Yes, I finally made it to visit my mother at the new TCU today! The truck even behaved normally the whole time. 😄

But first, the cuteness!

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I got home late enough to do the evening feeding, and couldn’t resist getting a picture of this fluffy beauty.

Zoomed in from a distance, because she? he? is pretty feral and none of us have been able to get close. It does come into the sun room to snuggle with other cats and eat, so that’s encouraging, at least.

I headed out to visit my mother shortly past noon. I made sure to check on the truck before hand, and the clock still showed the right time, and even the door chime dinged appropriately, so whatever gremlin we’ve got in the electrical seems to be napping.

While today was warmer, we’ve been having intermittent snow and “snow showers” throughout the day. The highway was good, though, and while visibility was reduced, it wasn’t by much – at least not while I was on the road.

When I got to the hospital, I went into the wing I thought my mother was in, but it turns out the TCU was in a completely different wing. I did get to see what the long term car section looked like, though. While at the nursing station, looking for someone, I saw a lot of seniors all over, and several of them demanded to know why I was there and what I wanted! Thankfully, a staff member (a janitor, I think) showed up. I told her who I was there to see, and she knew my mother’s name, then led me through the hospital to the wing my mother was in.

I’d brought some stuff my mother requested, including more Pepto. There was someone at the nursing station, and I was able to leave it with her.

I also had a chance to ask about the photos my brother left of our vandal and my sister. Our vandal has visited a couple of times already, and my mother’s been there for just over a week. I was able to let her know that the last time he was there, he ended up with a check for a substantial amount. This is one of the issues with him; he’s managed to get many thousands of dollars our of my mother over the years. In this case, the check was written out by his wife for my mother to sign. I made sure to say, this was just so they know it happened, not that I was trying to blame anyone. Knowing my mother, she probably didn’t need a lot of persuasion and may well has suggested it herself.

The nurse I spoke to took some notes about it, so other stiff will be aware. I also talked a bit about my sister, as they would have her photo, too. I explained that with her, it’s more that both our vandal and my mother can manipulate her so easily. She has caused problems by going along with them when she should have said no.

Then I had to ask which room my mother was in. I had it in one of my family group messages, but couldn’t get a connection to look it up. It turned out I wasn’t even able to send updates to my family, either.

The nurse told me where to go, and I soon found my mother. She has the bed against the window, but her room mate had her curtain completely closed, so I wasn’t interrupting anyone else.

The visit was… difficult.

We started to talk, but there was some banging going on down the hall. I starting going through the bag of things I’d brought for her, but she was very disturbed. She moved to sit in a chair and started to tell me where to put things, then started to cry (it may even have been partially genuine) and complain about it, saying I had to get her out of there. She brought up the banging, and thought her room mate was doing it. !! I said no, there’s some sort of construction or repairs happening. My mother said we could go to somewhere more private and let me to the common room.

Which was directly across the hall from the banging.

At the time, a workman was using a chisel on the edge of a door for what turned out to be the installation of a keypad locking assembly.

The common room clearly had been a hospital room in the past and wasn’t particularly big, but it was in the corner of the wing, so it had two big windows and lots of light. Someone in a wheelchair was at a table working on a jigsaw puzzle. My mother introduced us. She has her own favourite armchair, right in the corner between the two windows, with a hospital bed table. She told me she eats her meals there.

We started talking and she kept telling me how terrible things where and how much she wanted to get out of there. She made it sound like the banging was happening all the time (the work on the door would have started just today), and talking. Apparently, her room mate sleeps all day and talks to herself all night. Which is curious, since both my brother and my sister have said they’ve talked to her during their daytime visits and found her very nice. After a while, the guy working on the puzzle started to leave, and my mother thanked him for the privacy.

As we talked for the next while, my mother was all over the place. She went from complaining about the noise and how she has all this money, but is stuck living there (I told her, everyone else there is in the same situation as her, regardless of money), to talking about how my sister should visit more often (she’s visited my mother twice in the first week), and even complained about my brother and his wife giving her an Easter card. Now. A month ahead of Easter, so that means they’re not planning to visit her on Easter. I reminded her, they are going on a pilgrimage. They’re going to be overseas. When are the leaving? I don’t know. How long will they be gone? For weeks! They’re going to be walking very far! She scoffed, but seemed to realize complaining that they were going on a pilgrimage for Easter wasn’t probably not a good idea! It didn’t stop her from claiming my brother was “running away” from her (he’s visited her more often than I have!), and so on.

I do think I was able to get her to calm down about things a bit. I tried talking about how this was temporary, and just one step to getting her to where she wants to be, and how the system works. She didn’t like that, but she also started to get upset because someone else came into the room and sat in one of the armchairs behind me. She kept glaring at him over my shoulder, and making comments about him being there while she had company. I kept reminding her, this is a public room!

At one point, she started to get things out of her purse, then got up to leave, telling me to wait for her. It turned out she had gone into the hall to talk to the guy working on the door, complaining about the noise, saying it was making her go deaf (my mother’s hearing is better than mine) and started crying again. He told her he was almost done and it wouldn’t be much longer, so she came back in.

I had hoped she had forgotten, but my mother got out her checkbook. She said, she wanted to pay for the work on the truck. !!! I tried to defer, but she insisted. I admit, she was generous about it, in her own way. Normally, she would ask for exactly how much it cost, then write out for an amount to the penny, or somewhat less. She didn’t even ask how much it cost, but told me to how much to write it out for so she could sign it. It will mostly cover the cost of the repairs.

I’m not going to deposit it until I’ve checked with my brother. He manages her accounts very well on her behalf. At one point, she asked me how much was in her account, thinking my brother told her. I said, I have no idea. It’s none of my business! I’m not sure if she approved of that, or was angry I didn’t know. 😄

We talked some more about her living situation and getting her into somewhere permanent. It’s frustrating to simply not know. In the end, it’s the government that decides, through the health care system. We have no say in the matter, but now that she’s in the system, it should work out better than trying to get where she wants to be from outside the system.

I noticed my mother had her rosary around her neck, so I suggested she pray the rosary. She said it gets hard to pray (referring to her own mental function; she does recognize that she is having increased cognitive issues). I reminded her that God doesn’t need words to know what she is praying for. I suggested that, if she starts feeling really anxious, to even just hold the cross on her rosary and use that to keep her mind on God. I couldn’t remember the exact words at the time, but reminded her of Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (yes, I had to look it up – I remember the words, not the chapter and verse! 😄) She immediately knew the verse I was referring to, and it really seemed to perk her up. So we held hands and prayed together, and that seemed to help her a lot more.

Eventually, though, I had to head out, as I knew the roads would not be very good for long. She walked with me to the door. One of the things we’d talked about was the vitamin for her dry macular degeneration, and I’d explained that I made the calls to get a prescription faxed to the nursing station. She said she wasn’t getting them yet, so I said I would ask. Thankfully, because she walked me out, it helped me remember – and I’m glad I did!

They never got the prescription.

We talked for a while, and I said I would call the optometrist where she got the original prescription from and find out what was happening. I was concerned about my mother walking back on her own using her walker, but one of the nurses had seen us and was waiting. She assured me she would get my mother to her room okay.

From there, I made a stop at the gas station to update the family. Not to get gas, though. While I was visiting with my mother, the gas prices went from $1.359 to $1.419!

I’m glad I left when I did, as conditions were starting to worsen, but I got home okay – and the truck behaved the whole time.

As soon as I was settled in, I made a bunch of calls. Apparently, the prescription for my mother’s eye vitamin did get faxed, yesterday. In the end, the receptionist I spoke to said she would try and print out what she had in her system and fax it again, as the optometrist was working a different location until next week. Some time later, I got a call from the TCU letting me know they got it. She then explained that this vitamin comes in two forms. A soft gel, which my mother was getting in her bubble packs, and a tablet form. They only get the tablet form. If my mother wants the soft gel, we would have to provide it. I explained that, with my mother, she believes that because they look different, it’s the wrong medicine – she believes that of all her medications – and that we’ve tried to explain it to her. I said to give her the tablets for now (I don’t want her to go without it, as she is complaining about vision loss), and to explain to her what that specific tablet is. We’ll see how she does with that, for now. If necessary, we’ll have to get something set up with the local pharmacy for those.

I’m glad I finally made it to visit my mother, but it’s so frustrating. I understand why she’s not happy there, and absolutely understand her desire for more quiet. It’s part of what we like about living in the boonies, after all! At the same time, I know my mother well enough to know that a lot of this is self inflicted. My mother is one of those people that always sees the worst in others, and interprets things in their worst possible light. I remember when my father when through a lot of this, and at every stage, he was always so thankful, so grateful, to the people around him, whether it was the home care aids or the nursing home staff. He always let them know how much he appreciated them for how well they took care of him. Every time I called him, he would go on about how great they all were. My mother? She’s the complete opposite, most of the time, and it’s not getting any better as she gets older. In fact, the only person she will speak highly of these days is…

Yup. Our vandal. She says, they’re getting along good now. I reminded her of that last letter he wrote to her, and the horrible things he said to her, and that he hasn’t stopped. He may be behaving around her when his wife is around, but he’s still doing things (I didn’t tell her about him driving by while I was shoveling out the plow ridge, slowing down to a crawl at the end of the driveway). She thinks he’s changed. I said, I hope so, but he’s why my late brother’s two kids now say they want nothing to do with our family, thanks to his lying about us. She dropped the subject.

All we can do is hope she can finally get to the nursing home she wants to be in, but I’m starting to wonder if she’ll even be happy there. There will be people talking in the halls. There will be noise. At least she’ll have her own room, though. Maybe that will be enough.

We shall see.

Nothing else we can do. It’s all up to the system…

… and the system sucks.

The Re-Farmer