day progressed, Mom seemed more and more "out of it" and in her own little world. Fucking "A"
Mom was asleep when we arrived today, as usual, but seemed to be resting rather well. Nurses and Physical Therapists came in this afternoon and moved her to the big chair in the corner of the room for two or three hours. The process of moving her seemed to hurt her tremendously and she seemed out-of-her-head with pain and restless the entire time, but the staff said it was necessary to have her sitting up for a bit. When they moved her back to the bed, she seemed relieved. Shortly afterwards, I took a stretch-break down the hall. When I returned, Dad reported that Mom woke up briefly and even was able to talk to him a little! That is the first time in several days that we have actually spoken to her more than a simple question and simple answer (e.g., "Are you hurting?" -"Yes, all over." -and then she's asleep again). So, there seems to be a little progress today! w00t!
Mom's nurses are so nice! There is Andrea, who is an RN, and Tammy, who is a student nurse intern looking forward to her graduation in December. Every time they come into the room to check on Mom, they also check on Dad and me to be sure we are okay. They also take time to explain things to us, rather than just racing into the room, doing their tasks, and leaving.
A couple of days ago, they ordered "guest trays" of food to be brought up from the kitchen for Dad and me, which we thought was an awfully sweet gesture on their part to have a meal brought to us that day. Yesterday, Dad and I went downstairs and bought lunch in the cafeteria and ate. We had hamburger steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, and tea. As we were coming back upstairs, Tammy saw us as we were coming off the elevator and said there were "guest trays" for us again today, but she had failed to catch us before we slipped out. She said it will be a "standing order" for trays to arrive every day and that we needn't keep spending our money for food while Mom is hospitalized. Wow!
The food is pretty good, too, for a hospital cafeteria. Last night's tray was beef stew, corn muffin, cole slaw, walnut cream cake, and tea. Today's lunch tray (see photo) was fried chicken, baked sweet potato, turnip greens, corn muffin, blueberry cobbler, and tea. It is almost as satisfying for me to watch Dad enjoy his food as it is eating my own food. The same is true with my darling husband — he gets as excited about food as one can get and proves the old adage about "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach!"
Years ago, my mother was given the drug ATIVAN® by one of her doctors. The drug caused major hallucinations, so she was promptly taken off the drug again. Since then, we have told healthcare providers that she is "allergic" to it, and they usually put it on a list of medications that they will not dispense for her.
When she was taking ATIVAN®, she would be sitting in her chair in the den and commenting on all the pretty birds that were flying through the house. Then, a boy and his dog would appear, stand nearby for a while, and then leave. She thought that my brother had come home several years ago, slipped into the house, went to his old bedroom, closed the door, and had been in there for days without coming out. And so forth...
My mother also has to take an anti-seizure medication. She was taking DEPAKOTE® before being admitted to the hospital for surgery. At the moment, her bowels have not yet "moved" since surgery and anything given to her by mouth — even sips of water — are coming back up; that is what was causing the vomiting yesterday and the subsequent order of "Nothing By Mouth" afterwards. The DEPAKOTE® medication is only available in "pill" form, so it cannot be given to her until she is able to take food and water again.
Therefore, one of her physicians (Manship, who assisted Wheeler during the surgery) decided that ATIVAN® was a viable alternative, because it can also prevent seizures and is available in "liquid" form that is suitable for adding to IV solutions. He realayed the message to us, via a nurse, that "hallucinations" are not an "allergic" reaction, but rather a "side-effect," (which, of course, we knew, but it has always been easier that way) and that he would rather have her having hallucinations in the hospital rather than seizures.
So, THAT is why she has been sleeping 98% of the time and is confused and loopy the little bit of time that she is awake. At least if she is having hallucinations, I hope she will be in a "happy place" rather than a disturbing place.
And at least we now have answers. Why they couldn't have told us this in the beginning rather than have us watch Mom apparently go downhill after surgery and worry about her, I have no idea.
I swear to goddess I am not a "Drama Queen" — or at least I don't think I am. I feel most happy when nothing extraordinary is happening, when everything is so mundane that all I have to blog about are stupid, silly things.
Anyway, I felt fine yesterday morning when we went to the hospital to see Mom. However, when I went to sit down in the chair in the corner, I felt a dull ache in my left hip. No biggie — I get those sometimes when I sleep on one side too long, and it always goes away before much time passes. Except today.
The further into the day, the more my hip hurt, and the pain transformed from a dull ache to a sharp, stabbing pain every time I moved my left hip. In fact, it was so bad that I had trouble doing the simplest things. When I started to sit down on the sofa, I could only lower my butt a few inches before it felt like a knife was being thrust into my hip and I had to stand up again. I wore a pair of elastic-waist, pull-on pants yesterday instead of a skirt, and I thought I'd never get them off last night. Pulling down panties and trying to sit on the toilet seat to tinkle was excruciating and became a major task.
I finally discovered that if I kept my left leg straight and kind of "rolled" towards my right side — always keeping my left leg straight, I could manage to sit down. No matter what position in which I tried to sit, or whatever position I tried when finally lying down to sleep, hurt immensely. The whole while, though, I knew that whatever pain I was feeling was nothing compared to the pain my father recently felt when he broke his hip. It did give me a better appreciation for how difficult his life became with that simple fall.
I didn't sleep well last night and there is still a lot of pain this morning, but I have to keep going with it, just being very slow and careful, and taking Motrin® to keep the pain somewhat at bay. Like I need this on top of everything else...
* Comment from Pink
Being hurt doesn't make you a drama queen, sillypreciouskitty. If it doesn't get better today, take yourself to the Dr. You don't want to do more damage to yourself by walking/moving on it if it really is injured. (i swear i'ma gonna come take care of you miself.) *kisses*
ROUGH COUPLE OF DAYS FOR MOM • 09-12-2008 • FRIDAY
Mom has had a rough couple of days. She is in pain and restless to the point that she doesn't know what she is doing. She has tried to pull her IV tubes out, repeatedly. Last night, she somehow managed to completely pull out her epidural, all on her own, which according to her nurse required quite a bit of effort on her part. The hospital staff decided not to put it back into place.
She vomited all over herself right before we arrived this morning and they had just cleaned her up and the doctor had looked-in on her. It happened again about 12:30 pm. Each time, she lost about 100 cc of fluid. The nurses alerted the doctor, who ordered an X-ray to try to determine what is happening. We hope to get word on what the X-ray shows by this evening. He also ordered a tube to be inserted into her stomach (via her nose) to keep the stomach fluids drained out of her stomach. She tried to rip the tyvek bracelet off her wrist and kept pulling at all the tubes, so she had to be restrained.
What frightens me most at this point is that she seemed to be doing better immediately after her surgery than she is doing now.
The only bright thing that happened today was the delivery of a beautiful basket of flowers (see photo) from Aunt Marcia & Uncle Brady, June & Hank, and David & Cathy. Oh, and the student nurse who was shadowing Mom's RN today reminded me a lot of my friend Asilinn!
Mom's surgeon (Wheeler) just came by the hospital room and told us that the pathology report had returned, and it showed that Mom's tumor HAD gone through the colon wall and affected one lymph node (out of the nine near the ascending colon). Therefore, her cancer is considered "Stage III" and WILL require chemotherapy. He said that based on what the pathology report showed, the tumor has been growing inside her for probably eight or nine years.
* Comment from Rose
I'm sorry to hear that, sweetie... at least they got it before stage IV. Love to you and yours.
I didn't blog yesterday because Mom was kept in CCU for another day as a precautionary measure. So, Dad and I sat like proverbial bumps on logs in the CCU room, talkimg to Mom during her "awake" periods and trying to be quiet when she drifted off to sleep. Her hemoglobin had fallen dangerously low (6.8) after surgery, so two units of blood were administered. Her count registered 9.43 when they checked it again shortly after the last transfusion. Otherwise, it was a non-eventful day.
Before surgery, Mom had an epidural so that she could just push a little button any time she needs a jolt of pain medicine. Whatever they have in the pump must be good stuff because (possibly coupled with residual effects of the anesthesia, of course) the stuff is making her a little bit "loopy" in-between periods of perfect awareness and lucidity. One minute she is talking about her surgery in a matter-of-fact manner, and the next minute she is trying to climb out of bed to make breakfast for Dad and me. When the epidural pump is dispensing the pain med, the machine makes this faint little "whistling" sound that is somewhat reminiscent of a songbird singing. It's really cute since Mom is such a bird-lover anyway.
She was still on a diet of ice-chips and sips of water today. A nurse told us that she had some gas/air leftover in her bowels from the surgery and that she would have to expel it naturally (so they would know her bowels had begun working again on their own) before she could be given food.
A good sign appeared when they finally (after 5:00 pm) moved her from CCU to a regular hospital room! Yay!
Mom's Right Hemicolectomy went well and she is okay! The surgeon appeared to talk to us about 2 hours and 15 minutes after the surgery began (which started around 2:45 pm, 3 hours and 15 minutes late). He said that no problems or complications were obvious during the surgery, although some could appear anytime within two weeks following the surgery. Because of her age and delicate state of health, the surgeon thought it prudent to place her in CCU (Critical Care Unit) overnight for observation and move her to a regular hospital room sometime tomorrow. Dad and I are so relieved!
Now that Mom has only a portion of her colon (:) left, does that mean she has a semi-colon (;)?
The resected portion of Mom's colon is being soaked in a "fixative" to make the tissues firm so they can saw through them and see how far the tumor had actually grown. That will tell them whether the tumor was contained only in the colon (Stage I), whether adjacent tissues were affected (Stage II), whether the cancer spread to the lymph nodes (Stage III), or whether other organs might have been affected (Stage IV). Right now, they are thinking/hoping that the cancer is only Stage I or Stage II, but we will not know for sure for another 2 or 3 days.
The pastor of my parents' church was out of town and not available to be with us today, so he asked another pastor to sit with us during the waiting period while Mom was in surgery.
I've been up for about 34 hours straight, without any sleep, and I am dead on my feet. To those loyal readers of my blog, forgive the nasty attitude in my last blog entry. I had to get my feelings out in the open to get past them.
* Comment from Atty
I am sending some distance Reiki to you and your family. I hope you will find it just as important to get some rest. Love u girl!
* Comment from Pink
I'm sending positive thoughts your way... along with an order: GET SOME SLEEP!!! You will be absolutely no good to your mom or anyone if you take to your sick bed too. Don't make me come down there, young lady!!!
Before long, I will have been up over 24 hours and will still have the full day of Mom's surgery and dealing with my father ahead of me.
Forget the bus — I feel like I've been hit by a truck.
We were on target for leaving the house around 11:00 am this morning for arrival at the appointed time of 11:30 am at the hospital. Then, we received a surprised phone call from the surgeon's office at 9:15 this morning, asking us to be there at 10:30 am instead. My mother was still in bed, resting, and had not even brushed her teeth or showered or dressed. I had showered and washed my hair, but was still in my nightgown, hair in curlers, and no makeup. My father, of course, was ready to leave in five minutes and kept nagging at my mother and me to hurry up.
Having had no sleep at all and growing weary of my father's impatient attitude, blatant implications that Mom and I were taking too long, and that we were not trying to be accomodating to the surgeon's last-minute request, I blew up at him. I yelled at my father at the top of my lungs — as I have never done before — that he was being childish and unreasonable, that certain things had to be done before we could leave, and that we still had plenty of time before we had to leave to still be there at 10:30 am. I was so angry with him that my hands began to shake in rage and I was unable to do the simplest of tasks with my hands until I took a few minutes to calm down. I don't think I have ever been so upset at my father and his goddamned attitude that every fucking thing in the outside world is more imporant than his own family and their sanity. Mom was so upset by his attitude that she threw up in the car on the way to the hospital. What a fine send-off my father gave to her for her surgery. goddammit.
We pull into the hospital's parking lot at 10:05 am, check in at the surgical desk at 10:15 am, and then are told that something delayed the surgeon and he would be late. So, here it is 12:15 pm and we are still sitting here waiting for her to be taken back to the surgical holding area. Fuck.
* Comment from Rose
That sucks, I know doctors can't always control their environment but if they didn't schedule everyone back to back like an assembly line they might have more room for moments like this.
* Comment from Kitty
True, but this did NOT have to be a crisis — my father simply chose to make it a crisis.
* Comment from Atty
Although I know your nature is to be peaceful and collective, your father may have really needed to hear that... Good for you, girl! Families can certainly be ........ Challenging. I really admire your sacrifice and taking control as you have. Your mother is fortunate to have you by her side.
Today was Mom's "clear liquids" day in preparation for surgery. She had some coffee this morning with artificial sweetener, then only juice, jello, and some of the clear veggie broth that I made for her. She liked the orange jello that I made for her, but threw up not long after eating the peach jello. Dad and I both thought she would like the peach flavor, but she said it did not taste very good. Why did she eat it, then...?!?!?!? There was more orange jello as well as lime, plus oodles of veggie broth, so it wasn't like she didn't have a choice. Sheesh...
I made sure she took her pre-surgery antibiotics on time (Erythromyacin and Neomyacin tablets), and made sure that she was on-schedule with the Dulcolax and lemon-lime Gatorade laced with Miralax. She complained the whole time she was drinking the Gatorade because she did not like the lemon-lime flavor, but she could not have anything colored red or blue, so the lemon-lime was the only flavor the store had which she could drink. I can't believe how picky she has gotten in recent years, and Dad is just about as picky with his eating habits as she is. Gawd.
The Miralax was effective, thank goodness, so there should not be any delays with her surgery tomorrow. I could not help but remember how slow she was to react to the laxatives the hospital gave her recently when she had her colonoscopy and was relieved that didn't happen again.
Because my mother is so anemic, she fell again today and it took my father and me, both working together, to wrestle her over to a chair. She almost fell another time, but we managed to keep her upright until she could move again.
It is now after 1:00 am and I am wide-awake instead of asleep as I should be. I am more than a little worried about Mom's surgery tomorrow. I honestly don't know if she has the strength and optimism to make it through this. And if something were to happen to my mother, I don't know if my father would last long. There is something to be said about the powerful connectedness that is formed during 54 years of marriage to another person.
Also the house is too hot for sleep, even with my wearing one of my thinnest, most lightweight nightgowns. My father keeps the thermostat set so high that it is actually cooler outside right now than it is inside, which is sooooo very wrong for a house with air conditioning on a summer's night. He grudgingly lets me keep a small 9" - 10" fan going beside the sofa in the living room where I sleep, but even a ceiling fan turned on "low" anywhere in the house sends him running for a sweater — no joke. I seriously considered sleeping in my car in my parents' driveway since it is cooler outside. However, if Mom were to head to the bathroom and fall again, my father would need me to be readily available to help lift her off the floor.
It will be a very early day tomorrow, too... Although we don't have to leave for the hospital until 11:00 am or so, I have my alarm set for 6:00 am because it is such a damned chore to get ready to go anywhere with my Mom and Dad both under the same roof, three of us using the same bathroom, and both of them needing so much assistance.
* Comment from Rose *hugs* You are doing wonderfully well considering all the stress, you and your family are in my thoughts.
Discovered why my mother is falling so much. When I mopped the floor in the den, I found a bottle of pills under my mother's chair. It was the pills that her doctor gave her to increase her blood count because of the anemia. The prescription was filled for a count of 30 pills on August 25th. Only two pills had been taken from the bottle. She said she had "forgotten" to take them.
So, today when she should be taking pill #13 out of the bottle, I am giving her pill #3 from the bottle. Damn.
My mother's anemia, coupled with the host of other medical problems she constantly battles — Lupus, Sjögren's, fibromyalgia, etc. — has made her dizzy to the point where she cannot walk about the house unassisted. She has fallen several times already, but fortunately hasn't done more than get a few bruises. My father or I have to be available at all times to assist her to the bathroom, recliner, dining table, or back to bed. My father even woke me up this morning to help him lift Mom from the floor again — she fell while he was escorting her from the bathroom back to the bedroom, and she landed in such a strange way that he could not get the leverage to lift her by himself. So, things have beem interesting around here at times.
Got my nails done today. They were beginning to look bad, so I found a salon nearby and got a fill. Didn't bring any of my polish with me, so I had to use one of theirs. The one I chose is called: BOGATA BLACKBERRY
The salon was not very far from the hospital that Mom & Dad prefer, so I came over here to test the WiFi capabilities. It seems to work very well (after jumping through a few frustrating connection hoops) and is FREE — YAY!
Today was Mom's "pre-op" appointments. First, we went to the surgeon's office to sign some forms, then we took Mom to the hospital to sign more forms, talk to the anesthesiologist, have blood drawn for lab tests, and a pre-op EKG performed. We were given instructions on the procedure to "clean Mom out" ~cough~ in preparation for the surgery. So, everything is on track.
We were all hungry when we left the hospital, so we had lunch at Silver Bay (seafood — yay!). Next we went to Wal-Mart to get the laxatives, juices, and jellos that will make Mom's diet the day before surgery. I took Mom & Dad back home to rest, then went out solo to do the grocery shopping for the week.
After such a big lunch and being so tired, none of us were very hungry so we just nibbled at yogurt and leftovers for supper. Then I came to Mickey D's to hit their WiFi so that I could check email and post this blog. I have never connected to a WiFi in a public place like McDonald's or Starbucks before, so I was surprised to have to pay $2.95 for a 2-hour block of time. Is that customary...?!?!? I'm pretty sure that the WiFi access will be free at the hospital where Mom is having her surgery. Anyway, it is so nice having a WiFi card in the computer, even if I have to travel to use it!!!
* Comment from Pink
I don't know about McD's but i know there are usually lots of places with free wifi. Panera Bread is free, i thought starsmucks was too. You can probably do a google search for free wifi in town.
* Comment from Rose
For my experience it's customary, I know at B&N it cost sucks I know but have you googled an internet cafe to see if there is one relatively close to you?
My heart was wild, crouching and hiding, subdued from the pain of past hurts. I was beginning to think of myself as unlovable, someone no one wanted. At times, it was difficult to love myself.
Then he came into my life and tamed my feral heart. He showed me unconditional love and made me feel beautiful and desirable again. He gave of himself freely and taught me the joys of living in the moment.
He once sent a text message to my phone during our time of separation when my father broke his hip: "I love and miss you, but I'm with you wherever you go — just as you're with me." That warmed my heart and brought tears of joy to my eyes.
So, even though we won't actually be together on our anniversary this year because I will be returning today to care for my parents again, it doesn't matter, for we have a special connection through our hearts and souls. This week marks the third year of measured time that we have been together, but we have also spent time immeasurable together, too. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, my darling man!
* Comment from Rose
This is so awesome to read...Happy Anniversary to you and your awesome man. *hugs*
THE LATEST BUZZ • 08-31-2008
Been a busy little bee since I've been home. Here are the highlights...
Spending time with my Sweetie. Posting all the blogs that I wrote while away. Catching up on a humongous backlog of emails & messages from being offline for so long. Working, trying to beef-up my bank account. Getting my nails done. Furiously working on getting the DVD player going on the laptop, plus loading more music, images, and such to keep me occupied when I go back to my parents' house. Playing with the wireless "WiFi" card that my hunny got for me ($10 on eBay, plus a small shipping charge! Is he a good shopper, or what...?!?!? Whoo hooo!) Getting used to the new battery that my husband bought for the laptop so I don't have to have a power connection everywhere I go! Gosh, that man is good to me! Eating pizza. Sleeping. Playing. Recharging. And, of course, checking in frequently with Mom & Dad, and seeing how things are going with my aunt there with them.
Once again, it is time to return to my parents' house for a bit. My aunt is gone for now, off to another commitment that she had made. Mom has her "pre-op" appointment this coming week, to sign forms, talk to the anesthesiologist, have blood drawn for lab work, and have a pre-surgery EKG. And then there is the big day of surgery on September 8th, where they will remove 14-inches of her colon in an effort to get rid of the cancerous tumor that is growing inside her. Damn, I hope they manage to get all of it and find that it has not spread to any other part of her body. And I hope she makes it through the surgery.
So, if you don't see me online, you know what's going on.
And if you do see me online, it is thanks to the wireless card in the laptop that my awesome guy got for me, plus a cozy little "WiFi hotspot" somewhere.
In so many regards, I am definitely the "Black Sheep" of our family. I am the one who is not Christian, prefering the wide open spaces to the suffocating closeness of the flock. I am the one who agrees with my "husband" that the sanctity of our relationship does not depend on having it recognized by a group of people, religious or political. I am the one who prizes existential wisdom over the preternatural logic of a society with narrow vision. I am the one who has dared to follow my heart rather than what others deem as proper and prudent. I am the Black Sheep. And, yes, I have wool, but I shall not pull it over your eyes for I wish for you to see as clearly as I see.
Dad had a "follow up" appointment with the surgeon (Roberson) who performed the repair on his broken hip. The staff was blown-away by Dad's progress in mobility since the surgery. He also had excellent vitals that morning — blood pressure, pulse rate, and temperature were all in good order! After an X-ray of Dad's hip, the surgeon met with us and said that everything was healing nicely. He admitted that the post-surgical hip was slightly "crooked" and not perfectly straight, but said it was the best job that he could do with the amount of bleeding he encountered during the surgery (due to residual Plavix in my Dad's system, as a precaution against a second stroke). He thrilled my father by announcing that he was offically releasing Dad from his care, unless something else should arrive later.
Dad and I picked up some important papers at another office for my brother and sent them off "overnight" via DHL, then picked up some prescriptions at a pharmacy for Dad. When we returned home, Mom reported that she had received a phone call informing her of her surgery date. I called back to confirm the information she had been given and to ask a few other questions.
Here's the scoop:
Mom is to report to the surgeon's office on September 3rd (Wednesday) for her "PreOp" appointment and sign some papers. Then we proceed around the corner to the hospital where she will register for the upcoming surgery, meet with an anesthesiologist, have blood drawn for lab work, and have an EKG. The date of the actual surgery is September 8th (Monday), but the surgeon's office will have to contact us later for the exact time they need us to be there.
My mother expressed some concern about how long the surgeon was waiting before performing the surgery. I told her that I was sure that he would be doing the surgery sooner if the need were more pressing, and that there were possibly more pressing cases (i.e., worse than hers) ahead of her. I told her that she should just trust that everything is unfolding as it should. (Of course, my father had reminded her earlier that she should trust "God's plan for her," but whatever...) I also told her that she needed to remain positive and confident that she would get through this in order for it to happen. If she ever started to give up, we would definitely lose her. I told her that if she ever needed to talk, I would be there for her. She seemed to understand and felt comforted by my words.
* Comment from Rose *hugs*
It's difficult when you're dealing with someone you love who is sick, even more so when it
is your parents that you have to go through the illness with.
You are a wonderful daughter for being there! I know it's stressful at times, but know you and
your family are in my thoughts.
* Comment from Kitty
Thank you so very much for the hugs, thoughts, and positive energy!
Visited the surgeon (Wheeler) for Mom's appointment which was set yesterday. The biopsy report had arrived earlier than expected — that very morning — and the surgeon informed us in matter-of-fact manner that the tumor is malignant. He won't know whether the cancer has spread to other areas of the body (e.g., the lymphatic system) until the surgery is underway. At this point in time, he feels that it is prudent to remove about 14-inches of Mom's intestines — part of the transverse colon, the entire ascending colon, cecum, and a small portion of the ileum at the ileocecal junction. His staff is currently working to schedule the procedure with a nearby hospital.
Called the surgeon (Wheeler) who is scheduled to remove Mom's tumor. Their office knew nothing about my mother because a referral had not yet been made.
Called the gastrointerologist's office to find out why the referral had not been made and learned that they were waiting for the report from the biopsy before they made the referral. The biopsy report usually takes a week to arrive, which is why they instructed us to wait a few days before calling to see the surgeon.
score ===> stupid girl: 1 ... boys: 0 ... dammit
So, the lady tells me that she will call me back as soon as her office can make the referral to the surgeon. I ensure that she has our home telephone number and my cell phone number, just to be safe. Before we receive a callback from her, my father's short impatience has reached an end and he demands, in heated tones, that I call back and find out what is happening. The lady at the doctor's office said she had not forgotten her promise to call me back when the matter had been resolved. Her demeanor is professional, but I do hear an exasperated undertone in her voice and feel guilty that I followed my father's orders. I apologize to her and hang up to wait for the call.
Finally, we receive a call before the afternoon is out that Mom has her referral, and the surgeon has agreed to talk to us even though they don't have the biopsy report yet. We are to have her at the surgeon's office in the morning at 10:30 am.
* Comment from Rose *sigh* Ya know it's really difficult being the "stupid" girl when the boys are even more stupid.
I am sure though the lady understood what was going on.
* Comment from Kitty
I dunno — I didn't explain the circumstances of the calls. Perhaps I should have.
Took my father to an appointment at his hematologist's office for an Aranesp shot, then back home. He has to have those shots regularly because of a disorder that runs randomly in my family which causes the body to produce too few red blood cells, among other nasty things. Later in the afternoon, I had to go to GSP airport to pick up my brother, who was coming for the weekend.
Neither my father nor my brother believed me when I said that the hospital instructed us to wait a few days before calling the surgeon to make an appointment. Both of them insisted that I misinterpreted the instructions and insisted that a phone call be placed the following day. As usual, I agreed to do it with little argument (which would have been futile, had I offered one). After all, I am apparently just a stupid girl who gets everything wrong and the men in the family are always right. Whatever...
During the past month or so, I have spent more time in-person with my brother than I have in over 30 years. Sure, we have stayed in-touch over the years, but our lives, families, and physical distance between us have allowed only the shortest of visits together. Even though it has been so long, we still "click" pretty well, as much as the average brother and sister "click" together, I suppose. On Sunday afternoon, I had to drive my brother back to GSP airport so he could catch a return flight home. Wow... his only two days off this week during a busy-as-heck month at work and he spent all of it helping Mom and Dad. Despite his puzzlingly nebulous view of my credibility in relating things I have been told, I have to admit he is still a helluva guy for everything he is accomplishing in his own life as well as what he is doing for our parents. I am proud to be his sister.
Mom was able to have the colonoscopy today, finally. The hospital's gastrointerologist (Prostko) found a small tumor (3 cm in size) located in her ascending colon. He did a biopsy on it and sent it off to be tested for malignancy.
His recommendation is that it be removed, even if it is benign. He asked another physician (Rosenburg, apparently a resident or intern) to act as temporary liason with the surgical staff to coordinate further treatment. Rosenburg reported later that Mom's case was not considered "life threatening" and as such might take several days for the surgical staff to work her into their schedule. Furthermore, Medicare would likely not pay for additional hospital stay in a non-life-threatening situation until a surgeon was actually ready to remove the tumor. Mom's case was referred to a surgeon (Wheeler) and that we should contact his office directly in about 10 days to schedule the procedure.
Dad sees the same Internist for a GP as does Mom (the same one who had recently hospitalized Mom for anemia). Today was Dad's "follow up" appointment, and the doctor was very pleased with his progress since being released from the nursing home!
Near the end of the appointment, we mentioned to the doctor how Mom's body had been slow to react to the laxatives the hospital was administering. The doctor though that perhaps it was one-or-more of her myriad health problems that was causing the slow reaction.
Afterwards, we went across the street to the hospital to visit Mom, then went home to do some work.
The gastrointerologist (Prostko) tried to perform the colonoscopy on Mom today, but discovered that she was not "cleaned out" enough. He postponed the colonoscopy until Thursday.
Mom has been placed on a diet of clear liquids in preparation for her colonoscopy. Of course, she has several doses of Ducolax to consume as well. Yum!
I took Dad to the hospital again to see Mom, but he tires so easily these days and was ready to go home within one to two hours after we arrived. Knowing that Mom was lonely up there, I tried to get him to switch to a different chair and stay longer. He has always been a restless sort, never sitting still for long at time. I know it is difficult for him when his mobility is so limited by his slow-but-steady healing after his hip surgery, the arthritis in his knees, and all the other aches and pains of advancing age.
A couple of large branches of the fig tree behind Mom & Dad's house were hanging over onto the roof. So, my brother climbed up there and sawed them off. He surprised us by brining in a huge basket of figs off the tree! I went out there, too, and helped him gather some more to fill a pot, and I started cooking them to make fig preserves! Fig preserves are one of my favorite things. I remember when my Aunt Carrie (one of Mom's sisters) used to make them a lot when I was a child. I strive to make them as good as she did.
* Comment from Rose
I love the looks of figs, I dunno if its their coloring or what but they are really cool.
* Comment from Kitty
...and these figs are sooooooo juicy and good!
Mom's endoscopy (EGD, performed by Prostko) showed presence of some mild gastritis, but no bleeding ulcer as has been expected. No blood transfusions are planned until they locate the cause of the blood in the stools. The doctor wanted to perform a colonoscopy this afternoon but was unable to schedule the assisting staff and room on short notice, and Mom's colon would need to be properly emptied, even so. He wants Mom to be observed over the weekend and perform a colonoscopy early next week.
With the stark reminder yesterday that Uncle Leonard died from Colorectal Cancer, I tried to remember how my other aunts/uncles had passed. Some of the details I remembered, and my parents filled-in the remainder.
~MOM's SIDE OF FAMILY~ in order, by age
Relative
Cause of Death
Papa
prostate cancer, possibly complicated by kidney failure
My mother has always battled several health problems, as far back as I can remember. In recent years, though, age has taken its toll and she has suffered more than what seems her fair share. She suffers from Lupus (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus), Sjögren's Syndrome, fibromyalgia, and a weak back, as well as osteo-arthritis and all the other common aches-and-pains that comes with increasing age.
Sjögren's Syndrome affects (among other things) the connective tissues in the body and can cause tiredness, so we didn't think too much about it when she became more tired than usual recently. She has also been complaining of chronic and acute indigestion/heartburn every single day, has experienced some dizziness (particularly when rising from sitting or lying down), difficulty sleeping (even with pain meds), and some mental confusion/forgetfulness. After presenting this list of symptoms to her Internist (Chang) today, he immediately suspected a "bleeding ulcer" and anemia to be the cause. After questioning her about the presence of any black stools lately and hearing her positive answer, he ordered an immediate test of her hemoglobin. A nurse came in and drew a vial of blood from Mom's fingertip and the doctor reappeared a few minutes later with the confirmation of an anemic condition. Based on the test result, my mother's pale skintone and pinkish mucous membranes rather than the customary red color, he decided to admit her immediately to the hospital.
So, my father and I drove her over to the hospital and reported to the nurse's station on the second floor, per the doctor's orders. Nurses and doctors came in before long to get my mother settled and ask her additional questions so they could tend to her care. My father and I stayed with her for a while, then ran some errands, then returned to the hospital for another visit before going back home. He and I both called Mom later that night, and I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with my husband, brother, and boss, telling the story of what happened and making plans for my staying longer than originally expected this visit.
* Comment from Rose
I'm sorry to hear this sweetie but I am glad you got her in and checked out so they
could get her started healing.
* Comment from Kitty
I know — imagine how much worse it would have been had we not caught it in time.
And in a strange twist, the mental confusion/forgetfulness kept Mom from "remembering"
to mention all of these symptoms to the doctor on one or two previous visits, so it's like
this is a self-sustaining illness or something. I am so glad that I wrote the list of symptoms
on a piece of paper, dragged Mom back to the doctor, and handed him the list.
Memo to self: Make plans and execute them, don't discuss them.
I've tried to be nice by mentioning my plans and intentions beforehand (what I am thinking of making for supper, where I am putting the clean towels I just washed, etc.), just in case there are any major objections and so everyone will know where to find things. However, many of my plans and intentions have been completely derailed by minor objections — often preferential, without any logic behind them — that don't frigging matter. I just need to keep my stupid little mouth shut, decide what I think needs to be done, and do it. Period. Everyone else can deal with it later.
* Comment from Rose
I dunno when you posted this hun but I know the feeling. *hugs*
Worked the "graveyard shift" at work last night, came home, got a bite to eat, setup some stuff on the laptop, packed again, and drove back to South Carolina. This time, I came a slightly different route during the last leg of the trip that took me through some slightly more scenic countryside and only a couple of miles out of the way. By the time I get to bed this evening, I will have been up about 25½ hours. Sheesh. I just hope they let me sleep-in tomorrow to make up for it.
Table Rock Mountain in South Carolina, as seen from US Highway 276, not far from my parents' house.
Back to Kingsport to work Friday and Saturday nights and see my husband! Yay! I've missed him so much! I am also getting some fresh clothes and snagging some online time, too. Don said I could take his laptop back with me! I won't have an Internet connection, but at least I can write-up some of the blogs that have accumulated in my calendar/journal book that I carry in my purse, listen to music, and some other things!
After returning to what is my "normal" life, it is even more apparent how chaotic life is right now in my parents' household. Kinda makes me dread going back and leaving the normality behind again. Such is life sometimes.
Our house, with the beautimous red door, in Kingsport.
My brother and I had hoped to have "The Talk" with our parents yesterday about their ability to continue living alone in the long-term with both of them having chronic health concerns and advancing age. Both of them were too tired yesterday to have a serious discussion, so I took an extra day off work so we could do it today. The talk went well — better than expected — and our suggestions are being considered. During the coming months, we will explore the options available and come to a mutual decision and plans will be made.
It is amazing how out-of-sync my eating habits and eating preferences have become with the rest of my family's. Except for the low-fat cheese and skim milk in the fridge, much of the other food is sugared, processed, or fat-laden.
A couple of years ago, I was diagnosed with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and was overweight. My doctor and a registered dietician talked to me about how to solve these problems. By following their advice, I dropped almost 50 pounds of excess weight, lowered my cholesterol to an acceptable level, and brought my blood pressure down out of the risky zone.
Yet, despite my positive experiences with the advice given to me by medical professionals, my brother challenged my eating habits and told me outright that I am mistaken about the healthy way to eat. He seems to think — for whatever reason that I cannot fathom — that I simply "misinterpreted" what I was told, even though I took copious notes which match my later research with other experts in the field. I also have a witness who accompanied me to the appointment who can corroborate what was said. If my brother knows so blasted much, why is his cholesterol now high while mine is under control? I also don't see a "Registered Dietician" or "Medical Doctor" degree hanging on his wall.
I don't second-guess his credibility in areas where he has received professional advice or conquered hardships, so why should he do that to me...?!?!?
My brother and I appear to make a good team working together (something we haven't really done since childhood). He has been jumping into the big stuff that involves a lot of muscle and strength, and I have been doing some of the "detail orientied" organizational tasks as well as the mundane work to keep the household running — cooking meals, washing dishes, doing the laundry, and so forth.
There is so much work to do at my parents' house that it is staggering, even after all that has already been done — house cleaning, clearing clutter, backload of laundry, yard work, repairs, and so forth.
I can't help but wonder if this same thing is going to happen to me, that once-easy household chores begin to pile up before I realize that I can't continue handling it on my own. My husband says it happened in his family, and others have reported the same in their families. That thought makes "getting older" suck even more than it already did.
It is, indeed, fReAkY wEiRd having father, mother, son, and daughter together again under one roof. It is also weird to be 53 years old and in the habit of turning out unused lights at my own house, but to still be reminded before being given a chance to demonostrate my proficiency in remembering to douse the lights on my own. I guess some things never change.
I also noticed something else strange... The basic dynamic between my brother and me is exactly like the basic dynamic between my mother and my father. I never caught that similarity while growing up, but it is very obvious currently, and in retrospect. It must have something to do with gender versus family genetics, or the way we were raised in the Deep South. Still, it seems very odd to me.
After working the "graveyard shift" last night, I came home, got a bite to eat, and packed my things in order to head back to my parents' house. When that was finished, I had been up about 16 hours, was very tired, and thought it best to get a nap before the three-hour drive. So, I curled up with my teddy bear at my usual bedtime, but was only planning to snooze for an hour or two.
I must have been more tired than I thought, because I slept a full five hours before waking. Of course, I normally would be sleeping eight or nine hours at that time of day — not a mere five — to get ready for work again that night. I was stumbling around the house, groggy as could be, trying desperately to shake the sleep-cobwebs out of my head, feeling quite a bit like roadkill must feel, and frustrated because I had slept so long but was still obviously needing much more sleep than I had received. I was almost in a panic until my husband calmed me down, something he is very good at doing. He made me stop, take a breath, and realize that the world was not going to end because I had needed sleep after working all night and having been up 16 hours.
A quick check of my cell phone showed that there was a message from my brother, informing me that he had already arrived at Mom & Dad's, and wondering when I would be there. At my husband's bidding, I decided that since my brother was there to keep an eye on our parents for the evening and make sure they were okay, I would stay home to get my much-needed sleep, flip over from graveyard-shift schedule to a daytime-schedule, and join him down there tomorrow.
My Dad has been making improvements to his strength and mobility at the nursing home over the past few weeks and it was decided that he could be discharged on July 23rd to return home.
However, being super-anxious to return home and to some semblance of a normal life, he hounded the nursing home staff so much that they released him a few days early. I was surprised when I learned that he was being discharged yesterday. This caught my brother and me off-guard and neither of us were able to scramble plans fast-enough to be there before he was transported home. My brother traveled there this afternoon, and I am packing my bags to go down there in the morning.
It might be cool in a freaky sort of way to have father, mother, brother, and sister together again under the same roof, but I'm not really looking forward to the trip. Not only will I be far away from my wonderful husband for several days, but I will also be dealing with "geekette withdrawal" without a computer, sharing one bathroom with three other adults, sharing a kitchen with three other adults with vastly different eating habits than my own, plenty of hard work to accomplish, dealing with various issues concerning my parents' continued ability to live by themselves as they get older, and so forth.
As it stands now, I plan to be there until Wednesday of this coming week (the 23rd), then return to Kingsport to go back to work over the weekend. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will go back down there for a few days at the beginning of each week and my brother will go back towards the end of each week. That way, my parents will have one of us there most of the time to help out with things, which my brother and I both agree is prudent at this point.
So, if you notice that I am not online for a few days each week or fail to get a speedy response to an email, you will know what is happening! I will still be reachable via cell phone, SMS, MMS, PDQ, and so forth.
One of my favorite movies — "Thelma and Louise" — was on last night. I love that movie!
Once upon a time, I would not have really understood it. It can only be fully understood by someone who has really lived, by someone who has walked through the fire and survived it, by someone who has lost their innocence for the exchange of maturity.
And speaking of "maturity," many people have a misconception about what "maturity" is. Maturity is not being "grown up" and knowing how to deal with Life. Maturity is gained only by having Life deal with you, by having everything in which you believe and everything which you hold dear ripped from you so you are standing, naked, at the edge of The Abyss. Only then can you claim "maturity." Only then does "Thelma and Louise" fully make sense.
* Comment from Rose
You know I wish I had as much talent in my whole body as you do in just
your little finger, I would be satisfied.
* Comment from Kitty
How wonderful that you refer to my insanity as "talent." Thank you!
BUGS • 07-03-2008
...several things to catch up on...
The antibiotic I was on last week (Amoxicillin 500mg 2 tabs t.i.d. x 10 d.) seemed to knock-out the sinus infection I had, and I felt great there for three or four days after I took the last dose. Then I began to feel as if I were having a relapse — watery discharge from eyes, sore throat, body aches returning, and so forth. Yuk! The same thing happened to my husband and his doctor said that a second-run of antibiotics was in order for him. So, I went back to my doctor and was given a second run of antibiotics, too (Amoxicillin/Clavulanic Acid 875mg-125mg 1 tab b.i.d. x 10 d.). Hopefully this "bug" will be dead before long and won't bother me any more.
The nursing home tried calling Mom & Dad's house this morning a little after 6:00am but there was no answer, so, they called me instead. (My mother and brother were probably still asleep and didn't hear the phone.) The nurse reported that my father had vomited this morning and they had given him some Phenagrin® to help with the nausea. She said that a couple of other residents had thrown-up in the middle of the night, too, and they suspected that a "bug" was going around there as well. She said they were required to call whenever something like that happened, though, and I am glad she did!
My brother was able to get some time-off work and traveled from his home in Texas to my parents' house this past weekend. He is planning to stay for a week or so, and might even go back for another week later in the month. He is visiting my Dad in the nursing home and helping Mom with a backlog of chores that have accumulated. Bless his heart! With Dad in the hospital when I was down there recently, Mom and I didn't have much time (or emotional energy) leftover for housework. I did what I could to help out, though.
My brother and I had a long conversation last night about my parents. Things that he is seeing/hearing this week, coupled with some things that I saw/heard when I was there, leads us to believe that we need to start keeping a much closer eye on Mom and Dad. Sadly, they are getting to the point — given their age plus their current states of health — that even some of the simplest of household chores are becoming monumental for them. We're thinking of contracting someone to come in and do some routine cleaning once per week (mopping floors, dusting furniture, etc.) to make things easier for them. He and I plan to start checking on them a bit more intensively than we have been doing.
* Comment from Rose
Getting old is the sucketh and it's difficult as heck when you reach that point where you have to start taking care of your parents as they took care of you,
I know because I have gone through it. Good for you and your brother for paying attention and not pretending it will all be okay and bury your heads in the sand. *hugs*
REDESIGN OF PHOTO ALBUM • 06-30-2008
Seriously sexy man, with his shades! That's my sweetie! Whoo hooo!
I just did a major overhaul of the PhotoAlbum on this website. Not only does the album have a new layout, but there are new photos there (as well as some new "old" ones), and a new viewer that makes it easier to flip through the pics.
To access the new album, just click on the "PHOTOS" link in the menu to the left of the page. As usual, if you see any problems, please let me know!
* Comment from Rose
Verah nice pic of the sweetie man.
VIVA LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS! • 06-26-2008
The following excerpt is from the article "Law and Disorder," from the June 16, 2008, issue of TIME magazine:
"Just a few decades ago, Mexico City boasted some of the lowest crime rates on the continent. That changed when the Mexican economy crashed in 1995, throwing millions out of work. In the following years, Mexico usurped Colombia as the drug-trafficking center of the Americas, unleashing heaps of crack cocaine, guns and narco dollars onto the street. Kidnappings, crajackings, rape, auto theft, burglary and murder followed and have become a near daily menace, creating an atmosphere or fear and suspicion in the streets. Despite a decade of periodic crackdowns, including a nationwide war against the drug trade launched by Mexican President Filipe Calderón in 2006 and mammoth anticrime marches, crime is still one of the key difficulties afflicting the 20 million people living in Mexico City's greater urban sprawl.
"Similar stories can be heard from urban jungles the world over. In Moscow, Lagos and Johannesburg, violent crime is one of the top fears of residents and visiting businessmen. It raises the cost of commerce, scares off businesses and clients and causes immense suffering. In Mexico, the insecurity has continued into the 21st century even as the economy stabilized -- violent crime is, in a sense, and industry -- and police have appeared powerless to stop it, with 95% of crimes going unsolved."
I can't help but wonder if many of the cities and towns in the United States are headed towards a similar fate if something isn't done to improve the economy of this country. Just this week, Yahoo News carried an Associated Press story Biggest jobless jump since '86 which states that the national unemployment rate "zoomed to 5.5 percent in the biggest one-month jump in decades." Also, another news release this week reported that, "United Airlines, the second-largest US carrier, said it will lay off 950 pilots amid plans to reduce domestic flights in the face of skyrocketing fuel prices." That, coupled with other airlines probably following suit, will make the situation worse. Every month, more and more companies are moving Call Centers and manufacturing facilities overseas to reduce costs.
Unfortunately, the unemployment statistics cannot tell the entire story. A woman with a degree in Business Administration, and who had worked as a secretary for many years, came to my place of business recently and told me about her new job vacuuming cars at local car wash because she could no longer find secretarial work in any of the local offices. And she told me this while I was at my job, which pays minimum-wage, because I haven't been able to find a job that is commensurate with my education, training and experience, either. The manager at one of the local McDonald's restaurants has a Bachelor's degree in Accounting, but was unable to find a job as an accountant -- and makes more money managing a fast-food restaurant than he could at an accounting firm, shockingly enough. There is much disparity in our workforce today that the unemployment statistics can't show!
I don't want to see our wonderful country suffer the same fate as Mexico City, Moscow, Lagos, Johannesburg and other cities. I want us to survive and THRIVE!
Yet through all this, there was an advertisement on my local television station recently that had the audacity to state that our economy is the best it has been in years, thanks to the Republicans. And, yes, the ad was paid for by the local Republican contingent. Liars and bastards.
I didn't really do much "solsticing" this past weekend since I am still recuperating from the sinus infection. I am mostly okay now, but still have one place on my back where soreness remains, as if someone pummelled me with their fists. Sometimes it hurts to just to move and its been like that for several days. And then, clumsy me, I ran into a table with quite a bit of force two nights ago and have been limping from the pain in my leg. Given another day or so, my leg will be fine, though, especially after I work tonight and walk a bit more on it. So, I drummed a little bit and looked up at Mother Moon, but that's about all I did. Kinda blah for a solstice celebration, really, but hey, we do what we can.
* Comment from Rose
That is much more than I got for a solstice celebration. Hope you're feeling better soon. Enjoy the Solstice!
* Comment from Virgy
You could see the moon? Awesomeness! Every now and then I catch glimpses of it...right up there with the sun
* Comment from Kitty
It must be hard, this living in the "Land of the Midnight Sun" thing
SUBSCRIBE • 06-22-2008
Those of you who read my blog regularly (and I am really not sure who all of you are) probably noticed a small change recently — the addition of a "SUBSCRIBE" button at the top of this blog. If you have clicked on it, you will see that you can now have blog entries sent to your email automatically every time a new entry is published. That will keep you from having to remember to come here every so often to see if I have published some new entries or not.
Anyone interested can take advantage by sending an email to SapphireWords@isbet.net with the word "SUBSCRIBE" as the "Subject" line.
To undo the process, send another email to SapphireWords@isbet.net with "UNSUBSCRIBE" as the "Subject" line.
If I know you and we have emailed recently, that will be sufficient. If we have not emailed recently, please also type a line or two in the body of the email to let me know who you are and how you stumbled across my blog.
To those of you who opt to have my insane ramblings emailed directly to you, HAPPY READING!
Scientifically, it is the day when the sun reaches its northermost point on the earth, the Tropic of Cancer. The "sol" part of the word refers to the sun, and "stice" means "standing," because the sun briefly appears to "stands still," changing from a northward journey to a southward direction again. Of course, it is the earth doing the moving that causes this phenomenon, not the sun, but we humans often tend to describe things from our limited perspective.
Midsummer's Day.
Traditionally, it is the day when the ancient peoples celebrated the midpoint of the "hot" season on the calendar. It marked the time when many herbs, beneficial to healing as well as cooking, came into their prime and romps were made through the woods and fields to collect them. It marked the time when wild berries and fresh vegetables were plentiful. It marked the time when the fae (known in various cultures as sidhe, faeries, or "little people") most prominently flitted about, mostly by night, weaving their magic and entrapping the unwary human with their power and wonder.
If you believe in angels, then don't laugh at the notion of faeries for they are likely cousins, cut of the same cloth.
If you don't believe in angels, then surely you will at least concede the fey quality that some of us humans have — those of us who dance to the beat of our own drummers... those of us who celebrate the wild, untamed aspects of ourselves... those of us who immerse ourselves into Life with reckless abandon... those of us humans who have those fey qualities can be your faeries.
And if you look closely, and at the right time, us faeries will be drumming and dancing this weekend under that beautiful, wild, untamed Mother Moon.
* Comment from Rose
One of these days my dear I would love to be around during a drumming and dancing moment, I think it would have some seriously awesome energy. *hugs* Enjoy the Solstice!
* Comment from Kitty
That would be awesome! I bet you would bring plenty of your own energy to contribute!
MyHeritage.com has tools for tracing one's family tree. I have done some genealogical research on other online sites, but perhaps this one will have some tools that will make the information I have from other sources more complete!
Their website also features a toy called the Look-alike Meter™. Once you upload a photo of yourself that clearly shows your face, facial-recognition software kicks into gear and matches your features to well-known celebrities. Fun!
The Celebrity Look-a-like Meter matched me to the following celebrities, based on three photos of myself that I uploaded.
My top match was with Brazilian supermodel Ana Beatriz Barros (shown in another photo, at right).
Now, I only have one question. If my face looks so much like Ana Beatriz Barros', is there any way I can have a luscious, 26-year-old body like hers, too? Plz plz plz?
* Comment from Rose
She is not too bad...but seriously those hip bones scare me. I would be afraid to have sex with someone built like that in any position other than doggy style. *lol*
JESUS WAS A LIBERAL • 06-17-2008
If you don't believe that Jesus was a Liberal, then you haven't been reading your Bible. How would Jesus vote? In favor of big-business, war, and tax cuts for the rich? Or with compassion for the common people, bringing about much-needed change and social reform?
I think the answer is quite clear. As for me, I choose to vote for the good of the common people, in the tradition of Jesus and Buddha.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he was on a donkey — not an elephant!
Believe it or not, there is only one "walk-in" clinic left in my city. All the others that we had have converted to clinics that require appointments, like people can plan when they get sick. Sheesh! So, anyway, I went to that one clinic and amazingly I was the only patient there! Whoo hooo!
I do, indeed, have an "Upper Respiratory Infection" (URI) like my husband does, although our symptoms are quite different. The provider wrote me a prescription for Amoxicillin 500mg, 10-day regimen. Hopefully the stuff with kick into gear soon.
I am glad the drug company makes drugs and not home furnishings. The pills are a maroon and yellow combination...
If anyone cares — and maybe no one does — my "Top Friends" has been changing a bit lately. I am slowly shifting people around on the list so that those that I know in-person appear first on the List. I value everyone on my List or you would not be there. I do not add add people frivolously, as some folks appear to do. I lurve my peeps!
* Comment from Pink
woooo hoooo I'm still at the Top!!!!
* Comment from Virgy
I like being on top of the kitty *wiggles eyebrows*
* Comment from Kitty
We have a serious "girlie pile" going here
EXHAUSTED AND HURTING • 06-15-2008
I am exhausted, but I am hurting too badly to sleep. I tossed-and-turned for a solid hour in the bed and was so feeling so miserable I got back up. I feel like someone has pounded their fists into my back and legs until it hurts to move even one little muscle. My throat hurts every time I swallow and it feels like there is a tangerine stuck in my throat. I feel feverish and swimmy-headed. Isn't it strange how a microscopic organism can do that to ya?
My husband went to the doctor this past Friday and was diagnosed with an Upper Respiratory Infection, so I guess that is what I have, too — he is the only person I've been around lately that is sick. Damned bacteria.
Earlier today, I called my father to wish him a [relatively] happy Fathers' Day. He told me that the bandage was taken off his hip yesterday! It seems that enough healing has taken place to the incision and the seepage has stopped — definitely a good sign! During his Physical Therapy yesterday, though, he twisted his bad knee again (the one with the arthritis in it, his natural knee) and has been a bit of pain with it since. But he is improving, sounding better, eating better, and was in reasonably-good spirits!
I have always been in a quandary about the name of this holiday. Shouldn't it be "FATHERS' DAY" — the day to honor all fathers — rather than "FATHER'S DAY" — the day to honor just one father, as the calendars imply? So, I looked for an explanation. According to Wikipedia,
"Although the rules of English grammar indicate that the holiday should be called "Fathers' Day" (as it is a plural possessive), common usage dictates that the ostensibly singular possessive "Father's Day" is the preferred spelling."
Someone called and offered to give me a pink elephant because they make good pets. Pink elephants like to eat strawberries. Can I have a pink elephant?
So, I get this text message last night from one of my girlfriends who lives far, far away. She was at her local airport to meet someone. Her text message read:
OMG! There's a woman at the airport who looks EXACTLY like you! And she's with a man who looks just like Don but with black hair. It's freaking me out!"
I would have loved to have seen a pic of the couple that looked so much like my darling and me! Even more, though, I would have loved to see the look on my girlfriend's face when she saw them!
* Comment from Virgy
If only your friend had gotten the nerve to go up and pet the pretty kitty jr. Imagine the look on kitty jr's face!
BACK INTO THE ROUTINE • 06-03-2008
Wow, getting back into the routine of work and such. Going back in tonight for the "Graveyard Shift" for the first time in a couple of weeks. Hope it's not too hard a night. Since my boss has been working extra hours so that I could have time-off to be with my family, I offered to work tomorrow night for him (it is one of my regularly-recurring days-off each week, per the schedule). He said he would let me know.
Dad was in Physical Therapy for an hour and forty-five minutes today before lunch, and another hour and forty-five minutes after lunch! He said the therapists were surprised to see him continuing to do his routines even after the timer dinged. He made them laugh, though, when he explained that he was trying to make himself strong enough to "escape."
His spirits continue to improve and he is more like his old self than I've seen him in a long time. This makes me feel much better about going back home tonight! Of course, Mom & Dad have many friends that will look after them in my absence.
I miss my sweet man and can hardly wait to see him again!
* Comment from Rose
I am oh so very happy to read of your father's improvement...I know it
has been difficult for you and your mom to see him go through so much
pain, just as it was difficult for him to deal with all he had to handle.
Just shows that your family is extremely strong, I wish continued success
for your father in his healing. *hugz*
* Comment from Kitty
I don't know how strong we really are — we're just doing what we have
to do. Thank you so much for your wonderful comments!
* Comment from Chris
I'm Glad Grand-daddy is doing better.
* Comment from Kitty
If you want to call him, message me and I will give you the phone
number!
ON THE PATH TO RECOVERY • 05-30-2008
With all the work in Physical Therapy and the return of his usual disposition, I am sure that Dad is safely on the path to recovery. Of course, we never know what is going to happen in the long term, but my Daddy is definitely okay for the short term.
* Comment from Kitty
Thank you, Thomas! I can't tell you how relieved I am, too!
PHYSICAL THERAPY • 05-29-2008
They wasted no time in getting Dad started on his Physical Therapy today. He worked with the therapists for a couple of hours doing an assortment of assignments to help strengthen his arms so he would be able to lift himself more easily up to his walker. He cooperated with them without hesitation because he wants to get out of her and get back home as soon as possible. I am very proud of my Daddy! Before long he will be strong again!
Today Dad was discharged from the hospital and sent to a convalescent care facility! Yay! They are holding a room for Dad and we just have to complete some paperwork when he is admitted. The place is actually a "nursing home" that doubles as a rehabilitation center for patients who need Physical Therapy (PT). So, there are many people there who are elderly and will probably be there for the rest of their lives, in addition to some not-so-elderly who are there to regain the use of limbs and eventually be discharged.
I have always thought nursing homes to be sad places. Half of the people have no clue why they are there. The other half know why they are there but can't do anything about it.
Fortunately, my father has full use of his faculties and knows why he is there, plus he has the determination to follow the therapy routine so that hopefully he can regain his former level of independence.
For safety's sake, the doctor at the hospital insisted that Dad be transported by EMS to the nursing home, so Mom and I went ahead in her car to begin processing the paperwork. We got Dad settled into the room without a problem and he seemed thrilled to be out of the hospital at last and on his way to true recovery.
Oh, and the nursing home / rehab center is closer to Mom & Dad's house than the hospital, so Mom won't have to drive as far to see him once I return to my own home!
A very purdy butterfly, snagged with my camera phone from my sister-in-law's lovely birthday card!
Dad's spirits are improving daily and the hospital staff are thinking he will be ready to be discharged tomorrow! Of course, the final say will be from the physician who makes the rounds in the morning. We are definitely keeping our fingers crossed because Dad is getting a serious case of "cabin fever." He is able to get out of bed with assistance and sit in a chair in the hospital room for a short while, but he is not able to leave the room. He can't sit for too long in the chair, either, because of the pressure on his hip. Perhaps once he is out of the hospital and is admitted to a rehab / convalescent center, Mom and I can begin to get a teensy bit more rest each day.
My father's twin brother and younger sister came to visit him today! The pastor at my uncle's church drove them. They brought a homemade cake to cheer Dad's spirits. It has been quite a long time since I have seen either of them so it was lovely seeing them again!
The neighbor across the street from my Mom & Dad's house brought over a Sweet Potato Pie also, so there are plenty of goodies for Dad to enjoy!
The picture accompanying this blog entry is my father in 1954. He was a nice-looking man!
* Comment from Rose
Sweet potato pie...srsly there is nothing better I swear.
The pictures of your mom and dad are lovely, thank you for sharing
them with us. *hugs*
ROOM WITH A VIEW • 05-25-2008
Dad was doing so much better today that he was discharged from CCU and moved back into a regular hospital room! Yay!
The constant running to-and-fro from the hospital is really tiring on me, and I am sure Mom is feeling it much worse than I am. We want to keep Dad company, though, and stay on top of the progress he is making!
The picture accompanying this blog entry is my mother in 1954. She is much prettier than me, but everyone tells me there is a strong resemblance in facial features. Even people at the hospital who didn't know us commented on it.
Dad was coherent today and doing much better. His blood pressure and pulse rate were improved, but his red blood count and hemoglobin were still low. CCU decided to give him more blood transfusions to try to improve his condition.
Sadly, CCU apparently failed to tell Dad that Mom and I were up there all day yesterday and again last night, so when Dad awoke he thought he had been abandoned. That really tore me up. We reassured him that we had been at the hospital all during his surgery and with him in CCU when he was still flakey from the anesthesia, but he remembers none of it. We stayed at the hospital all day until early evening, then went to get something for supper.
Mom wanted an omelette, so we went to IHOP and split a mushroom & spinach omellette and an order of their Stuffed French Toast. Then we hit Publix to pick up a few groceries. I had not been inside a Publix since I moved away from Florida three years ago. I was shocked to find they had one of my favorite seasonings that is not available in Tennessee! Officially, it is called "Everglades Seasoning." Unofficially, fans call it "Monkey Dust." I am so glad to find a source for it not so far away!
Dad's surgery was scheduled for late in the afternoon, so Mom and I took our time in the morning doing some housework. We got a phone call a little after 11:00 am from the hospital reporting that another patient's surgery had to be postponed and they had moved Dad's surgery forward. He was being wheeled into pre-surgery prep right at that moment! So, Mom and I clean-up from the chores we were doing and get ready to go. Mom was ready before I was, so she left first in her car and I followed in mine shortly thereafter.
Mom and Dad's pastor just happened to be there to visit Dad that morning, and he stayed with Mom and me during the surgery. He is a very nice man and it was comforting to have him there.
When the surgery was over, the surgeon reported that the repair of the hip was successful. However, Dad lost a lot of blood during the surgery. He said that with the types of surgery he performs, it isn't unusual for a patient to lose as much blood as would fill a standard soft-drink can. However, Dad lost almost a two-liter bottle's worth of blood. Because of Dad's already-frail state, the volume of blood lost, and Dad's low blood-pressure reading after surgery, the surgeon moved him to CCU (Critical Care Unit, this hospital's version of what is known as "ICU" at most hospitals). When he awoke from the anesthesia, he began thrashing around and attempted to hit one of the male RNs that was attending him and had to be restrained. He was probably too weak to have actually caused the RN any harm, but they were afraid that he was going to pull-out his IV tube and disconnect the monitors that were keeping tabs on his blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration, etc. They removed the restraints at one point when he ceased being combative, but his continued thrashing-about forced them to place them on again.
After a couple of hours in CCU, Dad's condition stabilized somewhat and we were allowed to see him. He was still under the effects of the anesthesia, though, and wasn't himself at all. He proclaimed himself ready to leave the hospital since his surgery was over and thought Mom and I were in-league with the hospital for not letting him go home immediately. He thought we were trying to get rid of him. Damn, anesthesia does strange things to one's mind. The presence of Mom & Dad's pastor hrough this weird and painful experience helped tremendously — he really is a jewel. The RN assigned to him gave Dad an intravenous shot of pain medication and he quickly drifted back to sleep. The pastor left, and Mom and I went home to rest for a short while.
We returned to the hospital an hour-and-a-half later to find him still asleep. We sat beside his bed for over an hour-and-a-half but he never woke up, so we went back home to try to rest.
Dad is in a very disagreeable mood about everything and snapping at Mom. I know he is in a lot of pain, but it is crushing Mom's spirits to have him snapping at her the way he's doing. I'm not passing judgement — heck, I would probably be a much worse patient than he is if I were in his position — I am just reporting. He is disagreeable mostly because this process is dragging-out over a longer period of time than he would like. The sooner they can do the surgery, the sooner he can begin healing and rehabilitating.
They're planning to give him blood transfusions tonight to try to speed-up his getting into surgery. Besides the fact that his blood is thin from the Plavix®, his red blood cell count is low because of the stroke a few years ago (He goes for periodic Procrit® shots, much like many post-cancer patients require). The hospital hopes that the blood transfusions will thicken his blood as well as boosting his red blood cell count. Three transfusions are planned, at the rate of three hours for each pint to trickle into his IV tube.
Mom and I didn't feel like cooking, so she took me to Silver Bay seafood restaurant for a shrimp dinner. We picked up a few groceries at Publix on the way home. A phone call from my cousin, June, when we got home revealed that she has rheumatic fever. Sheesh.
My shrimp dinnah! Featuring succulent fried shrimp, cole slaw, and baked potato with fat-free ranch dressing. Yum!
Dad is in better spirits today, but still in a lot of pain. The medicine they are giving him is Loritab®. Blood tests today showed that his blood is still so thin that surgery would be risky.
Glassy Mountain, elevation 1,647 feet, not far from where my parents live in South Carolina.
The brakes on my car have been making a rubbing noise lately, signaling the brake pads needed replacing, so I had to get the brakes fixed before I could take the car on a long trip. Fortunately, my mechanic was able to work me in yesterday evening and only charged me $40 for the work! Yay!
Went by work and talked to my boss about the situation. He was very sympathetic and didn't have a problem with my taking some unpaid time-off to be with my Mom & Dad during the upcoming ordeal. Don and I had dinner at Amato's, a lovely little Italian restaurant in town, after which I went home to pack.
So, today I drove to the family home, hugged Mom, carried my things into the house, then we left for the hospital. Dad is in a lot of pain but holding up okay.
I was able to find out more about what happened. Although he was hurting a lot after the fall, Dad didn't realize at first that he had broken his hip — he thought he had merely bruised himself badly. He had Mom bring his crutches to him (left over from when he had knee-replacement surgery preformed a few years ago) and attempted to get up so that he could get to his easy chair. He stood up but wasn't able to put weight on his left leg. Amazingly, he was able to take a few steps and make it out into the hallway before he fell a second time. When he fell, a small armoire that was in the hallway fell on him, causing a nasty bump on his head. He realized at that point that something was terribly wrong and asked Mom to call 911.
He was rushed to their hospital of choice, eightish miles away. Because he has been taking Plavix® for several years since he had a stroke, his blood was too thin for surgery to be performed immediately. The doctor estimated that it would take three-to-four days before conditions would be right.
My father was getting ready to go to church when his knee gave-way (due to arthritis) and he fell on the hard, tile floor in my parents' bathroom. My mother called 911 and Dad was transported to the hospital in an ambulance. He had been taking a prescription blood-thinner for several years, so his doctor said they have to wait three or four days for that medication to be out of his system before they can operate. Fortunately, the doctor says it is a single fracture, requiring at least one rod and a couple of screws for the repair. The situation could have been much worse.
Since my mother is dealing with all of this by herself, I am making plans as fast as I can to go down there (three hours away) tomorrow and stay for a few days to help her. I won't have access to a computer while I am there, so if you don't see me online for a few days, that is what's happening. I will be reachable by cell phone and SMS, though.
My mother has always been in more frail health than my father. I really thought it would be to her that something like this happened — not my father.
On a humorous note... Had my father not been getting ready to go to church, perhaps he would not have fallen. This is proof that organized religion is dangerous!
* Comment from Virgy
Sorry to hear about your father. Try not to go too (much more) insane
spending time down there with them!
* Comment from Maureen
Sorry to read about your father. My thoughts are with you.
* Comment from Rose
Hey sweetie, sorry to hear about your dad, you and he are going to be in
my thoughts you to not go insane and him for a speedy and painless healing. *hugs*
* Comment from Kitty
Thank you for the warm thoughts & well-wishes!
THE GIRL WHO WAS A DUCK • 05-12-2008
I dreamed that I was walking outside when a tiny little creature came running up to me through the grass. It was so small that at first I couldn't tell what it was. It jumped up and slammed itself into my lower leg, over and over. I finally bent over and saw that it was a very tiny baby duck, all fluffy and yellow.
Then I realized that it was jumping up and bumping itself into my leg because it wanted me to pick it up. So, I reached out with both hands (even though it was incredibly tiny) and lifted it up it front of me as I stood upright again. Suddenly, it wasn't a duck that I was holding, but a little girl, perhaps two years old or so. She had beautiful, dark hair and soft brown eyes. She was the little girl that my husband and I were going to adopt.
Considering that my husband is 63 and I am rapidly approaching 53, it was ludicrous to dream that we were making plans to adopt a child. Such is the world of dreams.
I love children. I used to melt every time I saw a little baby, wishing that I could have another child in addition to the one I already had.
Perhaps I dreamed of adopting a child because of all the wonderful children that I've known over the years that are no longer a daily part of my life.
As my husband often reminds me when I have trouble accepting things as they are, "Life is what it is."
But I still miss those children sometimes, and hearing their laughter as they play. And I also miss those little girls who once were ducklings like me.
You should seriously check out TWITTER.COM if you haven't already. It is like a real-time mini-blog where you can post snippets of the latest news or what you're doing. The beauty of it is that you can post entries by sending a text message from your cell phone (or yeah, do it the old-fashioned way on the Web).
Those who are "following" you can get updates through several different methods — by going to your profile page on the Twitter site, by reading the updates on the "widget" that you place on your MySpace page (or other website), via RSS feed to the FireFox browser, via a standalone app on the computer desktop, or via texts to their cell phone. Talk about flexibility! w00t!
If any of you sign up for Twitter, be sure to tell me your user name so I can stalk you!
CLICK HERE to read a story about Twitter on the ABC News site.
"This is the kind of thing that, given all our distractions, our celeb obsessions and happy drugs and bothersome trifles like family and bills and war and health care and sex and love and porn and breathing and death, tends to fly under the radar of your overspanked consciousness, only to be later rediscovered and brought forth and placed directly in front of your eyeballs, at least for a moment, so you can look, really look, and go, oh my God, I had no idea.
"The Earth is humming. Singing. Churning out a tune without the aid of battery or string or wind-up mechanism and its song is ethereal and mystifying and very, very weird, a rather astonishing, newly discovered phenomena that's not easily analyzed, but which, if you really let it sink into your consciousness, can change the way you look at everything.
"Indeed, scientists now say the planet itself is generating a constant, deep thrum of noise. No mere cacophony, but actually a kind of music, huge, swirling loops of sound, a song so strange you can't really fathom it, so low it can't be heard by human ears, chthonic roars churning from the very water and wind and rock themselves, countless notes of varying vibration creating all sorts of curious tonal phrases that bounce around the mountains and spin over the oceans and penetrate the tectonic plates and gurgle in the magma and careen off the clouds and smack into trees and bounce off your ribcage and spin over the surface of the planet in strange circular loops, 'like dozens of lazy hurricanes,' as one writer put it.
"It all makes for a very quiet, otherworldly symphony so odd and mysterious, scientists still can't figure out exactly what's causing it or why the hell it's happening. Sure, sensitive instruments are getting better at picking up what's been dubbed 'Earth's hum,' but no one's any closer to understanding what the hell it all might mean. Which, of course, is exactly as it should be.
"Because then, well, then you get to crank up your imagination, your mystical intuition, your poetic sensibility — and if there's one thing we're lacking in modern America, it's ... well, you know.
"Me, I like to think of the Earth as essentially a giant Tibetan singing bowl, flicked by the middle finger of God and set to a mesmerizing, low ring for about 10 billion years until the tone begins to fade and the vibration slows and eventually the sound completely disappears into nothingness and the birds are all, hey what the hell happened to the music? And God just shrugs and goes, well that was interesting.
"Or maybe the planet is more like an enormous wine glass, half full of a heady potion made of horny unicorns and divine lubricant and perky sunshine, around the smooth, gleaming rim of which Dionysus himself circles his wet fingertip, generating a mellifluous tone that makes the wood nymphs dance and the satyrs orgasm and the gods hum along as they all watch 7 billion confused human ants scamper about with their lattes and their war and their perpetually adorable angst, oblivious.
"But most of all, I believe the Earth actually (and obviously) resonates, quite literally, with the Hindu belief in the divine sound of OM (or more accurately, AUM), that single, universal syllable that contains and encompasses all: birth and death, creation and destruction, being and nothingness, rock and roll, Christian and pagan, meat and vegetable, spit and swallow. You know?
"But here's the best part: This massive wave of sound? The Earth's deep, mysterious OM, it's perpetual hum of song? Totally normal — that is, if by "normal" you mean "unfathomably powerful and speaking to a vast mystical timelessness we can't possibly comprehend."
"Indeed, all the spheres do it, all the planets and all the quasars and stars and moons and whirlpool galaxies, all vibrating and humming like a chorus of wayward deities singing sea shanties in a black hole. It's nothing new, really: Mystics and poets and theorists have pondered the "music of the spheres" (or musica universalis) for eons; it is the stuff of cosmic philosophy, linking sacred geometry, mathematics, cosmology, harmonics, astrology and music into one big cosmological poetry slam.
"Translation: You don't have to look very far to understand that human beings — hell, all animals, really — adore song and music and tone and rhythm, and then link this everyday source of life straight to the roar of the planet itself, and then back out to the cosmos.
"In other words, you love loud punk? Metal? Jazz? Deep house? Saint-Saens with a glass of Pinot in the tub? Sure you do. That's because somewhere, somehow, deep in your very cells and bones and DNA, it links you back to source, to the Earth's own vibration, the pulse of the cosmos. Oh yes it does. To tap your foot and sway your body to that weird new Portishead tune is, in effect, to sway it to the roar of the universe. I mean, obviously.
"At some point we'll probably figure it all out. Science will, with its typical charming, arrogant certainty, sift and measure and quantify this 'mystical' Earthly hum, and tell us it merely comes from, say, ocean movements, or solar wind, or 10 billion trees all deciding to grow a quarter millimeter all at once. We will do as we always do: oversimplify, peer through a single lens of understanding, stick this dazzling phenomenon in a narrow category, and forget it.
"How dangerously boring. I much prefer, in matters mystical and musical and deeply cosmic, to tell the logical mind to shut up and let the soul take over and say, wait wait wait, maybe most humans have this divine connection thing all wrong. Maybe God really isn't some scowling gay-hating deity raining down guilt and judgment and fear on all humankind after all.
"Maybe she's actually, you know, a throb, a pulse, a song, deep, complex, eternal. And us, well, we're just bouncing and swaying along as best we can, trying to figure out the goddamn melody."
So, I've been at my job for one year, today! w00t!
Business slowed-down drastically over the winter and we were behind on so many bills that I seriously wondered if we would make it through the crunch. We're not in good shape yet by any stretch of the imagination, but at least we made it through the slow season and business is beginning to pick-up once again. We shall have to wait and see what the future holds.
But for now, I'm still there and I am appreciated for what I do.
The music of German DJ Pit Baumgartner — a.k.a. De Phazz — is a bit hard to categorize. Calling it "jazz with a turntable," De Phazz samples and remixes music he finds just about anywhere, from Ella Fitzgerald hits to 10 cent flea market records. The outcome is both surprising and seamless.
Baumgartner plays a hybrid of electronic dance music and jazz while touring with his band and recording albums, but most of the time he works as a remixer — most notably for the Verve Remix Series — reworking classic songs by Ella Fitzgerald, Kurtis Blow and Boy George.
Baumgartner describes himself as more of a musical collage artist than composer or instrumentalist. "It's a collage thing. I love to bring things together that normally don't fit." he explains. "My music, it joins you while you are doing something. It gives you space to not listen to it immediately or constantly. But if you listen to it constantly and deeper, you should have some little pearls to find."
The artist's latest album is Tales of Trust, a solo effort that gave Baumgartner the freedom to move beyond the live band format. He says experimenting with the song dictates how it will turn out. "At a certain point the song gives you the direction. The song tells you 'listen I need a trumpet' or 'I don't need nothing, I'm an instrumental song' and then it goes by itself."
It's those combinations that Baumgartner finds most interesting. He says, "I don't think that somebody really invents new music. I don't think that's possible. There's so much music — in the train, the supermarket and the airport. I can't really tell you, 'Am I composing this or did I hear this just two days before somewhere?'"
----- in addition to the two songs on NPR's site, you can listento more music by De Phazz on Last·FM
Lilly Ledbetter worked 19 years at Goodyear before she learned the men at her level were earning far more for the same work. She sued, and stood up for inequality by taking her case all the way to the Supreme Court—where five male justices ruled her claim invalid because she filed it more than 180 days after the discrimination started. Now, Senator McCain is blocking a vote on legislation to correct this injustice—and in the process, he seems willing to roll back 50 years of women's rights.
McCain said the gap between the pay of women and men in this country isn't due to discrimination. Women just need more "education and training" to earn as much as men.
Another vote will be called soon, possibly within days. If we can stop senators like John McCain from blocking a vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the bill, which has already passed the House, will surely pass the Senate as well.
I have sent a letter to Senator McCain's office via the Credo Action site, and I'm asking all my blog readers to please stand up for the rights of women in the workplace!
...and please, whatever you do, don't vote for the Re·THUG·licans!
My husband received news last night that his Aunt Gussie passed away.
She was elderly and had some of the many health-related problems that come with advanced years. She'd just had a knee-replacement surgery and came through it with flying colors. Rather than using general anesthesia, her surgeon ordered a "nerve block" to her leg so that she would remain awake during the procedure. The doctors and nurses had her up and walking as soon as possible after her post-surgical rest. She had to take things slow-and-easy, of course, but seemed to be doing well.
From all the information that we received last night, it appears that she attempted to get out of her hospital bed by herself yesterday to go to the bathroom. We do not know if she was too stubborn to ring for a nurse to come help her, or whether she wasn't thinking clearly because of the medications and her age. At any rate, she fell to the floor, hit her head on something, and that triggered hemorrhaging which the doctors could not stop in time.
My husband would go by the nursing home where she was staying and spend some time with her occasionally, visiting as well as discussing her current financial concerns (an area in which he dutifully assisted her for many years). I know he feels a sense of loss that she is no longer in this world. Even though the two of them weren't incredibly close, he appreciates the value of family.
Odd as it might seem to some people, I never met Aunt Gussie — he and I haven't been together all that long, and I always thought it best to let them spend their time with each other one-on-one rather than my tagging along and mucking things up. From all that I have heard, though, she had a colorful personality, loved to shop, and thrived on excitement right up to the end. Sounds to me like she had a full life, one that should be celebrated rather than mourned at her passing.
So, goodbye, Aunt Gussie — I hope there's a good place for you to shop where you are now!
It always amazes me when people ask the question, "Do you believe in God?" The amazing thing is that when this question is asked, the querent usually is not actually asking what they are really trying to determine. What they really mean is, "Do you believe in the same God in which I believe? Is your image of God the same image as mine?"
Any hesitation to give an emphatically positive answer is usually met with a sad shake of the head and the presupposition that — conveniently enough — some demon is "clouding your vision," preventing you from seeing things their way (which, of course, is the only "proper" way). Then, the querent usually states that they will pray for you, presumptuously, without ever asking permission to do so.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "evangelism" as:
1. the winning or revival of personal commitments to Christ 2. miltant or crusading zeal
The same dictionary defines "militant" as:
1. engaged in warfare or combat 2. aggressively active (as in a cause)
Warfare? Combat? Agression? Why does any religion or spiritual path have to be "aggressive?" If their message is actually the Truth, then everyone will clearly see that it is Truth, and no aggression need be involved. Aggression is only necessary when there is resistance and doubt. Warfare, combat, and aggression are tools that help you to force others into submitting to your desires.
Truth is spread through Peace. Lies are spread though aggression.
And speaking of the narrow-minded "my way or the highway" mentality, why does any religion or spiritual path purport to have a limited view of the Divine? Isn't that really a contradiction in terms? Looking again to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, we find the definition of "God" as:
1. the supreme or ultimate reality, as the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshiped as creator and ruler of the universe
Wow! How can mere, mortal mankind wrap Something as vast and humanly incomprehensible as "God" into one tidy "this is it!" package?
The Hindu religion believes in one God, called "Atman." They further believe that "Atman" is so incomprehensible that there are literally thousands of "faces" which this Being has chosen to show Itself down through the ages. Some of these faces are masculine, such as that of Brahma or Vishnu, and some of these faces are feminine, such as Parvati or Laxmi. But the Hindus do not worship many gods — only that one, Atman, for everything is Atman, deep down inside.
I, too, believe that "God" can manifest in different ways — as "YHWH" to the Jewish people, as "Allah" to the Muslims, as "God" to the Christians, as "Ra" to the ancient Egyptians, as "Gaia" to some of the Pagans, and as a vague "spirit of Universal Consciousness" to us Buddhists.
Do I believe in God?
YES!
Do I believe in your image of God?
Probably not. Any way that the Divine has manifested to you is perfectly valid, but it might not necessarily be the same image with which the Divine has manifested Presence to me.
I like music. Lots of music. Different kinds of music.
Someone recently linked me to a site that has free — and legal! — MP3 music files on it and I'm having a blast with that site! According to their "About Us" page, they are "...an interactive, multimedia music magazine showcasing artists from more than 600 independent and major labels."
A lot of the bands there are indies that fall into the "garage" category, which is always a wonderful grab-bag of eclectic sounds. However, there are more mainstream artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Ani DiFranco, Garbage, Green Day, Radiohead, Red Snapper, and others! w00t! Give a listen!
As a Buddhist, I watched several of the shows in Bill Moyers' Faith and Reason series with great interest. I was impressed by several of the shows, but wanted to post a couple of quotes from one of them here, mostly so I would not forget them.
That show featured Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun and author. I have one of her books, by the way, and it is outstanding. One thing she said on the show that was particularly noteworthy was:
"It isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer."
In response to Bill Moyers' question, "How do you experience 'god?' Ms. Chödrön responded:
"That open space of mind that allows for ultimate possibilities and doesn't narrow down into a security-based, or fear-based, view where my way has to have precedence."
That is all for now, but I might post other quotes from the series in the future.
So, I'm at work when a young woman comes up to the counter. We're chatting casually while conducting our business, and she tells me that she was just hired to "detail" cars (who invented that stupid term for "cleaning" a car, anyway...?!?!?). The sad thing is that she has been looking for a job since September — over six months! — and this is the first job she was able to get. I have my own similar story, as do many other people. The job market in this area sucks, and it seems to be that way over much of the country — unless, of course, you are lucky enough to live near one of the contractors that are building weapons for the war; that's where the only good jobs are right now.
And yet some dimwitted politicians (most of them Republican) have the gall to say that our economy is strong and we are not in a recession...?!?!?!?!?
We've had enough lining of the pockets of big business, tax breaks that help the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, lies about how well the economy is doing, cutting of veteran's benefits during war time (think for a moment how heartless that is), and intervention in the affairs of other countries while people are starving in our own backyard. Nearly 50 million Americans (including me!) have no healthcare coverage and cannot afford the medical, dental, and vision care that we need. People are losing their homes because of medical bills that follow heart attacks, cancer, and other major illnesses. The value of the US dollar has fallen to shocking lows in recent times. Food and gas prices are soaring and our meager paychecks do not go as far as they once did. Jobs are increasingly being sent overseas because companies care more about the almightly dollar than their own loyal people. Shall I continue or do you get the point...?
There is now a "Flash" music player on my "Music" page (under "About Me" on the menu). I have loaded the player with some favorite tracks from my personal music collection. By hovering the mouse over different sections of the listing, you can scroll up or down to see what is there and select an individual track. You can also just click the "Play" button and let the music roll while you do something else!
There is a variety of music there because my tastes in music are so varied. My personal music collection ranges from Beethoven to Bananarama, from Black Sabbath to Bob Marley, from BT to Blondie, from Basia to Butthole Surfers. You can expect the selection of songs to change periodically as new songs are added and others are retired.
To check out the music player now, click on the image to the right of this blog entry!
One of the peeps on my "Friends List" on MySpace has started a "band" page and uploaded some of his music! The compositions lean towards the "electronica-industrial-grunge" genre, and I find them to be very creative! I am anxious to see what he comes up with next!
Click on the banner below to check out his page. If you like his work, please "Right-Click" on the banner to save it to your computer and then use it on your page/blog or in a "Bulletin" to help spread the word!
MySpace (and other free sites) are free because of advertising, so I don’t mind occasionally clicking on the nicer-looking advertisers’ links to see what they have to offer. If the occasional clicks help keep the sites free, then it is well worth it! The ad below really caught my eye because the shoes are cute-as-heck!
The parent company is "Run Athletics," which according to the "About Us" info on their site was "launched in fall 2003 by Hip Hop visionary Russell Simmons and his brother Joseph Simmons, (a.k.a Rev Run) former member of rap group RUN DMC."I always thought RUN DMC was cool, and these shoes are super-cool! I don’t think I would ever pay this much for a pair of sneakers, but hey, they’re awesome to lookit, at least!
Oh, yeah... not all of their shoes are "girly" — they have shoes for guys, too!
Someone on my "Friends List" on MySpace posted a "Bulletin" recently. I thought it was a shocking and thought-provoking exposé about the "supply and demand" that exists in the world.
I converted the Bulletin into a Web page that I could share with others who are not on MySpace. Feel free to pass the link on to anyone you think might be interested.
We always hear that it isn't safe to enter too much personal information online. I signed-up for a trial account on Facebook once, but cancelled the account after a few days because they kept hounding me to enter my employer's name & address, names/dates of the schools I had attended, as well as other personal information "so that friends can find you." Yeah, I'll get right on that. I don't need random people calling me at work and jeopardizing my job. I also don't need every fucktard I've ever known to start looking for me.
Bastards.
Now I sign-into MySpace this morning and they have begun doing the same thing by telling me they don't have my real first & last names on file. WTF? If I want people to know I am here, then I will tell them, dammit.
Is MySpace now going to start hounding us, as the stupid FaceBook site does, for more-and-more personal information until we have compromised our security online? Are we going to be bound by so much "red tape" just to keep our accounts? If so, you can bet that I will cancel my account in a heartbeat.
* Comment from JayBird
HERE HERE, lets all band together and start peeling off that RED tape.
I like the photo. Sorry they got your panties all in a bunch. Its not like you to use such words. Something else bothering you? Just ignore those bastards and they will go away
* Comment from KittyGirl
Yeah, I usually filter such words out of my blog; dunno why I didn't do it this
time. That blog entry just kinda wrote itself as a "stream of consciousness." Ah,
that's it — it's the stream's fault, not mine... I'm a good girl, I am...! [/ElizaDoolittle]
* Comment from JayBird
Whew, I knew it wasn't you...
Damn that stream anyway, but I am glad its there.
MULAM AND THE SPEAR • 02-04-2008
Mulam helped me when my side was pierced by the spear. It should never have happened to me since I am a woman, but a world at war with itself doesn't always discriminate when it comes to casualties. The war had come to the village, and I had been struck as I fled in terror.
Mulam removed the spear, cleaned the wound, and nursed me back to health over the next few weeks. When I was almost healed enough to travel, Mulam mentioned the spear that had been in my side. "Oh, no, Mulam," I said, "the spear wasn't just in my side, but also in my heart. I know it is true because I bled for you, myself, and all the world. My tears washed over you as any Mother's tears would have washed over her child."
Years later on the streets of Odigo, Mulam mentioned the spear again and marveled at how the most beautiful rose sometimes has the sharpest thorns. But we were able, once again, to walk freely through those streets of Odigo and sit and talk over coffee.
* Comment from JayBird
This is way over my head but it interests me. Clue me in on the hidden meanings. Or not. It may make me go crazy. I keep staring at that eye. its telling me something..or seducing me.
Hope all is good on your side of the world. The left coast is hanging in there.
* Comment from KittyGirl
Actually, it was a dream, believe it or not. Other than that knowledge, I am as clueless as you are!
Those of you who have known me for a long time are aware that I do not voluntarily discuss politics very often. It takes something special to move me to do so. Something moved me today.
Jon Favreau (pictured at right), 26, heads Senator Barack Obama's team of speechwriters which also includes Adam Frankel, 26, and Ben Rhodes, 30.
In my opinion, the speech they wrote for the Senator's victory in the Democratic Primary in South Carolina is uplifting and brilliant. If you haven't already heard it, please check out the video posted below.
* Comment from JayBird
I voted for him Tuesday as did most of Santa Cruz. Unfortunately the Clinton's took the State.
* Comment from KittyGirl
Hey, at least Clinton is a Democrat *and* a woman! She was my second choice.
In her speeches, I think she said "I" too much, while Obama said "WE" with
comforting regularity!
I think the WORST candidate that the Democrats could possibly put in the final
race would still be MUCH BETTER than the BEST candidate the Republicans can
muster. We've had enough lining of the pockets of big business, tax breaks that
help the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, lies about how well the
economy is doing, cutting of veteran's benefits (especially with a war going on,
dammit, and veterans coming home screwed-up and needing care), and so
forth.
WE NEED CHANGE, AND WE NEED IT NOW!!!
HOMEMADE PIZZA RECIPE • 01-07-2008
I am posting this recipe 'cause I agreed to share it with a girlfriend, plus this is a backup in case I lose my copy of the recipe sometime!
PIZZA from WHOLE WHEAT PIZZA DOUGH
INGREDIENTS:
1 teaspsoon white sugar (I use Spenda 'cause my man is diabetic)
1-and-a-half cups warm water (about 110 degrees F)
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1-and-a-half cups all-purpose flour
one-half cup of cornmeal (My tweak of the recipe — makes the crust better!)
DIRECTIONS:
In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top and let stand for 10 minutes until foamy.
Stir olive oil and salt into the yeast mixture, then mix in the flour and cornmeal until dough starts to come together. Tip dough onto floured surface and knead until all the flour has been absorbed and the ball of dough becomes smooth. Place dough in an oiled bowl (I coat the sides of the mixing bowl I used, rather than dirty another bowl), cover with a kitchen towel, and let stand in a warm place until the dough doubles in size (about one hour).
Tip dough back out onto floured surface and divide into 2 halves for thin crust pizza, or leave whole for a deep-dish style pizza. Form into tight ball(s) and let rise for 45 minutes or so.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Roll a ball of dough with a rolling pin until it will not stretch any further. Then, drape it over both fists and gently pull edges outward while slowly rotating the dough. When the circle has reached the desired size, place on a well-oiled pizza pan or screen. Spoon your favorite sauce (I make my own from canned tomato sauce, minced garlic, chopped onions, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper) onto the crust, then add toppings (meats, veggies, cheeses).
Bake for 15 - 25 minutes (depending on thickness, how fast your oven cooks, and how crispy you want your crust). Ideally, the crust should be crisp and golden at the edges, and cheeses should be nicely melted on top.
I posted the following in a friend's blog last night and then decided it would be good to share here as well. If nothing else, perhaps having it here will help me remember it when I need it.
We are here to "get our hands dirty" in this world, to live life to the fullest. With living, a little suffering and sorrow comes here-and-there — it's unavoidable, it's a sign of a life well-lived. With each bit of suffering and sorrow comes a greater capacity for compassion towards ourselves and other people. Keep living, keep loving, and let that compassion come until it overflows your soul and rains down onto the world!
For those of you who have been patiently waiting for an update, here it is. I am still at Mom & Dad's, taking care of them until we can decide, as a family, what the heck we're going to do. Even my parents reluctantly agree that they cannot continue living by themselves any longer, given the physical limitations of both of them coupled with the mental confusion/dementia (?) that my mother has been exhibiting to a marked degree since the surgery. Her doctor ordered a CT-scan last week to determine whether the surgery triggered a stroke — he said that was a very real possibility, and isn't unmusual in older persons who have surgery. We are waiting for the results of the scan and the follow-up appointment with her doctor in a few days.
McDonald's to 
WiFi, as I am doing tonight, I call it McWebbing. 
So, that is the reason for the spotty blog posts lately, the lack of my presence online, and my failure to keep up with the blogs of all you good peeps. I am anxious for this nightmare to be over and to return to my own home, my darling husband, my own bed, my job, and my life!
It is simply impossible to blog the highlights of every single day, especially when some days leave me so little free time or so exhausted.
I have spent the last eight weeks or so, nonstop, taking care of my parents at their house. The weather is getting cooler day-by-day and all my warm clothes are back home in Kingsport. So is my sweetheart, whom I have not seen since the first of September. My brother is in town for a couple of days, so I took the opportunity to dash up to Kingsport and back — very briefly — to get some clothes and spend a couple of hours with my hunny!
Last night, I washed a few dishes in the sink and setup the coffee pot before going to bed. When I pulled the handle downwards on the kitchen faucet to turn the stream of water off, it would not stop. I played with it for a bit, but there was always a steady stream of water coming out of the nozzle regardless of how the handle was positioned. I finally discovered that if the handle were pushed downwards and held very firmly, the stream of water reduced to a rather steady drip. Being that I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Jury Rigging (courtesy of my father's genes), I took a piece of sewing elastic from my mother's stash, inserted a couple of safety pins to make a tight band, and wrapped it around the faucet's nozzle and handle, making as tight a seal as I could to keep it from running all night.
There once was a boy from Quebec
Went to Wal-Mart in the evening to get BOOST® for Mom, EQUAL® for Dad and me, and duct tape for Dad. Duct tape used to be available only in silver, but nowadays they have blue, red, yellow, green even hot pink! A couple of extra dollars would even give you a roll with a floral print on it! The mind staggers...
For the first time in several days, Mom got up today for more than just a visit to the bedside potty. She allowed Dad and me to escort her to the table where she ate a small bowl of homemade soup with Dad and me. She spent the whole afternoon in the den, first in her recliner and then on the sofa. She ate a little more soup with Dad and me for supper before going off to bed. Wow.
If you examine the enlarged snippet (shown at right) of the main photo, you might catch a glimpse of some white paint on the granite face. As far back as I can remember, high schoolers like to paint the last two digits of their graduation year on the mountain as a teenage prank. Most of the numbers are painted largely enough to be visible from miles away. Examination of the mountain in aerial photos or Google Earth will also easily show the numbers.
appear on Glassy's face thirty-five years ago. 
All day long, Dad thought it was Tuesday and was getting ready for a visit from the Home Health people. Even after I told him it was Monday, not Tuesday, a few hours later he would say, "Since today is Tuesday..." and I would have to remind him again that it was only Monday.
When I checked-in with her later in the day, she thought she needed more time to reach a decision. I, too, agree that decisions are not her forte with her present frame of mind, so I called the oncologist's office and asked that we defer the appointment until a later date when her mental and physical condition are more stable. Whether we ever reach that day remains to be seen.
Dad woke me up just past 7:00 am by coming through the living room to go outside to catch his ride to church. When I saw him in his suit and tie, I told him it was Saturday, not Sunday, catching him by surprise. I guess the stresses of the past few weeks have gotten to him, too, causing him to get the days-of-the-week mixed-up.
Today was a relatively quiet day. Mom was much more docile and cooperative with Dad and me, thankfully. After the day we had yesterday, we definitely needed a more laid-back kind of day through which to recuperate amd recharge.
The Blue Ridge Mountains, a subset of the Appalachian Mountains that stetch from northern Alabama to Maine, pass through the northern portion of the county in which my parents live. As one travels downwards in elevation from the larger mountains into the piedmont region of South Carolina, many smaller, isolated mountains called "monadnocks" dot the landscape. One of the most prominent is Glassy Mountain (elevation 1,647 feet), seen here from atop another, smaller monadnock called — I kid you not — "Tater Hill." The bump on the horizon to the right of Glassy Mountain is Paris Mountain, in Greenville (SC), another monadnock about 20-ish miles away.
I hadn't been up long and only had one cup of coffee in me when Dad announced that we needed to check on Mom, assist her to the potty, get her breakfast ready, and perpare for the visit with the Home Health nurses. So we go back to the bedroom and discover that Mom has already gone to the potty. #2, not just #1. In the bed. In her nightclothes. Leaking out all over the toweling underneath her as well as the sheets and blankets. In fact, she somehow managed to get it all over both of her hands, smeared everywhere.
We woke up this morning to a drastic change in the weather conditions. This past week, the nights have been in the 50s and a bit chilly outside, but tolerable for stepping outside to smoke, talk on the phone, and peek at the stars. This morning, however, the temperature was still in the 50s but with drizzling rain, a slight breeze, and higher humidity that drove the chill deeper. I stood outside to taste a few puffs of smoke with arms hugging my torso underneath my breasts, legs smushed together to hold in body heat, and ready to dash back inside to my waiting coffee.
Thankfully, today was not so hard a day dealing with Mom as some days have been — at least on a physical level. Her disposable undies were not wet when we woke her this morning, and we managed to get her to the disposable potty to pee and back to the bedside with a relative minimum of effort (it only took about 30 minutes this time! yay!). She drank about seven ounces of apple juice and ate a small dish of banana pudding for breakfast, not the most healthy of breakfast foods, perhaps, but at least she ate something and there was a lot of banana in it. She ate nothing at lunch but was hungry again for an early supper, eating a few bites of pound cake, four bites of baked fish, five bites of stewed apples, and drank another seven ounces of apple juice.
I TXT THERE 4 I M
Today is the day when we can request a Home Health Aide! However, Mom woke up earlier than usual this morning with her Depends® disposable underwear, pajamas, padding, and sheets all soaking wet. Dad and I have to go through the ordeal of trying to change her ourselves. Mom is lying askew on the bed with the Depends® disposable underwear and pajama bottoms half-on, half-off, but she won't cooperate enough for them to be pulled all the way up or for us to get her straightened on the bed. She also would not raise-up or roll over enough for me to get a pad underneath her, so the sheets and mattress pad will be soaked if she pees herself again while lying there. She flatly accused Dad and me, believe it or not, about not having any compassion for her since we tried to move her while she is in pain. She is not in her right mind — a show of non-compassion would be to let her lie there all day in pee-soaked clothes and linens until she gets a rash from it, and neither Dad nor I are that lazy or heartless. I hope the Home Health Nurse will assist us in getting Mom more completely dressed, pad undereneath her, and in a more normal position in the bed.
dressed to go out this afternoon after Carolyn left. We need more Depends® disposable underwear and a couple of other things, plus I had to run some mail by the post office and take a bag of garbage to the dump. Came home and cooked supper. Dad and I had a Boca® meatless "chicken" pattie and some killer mac-and-cheese. After we ate, I took a lovely little piece of baked fish to Mom with some mac-and-cheese and her evening meds. She refused to open her mouth to take them, so Dad had to *gently* force them into her mouth. She took a sip of the iced tea I had brought her, but I honestly don't know if she ever swallowed the pills or not. She refused to eat even one bite of the fish or mac-and-cheese.
For brunch, Mom ate two bites of an over-easy egg and drank four ounces of apple juice. That's it. She asked for the egg — and toast,too — and I prepared them exactly as I have done for her in the past. After her two bites of egg, however, she started yelling about how "horrible" it was and demanded that Dad take it away. There was no cheese in her breakfast, only an over-easy fried egg and a piece of toast, but she mistakenly thought the yolk of the egg was cheese refused to believe otherwise. She insisted, "I know what cheese looks like, and that is cheese, and it is horrible!" She wouldn't even take a bite of the toast she had requested.
Mom had a good brunch this morning — one egg over easy, a piece of toast made from Arnold's potato bread, about 4 ounces of apple juice with her morning meds, and about 6 ounces of an 8-ounce BOOST® drink. She refused to even try to sit up in bed to eat it, though, because she said she was hurting too badly. So, I stood beside the bed and fed it to her, bite by bite, as if I were Mama Bird feeding my baby bird. It was good to see her eating again, even if it had to be fed to her instead of her feeding it to herself.
Mom was very alert again this morning and talked to Dad and me with no confusion in her speech or thought-patterns! She also worked with the Physical Therapists today and did walk and do the exercises without any problem or complaint! She did complain of pain afterwards, though, so we put her back in bed rather than the recliner. Before long, she had to use the bathroom, so the nurse unhooked her IV tube so that Dad and I could escort Mom to the bathroom. She was a little unsteady on her feet, but made it all the way to the bathroom and back to bed without much grumbling.
Mom was sitting up in bed this morning when Dad & I arrived at the hospital. She looked and sounded much more alert today than she has in a long time, thankfully. Her breakfast tray had already been removed by the Food Service staff, but she reported that she had eaten "a good breakfast" but wasn't able to remember what was on the tray or the quantity that she had consumed. She said she needed to use the bathroom, so two nurses came in and assisted her to the bathroom where she peed a good quantity (judging from the sound of it, which drifted through the almost-closed bathroom door). Although she wanted to return to the bed — of course 
— the nurses convinced her that she really needed to sit up in the chair for a bit. Not long after they got her settled, she requested another dose of medication for the pain, which they administered. Shortly afterwards, she drifted off into a fitful sleep in the chair, waking periodically for brief moments to ask about noises in the hallway, etc.
At least I have a couple of warm items of clothing to wear, although most of my cold-weather clothing is back home, of course, in Tennessee. Since it was much cooler today, I decided to wear something other than my staple flip-flops. I 
my pink crocs! 
What's up with the cake...???
Mom has been refusing to eat or drink properly the past few days. When the Home Health nurse came today, she noticed how pale and weak Mom was and witnessed first-hand some of Mom's mental confusion and stubbornness to cooperate with Dad and me in taking care of her.
With all I have done lately — leaving my own husband and home behind in Kingsport to stay long-term at Mom & Dad's house, taking over the cooking & cleaning & laundry & grocery shopping for them, keeping track of medications for Mom & Dad, chauffeuring them to appointments, as well as making honest attempts at getting Mom to eat and drink properly after her surgery and subsequent discharge — his allegations that we "...need someone at Mom & Dad's house to take care of them..." was like a slap in the face to me.
Thanks for that advice, Dr. Dickwad. Next time, how about asking about the situation rather than passing judgment so quickly and then disappearing. 
The days here at Mom & Dad's house are beginning to meld together and each day is much like the previous, but with a slightly different set of circumstances with which to deal. Therefore, I went through my blog and added the "day of the week" to the last few entries. Perhaps continuing to post the "day of the week" in addition to the date will help me keep straight in my head exactly what day it is.
Most of you probably know this already, but virtually every photo that accompanies this blog has a purpose or some significance to what is being said. Very rarely, if ever, is a photo truly random. Sometimes the intent might be evident, but sometimes it is more subtle and requires a reading between the lines. Occasionally it might just be a personal thing that only I would understand in some abstract way and would have trouble putting into words; but those times are rare, too, like the idea of a random photo.
Was up this morning for almost an hour before I had to kick my butt into high-gear to prepare for visits from the Home Health nurse and the Physical Therapy Assistant, both on the same day. When I got Mom out of bed to get her ready for their visit, I discovered that Mom's sheets, pajamas, underwear, and the huge mattress pad — so big that it, alone, takes up a single load in the washing machine — were all soaking wet, stained yellow, and have to be bleached and laundered yet again. I will be so glad when this issue of incontinence is resolved. 
Spent the morning around the house and the afternoon running errands in the neighboring town, the most imporant of which was getting two of Mom's meds refilled. Dad usually asks her frequently whether she is running out of anything, but one medication slipped past without being noticed. There are some meds Mom does not "like" to take, some that she thinks she does not need despite what the doctor says, and some she forgets to take because she doesn't keep the bottles in the same place (we're working on that one). Most of her meds simply improve her well-being if she takes them, such as the Synthroid that boosts her energy by supplementing an underactive thyroid gland. However, the two meds that she needed were probably the two most important meds she is supposed to take. So, I made certain to get those meds refilled at the expense of anything else I had on my ToDo List today.
Shortly after I woke up this morning, Dad discovered that Mom had messed up the bed again. This time it was #2 instead of #1. The towel underneath her, the sheets, her pajamas, and underwear all came clean in one washing, thankfully. However, the mattress pad, being considerably thicker and as white as snow, took THREE washings/soakings in bleach as well as quite a bit of scrubbing with a brush, to come completely clean again.
Mom was visited by Michelle ("Mikki"), a Physical Therapist from P.Co.Home.Health today, to assess Mom's level of energy and physical condition as part of her post-surgical care. After hearing of Mom's recent surgery and host of other medical conditions, she prescribed a routine of daily "standing" exercises which include walking short distances each day. She stressed how important it was for Mom to get excercise to boost her energy level, as well as fresh air and sunshine to assist in lifting Mom's spirits and energy.
He said he had gotten a call from one of my uncles (R.F.) who was concerned because no one was answering the phone. I played the part of the "dumb blonde" beautifully, explaining how my parents both went to bed at 7pm each night, so I was outside on my cell phone so I would not disturb them. He insisted that I dial my uncle's number on the phone so he could talk to him, then instructed me to take the phone to my parents' bedroom and wake them up so my uncle could talk to them. 
Mom ate a very light breakfast this morning — only a few pieces of canteloupe and a few bites of the Multi-grain Cheerio's cereal that I poured for her. The indigestion/heartburn problem that she's had off-and-on for the past few months returned in full-force last night and this morning. Her GP (Chang, Internal Medicine specialist), thought it might be caused by a stomach ulcer, but the endoscopy showed none. Dad thought it might be due to her scant eating habits not putting enough food in her stomach at a time, thereby causing an overabundance of stomach acids that had no food on which to work. My brother and I are thinking it might be due to the shocking quantity of salt that she adds to most of the foods that she eats. She's had an intermittent history of GRD ("Acid Reflux") and it might be that problem surfacing again. She has another appointment scheduled with her GP in a little over a week, and I definitely hope we can revisit this problem with him then.
Dad woke me up at 6:00 this morning with a request for help getting Mom and the bed cleaned-up, again. Ack! It wasn't too bad, though. Afterwards, I fixed breakfast for Dad, had one cup of coffee myself, and then went back to bed for a couple of hours while he got ready for church.
One of Mom's oldest friends (E.C.) called during the morning to check on Mom and offered the loan of a "potty chair" to keep beside the bed. Dad accepted the offer, and some other friends (T.&.C.H.) picked it up and delivered it with their truck a short time later. Before we could get the "potty chair" setup in the Master Bedroom, the sheets had to be changed again.
I honestly don't think Mom was strong enough to be discharged, but they let her go home from the hospital late in the afternoon. Dr. Wheeler (Mom's surgeon) had come by about mid-afternoon and asked Mom if she was ready to go home. Her face brightened and she quickly said, "Yes!" and my father agreed that he also wanted her back home. He added that it was difficult for him to come up to the hospital each day, and it would be much easier for him to look after Mom if she were back home. Since Mom and Dad were both emphatic about discharge, I said nothing of my misgivings and figured we could handle it, one way or another. Dr. Wheeler said he was on his way to the Operating Room to perform another surgery, but he would check back with us afterwards and approve discharge if we still wanted it. Thus, it was decided.
I had a talk with Dad yesterday about how he always seems to be waiting, very impatiently, for me in the mornings. Even when I am ready by the designated time that he has chosen, I can't seem to be ready soon enough to please him. So, I asked him, point-blank, yesterday if he wanted me to be ready to leave the house by 8:00 am or whatever. He said that NO, leaving the house around 9:15 - 9:30 am was good, which always gets us to the hospital by 9:45 or 9:50, and that any earlier would make for too long a day for him to handle.
When Dad and I arrived at the hospital today, Mom had a tray of solid food in front of her! She ate a few bites of the scrambled eggs, quite a few of the grits, a couple of bites of toast, juice, and coffee! That is her first solid food in a week and five days (since Saturday, 09/06/08)! She had another bowel movement this morning, so her body seems to be recovering nicely after the surgery!
Got up at 3:30 am this morning to take my brother back to the airport. We left the house just after 4:00 am, drove to the airport, and I was back at the house by 6:00 am to get in the shower and begin getting ready to visit Mom at the hospital today with Dad.
The physical therapists came back today and had Mom walk from the chair all the way to the door of her hospital room and back, assisted by the two of them and a wheeled walker. As they were getting her back into the chair, a nurse came around and said that Mom actually went to the bathroom this morning and had a small bowel movement and expelled some of the gas that has been inside her since the surgery! They took out the NG tube that had been pumping out the stomach acid to keep her from throwing up, and let her have a popsicle! The last check of Mom's hemoglobin was 11.1, and they are planning to draw some blood and test it again, as well as other things, later today. It is great to see such progress! 
I'm not sure how it happened considering that they are still giving her the Ativan, but Mom was awake this morning when Dad and I came in! She knew who we were, and was able to carry on a normal conversation with us for several minutes! Yay!
Mom was asleep when we arrived today, as usual, but seemed to be resting rather well. Nurses and Physical Therapists came in this afternoon and moved her to the big chair in the corner of the room for two or three hours. The process of moving her seemed to hurt her tremendously and she seemed out-of-her-head with pain and restless the entire time, but the staff said it was necessary to have her sitting up for a bit. When they moved her back to the bed, she seemed relieved. Shortly afterwards, I took a stretch-break down the hall. When I returned, Dad reported that Mom woke up briefly and even was able to talk to him a little! That is the first time in several days that we have actually spoken to her more than a simple question and simple answer (e.g., "Are you hurting?" -"Yes, all over." -and then she's asleep again). So, there seems to be a little progress today! w00t!
Mom's nurses are so nice! There is Andrea, who is an RN, and Tammy, who is a student nurse intern looking forward to her graduation in December. Every time they come into the room to check on Mom, they also check on Dad and me to be sure we are okay. They also take time to explain things to us, rather than just racing into the room, doing their tasks, and leaving.
Years ago, my mother was given the drug ATIVAN® by one of her doctors. The drug caused major hallucinations, so she was promptly taken off the drug again. Since then, we have told healthcare providers that she is "allergic" to it, and they usually put it on a list of medications that they will not dispense for her.
I swear to goddess I am not a "Drama Queen" — or at least I don't think I am. I feel most happy when nothing extraordinary is happening, when everything is so mundane that all I have to blog about are stupid, 
Mom has had a rough couple of days. She is in pain and restless to the point that she doesn't know what she is doing. She has tried to pull her IV tubes out, repeatedly. Last night, she somehow managed to completely pull out her epidural, all on her own, which according to her nurse required quite a bit of effort on her part. The hospital staff decided not to put it back into place.
Mom's surgeon (Wheeler) just came by the hospital room and told us that the pathology report had returned, and it showed that Mom's tumor HAD gone through the colon wall and affected one lymph node (out of the nine near the ascending colon). Therefore, her cancer is considered "Stage III" and WILL require chemotherapy. He said that based on what the pathology report showed, the tumor has been growing inside her for probably eight or nine years. 
I didn't blog yesterday because Mom was kept in CCU for another day as a precautionary measure. So, Dad and I sat like proverbial bumps on logs in the CCU room, talkimg to Mom during her "awake" periods and trying to be quiet when she drifted off to sleep. Her hemoglobin had fallen dangerously low (6.8) after surgery, so two units of blood were administered. Her count registered 9.43 when they checked it again shortly after the last transfusion. Otherwise, it was a non-eventful day.
Mom's 
No sleep at all.
Good for you, girl! Families can certainly be ........ Challenging.
Today was Mom's "clear liquids" day in preparation for surgery. She had some coffee this morning with artificial sweetener, then only juice, jello, and some of the clear veggie broth that I made for her. She liked the orange jello that I made for her, but threw up not long after eating the peach jello. Dad and I both thought she would like the peach flavor, but she said it did not taste very good. Why did she eat it, then...?!?!?!? There was more orange jello as well as lime, plus oodles of veggie broth, so it wasn't like she didn't have a choice. Sheesh...
Discovered why my mother is falling so much. When I mopped the floor in the den, I found a bottle of pills under my mother's chair. It was the pills that her doctor gave her to increase her blood count because of the anemia. The prescription was filled for a count of 30 pills on August 25th. Only two pills had been taken from the bottle. She said she had "forgotten" to take them. 
My mother's anemia, coupled with the host of other medical problems she constantly battles — Lupus, Sjögren's, fibromyalgia, etc. — has made her dizzy to the point where she cannot walk about the house unassisted. She has fallen several times already, but fortunately hasn't done more than get a few bruises. My father or I have to be available at all times to assist her to the bathroom, recliner, dining table, or back to bed. My father even woke me up this morning to help him lift Mom from the floor again — she fell while he was escorting her from the bathroom back to the bedroom, and she landed in such a strange way that he could not get the leverage to lift her by himself. So, things have beem interesting around here at times.
Today was Mom's "pre-op" appointments. First, we went to the surgeon's office to sign some forms, then we took Mom to the hospital to sign more forms, talk to the anesthesiologist, have blood drawn for lab tests, and a pre-op EKG performed. We were given instructions on the procedure to "clean Mom out" ~cough~ in preparation for the surgery. So, everything is on track.
My heart was wild, crouching and hiding, subdued from the pain of past hurts. I was beginning to think of myself as unlovable, someone no one wanted. At times, it was difficult to love myself.
Been a busy little bee since I've been home. Here are the highlights...
Oh. My. Goddess.
In so many regards, I am definitely the "Black Sheep" of our family. I am the one who is not Christian, prefering the wide open spaces to the suffocating closeness of the flock. I am the one who agrees with my "husband" that the sanctity of our relationship does not depend on having it recognized by a group of people, religious or political. I am the one who prizes existential wisdom over the preternatural logic of a society with narrow vision. I am the one who has dared to follow my heart rather than what others deem as proper and prudent. I am the Black Sheep. And, yes, I have wool, but I shall not pull it over your eyes for I wish for you to see as clearly as I see.
Dad had a "follow up" appointment with the surgeon (Roberson) who performed the repair on his broken hip. The staff was blown-away by Dad's progress in mobility since the surgery. He also had excellent vitals that morning — blood pressure, pulse rate, and temperature were all in good order! After an X-ray of Dad's hip, the surgeon met with us and said that everything was healing nicely. He admitted that the post-surgical hip was slightly "crooked" and not perfectly straight, but said it was the best job that he could do with the amount of bleeding he encountered during the surgery (due to residual Plavix in my Dad's system, as a precaution against a second stroke). He thrilled my father by announcing that he was offically releasing Dad from his care, unless something else should arrive later.
Visited the surgeon (Wheeler) for Mom's appointment which was set yesterday. The biopsy report had arrived earlier than expected — that very morning — and the surgeon informed us in matter-of-fact manner that the tumor is malignant. He won't know whether the cancer has spread to other areas of the body (e.g., the lymphatic system) until the surgery is underway. At this point in time, he feels that it is prudent to remove about 14-inches of Mom's intestines — part of the transverse colon, the entire ascending colon, cecum, and a small portion of the ileum at the ileocecal junction. His staff is currently working to schedule the procedure with a nearby hospital.
Called the surgeon (Wheeler) who is scheduled to remove Mom's tumor. Their office knew nothing about my mother because a referral had not yet been made.
Took my father to an appointment at his hematologist's office for an Aranesp shot, then back home. He has to have those shots regularly because of a disorder that runs randomly in my family which causes the body to produce too few red blood cells, among other nasty things. Later in the afternoon, I had to go to GSP airport to pick up my brother, who was coming for the weekend.
Mom was able to have the colonoscopy today, finally. The hospital's gastrointerologist (Prostko) found a small tumor (3 cm in size) located in her ascending colon. He did a biopsy on it and sent it off to be tested for malignancy.
Dad sees the same Internist for a GP as does Mom (the same one who had recently hospitalized Mom for anemia). Today was Dad's "follow up" appointment, and the doctor was very pleased with his progress since being released from the nursing home! 
The gastrointerologist (Prostko) tried to perform the colonoscopy on Mom today, but discovered that she was not "cleaned out" enough. He postponed the colonoscopy until Thursday.
Mom has been placed on a diet of clear liquids in preparation for her colonoscopy. Of course, she has several doses of Ducolax to consume as well. Yum!
I took Dad to the hospital again to see Mom, but he tires so easily these days and was ready to go home within one to two hours after we arrived. Knowing that Mom was lonely up there, I tried to get him to switch to a different chair and stay longer. He has always been a restless sort, never sitting still for long at time. I know it is difficult for him when his mobility is so limited by his slow-but-steady healing after his hip surgery, the arthritis in his knees, and all the other aches and pains of advancing age. 
A couple of large branches of the fig tree behind Mom & Dad's house were hanging over onto the roof. So, my brother climbed up there and sawed them off. He surprised us by brining in a huge basket of figs off the tree! I went out there, too, and helped him gather some more to fill a pot, and I started cooking them to make fig preserves! Fig preserves are one of my favorite things. I remember when my Aunt Carrie (one of Mom's sisters) used to make them a lot when I was a child. I strive to make them as good as she did.
Mom's endoscopy (EGD, performed by Prostko) showed presence of some mild gastritis, but no bleeding ulcer as has been expected. No blood transfusions are planned until they locate the cause of the blood in the stools. The doctor wanted to perform a colonoscopy this afternoon but was unable to schedule the assisting staff and room on short notice, and Mom's colon would need to be properly emptied, even so. He wants Mom to be observed over the weekend and perform a colonoscopy early next week.
With the stark reminder yesterday that Uncle Leonard died from Colorectal Cancer, I tried to remember how my other aunts/uncles had passed. Some of the details I remembered, and my parents filled-in the remainder.
My mother has always battled several health problems, as far back as I can remember. In recent years, though, age has taken its toll and she has suffered more than what seems her fair share. She suffers from Lupus (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus), Sjögren's Syndrome, fibromyalgia, and a weak back, as well as osteo-arthritis and all the other common aches-and-pains that comes with increasing age.
Memo to self:
...even after 15 hours of sleep. Gah. Was only up for four or five hours and laid back down for an hour's nap.
Worked the "graveyard shift" at work last night, came home, got a bite to eat, setup some stuff on the laptop, packed again, and drove back to South Carolina. This time, I came a slightly different route during the last leg of the trip that took me through some slightly more scenic countryside and only a couple of miles out of the way. By the time I get to bed this evening, I will have been up about 25½ hours. Sheesh. I just hope they let me sleep-in tomorrow to make up for it.
Back to Kingsport to work Friday and Saturday nights and see my husband! Yay! I've missed him so much! I am also getting some fresh clothes and snagging some online time, too. Don said I could take his laptop back with me! I won't have an Internet connection, but at least I can write-up some of the blogs that have accumulated in my calendar/journal book that I carry in my purse, listen to music, and some other things! 
My brother and I had hoped to have "The Talk" with our parents yesterday about their ability to continue living alone in the long-term with both of them having chronic health concerns and advancing age. Both of them were too tired yesterday to have a serious discussion, so I took an extra day off work so we could do it today. The talk went well — better than expected — and our suggestions are being considered. During the coming months, we will explore the options available and come to a mutual decision and plans will be made.
It is amazing how out-of-sync my eating habits and eating preferences have become with the rest of my family's. Except for the low-fat cheese and skim milk in the fridge, much of the other food is sugared, processed, or fat-laden.
My brother and I appear to make a good team working together (something we haven't really done since childhood). He has been jumping into the big stuff that involves a lot of muscle and strength, and I have been doing some of the "detail orientied" organizational tasks as well as the mundane work to keep the household running — cooking meals, washing dishes, doing the laundry, and so forth.
It is, indeed, fReAkY wEiRd having father, mother, son, and daughter together again under one roof. It is also weird to be 53 years old and in the habit of turning out unused lights at my own house, but to still be reminded before being given a chance to demonostrate my proficiency in remembering to douse the lights on my own. I guess some things never change. 
After working the "graveyard shift" last night, I came home, got a bite to eat, and packed my things in order to head back to my parents' house. When that was finished, I had been up about 16 hours, was very tired, and thought it best to get a nap before the three-hour drive. So, I curled up with my teddy bear at my usual bedtime, but was only planning to snooze for an hour or two.
My Dad has been making improvements to his strength and mobility at the nursing home over the past few weeks and it was decided that he could be discharged on July 23rd to return home.
One of my favorite movies — "
...several things to catch up on...
Seriously sexy man, with his shades! That's my sweetie! Whoo hooo!
The following excerpt is from the article "Law and Disorder," from the June 16, 2008, issue of TIME magazine:
I didn't really do much "solsticing" this past weekend since I am still recuperating from the sinus infection. I am mostly okay now, but still have one place on my back where soreness remains, as if someone pummelled me with their fists. Sometimes it hurts to just to move and its been like that for several days. And then, clumsy me, I ran into a table with quite a bit of force two nights ago and have been limping from the pain in my leg. Given another day or so, my leg will be fine, though, especially after I work tonight and walk a bit more on it. So, I drummed a little bit and looked up at Mother Moon, but that's about all I did. Kinda blah for a solstice celebration, really, but hey, we do what we can.
Those of you who read my blog regularly (and I am really not sure who all of you are) probably noticed a small change recently — the addition of a "SUBSCRIBE" button at the top of this blog. If you have clicked on it, you will see that you can now have blog entries sent to your email automatically every time a new entry is published. That will keep you from having to remember to come here every so often to see if I have published some new entries or not.
Summer Solstice.
Thanks to my friend 
If you don't believe that Jesus was a Liberal, then you haven't been reading your Bible. How would Jesus vote? In favor of big-business, war, and tax cuts for the rich? Or with compassion for the common people, bringing about much-needed change and social reform?
Believe it or not, there is only one "walk-in" clinic left in my city. All the others that we had have converted to clinics that require appointments, like people can plan when they get sick. Sheesh! So, anyway, I went to that one clinic and amazingly I was the only patient there! Whoo hooo!
If anyone cares — and maybe no one does — my "Top Friends" has been changing a bit lately. I am slowly shifting people around on the list so that those that I know in-person appear first on the List. I value everyone on my List or you would not be there. I do not add add people frivolously, as some folks appear to do. I lurve my peeps!
I am exhausted, but I am hurting too badly to sleep. I tossed-and-turned for a solid hour in the bed and was so feeling so miserable I got back up. I feel like someone has pounded their fists into my back and legs until it hurts to move even one little muscle. My throat hurts every time I swallow and it feels like there is a tangerine stuck in my throat. I feel feverish and swimmy-headed. Isn't it strange how a microscopic organism can do that to ya?
Someone called and offered to give me a pink elephant because they make good pets. Pink elephants like to eat strawberries. Can I have a pink elephant?
So, I get this text message last night from one of my girlfriends who lives far, far away. She was at her local airport to meet someone. Her text message read:
Wow, getting back into the routine of work and such. Going back in tonight for the "Graveyard Shift" for the first time in a couple of weeks. Hope it's not too hard a night. Since my boss has been working extra hours so that I could have time-off to be with my family, I offered to work tomorrow night for him (it is one of my regularly-recurring days-off each week, per the schedule). He said he would let me know.
Dad was in Physical Therapy for an hour and forty-five minutes today before lunch, and another hour and forty-five minutes after lunch! He said the therapists were surprised to see him continuing to do his routines even after the timer dinged. He made them laugh, though, when he explained that he was trying to make himself strong enough to "escape." 
With all the work in Physical Therapy and the return of his usual disposition, I am sure that Dad is safely on the path to recovery. Of course, we never know what is going to happen in the long term, but my Daddy is definitely okay for the short term. 
They wasted no time in getting Dad started on his Physical Therapy today. He worked with the therapists for a couple of hours doing an assortment of assignments to help strengthen his arms so he would be able to lift himself more easily up to his walker. He cooperated with them without hesitation because he wants to get out of her and get back home as soon as possible. I am very proud of my Daddy! Before long he will be strong again! 
Today Dad was discharged from the hospital and sent to a convalescent care facility! Yay! They are holding a room for Dad and we just have to complete some paperwork when he is admitted. The place is actually a "nursing home" that doubles as a rehabilitation center for patients who need Physical Therapy (PT). So, there are many people there who are elderly and will probably be there for the rest of their lives, in addition to some not-so-elderly who are there to regain the use of limbs and eventually be discharged.
Dad's spirits are improving daily and the hospital staff are thinking he will be ready to be discharged tomorrow! Of course, the final say will be from the physician who makes the rounds in the morning. We are definitely keeping our fingers crossed because Dad is getting a serious case of "cabin fever." He is able to get out of bed with assistance and sit in a chair in the hospital room for a short while, but he is not able to leave the room. He can't sit for too long in the chair, either, because of the pressure on his hip. Perhaps once he is out of the hospital and is admitted to a rehab / convalescent center, Mom and I can begin to get a teensy bit more rest each day.
My father's twin brother and younger sister came to visit him today! The pastor at my uncle's church drove them. They brought a homemade cake to cheer Dad's spirits. It has been quite a long time since I have seen either of them so it was lovely seeing them again!
Dad was doing so much better today that he was discharged from CCU and moved back into a regular hospital room! Yay! 
Dad was coherent today and doing much better. His blood pressure and pulse rate were improved, but his red blood count and hemoglobin were still low. CCU decided to give him more blood transfusions to try to improve his condition.
Dad's surgery was scheduled for late in the afternoon, so Mom and I took our time in the morning doing some housework. We got a phone call a little after 11:00 am from the hospital reporting that another patient's surgery had to be postponed and they had moved Dad's surgery forward. He was being wheeled into pre-surgery prep right at that moment! So, Mom and I clean-up from the chores we were doing and get ready to go. Mom was ready before I was, so she left first in her car and I followed in mine shortly thereafter.
Dad is in a very disagreeable mood about everything and snapping at Mom. I know he is in a lot of pain, but it is crushing Mom's spirits to have him snapping at her the way he's doing. I'm not passing judgement — heck, I would probably be a much worse patient than he is if I were in his position — I am just reporting. He is disagreeable mostly because this process is dragging-out over a longer period of time than he would like. The sooner they can do the surgery, the sooner he can begin healing and rehabilitating.
Dad is in better spirits today, but still in a lot of pain. The medicine they are giving him is Loritab®. Blood tests today showed that his blood is still so thin that surgery would be risky.
The brakes on my car have been making a rubbing noise lately, signaling the brake pads needed replacing, so I had to get the brakes fixed before I could take the car on a long trip. Fortunately, my mechanic was able to work me in yesterday evening and only charged me $40 for the work! Yay!
My father was getting ready to go to church when his knee gave-way (due to arthritis) and he fell on the hard, tile floor in my parents' bathroom. My mother called 911 and Dad was transported to the hospital in an ambulance. He had been taking a prescription blood-thinner for several years, so his doctor said they have to wait three or four days for that medication to be out of his system before they can operate. Fortunately, the doctor says it is a single fracture, requiring at least one rod and a couple of screws for the repair. The situation could have been much worse.
I dreamed that I was walking outside when a tiny little creature came running up to me through the grass. It was so small that at first I couldn't tell what it was. It jumped up and slammed itself into my lower leg, over and over. I finally bent over and saw that it was a very tiny baby duck, all fluffy and yellow.
OMG, this stuff is so good! If you love salads as much as my sweetie and I do, you will go nuts over this wonderful salad topping!
As I switch from Shankara's 
fabulous article from the April 23, 2008, edition of
So, I've been at my job for one year, today! w00t!
from the 
Lilly Ledbetter worked 19 years at Goodyear before she learned the men at her level were earning far more for the same work. She sued, and stood up for inequality by taking her case all the way to the Supreme Court—where five male justices ruled her claim invalid because she filed it more than 180 days after the discrimination started. Now, Senator McCain is blocking a vote on legislation to correct this injustice—and in the process, he seems willing to roll back 50 years of women's rights.
My husband received news last night that his Aunt Gussie passed away.
It always amazes me when people ask the question, "Do you believe in God?" The amazing thing is that when this question is asked, the querent usually is not actually asking what they are really trying to determine. What they really mean is, "Do you believe in the same God in which I believe? Is your image of God the same image as mine?"
I like music.
As a Buddhist, I watched several of the shows in Bill Moyers' 
So, I'm at work when a young woman comes up to the counter. We're chatting casually while conducting our business, and she tells me that she was just hired to "detail" cars (who invented that stupid term for "cleaning" a car, anyway...?!?!?). The sad thing is that she has been looking for a job since September — over six months! — and this is the first job she was able to get. I have my own similar story, as do many other people. The job market in this area sucks, and it seems to be that way over much of the country — unless, of course, you are lucky enough to live near one of the contractors that are building weapons for the war; that's where the only good jobs are right now.
Someone on my "Friends List" on MySpace posted a "Bulletin" recently. I thought it was a shocking and thought-provoking exposé about the "supply and demand" that exists in the world.
We always hear that it isn't safe to enter too much personal information online. I signed-up for a trial account on Facebook once, but cancelled the account after a few days because they kept hounding me to enter my employer's name & address, names/dates of the schools I had attended, as well as other personal information "so that friends can find you." Yeah, I'll get right on that. I don't need random people calling me at work and jeopardizing my job. I also don't need every fucktard I've ever known to start looking for me.
Mulam helped me when my side was pierced by the spear. It should never have happened to me since I am a woman, but a world at war with itself doesn't always discriminate when it comes to casualties. The war had come to the village, and I had been struck as I fled in terror.
Those of you who have known me for a long time are aware that I do not voluntarily discuss politics very often. It takes something special to move me to do so. Something moved me today.
I am posting this recipe 'cause I agreed to share it with a girlfriend, plus this is a backup in case I lose my copy of the recipe sometime!
I posted the following in a friend's blog last night and then decided it would be good to share here as well. If nothing else, perhaps having it here will help me remember it when I need it.
