dealing with elderly parents

Getting things ready

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Today, I wanted to make sure the morning rounds were done in good time. The outside kitties were happy to get their breakfast; I think I counted 30 this morning.

The down side was…

Slick is in heat.

Slick is the tabby in the above photo. Aka: Octomom. She had a litter of 8, a couple of years ago. Two of them, Soot Sprite and Tiny (The Beast), we have indoors, and the Cat Lady has The Wolfman. Slick is one of the more feral cats The white and grey in the photo is fixed; you can just make out where his collar is. He was just checking out what the fuss was! The black and white is Hypotenose. We could only get two males done at one trip, and Stinky – the grey and white – is one of the dudes we were able to get into a carrier that time.

*sigh*

This is so, so early for them to go into heat. I’d hope to be able to start trapping them before that would happen. We have no way to monitor a trap, so we have to wait until it’s warmer.

Crud.

Hopefully, next month, we’ll be able to bring more ladies in to the vet. The rescue has been able to help us with two at a time – we are not the only ones they are helping with spays and neuters, and donations are still slim.

Well, we do the best we can.

Once the morning rounds were done, I was able to heat out early to my mother’s apartment. The plan was to meet my brother and SIL there this afternoon, but I remembered that the pharmacy in her town opens at noon on Sundays. I hoped to be able to bring in my mother’s old bubble packs and, if all went well, bring her new ones home. If it was going to be today, I would expect them to need at least an hour to get it done.

So I timed things to I would arrive at my mother just before the pharmacy would open. I had her bubble pack that she brought with her to the hospital, plus there was an almost empty one in the home care folder. There should have been a partial one in her cupboard that she was supposed to set aside when one of her doses was changed. I was already supposed to take that to the pharmacy, so they could repack the ones that did not get changed.

I never found that one. I think she used it up, anyhow. I’m not sure the home care aids would have known they were supposed to go straight to the new refills. I did find another partial bubble pack with a supplement for her eyes that had to be packed separately until the pharmacy got an official prescription for it, so I grabbed that.

Then I noticed a weekly pill case and checked it out.

Oh, dear.

THIS is why my mother is on med assist.

And why her medications will be going into a lock box.

I think I know what happened – or at least part of what happened.

Some time ago, the pharmacy had to change suppliers for one of her medications. The pill was a slightly different shade of the same colour. My mother decided that meant the pharmacy had changed her prescription. She stopped taking it for a while before we found out. The same thing happened with the split pill. For the longest time, they would split a particular pill for her, but they were eventually able to get it in the exact dose she needed, so they no longer had to split a pill. My mother thought that meant she was getting a higher dose.

When we found out she was taking her pills out of her bubble packs and picking and choosing which ones to take, because she thought her prescriptions had been changed by the pharmacy, we were eventually able to get her on med assist. Given just how many pills are in these containers, though, I am now wondering just how far back these go, or if she is still doing it. She complains that the home care aids don’t come to her place at the right times (meaning, when she is up and having her meals), so she’s been taking them before they arrive. She’s also been telling them not to come in the evenings and just set her before bed pills aside for her to take when she is ready, because she “doesn’t want to bother them”.

Well, that’s not going to be an option anymore.

More on that later.

I grabbed the containers of loose pills and brought them along, too.

When I got there, I was able to talk to the head pharmacist, who was the only person working the pharmacy today. I first confirmed that they got my mother’s updated prescriptions, which they did. He brought over several pages to go over with me! Most have stayed the same, so there wasn’t much to talk about with those, but he had two prescriptions for inhalers. Thankfully, I’d seen the inhaler the hospital had given her to use. He had two types, and she had a prescription for both. One, she’d gotten while she was at home, but hadn’t used it for quite some time before one of the home care aids was able to explain to her how to use it. The hospital doesn’t use that type, so they prescribed the type they did use.

We decided to go with the hospital one, as it will be easier for her to take. Whether or not she should even be on it anymore is questionable, since it turned out she had pulmonary edema, not asthma.

Something to talk about another time. She has only 4 weeks prescribed. I will have to get her to her primary caregiver (since she went ahead and tried to change doctors) soon, and she will have to have monthly appointments.

During the doctor’s visit, that came up. It seems there was an “administrative error” when her kidney function started to fail, then recovered so quickly after she was taken off the water pills. She should have been seeing a doctor monthly after that, to monitor he condition.

No one told us that.

It’s been about a year since she went through all this!

So that’s going to be one of my regular tasks, now. Getting my mother to the clinic every month to monitor her condition. Which is going to be really hard on her, physically! She isn’t even making it to church, across the street, but now she’s going to have to climb in and out of my truck, then walk to and from the clinic, labs, etc.?

I really hope they find a space for her in supportive living soon, because this is just too much for her!

Anyhow.

The new bubble packs will not be ready until tomorrow, so we will have to take care of getting them then.

Since I’d come out so early, I was planning to have lunch before meeting with my brother and SIL at Mom’s place. They were getting things done early, too, though, and we ended up arranging to meet at the Chinese restaurant for lunch, instead. They still had quite a bit of driving to do, though, so it was going to be some time before they arrived. Which was fine. I just took my time eating. This place is very generous in their portions, so it was going to take a while, anyhow!

The joys of going to a family restaurant. I ordered at the counter and included some won ton soup in my order. When it was ready, it was brought to my table by the most adorable child. I think she might have been 9 or 10 years old. She was so very careful carrying the bowl!

She was also our waitress! When my brother and SIL arrived, she was the one who came to take their orders, brought them to the table, etc. She did a fantastic job!

I’m glad we were able to have lunch together, as it gave us a chance to talk, catch up on things and co-ordinate what we’d be doing next.

That made getting things done at my mother’s place much more efficient, though it did still take us about an hour to get her apartment ready. They brought the lock box they’d ordered, but I’m not sure the bubble packs will fit in it. It they do, it will be by millimeters!

We cleared out most of what was in my mother’s fridge. There wasn’t much there, and it was more about getting rid of things that were stale, or just not really fresh, and replacing it with what they picked up at the grocery store in the city earlier. Some things, I took home for the outside critters.

Among the things they got for my mother were some heat and eat soups that we hope Mom can open more easily; some in cans, some in single serving cartons.

I’m sure my mother will find reasons to complain about them or refuse to eat them, because they are “different”, and not what she’s used to. Still, I hope we can convince her to at least try them!

The lock box is set up and ready for her bubble packs – if they fit – and we’ll have to make sure home care has the combination. They’ve ordered a slightly larger one, so if it’s too small, it can be soon replaced. When I call to give them the combination for my mother’s file, I’ll have to make sure to let the case coordinator know that, if home care can’t make it for some reason, it takes me about half an hour to get to my mother’s place, if I leave right away.

Before we parted ways, we changed tomorrow’s plan slightly. Instead of my SIL picking me up at home, then driving me back after we drop off my mother, I will meet her at my mother’s place. I’ll leave my truck there as we go together to get my mother, then I can drive myself home. That will save her about an hour of extra driving!

The main thing is, my mother’s place is ready for her. Everything is cleaned up and sorted and arranged, and she has enough groceries for a while. My SIL even baked her cookies that she can share if she has a neighbour over for tea – if we don’t make it clear that’s why she has them, she will complain about how she isn’t supposed to eat sweet things (even though she does anyway).

When we bring her home tomorrow, I’ll have to make sure to show her where I put some of the non-perishables and, with the single serving carton soups, explain to her what they are. I know she’ll have difficulty seeing and reading the labels.

We still don’t know about the Life Line she will be getting, as that is arranged by the home care department, even though this is an outside service my mother will have to pay for. My brother and SIL are pretty sure my mother will find the Life Line overwhelming. I don’t know enough about it to say, one way or the other, but apparently my SIL’s late mother had it and was overwhelmed by it, and she did not have any sort of cognitive issues.

We shall see.

I know my mother will be glad to get out of the hospital, even though she quite enjoyed being taken care of and having meals delivered to her, etc. I think she is starting to get quite bored! At the same time, none of us are happy that she’s being sent home, when she really needs to be in supportive living, at the very least.

Well, we deal with the hand we’ve been dealt with.

What else can we do?

The Re-Farmer

Planning ahead

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We are going to have a lot of running around over the next while! Thankfully, the weather looks like it’s going to be pretty good, even we are expected to have chillier days for the next while.

Clarence does not approve. I’m supposed to be available to cuddle him at all time, after all!

Today, I needed to run into town for several errands. The first was a trip to the pharmacy, to get refills for myself and for my daughter. Thankfully, her Pharmacare was processed, and she only had to pay under $5 for something that would have cost over $150! My pain killers, however, did not have a refill. I’m not out, yet, so they will send a fax to my new doctor, and they will be included win my husband’s prescription delivery, next week.

I need to remember to call the clinic and see if I can book an appointment for myself, piggy backing on my daughter’s appointment next week, to talk about the painkillers. They help, but not quite enough. Especially since I can take them only once a day.

The pharmacy needed time to get our refills together. Enough for me to hit the grocery store while it was being done. The main thing I needed to get was distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier. I’d forgotten to pick some up, the last time I was at Walmart. Locally, the price at the grocery store is almost double, so I just got one gallon. The pharmacy has distilled water, too, but it’s even more expensive than at the grocery store. I’ll pick up several more gallons when I’m at Walmart, later this week.

While I was at the grocery store, I spotted a new display with an amazing sale on bagged avocados, so I grabbed a couple of bags. Their sale on whole chicken was still going, so I grabbed another for the freezer. A whole chicken, by weight, cost around $10. Normally, these days, they are around $18.

I also grabbed something I could eat in the truck for breakfast, before going back to the pharmacy. I was early enough to pick up a couple more supplements I was running low on. I had intended to get those at Walmart, but the house brand’s price was very good, plus they also happened to be on sale, so it was actually cheaper to get them now.

Once done at the pharmacy, I went to visit with my mother before she had her lunch delivered. While there, I updated her on the plans we worked out last night, to get things ready in her apartment. My brother and SIL and I will meet at my mother’s apartment, and we’ll go through her fridge and cupboards to get rid of anything that should be. I gave my SIL a typical shopping list and she will be picking up fresh groceries for my mother. As I told her this, it gave me a chance to ask her if there was anything specific she wanted, and was able to pass that on to my SIL.

I told her that they were getting a lock box for her medications that should be in tomorrow morning, so we are meeting in the afternoon. I explained again that the home care aides would be able to get into the lock box but, if they don’t have someone available, they will call me and I will have to come over to give her her medications. She didn’t seem too happy with that, or the idea that she wasn’t going to be able to access her own prescription medications. I had to explain again, why her medications were going into a lock box, adding that she has said herself, that she’s starting to forget things. I could see she wasn’t impressed, but was going to let it go. She started to tell me something else…

… and forgot what she was going to say!

Once she realized what had just happened, we had a good chuckle over it.

My mother had one of her bubble packs with her that was almost full, and I know she has some partial ones at home, too. I took the one she had with her, so that I could take it and the ones she has at home, to the pharmacy, tomorrow. Most of her medications can be repacked into new bubble packs. The Home Care coordinator was going to deal with the pharmacy in regards to my mother’s medication changes, and get her file active again for Monday. Hopefully, they will have her new and up to date bubble packs ready, tomorrow, so I can take those for the lock box.

I explained to her again that she will be getting home care three times a day again, but the first visit of the day will be longer. She will have help with getting dressed and they can empty her commode for her, too. Her troubles with the commode was one of the things we remembered to bring up during the meeting with the doctor and the home care ladies.

I told her again about the Life Line she will be getting. She had forgotten entirely about that. Basically, I assured her that we will get everything at her apartment ready for when she comes home on Monday.

As for Monday, my SIL will be picking me up with one of their cars to get my mother home, which will be much easier for my mother than having her climb into my truck! Discharge time is at 11am, so we plan to be at the hospital for around 10am, so we have plenty of time to get her ready and pack up her things.

We then had time to just visit and chat. It turns out there are two other patients that she knows that are also in the hospital, and she was able to visit with them today. I’m glad she did. First, because it showed up much better she was feeling. Second, because the visits made them happy. An unexpected third is that it made my mother realize just how good she is actually doing. She is more than 10 years older than one of the ladies, and probably another 10 years older than the other. I know for sure that one of them will not be coming home. I don’t know why the other was is in the hospital. Then there’s my mother, who’s in her 90’s, and they’re sending her home, where she lives independently!

I really hope they can find an opening in supportive living for her, soon.

When my mother’s lunch was delivered, that was my cue to go. I just made sure all the lids were off her containers, and set everything up for her, before heading out. There was just one more stop for gas – one gas station was at $1.559/L, while the other two were at $1.579/L – then home.

My daughter was happy to get her medication, as she was almost out. The funny thing was, she had to get me to open the child-proof lids for her! She’s having to wear a wrist brace again, for having the audacity of using her left arm, yesterday. She has issues with ganglions. Something else she wants to talk to her doctor about! They’ve increasingly been a very painful problem. I remember that my sister used to get them, too. She ended up getting surgery, and never had a problem with them again. My daughter would really prefer NOT to have surgery, though! Ah, well. We shall see!

For today, at least, I’m done with running around. I’ll be out again tomorrow, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday is when we take Fluffy back to the vet. That is when her 2 weeks in isolation are up, too. We have not been able to touch her at all while she’s in the isolation shelter. Not even The Grink will let me touch him, though he does sometimes sniff at my fingers.

I have noticed something about them in the mornings, though. After I’ve finished my morning rounds, the last thing I do is pop back outside again with a can of wet cat food for them. I have noticed that after I’ve given them their kibble in the morning, they actually sit and watch me, in open anticipation, waiting for their wet cat food! We can only do this for the cats in the isolation shelter. Not only because there are just too many cats outside to regularly give them wet cat food, but also because anywhere else, the food would freeze. In the isolation shelter, the food area is in front of the heat lamp.

Midnight doesn’t know what he’s missing, by escaping the isolation shelter when he did! I did see him today, but not until this afternoon, after I got home.

I did have an unpleasant surprise in the garage when I got home, though. Thankfully, I did NOT drive over it. When I pull into the garage, there is a a moment when I am blinded, so I did not see the empty paint can and broken glass on the ground. !!!

We now have long wooden crates attached to one of the garage walls to create shelves. On top of one of them was one of our tool kits. That somehow got knocked off, and it hit some things on the way down, before landing upside down on a makeshift shelf we have on the ground. One of those things was a bin with light bulbs in it. That was upside down over the tool box, with light bulbs scattered all over. Some broken on and around the tool kit. Others were on the ground, right near where we give through to park! The empty can of isolation shelter paint was also knocked to the ground, along with odds and ends, like our paint stir sticks.

I was able to message the household about it, and my husband brought over a dustpan and hand broom for me while I picked things up and got rid of the broken bulbs and biggest pieces of glass. I was able to sweep the glass off the makeshift shelf, but the tiny pieces of broken glass in our dirt floor could only be swept aside, under the makeshift shelf.

If it weren’t for my habit of trying to part further to the right, so I have more room to open the driver’s side door all the way, I would have driven right over that paint can, the broken glass and probably at least one light bulb, and never seen it until after I got out of the truck.

I sure would have felt it, though!

There are definite issues with some of the yard cats using the garage as shelter. They go up into the rafters, where I’m sure it’s warmer.

We really need to go through the garage to sort and organize. It’s all pretty overwhelming, though. I’m not sure what half the stuff even is, or what might still be salvageable! Once we build more shelves into the walls, though, we’ll be in a better position to get things organized and cleaned up.

That’s a job for the summer, though!

We’ve got plenty that needs to be done between now and then, though.

It would be a huge help of the gas prices could go back down again. 🫤

The Re-Farmer

Well, I’m going to be busy for the next while

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We had quite a bit of snow come down overnight, so when I headed out for my morning rounds, I did a fair bit of shoveling. Not everything, as I had stuff to get done inside before heading out, but I got the main paths done so that I could at least get to the electricity meter for a reading, the garage and the trail cams. Yes, even the sign came. The snow was getting too deep to just slog through.

Yesterday, I switched the old trail cam there for the spare solar camera. I think it should have enough light, but if not, we can always switch the old camera back again – with fresh batteries. The new cameras have solar charged batteries that are the default, while regular AAs are used only if the solar charged batteries get drained. If all goes well, we won’t need to change batteries again for a very long time.

As I write this, we’re past 5:30pm, and we’re at -13C/7F. I think we hit -11C/12F today, which is warmer than was forecast. The wind chill, however, is at -25C/-13F, and I think it was colder than that while I was outside this morning.

The outside cats seem to be handling it quite well. I think I counted 29 this morning.

After they had their breakfast, I counted 7 of them in the cat cage. They really enjoy going into there! They can only use one side of the second level, though, as the piece of insulation that was a floor on one side got knocked down, even though it had been zip tied into place. The wire frame on there has openings 2″ square, so they can’t walk on it without something there.

Once inside, one of the things I wanted to do before I left was upload the trail cam files. As I was doing that, I started getting messages from my brother. They were already on the way to the hospital to visit with my mother, before the meeting with the doctor.

As for the trail cam files, I found myself uploading over 200 files on the sign cam! Usually, a busy day has only about a dozen. I forgot and set it for one still, then 10 second video, to that doubled the number of files from what I needed on that camera.

The first thing I noticed and appreciated is the difference the wider angle lens made. The entire sign is in the image, not just part of it, and even part of the main road going past us was in frame. As for the files, I found myself looking at lots and lots of files of nothing. I think the sensor may have been triggered by the tips of spruce branches above. That’s all I could see that could have been triggering it. So the next time I’m out there, I’ll have to switch it to stills only, then see if I can either lower the camera a bit, or try and tilt it downwards somehow, so the branches won’t trigger the motion sensor.

If that’s what’s doing it.

While that was going on, the snow started again, so I left more than an hour earlier than I originally planned. Even if I had to drive slower, I would get more time to spend with my brother and SIL.

I most definitely had to drive slower.

I did stop at the post office first to pick up a couple of parcels. I messaged my brother before I left to let them know I was on the way. Visibility wasn’t very good, but I could see a snow plow in the distance, so I knew they were at least getting that done.

The road itself had a lot of packed snow on it, and a lot more blowing snow. I had to slow down even more for oncoming traffic, as visibility dropped to almost nothing from the snow kicked up behind the vehicles.

Still, I got there in good time, and we had a very nice visit with my mother while we waited for the meeting. There was only one time it got very strange with my mother, when she made a comment about my brother and SIL that was a total shock. It’s like she basically just invented something in her mind that she believed they did, but it was completely untrue. We never did figure out where it came from!

As for the meeting, it started late, as they gave my mother a chance to finish her lunch. We had the doctor that’s been treating my mother, plus two people from different areas within the home care department.

One of the things the doctor had brought up with my brother and SIL (I never saw him before today, so I never had a chance to talk to him) was concerns about my mother’s heart. We found this odd, as my mother has complained about her heart for many years, had been seeing a cardiologist until just after we moved out here. I was there for her last appointment with him and, while she did have an irregular heartbeat (as do I), he was not concerned and said her heart was really healthy. We eventually figured out the pains she thought were heart attacks were actually heartburn. She’d also been complaining about her breathing for years, too. Only recently did she say that things were feeling different, but she didn’t have the vocabulary to tell me how.

My brother asked the doctor about my mother’s heart, and he went into an explanation about what a fib is, which we knew, but that was okay. Different doctors have different ways of explaining things. He also brought up about the edema as being related. My mother doesn’t need a pacemaker, though – we made sure to ask before the appointment if she would be okay with one, if the doctor recommended it, and she’d said yes.

Then my brother asked about the results of the ultrasound they’d sent her to the city for. They tested the efficiency of her heart.

It was fine. Well withing acceptable ranges. In fact, her heart is working more efficiently than my SIL and my husbands, but a substantial percentage.

Oh, and as far as the doctor was concerned, my mother could go home today.

We disagreed.

We talked some more about my mother wanting to go into long term care, which she is not unhealthy enough for, or supportive living. This is where the home care people were the ones to talk to.

I brought up that we’d started this process some times ago. I mentioned she’d had an EKG and chest X-rays done as part of that process, and her heart and lungs were fine, just a few months ago. The doctor was surprised to hear that. We were surprised to find out that the the supportive living coordinator had found the paperwork to panel my mother was sitting on someone’s desk…

… since October.

We got the impression someone was going to get chewed over about that!

So they are going to push that process through. However, it could take months before there is an opening.

After much more discussion, we came up with a plan of action.

My mother will be discharged on Monday, which is when everything should be set up and ready for her.

Home care will still come three times a day, but the morning visit will be longer, to assist my mother with getting dressed.

The case coordinator is going to talk to the pharmacy about the changes in my mother’s medications, and get her file active again.

My mother’s medications will go into a lock box, which we have to provide. The home care aids will know the combination, as will my brother and I, but my mother will not. This will mean that, if no one is able to come to my mother’s for a med assist for some reason (which happens sometimes), I will have to go to my mother’s to give her her medications. In explaining to my mother about this, she did say, “sometimes, I forget things…” She definitely recognizes her own decreased cognitive abilities. Which is good; she’s not in any sort of denial about it.

My mother will also be getting a Lifeline to wear around her neck. If she starts to have trouble breathing again, or the swelling returns, she’s to get to a hospital right away. With this, she can just press a button and help will be on the way. Or, if she has a fall, it will automatically trigger a call for assistance.

All of this has to be done over the next few days. Then, on Monday, I will go to the hospital to take her home.

She is also supposed to go to the doctor for bloodwork once a month, to monitor her.

It’s not the best situation for her, but we have no other options right now. She doesn’t need to be in the hospital anymore, and they can’t take her straight to supportive living.

After the doctor and the home care people left, we went over everything with my mother again. She didn’t quite understand all of it. We had to tell her – again – that when an opening in supportive living comes up, to take it, even if it’s not where she wants to be. Once she’s in the system, she is going to have an easier time to get to where she actually wants to be, which is the long term care facility not far from the hospital she’s in. It may take months to get her into supportive living, but it could take years to get her into long term care.

That done, we said our goodbyes to my mother, then the three of us went out for our own lunch (breakfast, for me!) so we could talk things over. My brother is going to get the lock box for our mother’s medications. I’ll be taking her home on Monday. We had lots to talk about in general, though. We’re all really frustrated that she’s going home at all, but there’s nothing we can do about that. My mother is ready to leave the hospital, but she’s worried about being on her own. The Life Line will be a help, but even that might overwhelm her. My father had one before he went to the nursing home, but he kept tucking it under his undershirt to keep it from moving around, which rather defeats the purpose of it being able to trigger a call for help if he fell down! With my mother, I can see her simply taking it off when she goes to bed, or simply because she feels it’s in the way.

Ah, well. We’ll work it out!

After we parted ways, I made a stop at the grocery store. I remembered to bring our empty water jugs for refills, and my daughter sent funds for some extra groceries.

While I was away, my younger daughter finished shoveling the paths, and also shoveled the driveway! She didn’t do the turn around space in the yard (which is more than the driveway needed). Tomorrow, I’ll have to break out little Spewie and do the yard. I actually started to get stuck in the snow, trying to turn and back up to the house!

In other things, I now have a “new” cell phone. My husband upgraded, and now I have his old phone. Mine is a Galaxy S22, and his is an S23. (I forget what his new one is, but it’s also in the S series) The main thing for me is that, while I still can’t add a memory card for extra storage space, it has 500g. My current phone has only 124g. Since I tend to use it a lot for photos and videos, I would run out of space quickly.

My husband transferred my data to my “new” phone. Now I have to set it up the way I want it. I’m already having a hard time of it, as I can’t find where the apps are to add the ones I want to my screen.

Oh, I almost forgot.

Before going to the grocery store, I stopped at the garage to book the truck in. I kept forgetting to text or phone!

I booked an appointment to get the tire with the slow leak’s valve replaced. It wasn’t until I pulled into our driveway when I realized…

I booked for Monday.

I’m taking my mother home on Monday!

So I quickly texted him, and I’m now booked for Wednesday.

While I was talking to him, I brought up about the check engine light and the oil pressure gauge. He had been thinking about how best to address the situation, so he asked me when I needed to get an oil change done next. The truck’s onboard computer has me at 60% or so, so I could go for a while longer, but I want to get it done earlier, and was thinking of next month. He was glad to hear that, and told me what he had in mind, for what that’s done. The issue is that moisture has gotten into the system and is really hard to get rid of. So what he will do is flush the engine out after the old oil is removed, replace the sensor, since it would have moisture in it, too, and then put in the fresh oil. That should finally resolve the issue.

Which means that next week, I’ll be taking my mother home on Monday, getting the truck to the garage on Wednesday to take care of the tire with the slow leak,, then I’m taking Fluffy back to the vet on Thursday for a follow up appointment.

The week after that, my mother has her appointment at the eye clinic on Wednesday, and my daughter has a doctor’s appointment on Thursday.

The following week, the last week of the month, my daughter has an ultrasound in the middle of the week, and we will work our two stock up shopping trips after that.

Finally, on the first week of March, I’ve got the truck going back in for the engine flush and oil change. That, on it’s own, will cost about $350 before taxes.

Meanwhile, somewhere in there, I’ll be doing my mother’s shopping and errands once she is home. I expect to do some grocery shopping for her on the day I bring her home, but probably at least one more before the end of the month. We’ll be sure to start her Meals on Wheels up again, too.

I keep wanting to do as little driving as possible in the winter.

This month, I think I’m going to be doing the most longer-distance driving since we moved out here!

Of course, the gas prices have gone up again. In town, I saw $1.559 and $1.569 when just a few days ago, I saw prices at $1.449 and $1.459

*sigh*

Well, we do what we have to do.

What other choice do we have?

The Re-Farmer

Finally! Costco! This is what $777 looks like

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I did NOT want to go out today.

The temperature of -27C/-17F stayed for most of the morning. Only the wind chill fluctuated. The screen cap above was taken just before I headed outside, so it was still -35C/-31F at the time.

I did short rounds, but I also made sure to get the truck running and check it over. The one tire was still looking low, even though I’d topped it up not all that long ago. The gas station pump I used really sucked, though, so I wasn’t too surprised that it was. I fired up the compressor to top up all the tires. The truck was plugged in and started fine, but the compressor was not enjoying running in these cold temperatures!

Last night I got a call from the gentleman from my mother’s church that had been helping her out the day she went into the ER. He still had her walker. I don’t know where he got my number from, but I’m glad he did. My mother had told me his name, and my brother had tried looking it up in the church director, but couldn’t find him.

It turned out, that wasn’t his name.

My Mom couldn’t pronounce his French name, so she was using an English version!

Yesterday, I’d cleared the end of the driveway from the gate to the road, which is where it tends to drift. The main thing was to clear the old plow ridge that now had more snow drifted over it. Then I cleared in front of the garage. I kept telling myself not to push it, but I do enjoy shoveling a lot, and just kept going!

My daughters took care of all the evening stuff once I got in, because I was really stiffening up! I would have stayed home today to recover, but then we started getting weather warnings. We’re supposed to get snow all day tomorrow, and into the next day. It was either go to the city today, or I probably wouldn’t manage it for at least two days.

I did wait before heading out, as I had a package to pick up at the post office. I called the gentleman with my mother’s walker to let him know I could stop by today, then headed out.

Only to discover that the post office opened a half hour later today.

I was only 15 minutes early, but I wasn’t going to wait around.

So, off I went to get my mother’s walker. The gentleman lives in the building where the Meals on Wheels are prepared, as well as meals for residents.

Wow, did it smell good when I walked in!

I found his apartment and had a nice chat with him and his wife before heading out. There was someone with a hair net in the lobby as I was reaching the door, so I asked if she was one of the Meals on Wheels cooks. She said yes, so I made sure to tell her just how much my mother enjoyed their meals. It turned out she knew my mother, so I updated her a bit on how my mother is doing.

My next stop was my mother’s apartment. I found some mail under her door, and a notification from the public housing department, saying that there would be a fire and safety inspection coming up. I don’t think my mother will be back for that. Hopefully, she won’t be back at all, as she really wants to be in long term care, and I’d hope to at least get her into assisted living, if long term care can’t be managed.

I grabbed a few items for my mother. Her daily devotions book that she has read and re-read so many times, it’s held together with duct tape. I know she likes to have a candle while saying her prayers, and there was an LED candle in an adorable mini bird cage on her table, so I grabbed that. It took me a while, but I found her rosary, too.

Once I was sure everything was good, and her plant was watered, I headed to the town my mother is in. I did stop to get $40 of gas first, though. The price was $1.459 there and the last time I was in the other town, they were still at $1.499. I didn’t fill, though, as I planned to do that at Costco.

When I got to the hospital and my mother’s door with her walker, I found it closed completely, which is unusual. Just in case, I went to the nurse’s desk to make sure my mother hadn’t been moved to another room. She was not, so I headed back.

As I was walking down the hall, I saw a young man walking towards me that was looking very, very familiar. It was my nephew! I haven’t seen him in ages. He does live in this province, but about 2 hours away, and works nights, to it’s rather difficult to connect. We had a nice chat before we had to part ways.

When I got to my mother’s room again and knocked, there was no answer. I went in and found the bathroom door closed, so I set up the stuff I brought for her on her little table. She could hear someone was there, so I let her know it was me. When she came out, she was using the hospital walker, which is too tall for her. She was very happy to see her own walker, and immediately wanted to switch!

Then she saw what I’d brought for her and…

… started lecturing me on how she has too many things. She’s only there temporarily. She only prays the rosary when taking communion, and she’s going home in a few days.

What????

I asked about it, and she told me they were going to be sending her home on Thursday. We have a meeting with the doctor on Thursday, so she said they would probably send her home after that.

Which did not make sense to me at all.

I didn’t ask more about it, though, and we had ourselves a short visit. I explained to her that I had to go into the city next, because we’re expecting more snow tomorrow. It was a good visit, overall. My mother is looking better, but she says she doesn’t have much energy.

For someone that’s 93 years old, though, she is still a dynamo! People far younger than her have a hard time keeping up.

As I was leaving, I did stop at the nurse’s desk again and asked about her being sent home on Thursday. The receptionist looked at her files, and there was nothing about that. Just the meeting with the doctor. We have no idea why she thought otherwise, but she told me she would tell the nurse about it so she could let my mother know she will NOT be going home on Thursday.

From there, it was off to the city, which was about an hour’s drive. Once I got close to the Costco, I stopped at a mall to have lunch at the food court. I’d only had a banana for breakfast, so I was getting pretty hungry! I ended up going to an A&W for a single Mozza burger (it’s been so long since I’ve had one, I forgot I usually ask for a double), onion rings and a medium drink. That cost $17.43! I can’t remember exactly how many years it’s been (4, maybe 5, years), but the last time I ate at A&W and had the double Mozza meal, it was less under $12.

*sigh*

From there, it was off to the Costco, where I first filled the tank. Their prices were $1.379 While I’d already put in $40, which put me at 3/4 of a tank, I’d done enough driving that it cost $56.39 to fill the tank.

Even with the cheaper Costco gas, it cost me a total of $96.39 to fill my tank today!

Then it was time to grab a flat card and to the shopping.

This is what $777.06 looks like.

Some things, like the Monster energy drinks, my older daughter already sent me funds for. A few other things on their shopping list will be paid back later.

This is what I got today.

The top item is granulated garlic powder, which was at least a couple of dollars more expensive than the last time I bought it at Costco! The Goodhost Iced Tea is a better prices that most places, though still higher than it was a couple of years ago.

I got the Kirkland brand mayonnaise, as it’s cheaper than the Hellmans we used to get. The Basmati right is one of the best prices for the size of the bag. Coconut oil (an item from my daughter’s list) is also much cheaper at Costco than elsewhere.

The AA batteries were on sale, at least, though they have a pretty high eco fee on top!

The brown sugar (or, should I say, yellow sugar) is a really good price compared to elsewhere. The Irish Spring soap is a pack of 20 and will last us for months. My daughter buy their own fancier bar soap. My husband are fine with the cheap stuff, and these are the cheapest Costco has that I could see.

The salad kits are each 2 packs. Most places are almost that price for just one.

The tilapia fillets are for the girls. I’m glad I picked up meats when I found good sales earlier, because my budget wasn’t enough for more meats today.

The B100 vitamins are what my new doctor wants me on instead of just B12. The Magnesium, I take for restless legs, and I’d run out of those. I forgot to pick up more Zinc, though. I ran out of that, this morning.

For block cheese, I got mozzarella and old cheddar. I also got 2 panini packs for sandwiches. The 4 pack of Pronamel is the brand my daughters prefer. I got a big box of spaghetti, because it was the cheapest pasta. We normally get a variety pack, but not today. The 4 pack of frozen perogies have been steady in price for a while now, though they used to be under $10 for many years.

The stuff I left on the cart includes a flat of Coke Zero for my husband and I. There is also their bulk package of Ramen noodles. I picked up a 9 pack of canned beans; that price has actually gone down again! The oat milk is a 3 pack of 2L cartons for my lactose intolerant daughters. I forget how many cans are in the flat of Monster drinks, but that’s being split three ways. Then there are the puppy pads and toilet paper. Yes, I did get more cat food! Not as many dry kibble bags as I usually would have gotten; the donations are a huge help! While we do still have lots of donated canned cat food, they’re all the same flavour, so I got two variety pack cases of 48 to give them some variety. Last of all in the flat cart was 5 pounds of butter.

Next, we have a 1L carton of whipping cream, which costs more then $7 in other places. The sour cream is a 2 pack of 250ml. They don’t seem to carry the 500ml containers anymore. That and the cream cheese is a very good price compared to elsewhere.

I only got one 2pk of rye bread, a 10 pound bag of potatoes and a double flat of eggs. Normally, I would have gotten more rye bread, plus wraps, but I was pretty much at my budget limit for today, by this time.

So we have $777.06 for the Costco purchases. Add in the gas and my lunch, and my grand total for today was $890.88

Ouch.

And I didn’t even get everything on my list. Aside from not getting wraps at Costco today, other items will require trips to either a Walmart (where I have to go to correct being overcharged, last time) or an international food store.

I’m glad I got this done today, though, even though I really paid for it. On the way home, I stopped at the post office to pick up a parcel. In the hour the drive took, I discovered my entire body had stiffened up, and I was hobbling to get into the building. It got less painful once I limbered up, but it did hit me by surprise when I got out of the truck! I thought I’d been doing pretty good until then.

Once at home, my daughter and I unloaded and got things put away, just in time for a phone call I was expecting from my brother. I’d been keeping them up to date on things with my mother by message. They were on the way to see her, and I was able to give him more details over the phone. They wanted to get a visit in before the snow hit, too!

Looking at the forecast now, the show is supposed to reach us by 10pm tonight, now, and keep snowing until about midnight tomorrow. So the timing of it has sifted earlier by a few hours. Which I’m good with, since the day after tomorrow, I need to get to the hospital for that meeting with the doctor about my mother!

My brother and his wife will be driving home in the dark, but should be home well before the snow hits, and the highways were nice and clear today.

Why does all the medical stuff have to happen in the winter? It never seems to happen in the summer! 😄

In the end, it was a longer day with extra driving, but my mother has her walker, we got a visit in, and we got our Costco stock up shopping finally done.

Which makes it a very good day!

The Re-Farmer

Skipped it!

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Today, I did NOT go to the city for our Costco stock up trip. I just wasn’t up to it.

This morning was bitterly cold, so I made sure to run the truck and do a scan to make sure it’s still just that sensor turning on the check engine light.

My first stop of the day was my mother’s place to find some clothes to bring to her at the hospital. I’m happy to say, the road conditions were very good, at least!

When I went into my mother’s apartment, the first thing I noticed was the smell of urine. Not overpowering, but very noticeable. So one of the first things I did was check her commode. Sure enough, it had not been emptied. So I took care of that.

After cleaning that up, I went into her kitchen, where I found there had been some food left out. It was covered, and was probably intended to be her supper after the appointment she never came home from. So I had to throw a few things away, then did her dishes. Her fridge was mostly empty – she was definitely ready for a grocery shopping trip, but never told me! – so there wasn’t much to take care of, there. I even remembered to water her single plant. 😁

Then I went looking for her “hospital bag”. She has been using a soft sided, insulated grocery bag for this, probably because it had a zipper closure. Way too small, but at least it would have had some of the stuff she intended to bring, if she found herself going to the ER from home again.

I didn’t find it. I think I found the bag, folded up and put away with other reusable grocery bags, but not what she’d had prepared.

I ended up going to my truck to get a hard sided grocery bag to use, instead. Anything I used had to be very light, which is why she wouldn’t use the very nice (and probably quite expensive) little suitcase my brother got for her to pack for any hospital stays.

As I was trying to figure out where my mother kept her things, I started to hear this very strange noise. A quiet, musical noise.

Coming out of my pocket.

My cell phone was ringing. I almost never use my cell phone as a phone, and even rarely get calls to me on it, so I had no idea what I was hearing! 😂

The call turned out to be from my sister, so I rejected the call, then sent a quick apology text telling her I was in the middle of getting clothes for our mother. When I had a moment, I saw she had left a voicemail message, which I can listen to through my text app, so I did.

She was asking me if I was planning on getting closed for our mother! Too funny.

I had to go through a number of shelves and drawers, as well as her closet, to gather what I thought she would need. Then I found a bag for her toiletries. I considered bringing her bubble packs, but she was almost done – she would have been getting her new bubble packs delivered today, if she were home – so I left them for now.

Eventually, I gathered several changes of clothing and sleepwear (I found her undies stored in a small garbage can! ???) and packed them up. Before heading to town, I paused to get a bit of gas – the prices were $1.479, while in the smaller city yesterday, it was $1.439 – and some food I could eat while driving, then headed to the town my mother is in.

By this time, I’d already decided I wasn’t up to going to the city after visiting my mother. We’re stocked up well enough right now that it isn’t urgent, and I didn’t want to rush my visit with her.

They had told me what room she was in, and that’s where I headed first, only to have someone tell me there was no one in that room. On getting my mother’s name, she looked her up and told me they’d moved her to the opposite end of the hall! The hospital only as 20 or so rooms, all down one hall, so I would have found her eventually, I suppose.

My mother didn’t look very good when I walked in, though. She was sitting on the side of her bed, leaning on the table and holding a cloth over her eyes. She was looking very tired!

She cheered right up when she saw me, though – and even more when I told her I brought clothing for her! I found out that they had only just moved her to this room, too. The room she was in before was a shared room, so after they did another EKG on her today, they moved her to a private room.

That was nice of them!

I’d barely settled into a chair to visit with her when there was a knock at the door, and my sister walked in! She hadn’t seen my message yet, but said she figured I was probably driving to do exactly what she was asking me about. It was my cousin that had phoned my sister, asking about bringing clothes for my mother.

I’m actually a bit upset with my sister, so be honest, but we weren’t going to talk about it in front on my mother. My sister told our vandal that Mom was in the hospital, and he had come to visit Mom pretty much right away. His wife was with him, at least. I found out about the visit through my brother, who was able to visit that same evening. My mother told my brother that our vandal had started talking smack my brother, until Mom started crossing herself repeatedly, and he stopped. I honestly didn’t think our vandal would be up to visiting, since he supposedly just had major, life threatening cancer surgery, but for someone who is supposedly dying of cancer, he’s pretty darn active. He did, however, tell my cousin about Mom being in the hospital, and she’s visited several times already. The hospital is right next to the church we went to when I was a kid, and my cousin is very involved with it, so it’s a simple matter for her to pop over. She even let the priest know, and he came to give my mother communion, which she really appreciated. Unfortunately, my cousin has also been sucked in by our vandal’s claims and has caused other problems as well, so this is not really a good thing, even though my mother enjoys the visits.

My sister and I had a good long visit with my mother. Honestly, I would have probably left earlier, but after what my sister did re: our vandal, I didn’t want to leave them alone together. What a terrible way to have to think! She seems utterly oblivious, though, and even mentioned how happy our vandal was that she told him Mom was in the hospital. Yes, she was like a mother to him, too, but she knows what he’s been doing over the past few years!

Well, it is what it is, and we just have to deal with things as they come.

Meanwhile, we were at least able to help my mother change to a fresh clean shirt. She complained about the lack of a scarf, as she finds it helps her throat, so I went to the truck to see if I had one in our winter clothing bin. I didn’t, but I did have a shawl I’d crocheted that she could drape over her shoulders and around her neck, if she wanted. While I was doing that, I had a chance to talk to her nurse and let them know that my mother was having difficulty changing her clothes – something she mentioned to my brother – but is too proud to bring up with the nursing staff. She “doesn’t want to bother them”.

She had several visits with nursing staff while we were there, and found out a few things being changed with her treatment, so it was a good thing I didn’t bring her bubble packs. The hospital is giving her her medication from their own supply for now, and the doctor is trying her on some new medications, as the old ones don’t seem to be working anymore.

Eventually, though, I could see my mother was getting very tired, so I suggested it was time for us to leave and let her rest. I walked my sister out, but she parked in a very different area, so after we parted ways, I went back to the entrance closer to where I parked.

Which gave me a chance to stop at the nursing station and let them know about our vandal, if he visits again. As long as his wife is with him, he should be okay, but they know that he is never to be with her, unsupervised. She took notes so the other staff would be aware.

Then I remembered something my brother asked me to tell my mother, and went back to see her. Basically, to let her know that if anyone tries to get her to sign something, to tell them to talk to my brother, or to me, first. She’s had people try to coerce her into signing things before – including both our vandal and my cousin – so I made sure to add that if *anyone* tried to get her to sign something, tell them to call my brother or me, first.

Gosh, I hate having to think like this. My mother, however, greatly appreciated the reminder.

By this time, it was getting to be late in the afternoon. Since I didn’t go to the city, I made a quick stop at the grocery store for a couple of things, then headed home.

It was late enough that, once things were unloaded and put away (no need to drive up to the house to unload, this time!), I gave the outside cats their evening feed and warm water.

Fluffy and The Grink were cuddled together on the cat bed in front of the heat lamp, which was nice to see. I also spotted a pink collar on a black cat among the crowd in the sun room, so Midnight has returned. I had to be sneaky about it, but managed to get a quick peak at his nethers. Just enough to confirm no sign of infection.

I had been keeping my brother up to date, to a certain extent. He and my SIL were driving out to visit my mother this evening, so he called while they were driving, so I could update them both on speakerphone.

After all the updated, I had one unrelated thing to bring up with my brother.

A recent, strange thudding sound I’ve been hearing that seems to be coming from the furnace.

It’s almost random. The only pattern I can see is that it starts happening after the furnace has been on for a while, though when the furnace turns off, I usually hear one last thump. Stranger still is that I’ve heard the thumping even when the furnace has not been on for some time. Yet it still seems to be coming from the furnace.

We have two furnaces. There’s the wood burning furnace, that can no longer be used. My brother had to seal the door with metal strapping and send the insurance company pictures as proof, otherwise, they would not have insured the house. When the new roof was installed, the old chimney for the wood furnace was removed at the top, and the opening sealed.

The other furnace is electric, and attached to the wood furnace. This way, if the fire died down in the wood furnace and it got cold, it would automatically switch to the electric furnace, which sends the warm air through the wood burning furnace to use the same ducts. This meant my dad wouldn’t have to go into the basement during the night to load the wood burning furnace anymore and, eventually, he just used the electric. So we have two thermostats on the wall, too. The one for the wood burning furnace is off, and we just use the one for the electric furnace.

With this new thumping noise, I am very perplexed. I’ve even started to try dashing (ha! As much as I can dash) to the basement, in hopes that the noise would happen again while I’m down there.

I have yet to hear it while I’m in the basement.

I’ve tried looking up possible causes, but none apply to our furnace. Some applied to gas furnaces, not electric. Others applied to a belt motor, but this one doesn’t have a belt. Other possibilities mentioned the sound happening when the furnace first starts, and this noise happens after the furnace has been running for a while. Etc.

I am totally perplexed.

As I described it to them and answered their questions, they were equally perplexed.

In the end, the one thing my brother could think of was to remove the chain from the damper on the old furnace. The old furnace has its own internal thermostat, which can’t really be turned off, so it might be acting up and trying to open the damper or something. It seems unlikely, but we can’t think of anything else.

So I’ve done that. I’ve since turned the electric furnace’s thermostat back up again a bit, so it’ll turn on sooner.

~~~ pause for the noise happening again ~~~

Okay, I think we figured it out.

I kept going into the basement to listen to the noise, only for it to happen after I’ve gone back upstairs. In fact, just as I reached the top of the stairs.

I finally got my daughter to walk around while I was downstairs.

It’s the floor. The floor joist (it’s all exposed) is in direct contact with the metal at the top of the furnace.

My daughter even found a spot to make the noise happen repeatedly, but it doesn’t seem to be just one spot. It happened while I was moving around in front of the doorway to my husband’s bedroom. The subfloor boards are diagonal, so I could simply have been standing on a different spot over the same board.

Which means, when I’m hearing it go off, it has nothing to do with the furnace being on. It might actually just be one of the heavier cats walking past the basement door, or even the floor shifting with temperature changes. The house shifting might also explain why it’s happening now, when it hadn’t happened before.

That is NOT what I expected at all.

I’ve got to tell my brother about this!

That is just the strangest thing ever.

Now I have to wonder if the floor shifting – sagging? – can actually damage the furnace!

Good grief, this house has some of the strangest problems creep up!

Time to go update my brother!

The Re-Farmer

Not a stock up trip: this is what $262 looks like, ER visit and nasty road conditions (unrelated!)

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My goodness, how things can change in a short time!

Today was supposed to be my day to do our first stock up shopping trip in the city. There’s one major street with several stores I go to that are all conveniently in a row. I save the Costco shopping for another trip.

Then I got a phone call yesterday, late afternoon.

Against our advice, my mother had made an appointment with the doctor in the hospital clinic near her place. They have one doctor that comes in one day a week. That appointment was yesterday afternoon, and a friend from church was driving her. We’ve advised against it as we’ve started the process to try and get her into long term care, and switching doctors could slow that down, but we can’t stop her if she decides otherwise. When she told me about the appointment, I just asked her to call me after and let me know if she had officially switched doctors, so I could call home care and let them know. The only reason she’d told me about it was because I’d called her to pass on a message from the home care coordinator! She had just gotten home from the walk in clinic when I called. She was having issues with her breathing again, which she says has been getting worse. From what I’ve seen the last couple of times I’ve been with her, it definitely has, though she still says it’s the worst when she’s lying down in bed. Apparently, they didn’t actually see her, but made an appointment for the next day.

I didn’t get a call from my mother.

I got a call from the ER in the hospital in her town, instead.

She’d gone to the clinic, but it turned out the appointment was with a nurse practitioner, because the doctor wasn’t there that day. After checking on her and hearing her complaints, he sent her to the ER. They were treating her on the assumption of heart failure, based on the symptoms she described, which she told them she’d had for only a couple of weeks.

She’s been complaining about these symptoms for longer than we’ve been back in this province.

I spoke to the nurse for a while, as my mother was having difficulties remembering her medical history. She asked about the contact numbers they had on file, so I also let them know that I was the nearest of my siblings and to call me first but, if things got to such a point, my brother is PoA, so he would be the one to call for decision making authority. Since this hospital doesn’t have a doctor, they were in the process of doing an EKG, and where then going to transfer her to the nearest ER.

An ER with a doctor.

She mentioned the two most likely ER location possibilities, one of which my mother would probably refuse to go back to, so I filled in about that, too, and why. After we spoke, she told me she would call back once they knew where she would be going.

Which turned out to be the hospital we are closest to.

So much of my evening was spent keeping on top of things and updating my siblings. By the final call I made to the hospital my mother was transferred to, it was concluded that my mother had pulmonary edema.

I had remembered and made sure to call them earlier about the kidney function issues my mother had, some time ago, and this was why she was no longer on water pills. By then, they’d already figured it out.

Pulmonary edema certainly explain her breathing problems!

So my plans changed for today. I was originally going to go to the post office for some packages that came in yesterday, then head towards town to take a particular highway straight into the city and the street with the stores I meant to go to. Instead, I would go to into town to see my mother at the hospital (after phoning to confirm where she was and what room she was assigned to), then go to the city.

After our very warm day, followed by a colder one yesterday, I started seeing all sorts of reports for poor highway conditions, today. All that melting resulted in roads that were icy and snow packed. Today was supposed to be a bit warmer again, but the high winds were back, so now there was blowing snow on top of everything else.

At that point, I was going to decide whether I would go to the city or not, based on what the conditions were like when I got to the hospital to see my mother.

The east-west road to town was not too bad; there were icy patches. Enough to drive below the speed limit, but nothing too excessive – until I got closer to town, when it was all ice.

Then I got to the junction for the highway I would have been taking to go to the city.

It was barricaded in one direction with vehicles, warning cones, people in high viz vests, and a sign saying “emergency scene ahead”. Wherever the emergency scene was, though, it was too far away to see from this intersection. The cross roads are every mile, so that’s not surprising.

My brother was talking about visiting my mother after work, if the roads were safe, so once I parked at the hospital, I updated my siblings on road conditions, as well as posting on the highway conditions group I’m on.

As for my mother, though she has been admitted, she was still in their ER and not yet transferred to her room. They had just finished doing another series of tests on her.

She’s actually doing really well.

She was still wired for EKG; they just need to plug her in for the next test. She had an IV port, but no IV. They’d given her the IV version of her old water pills, and she was already feeling a difference. They’re going to do bloodwork repeatedly to figure out what’s going on with her. She expects to be there for just a few days, though typically, someone admitted with her symptoms would be there for a week.

We had a good visit, and I told her I’ve been keeping my siblings up to day. I also told her about my brother hoping to visit this evening, if road conditions are safe, but they didn’t seem to be. I even checked again while she went to the washroom and found more recent updates from people saying how icy the conditions were on the highways.

As for that accident scene, it turned out a couple of miles of highway was shut down, and the medical helicopter from the city had to be brought in!

My mother said she was just fine without any visits!!

I had already decided by then that I would NOT be going to the city. I’m going to be in the nearer city tomorrow, after dropping the cats off at the vet, anyhow, so I can do most of the stock up shopping there.

After having a good visit with my rather indestructible mother (seriously. She’s amazing), I headed to the local grocery store, instead. I was just going to pick up a few things to tide us over and then head home.

Well, I ended up going an almost stock up trip. I took advantage of a lot of sales.

This is what $262.32 looks like.

Quite a lot of stuff is buried and can’t be seen in the photo.

Because of all the sales, I found myself with a ridiculously long receipt, and had to take two pictures to make it manageable. Here’s the top half.

The cat food was one necessity. We’ve still got feed store kibble, but the inside cats will not eat it! Even the outside cats don’t like this particular brand of feed store kibble, though they do like the other brand this feed store carries. So I got two 8kg bags of house brand kibble, which was a lot more affordable. Hopefully, the cats will actually eat it!

The Basmati rice is for my husband, as we’re low and that’s usually a Costco item. He does love his rice!

My daughter requested and sent funds for energy drinks. The cases of 4 were on sale, so I got two. At Costco, I will pick up a flat for her. The Coke Zero is for my husband and I.

My husband requested nacho fixings and there were sales on, so I got four bags of nacho chips, in hopes to have enough unbroken chips to make a decent sized batch of nachos! The salsa dip is for him as well.

I even remembered to grab garlic powder, as we ran out.

The pre-sliced olives were for the nachos. The canned fruit cocktail was a good sale, so I picked those up as a pantry treat.

I don’t normally buy cereal, but do pick it up as a treat when it’s on sale. Two boxes are in flavours my daughters like, two for my husband and I.

I got a flat of eggs, because we always need eggs. The blocks of cheese were on sale, so I got one regular and one lactose free. We still had cheese at home, but since we’re making nachos, we’ll be using up a lot more than usual in a short time.

I got only 1 pound of butter because it was on sale. I’ll pick up the month’s supply at Costco.

Since we got cereal, I got more regular milk and oat milk. The frozen perogies were another sale item that also got me extra points on my Scene card. The rice crackers were for my husband. It doesn’t show, but those were on sale, as was the bag of McIntosh apples and the baby spinach.

The bacon was also on sale, plus there was a points bonus, so I got two packages. Same with the hot dog wieners. Which means I had to get hot dog buns, which were not on sale. It amazes me that the buns cost more than the wieners! I picked up a couple of loaves of Texas Toast bread, so I got some sliced meats for sandwiches. They are “pizza” meats, but they’ll make good sandwiches, too.

I also picked up more dips for the nachos that my daughters and I like; a 6 layer dip and an artichoke asiago dip.

That made my bill a total of $262.32 after taxes for 43 items, while my total discounts and savings was $57.66, for a 19% savings. I also earned 1230 points with just this trip, which more than doubled my balance. I save the points for times when getting cash off my groceries will be an extra help. As of right now, I could get $20 off, but I’ll save that for a tighter month.

So I ended up getting more than planned, with a lot of things I don’t get very often. We could easily go for some time without a full stock up trip, but after I drop off the cats at the vet tomorrow, I will be close to both a Walmart and a Canadian Tire, which is where I will get specific stock up items without the big city trip. I had been looking forward to going to the international grocery store in the city, as today is the last day for some promotions and sales, but I’ll just have to miss them this time. The Costco trip might be on Friday, or on the weekend.

As for tomorrow, I’m really hoping the roads improve, because there is no way I’m skipping getting the cats to the vet. The rescue set this up for us, and I’d hate to be a no-show. The Cat Lady would understand, but the vet gets so many no-shows, they’ve had to start banning people from their cheap spay days for it. I don’t want to get the Cat Lady in trouble with one of the few vets that gives her such decent discounts! Plus, I will be meeting the Cat Lady, then later on will meet with someone from a feral and stray cats group that has some donated cat food for us.

I would normally live an hour before drop off time, even though it typically takes 45-55 minutes to get to the nearer city, but with potentially bad road conditions, I will plan on leaving even earlier.

I just really hope we can catch either Brussel or the fluffy lady – the ones I am sure are pregnant right now. Sprout has shown up again and had the boys following her around. The last time I saw her, the boys were no longer following her, so she probably is, too. No possibility of catching her without a trap, though. The fluffy lady is our best bet to catch, I think. We’re booked for one male and one female, and we will bring in whichever ones we can snag!

Well, that’s where things stand today. I’ll be calling the hospital again later today to see if there are any updates on my mother. I don’t expect my brother or sister to make the drive out to visit, but there is another highway they could take that is supposed to be in better condition, so we’ll see. Unfortunately, since I’ll be having cats in the truck with me, I won’t be able to visit my mother tomorrow. We’ll see how things go over the next few days.

What would be ideal is for the home care panel to see what’s going on with my mother and this will be enough to get her into the nursing home she wants to be in! That would make her so happy.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

A much more effective shop, plus updates

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Yesterday, while in a much larger town, I did a bit of grocery stopping. Just a few things to tide us over until we do our first big stock up shop in the city next week. The grocery store I went to has a really good inventory, and I would have loved to get more, but everything was too expensive.

What I forgot to do was bring our water jugs for refilling, so I needed to do that today. Being a much warmer day, I called my mother to see if she needed any errands done, or if she were up to going to the bank.

Thanks go her Meals on Wheels three times a week, her groceries stretch quite a lot further, so all she needed was milk. The only other thing she wanted were some croissants to go with her tea. She discovered croissants only recently and just loves them, and sometimes the grocery store in her town has some excellent prices on them.

So I decided I would get my water refills at her local grocery store, then maybe pick up the sandwich meats they have that are prices better than I’ve seen anywhere else, including the city, on top of my mother’s two items. She was getting her Meals on Wheels today, so I was going to pick up my own lunch of fried chicken at the gas station before going to her place.

Once at the grocery store, I had time to spare before I knew the gas station’s fried chicken would be ready, so I took my time and looked around.

What a difference from yesterday! This grocery store not only had better regular prices, but there were sale prices that were just awesome. Where, yesterday, I didn’t get the extras I would have wanted to, today I got extras I never expected to pick up!

I didn’t get a chance to get a photo before everything was packed up, so here’s just a picture of the reciept.

From the top, the first item is a jar of sliced pickles for sandwiches. The Dawn Ultra is for our basement, to clean the septic pump’s filter basket.

The “bakery reduced” is three bags of croissants for my mother, that cost only $1.75 each. This is even better than Superstore in the city, where they have clamshells of croissants available for $5, which is a great price, but far fewer croissants for the price compared to the tree bags I got. The 2L of milk was hers, too.

The boneless pork was one of the amazing sale prices; you can see on the receipt that the sale price discounted over $17 – more than half price for a very good sized roast! It was the thing with the fresh chicken legs and thighs. I ended up getting two packages of those. If I’d had the budget for it, I would have gotten more!

I got around 500 grams each of the sliced deli meats; the maple ham was a touch under, while the two chicken breasts were a touch over. That is their regular price, which is about $2/100g lower than most places.

The instant pudding was a spur of the moment thing. Four boxes for $5 is a really excellent price, as you can see by the amount discounted. While I just got a flat of 30 eggs yesterday, when I saw that the 18’s of house brand eggs were priced lower than a dozen, I just had to grab one. We can never have too many eggs! The rye breads are regular price; the same brand and price that we get at Walmart.

The water refills were the one thing that is more expensive, both the new caps and the water itself.

So of all this, $9.44 was for my mother. Which means that, of the $106.60 total, after taxes, we paid only $97.16 for our own stuff.

Which was a heck of a lot more than what we paid almost $130 for, yesterday! Particularly since I ended up getting so much meat on this trip!

After I finished the shopping, making sure to bag my mother’s stuff separately, I had time to spare before I would go to the gas station to pick up some fried chicken and wedges for lunch, so I went to a small department store to see what they had. I remembered there were a couple of things my mother wanted from there. One was a candle, for when she says her prayers. The other were slipper socks of some kind. Her feet get cold at night, so she wanted something she could sleep with. I actually found both, though I’m not sure if the slipper socks will work for her. They are supposed to be one size fits all, but my mother has massive bunions, and that might be a problem. We shall see.

I still had extra time, so I parked at the gas station and messaged with my brother for a bit. When I did my morning rounds, I checked the ejector, as he asked, but the pump hadn’t gone off during the night, so there was just fresh snow in front of it. I did feel the heat tape and it was warm, so that’s still working. Before I left home, I made sure to top up the filter on the septic pump and asked my family to keep an ear out for it, as it would probably go off while someone was taking a shower.

After updating my brother on things, I went inside, only to find all the chafing dishes were completely empty. Not even the potato wedges or deep fried perogies and pizza pops that get cooked first were there.

It turns out their frier was on the fritz. The food was being cooked, but it would be a while before anything would be ready.

Thankfully, they had a bank machine, so I took some cash out and went to the Chinese restaurant next to my mother. They are cash only. It’s been a few months since I’ve gotten anything there, so I was far from unhappy with having to change plans.

From there, I finally went to my mother’s. Today was warm enough that I didn’t need to worry about my groceries and the water jugs freezing in the truck cab.

Since I was able to get what my mother needed along with my own stuff, after we had lunch, I did other errands for her. It was her day to do laundry, so I changed her bedding for her, which was enough to make two loads for her. Once those were started, I did some light housework for her, and all those little things that she now finds difficult to do. The one unusual thing was trying to figure out why her TV wasn’t working After trying various things, it just kept reverting to a message saying to check the network connections. I checked everything I could think of before I finally took a picture of the message on the screen and sent it to my brother; he bought her this TV and did all the setting up, so he knows it a lot better than I do. A quick message back from him, and I found the setting that my mother somehow accidentally turned off. She has a habit of button mashing her remote control when things don’t work the way she expects, but when things go wrong, she has no idea what she did that caused it!

All in all, we were able to have a pretty good visit today, which is really unusual for the length of time that I was there. I really appreciate days like today. No personal attacks. No attacks on my family. Only mild attempts to attack my brother that I could easily address. No racist rants or bizarrely conflated topics she likes to rage about, even though she has no idea that she’s talking about completely different things. She still can’t figure out why she’s getting fundraising mail from a political party she is no longer a member of. I’ve told her, she’s on a mailing list and would need to ask to be removed. She things that “the government” (meaning, the federal government) is spending all this money to mail things out using taxpayer dollars. I’ve tried to explain to her that party mail is paid for by party members and party donations. They cannot use federal funds for stuff like this. I can tell she simply does not understand what I’m trying to explain.

One thing she did bring up is that she is noticing her own cognitive decline. She’s still convinced that she is dying, and told me she’s feeling all sort of pains, but it’s different now. How is it different? All she could do was vaguely gesture at her chest and stomach. She just doesn’t have the vocabulary, or understanding of anatomy, to explain what she is feeling and where. Aside from that, though, she’s finding it harder to remember words she uses regularly.

She’s still doing pretty darn good for being 93 years old! She does acknowledge that and is grateful for it. But she does need to be in assisted living of some kind!

At least she does live in town, and has home care coming in three times a day for medical assist with her prescriptions. The help she needs, though, home care out here cannot provide, nor can my siblings and I.

So we do the best we can. In the end, my mother really is doing amazingly well to still be living independently! I would not be at all surprised if she outlives us all. 😄

Anyhow.

Once done at my mothers, I got home while it was still light out (I am SO loving the longer days!). After the truck was unloaded, I made sure to check the ejector. The pump had gone off while my daughter was showering, and I could see by the melted splash area that the ejector still has a decent amount of pressure behind it.

On checking the pump, I saw the water level in the filter was getting low, so I topped it up again. After putting the lid back on, I could see air bubbling in from the intake opening as it started to drain. It has to be the back valve again. I took some video of the bubbling and updated my brother about it. He’s not saying much but, knowing him, he’ll probably find a way to come out this weekend to look at it again.

Tomorrow, though, we have to do a much needed trip to the dump, since we didn’t do it during our recent deep freeze. The dump is open longer hours on Saturdays, and I hope to get that done as early as possible. We’re supposed to be colder tomorrow, but nothing extreme. For the next while, it’s going to feel like spring!

I’m quite looking forward to it.

The Re-Farmer

More driving today… and tomorrow, and the day after, and then…

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

You know, it’s a good thing my “job” is to take care of this place. Otherwise, I have no idea how I’d manage to get things done.

Things like unexpected shopping trips.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, the cuteness!

There was one heck of a crowd in the isolation shelter when I came back from doing my morning rounds! As I came closer to the shelter, some of the more feral cats ran away, leaving “only” eleven left in the upper level of the shelter. I think there might have been as many as fifteen cats, crammed into that upper level, as I was walking up to the shelter!

Once I was back inside and having my breakfast, my daughter suddenly came in with her phone. She’d been wanting to book a follow up visit with her doctor today, which was on my morning to-do list, as I wanted to book a meet and greet for myself, too. The doctor I’m seeing now is still the interim doctor. It may be convenient having the same doctor as my mother, but we’re working to get my mother into assisted living, and it would be more convenient to have the same doctor as my daughter. That and the clinic is right next to a grocery store, which is extra handy. 😄

Well, the clinic called her cell phone (I’m shocked they got through!), and she was wondering what date worked for me to drive in. So I talked to the receptionist and booked a double appointment for us. After the call, my daughter asked, who goes first? I told her, I would, and then I could go to the grocery store if we needed anything, while she had her appointment. It’s been a long time since I’ve had my bloodwork done, though, so I won’t be surprised if I get a requisition for that to be done. There is a lab in the pharmacy right at the clinic, too.

After the call and while finishing breakfast, I was wrestling with myself. There were a few things I wasn’t able to get at the grocery store yesterday. If I left early enough, I might be able to find them before they sold out. Mostly, I was looking to get a party tray of fresh vegetables, and maybe another of fruit, to go with our finger food New Year’s celebration. Plus a flat of eggs. With tomorrow being New Year’s Eve, I knew things would be busy and things would sell out fast, but none of it was necessary, and I really didn’t want to go.

Then my mother phoned.

She was worried about her MRI appointment on the first. It’s a big holiday, and everybody has the day off, so there must be some sort of mistake. I told her, hospitals don’t have the day off. Oh, for emergencies, sure, she tells me. I finally asked, are you wanting me to cancel the appointment? Oh… no… but are you sure there’s no mistake?

I assured her that, when I got the call, I did ask because the appointment was on New Year’s day. They confirmed.

Then she started talking about how, when she looks into her fridge, it’s looking pretty empty.

Did she want me to come over?

Oh, no, she tells me. Then starts listing off all the stuff she still has (even after telling me she was out of various things). Plus, it’s cold, and she also needs to go to the bank, and she doesn’t want to go out in the cold. Plus, today is Bingo day.

I told her, it’s going to start getting colder again after New Year’s. Looking at my calendar, I added, it’s either today or Thursday, and it’s supposed to be colder on Thursday.

She hemmed and hawed some more.

Finally I told her to just start her list, because I can come over today. She was getting her Meals on Wheels today, so I told her I would be there for about 1pm, after she had a chance to eat.

I ended up leaving early enough to do my own shopping first. This little grocery store doesn’t do party trays, so I ended up getting some fresh vegetables to make our own party tray, some grapes to go with our charcuterie board, plus a few other things. Then, because the price was right, I picked up a 2 pack of frying chickens for less than a single chicken normally is. The Instant Pot I got for my daughters is big enough to fit a whole chicken in it, so that would work out well.

(As I write this, I can hear the pot venting away; they’ve started a pot roast for the first meal with it!)

From there, I put some gas in the tank (we’re going through a lot more gas than usual, with all the extra driving around!), got my own lunch to eat in the truck (the truck seats are more comfortable) and still ended up at my mother’s about half an hour early.

When I got there, she was in the lobby, looking for something.

She was wondering why bingo wasn’t set up yet.

I asked how she was doing, and she was silent, making motions and acting like there was some reason not to speak out loud. Finally, she said, it’s better not to say.

So…. I guess that meant she wasn’t feeling well?

She did manage to tell me that she wasn’t up to going out and would just give me her list. Then she was going on about where bingo was one or not, then knocking on a neighbour’s door right by the common room to ask him if he knew if it was still on. He didn’t, and seemed confused that she was asking him. She told him she could just phone, instead. I told her, it’s barely past 12:30. It’s probably still too early, thinking it started at 1, but nope: turns out it starts at 1:30. Way too early to be setting up!

I managed to get her back to her place and, as soon as she sat down, she started digging around for a phone number. I eventually figured out she meant to call the senior’s center (they run the social events in her building) to find out if bingo was still on. I told her, why bother calling? Just go over at 1:30 and see. It’s either on or it isn’t, but there’s no need to call. She agreed that she could do that.

Then we went over her list, she gave me funds for her shopping, and I was soon off. The shopping is a lot faster when it’s just me using her list. When I got back and made my way through the common room, I saw that they were starting to set up for bingo! 😄

I made sure to tell her that, when I got to her place. After putting away her groceries, there was time for a bit of a visit before bingo started. As we were talking, she told me how her breathing issues seem to be connected to how much commotion is going on. After asking some questions, it seems like a stress response. The problem is, my mother is creating a lot of her own stress, like worrying about there being a mistake with her MRI appointment (this isn’t the first time she’s done that with appointments, so it’s not just about it being on New Year’s day), or that bingo was cancelled because nothing was set up an hour in advance.

Then she started talking about her vision. Oh, her vision. It’s getting worse.

Now this set off all sorts of alarm bells with me. With her wet macular degeneration, we were advised to monitor it closely and, if it starts getting worse, to get her back to the eye clinic in the city right away. So of course, I started asking more specific questions.

As she started talking about how her vision is getting worse, she casually mentioned that the “black spot” is gone…

Wait… what???? !!!!

Then she mentioned the wavy lines are gone.

????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The wavy lines were from dry macular degeneration in her left eye. She’s taking special vitamins to keep that from getting worse. For those to be gone is amazing, but not as amazing as for her to say the “black spot” in her right eye is gone!

I got her to cover her left eye, then held my hand about two feet from her face, raising two fingers. I asked her, can you see the two fingers?

Yes, she tells me.

I raise a third finger without saying anything.

Three fingers, she tells me.

I’m totally shocked that she could see any fingers at all!

I moved my had back another couple of feet and tried again.

She couldn’t tell me how many fingers, but she could see that “something” was there.

I am totally blown away. While at the clinic with her, less than a month ago, a tech did the same test with her, and she couldn’t see his fingers. When he had her try and look at a single letter on the eye chart, she saw nothing at all.

The eye doctor had told her she shouldn’t need more injections, but also that her eye would not get better. There is scar tissue that will not go away. The injections were to keep it from getting worse, but that we shouldn’t expect it to get better. Her next appointment is in February, and we are to monitor her and bring her back if it gets worse.

Now, it seems her vision around that scarred area in her eye has healed enough that she can see more.

But, she told me, her vision is getting worse. It’s getting “dimmer”. I tried to ask questions to get a better idea of what she meant, but she started getting really frustrated. She simply doesn’t have the vocabulary to tell me what she means. So we dropped that part.

She’s been wearing her old glasses, though, since she decided the eye doctor she got her prescription from gave her a bad prescription and cheated her (they treated her like gold). I suggested that tomorrow, she try wearing her new glasses, as those would have the most up to date prescription. She agreed that it was worth a try.

Hopefully, she will remember to do it in the morning.

Then there was a knock at the door. One of her neighbours had come over to let her know, bingo would be starting soon!

So we said our goodbyes, and I headed home.

By then, it was pretty much time to do my evening rounds, so I headed out and topped up the kibble and warm water for the outside cats.

I just had to get a picture of these two.

The one in the freshly emptied food bowl is Magda. She is pretty friendly and lets us pick her some and sometimes even carry her.

The one above her, with the black splotches on its nose and mouth, has been named Ink by the girls. It also has black splotches on its front paws. The girls think it looks like he’s been playing with a pot of ink, so that’s what they’ve named him.

Or her.

He’s pretty feral and won’t let us anywhere near him to find out, one way or the other!

Oh, there was one other unexpected thing today.

Not long ago, my daughter tried to log into her bank account and found it locked. I got a message from her while I was on my way home. She’d gotten through to the bank on the phone and discovered that someone tried to use her debit card number (she has no credit card) at a restaurant in the US. !!! It was stopped and her accounted locked as potential fraud, so nothing was taken from her bank account, thank God!

She would, however, need to go to a branch and get a replacement card.

As soon as I could, I called the branch in my mother’s town to confirm their hours. They are open tomorrow.

Which means that, tomorrow, I will be driving my daughter to our bank branch in my mother’s town (we won’t be able to do that much longer; I hear this branch will be closing!).

Then, the day after tomorrow – New Year’s Day – I will be taking my mother to her MRI appointment.

Then, on the 2nd, my husband and I will be going to trade his phone in before they ding him with the end-of-contract bill of almost $700. It has to be done before the 4th, and that’s the only day I’ve got left.

The next day, Friday, I’m taking the truck in to get the MAF sensor and block heater cord replaced.

Then, on the following Monday, I’m taking my mother to her regular doctor for a follow up appointment.

Then, on the Wednesday, I’m going back to the same town, but a different clinic, for the joint appointment for me and my daughter.

I’m doing as much driving in the next couple of weeks as I would normally do in a month in the summer. In the winter, I try to do as little driving as possible, but that’s just not working out!

Thank God winter has been mild and conditions pretty good, so far. Based on the 10 day forecast, though, that joint appointment is going to be on a day where the high is expected to be -24C/-13F, while the lows are supposed to be -29C/-20F.

At least we’ll be able to plug in the block heater by then! That’s being replaced on Friday, and Thursday night is when overnight lows are starting to dip below -20C/-4F again.

Weirdly, the long term forecast now says we’ll have about 10 days of that, then 10 days or so of temperatures rising to just below freezing again. This is a La Nińa winter, though, and the system should start affecting our area more over the next couple of months. For our region, that usually means colder temperatures, but it looks like we’re going to be getting temperature whiplash, instead!

Once we get past that last appointment, I hope to not have to do anything more than short trips into town – and hardly any of those! – until it’s time to go more stock up shopping at the end of January!

I just want to stay home.

The Re-Farmer

A quick change in plans

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

Today, I’d hoped to stay home for a few days (I really, really didn’t want to go to the dump today!) but when my husband needed something from the pharmacy, I figured I’d do that right away, since it was supposed to be milder. The next couple of days are supposed to get much colder.

A high of -9C/16F is milder, right?

It seemed all right when I headed out to feed the outside cats.

We had a light dusting of snow, but it wasn’t bad.

The full belly kitties were content to stay in the sun room. Not all of them, but enough to make nice, warm cuddle puddles!

The isolation kittens are doing fine, too.

It was a different story, once I started heading to town!

The first thing I realized was that the driveway needed to be cleared. Best to do it while the snow is still light and fluffy, too. Much easier on little Spewie. After closing the gate behind me, I made sure to message the family about that, because I knew I would forget once I got going again.

Driving conditions really sucked!

Once on the main gravel road, visibility was low with blowing snow, made all the more interesting when I had to cross paths with oncoming trucks bringing in bales. The trucks alone are wide loads, but their trailers were loaded 3 round bales wide. To fit them, about a third of a bale sticks out on each side of the trailers, adding about 3 feet to the total width. The main gravel road is wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other well enough, with room to spare, but it’s a very different story with these trucks! They did try to go to the side as far as they could, but with how slippery things can be under the snow, it wouldn’t take much to hit some ice on the shoulder and slide right into the ditches… and these ditches are narrow, steep and deep!

Even on the highway, it wasn’t much better. I found myself doing 70-80 kph (43-50mph) in a 100 (62mph) zone – and no one was trying to pass me!

I’m glad the roads were plowed yesterday, or it would have been so much worse!

Once in town, I did my errands, with my last stop at the grocery store. My husband had called in a prescription delivery for Thursday that I was able to pick up today, instead. At the grocery store, after refilling a couple of our 18.9L/5 gallon water jugs, I ended up taking advantage of some sales and picked up a few extra things besides what was on my list, and my older daughter’s list that she send funds for, once she found out I was going into town. Poor thing is not feeling well at all, today. PCOS sucks.

The drive home was not any better than the drive out, so it was slow going. I’ve driven in far worse. I just didn’t want to be driving at all today! Ah, well.

With the water jugs on top of everything else, I drove up to the house to unload, but had some troubles backing up to the main doors. The truck had to go over the sidewalk from the house to the gate, which was shoveled, and it was just too slippery!

I was quite happy to be parking the truck back in the garage!

My younger daughter was a sweetheart and took care of clearing the driveway after everything was put away, and the outside cats got a light feeding to keep them distracted. The isolation kitties seem very content in their shelter. I was even able to pet the fluffball! He started to run away, but once I started petting his back, he stopped and let me!

I’m going to be worrying about them over the next while, though. As I was writing this, I could see the temperature on my task bar dropping. We’re down to -14C/7F right now, but the wind chill is -30C/-22F!

The isolation kittens are protected from the wind, so that shouldn’t affect the heat lamps ability to keep them warm, but we’re supposed to drop to -25C/-13F tonight, and the high tomorrow is supposed to only reach -23C/-9F, with an overnight low of -26C/-15F, before wind chill. The next day is supposed to be slightly warmer, before our highs are supposed to get back into the single digits below freezing (Celsius).

Those would be good days to stay home, but I’m expecting to pick up our 1/8 beef share on one of those days. I’m just waiting on an email to confirm the date.

I hadn’t been home for long, when I got a phone call from my mother.

Guess who had just showed up at her place?

*sigh*

Yup. Our vandal. My surprising him by being there yesterday didn’t scare him off for long.

My mother was in the common room, though, and our neighbour was with him again, so he was on his best behaviour. Apparently, he was in the nearer city for “treatment” (chemotherapy?) so they stopped by on the way home.

I’m glad my mother called me as soon as she got back into her apartment after they left. In the past, she wouldn’t tell us if he showed up, even when he was alone and his behaviour was verbally abusive.

Then she told me that the doctor that was supposed to call her at 2pm, did finally call! It was past 4pm by the time he did. Thankfully, my mother still remembered our conversation, and on telling him how things went, his recommendation was exactly what I said was most likely. He wanted to increase the dose of the medication.

Then my mother, being the way she is, asked him if she could just stop taking them. What would happen? His response was, probably nothing would change. She could stop taking them, if she wanted, but to call him again if things got worse.

*sigh*

I just had to express my frustrations with her, as carefully as I could. She keeps complaining about all sorts of health problems, but when people try to help her, she won’t do the things that she is supposed to do to make things better. When we first moved out here, she mostly complained about her knees, but refused to wear the braces my brother got for her (as recommended by her doctor at the time), for her knee that’s bent sideways. I forget it he got two or three different braces, trying to find one she was willing to wear, but she wouldn’t. Instead, she would wear sport knee pads. They kept her knees warm, therefore, in her mind, they were helping her knees more than the brace.

It’s the same thing with this new medication. I tried to explain again, it takes time to see if a specific medication would work, and at what dose. As an example, I told her how my husband it still trying to get the dose right on the new pain medication he’s on (the previous one is no longer available), and it’s been about a year. Her response was to start talking about how much she pities us for him having health problems, but I had to cut that off. I told her, this was just an example of something that is common. Everyone is different, so they have to take the time to figure out exactly what will work for each person.

Her bubble packs are due for new ones, and the doctor would be faxing the increased dosage to her pharmacy, so I told her that when she gets her new bubble packs, they should have the new dosage, and nothing would change. Just keep taking her prescriptions as always, and give it time to work.

I don’t know if I got through to her. I might have, at least for a little while.

I’m so glad she has homecare doing med assists, now. Even with the bubble packs, she was messing with her prescriptions. Which is more of a problem because she forgets what some of them are for, and gets them mixed up.

I need to remember to call the home care office and see where her application for assisted living or a nursing home is at! There’s only so much my siblings and I can do to help her. Especially when she isn’t willing to help herself at times!

So today didn’t turn out the way it was intended to, but things got done and, more importantly, my mom is okay after our vandal showing up at her place again.

I really, really wish she would just tell him to not come around anymore, but she still holds out home that things will get better.

Another reason to get her into some sort of long term care! She can move to a better living situation, and no one needs to tell him where she is. As long as she doesn’t tell him herself, of course. 🫤🙄

Ah, well. It is what it is! All we can do is deal with the cards we’ve got.

The Re-Farmer

Well now…

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

… I am extra glad I had to go to my mother’s place today!

The trip itself was not particularly pleasant. We had that super warm day when everything melted, then we got snow on top of that. Yesterday, the southwestern part of our province was hit with a snow storm, but we were fortunate. I saw photos and video people shared on FB, and the one that blew me away was the sand truck – upside down in a ditch!

We got snow, but no storm. When I headed out, the roads were not plowed yet, though I could see the plow trucks were out. While our temperatures were below freezing, between the traffic and the darker surface, the highways were melting in patches, making things even more potentially dangerous. I took it slow, and was pleased to see, most of the other traffic was taking it slow, too! We’ve got good tires and a good truck, but there’s no weight in the back, so it doesn’t take much before I can feel it wanting to fishtail.

I left quite early and still had time when I got to my mother’s town. I decided to fill the gas tank and pick up some fried chicken for my mother and myself for lunch. I remembered that today is Monday, so she would have her Meals on Wheels delivery, so I asked to have the food split between two boxes, so she could have hers later in the day.

As I was paying for everything, one of the regular staff who was having her own lunch break started chatting, asking if I was having lunch with my mother today. I told her, sort of, and mentioned she would be having her Meals on Wheels, so I got hers separate for later. That’s when a customer sitting at another table (this gas station has several tables for people to sit down and have their coffee or chicken dinners) said that she would not be getting her Meals on Wheels today – all deliveries were cancelled today! With the road conditions, I’m not surprised.

So I was extra glad I’d decided to pick up food while getting gas!

I still got to my mother’s early, which was still good. I was able to get some stuff done for her before we settled down to eat. She still has her cold, and was feeling rather sorry for herself. She has developed a terrible habit, though, of making herself gasp and pant. She says it makes her stomach feel better. ??? It’s rather alarming to hear, and then she just stops and starts breathing normally.

As I was boiling water for tea, I asked her which tea she wanted and she suggested the immunity boosting teas my sister got for her, that she’s been drinking since she has a cold.

There were two different kinds, and they were both citrus based.

*sigh*

So my mother is supposed to avoid citrus, etc., but my sister keeps getting her this stuff!

At least the Cup-o-soup went over well, but I’m pretty sure those have onion in them, which is also on the avoid list.

While puttering in her kitchen, I remembered to look at her cupboard doors and saw that the printout of foods that she needed to avoid, and which were still good, for her acid reflux, was gone. There was just a bit of torn tape left where it was.

*sigh*

After we ate, we talked about her upcoming appointment and what to tell the doctor. She brought up again, how she figured she should just stop taking the pills, because they aren’t doing anything. She says there has been no change. I went through again that he’d explained: he was going to start her on a low dose first, and if that didn’t help in 3 months, he would increase the dose for another three months. Or, he might try prescribing a different medication, but that is less likely.

I asked her if she were following the other instructions he’s given her, and if she still had the information printout with all that on it.

No, she wasn’t doing the other stuff, and she didn’t know where the printouts were anymore.

*sigh*

She started complaining again about how she’s taking soooo many pills, and she’s tired of taking soooo many pills.

She’s not taking that many pills and, right now, one of them is basically a special multi-vitamin for her eye with dry macular degeneration, to keep it from getting worse.

I reminded her of just how fortunate she really is. I told her how many pills my husband takes, plus two injections, and even he isn’t taking all that much compared to some people. The thing is, the pills are doing their job, so she’s not feeling the things they are there for, so she thinks they are not needed. She’s not understanding that if she stops taking them, all these things they are protecting her from would start making her sick. I can’t imagine how terrible she would be feeling, for example, if she were NOT on the acid reflux pill, when just having a bit of citrus makes her think she’s dying (until she takes some Pepto).

Her phone appointment was at 2pm. When it was 10 after, she started saying, maybe they forgot about her. Another five minutes, and she was saying, maybe we should call them. I told her, if we were at the appointment in person, we’d just be sitting in a waiting room right now.

Still, I did find the number and tried calling the clinic. The automated system eventually got me to a message saying they were so busy, they weren’t taking any more messages, but to leave a message (???) and they would get back to the caller in 48-72 hours.

!!!!!

So I hung up, since there really wasn’t much point in leaving a message, when it was still possible they’d be calling.

My mother, however, was getting really tired by then and falling asleep in her chair. I finally told her, go ahead and lie down. I would stay close to the phone. Just give me time to go to the bathroom first, she could like down and leave the phone to me.

I had just gone into the bathroom and was closing the door when I heard a quiet knock.

Who would be knocking on my mother’s door at this time?

So I started opening the door again to answer the door for her, but it was already being opened.

There was our vandal, saying something about how my mother must be on the phone, walking right into her apartment! The bathroom door opens out and partially blocks the entryway, so when I was basically right in front of him when our vandal saw me and stopped dead in his tracks.

He quickly said he had to go. There was a container in his hand he quickly dropped on her dining table, and practically ran out the door.

Behind him, I could see a neighbour he’d brought along. I was very happy to see our neighbour. This is someone else I grew up with and consider family. He’s a very good man, and has been a sort of go-between for us, trying to get our vandal to see some sort of sense.

When he saw me, from the hallway, he looked like he was fighting back laughter.

Our vandal had left so fast, he’d left the door to close on its own behind him. I was able to grab the door and say high to our neighbour as he was leaving, but our vandal had gone down the hall so fast, I couldn’t see him anymore.

When I turned back, there was my mother, laughing.

I am so glad I was there! While my neighbour would have made sure our vandal treated my mother well, having him show up, on top of my mother being sick with a cold, would not have been pleasant for her at all.

I wasn’t really surprised to see him. I’d already called my mother to warn her he might suddenly show up, since I’ve been seeing him stalking our driveway again. I just expected him to show up earlier than today!

As for the container he left, it looked like it had pea soup in it, or something like that. My mother told me, she didn’t want it. She already had two other containers in her freezer from his, she doesn’t want. She said, with the way he talks and the things he says, it makes the food taste bad.

I totally get it.

I ended up popping it into the freezer, though, to be dealt with later.

After that little adventure, my mother was able to lie down and I settled into her armchair, in her view, with the phone.

Well, wouldn’t you know, as soon as she lay down, suddenly my mother was wide awake.

Our vandal showing up might have had a bit to do with that.

After a while, she gave up and got up.

By then, it was almost 3, and the doctor still hadn’t phoned. I didn’t want to stay much longer, as it would be getting dark soon. So I called the clinic number back and this time, left a message.

The drive back was both better and worse. Better, because the roads had been cleared by then. Worse, because I was not driving right into the wind and getting buffeted a lot more. Again, most vehicles were also taking it slow, which was much appreciated.

I got home in time for the evening feeding for the outside cats. I quickly did that, topped up their water, and played with Kohl in the isolation shelter for a bit.

Patience was not very patient just then! He was a hungry boy. 😊

Then I grabbed something to clear windows with and went to my brother’s truck to clear the windows of snow, so his solar trickle charger could get some light. I’ve since learned that another truck that’s parked here also has a trickle charger, so I’ll have to remember to clear that vehicle’s windshield, too, the next time I’m out there.

All in all, I’d say it was a good day, even though the telephone doctor’s appointment never happened. It meant I was there when our vandal showed up, and that made it worthwhile it all on its own!

The Re-Farmer