Adam was blocking my way into the house again, nursing the bebbies – including Button! I’m so happy to see he’s been absorbed into the creche.
Now for the more serious stuff.
Last night, I got a call from my mother. She had called for an ambulance and, as we had discussed before, she was letting me know so that I could update the rest of the family and check on her place, etc.
That was at about… 4:30pm – ish.
After several hours with no word, I tried calling the closer hospital ER I thought they would take her to.
She wasn’t there.
So I tried the next hospital, and there she was.
She was stable and doing fine, but a doctor had not seen her yet.
After confirming phone numbers for myself and my brother, who has PoA, that was about it.
My plan was to head over to check on her place in the morning. I wasn’t decided on whether I should call the hospital before I left, or from my mother’s town.
I ended up not being able to sleep at all until past 5am. Since I was intending to do some driving, when I woke up less than 2 hours later, I asked my daughters to take care of the morning outside stuff and tried to get more sleep.
It didn’t work.
About an hour later, I found a direct message from my brother, asking if I’d heard anything. No one had called him. I had not heard anything, either.
I was tying my shoes, getting ready to head out, when the phone rang. It was the hospital, letting me know my mother was discharged and ready to go home with a prescription. After confirming which entrance I’d be picking her up at, I was on my way.
It turns out she’d spent the entire night basically in the waiting room, in between getting tests and Xrays done. There were no beds available. When I got there, she was talking to another older woman who had been there just as long as my mother, and still hadn’t been seen by a doctor! It was 15 hours in the ER by then!
I got my mother into the truck, and she was so tired, she wanted to go straight home. She was, at least, given a meal while she was there!
I tried to ask lots of questions about how things went, and she was already starting to forget details. I got information in dribs and drabs over the next while. When we were at her place, she showed me the hand written prescription she was given. I didn’t think she had one, since she also told me the doctor assured her copies of everything would go to both her doctor and the pharmacy.
The good news is, the issue found the last time she saw the doctor has improved. The bad news it, it had nothing to do with why she called the ambulance. She did get one of her prescription doses increased, though, and – little by little – she told me things the doctor suggested that we’ve already been trying to get her to do for … oh… several years now? She still flat out refuses to get a hospital bed.
Then she showed me the physical prescription. I couldn’t read some of it, but it looked like one medication’s dose was increase, so I said I would take it to the pharmacy and talk to them about it.
I’m glad I did. They needed that physical copy.
It turned out one medication was back to normal; the pharmacy didn’t even know there was a chance, since it was a temporary experiment. Another did have an increased dose. After some discussion, I went back to my mother’s to get her bubble packs, so they could add the change to them. It was going to take long enough that I had time to have breakfast while I waited!
By the time I got the updated bubble packs and brought them to my mother. She was sleeping soundly, so I just left them on her table with a note.
I think hung around town just long enough that the post office would be open when I got to our little hamlet. M, I got your surprise parcels, but have not looking them them yet. Thank you so much! I ended up having 4 packages, including a large but light one, so I messaged my daughters to have one of them meet me at the garage, to bring them in.
Once we got everything inside, it was late enough that I decided to top up the kibble for the outside cats.
That’s when I found a less pleasant surprise, on the ground under the water bowl shelter.
A stillborn kitten, still fully encased in its amniotic sac and attached to its placenta.
I went around to put kibble in the bowls under the shrine, and found a second one!
After that, I decided to do some walking around to see if there were any others.
There was not, so I buried the two that I found.
I don’t even know what cat was pregnant. There is one – I believe a sibling to Peanut Butter cup – that we’ve not been able to get close to, but I’ve been able to confirm as female. I think she might be pregnant. She’s so fluffy, it’s hard to tell, but if she is, she still is, and the stillborns were not hers. No other cat that I know is female looked even remotely pregnant.
After the sad job of burying the babies, I made a point of checking things I normally would have in my morning rounds. I find my morning rounds to be very meditative and enjoyable.
It was, however, hot and muggy. As I write this, just past 4pm, we’re at 29C/84F with the humidex at 32C/90F, and we haven’t even reached our high of the day, yet.
Yesterday, when I saw no rain in the forecast, I wrote that I would have expected thunderstorms. Well, last night, I did hear thunder in the distance as storms passed us by. While I was driving to get my mother, there were storm warnings on the radio, including the possibility of golf ball sized hail! Our local forecast now says rain should be starting around 11 or 12 this evening, and continuing until about 2am. We are now also expected to have rain all day Monday. We’re supposed to cool down slightly over the next few days, then get hot again. For us, that means close to, or hotter than, 30C/86F.
The conditions are frustrating. The coolest part of the day is in the morning, but the humidity is so high, it’s too damp to do anything like mowing or weed trimming. I need to get the weed trimmer out to work on the log frame of the low raised bed, but the winter squash plants are getting so big and long, it’s going to be a challenge to do the work without damaging them. I should be able to temporarily fix them to the trellis netting for the peas and beans, though.
So the grass cutting and weed trimming needs to wait until things are no longer too wet – but by then, it’s too hot. The temperatures don’t start coming down until about 7pm – and if the heat doesn’t get us, the mosquitoes and horseflies will! Bug spray or not bug spray!
Bah. At least the garden is planted. If we’re expecting rain tonight, I might take a chance and plant some kohlrabi in the empty space where the Purple Caribe potatoes didn’t come up.
But not until things start to cool down.
Until then, I’ve got a couple of boxes to open up and see what’s inside!
It’s a hot and muggy day today! As I write this, past 3:30 pm, we are at 26C/79F, with the humidex at 31C/89F We are not expecting any rain, but with the heat and humidity, I wouldn’t be surprised if a thunderstorm suddenly appeared.
No storms, but we did have a power outage this morning! The power went out in the area for more then an hour. After it came back, I learned that the outage, which included several towns in the area, was due to a fire on a power pole. !!
I did get my morning rounds done before we lost power, checking on the babies and the garden beds.
I found a new female winter squash blossom forming! Hopefully, when it opens, there will be some male flowers open to pollinate it. I’m rather happy with how the winter squash is recovering from being transplanted.
The kittens are doing all right. As I was coming back to the sun room, I actually found Broccoli’s two babies had come around to eat. They ran off as soon as they saw me, though, and are really skittish.
I’m not sure what to make of some of the adults, though. Sprout, one of Broccoli’s calico babies from a couple years ago and sibling to Brussel, comes over for food, but she is not just skittish of me. She frequently growls and snarls at the other cats. I don’t remember her doing that before, but then, this is the first year she’s really been coming this close to the house for food, too. She’s not the only one, though. There’s a grey and white cat that I think it is a mama that is also snarly. This morning, a male that is all black except for a white blaze on his chest showed up, and he was growling and snarling at other cats, too, though with him, I got the impression he has not had food for awhile.
That was this morning. Yesterday evening, things seemed to be okay.
We had some power flickers due to storms, and I had to go back and forth between the house and the garage to reset the device we have for our garage security camera. WiFi isn’t reliable at the garage, so it’s plugged into a device that uses our power lines to send the signal, which gets converted to WiFi inside the house.
Some of the kittens are getting quite used to my coming and going, and don’t bother moving, never mind running away (unless I approach them).
Two of them ran off into the tall grass, while two of them just loafed on the driveway!
I left, then came back, and found just a black and white fluff ball still loafed on the driveway. I also saw a tiny black and white face peaking at me from the hole under the doors to the side of the garage we store the lawnmowers in.
I decided to see how close I could get to the one loafed in the driveway. As I got closer, it ran to the edge of the tall grass, then leaned against the grass to hiss at me. I came closer, and it rolled onto its back and hissed at me.
I picked it up and it lay on its back in my hand, and hissed at me!
Also, it’s a boy. 😂
A carried him over to the garage and put him down next to the hole under the door, where I could just see the legs of his sibling. Once on the grown, under the door he went!
So I guess that’s where Brussel has her babies now. Which she might have issues with, when we need to get at the lawn mowers.
I do hope she brings her babies to the house, soon!
Today, however, I saw no sign of them when I headed out.
I did not have plans to head out.
I got a call from my mother this morning. She started telling me about how she has stuff that she’s packing up and setting aside to go to my sister. Then she mentioned adding more things to her bag for the hospital – long story behind that I won’t get into here. Then she said she had stuff she wanted me to take to the farm. It took a bit of questioning, since she talks as if I already know the background of what she’s saying, but I eventually figured out that she is starting to go through her stuff, basically to give to people she things they should go to, after she dies or something. The stuff she wanted me to take was things like fabric (???) that she thought we could use, and if we don’t, then we can donate it to a second hand store. She started talking about she has so little room (true) and needs to get rid of stuff, so they can go to the farm…
I told her, we have too much stuff here already!
That’s when she suggested we could donate things to the second hand store. I wasn’t sure these would be things suitable for donation, okay.
I asked when she wanted me to come over.
Can I come over today?
…
So, that was my unplanned trip out!
I did stop at the post office first, though. Our reordered 4lb bucket of lysine is supposed to arrive today – but when I look at the tracking information, it says it’s still at a carrier facility in the US, and hasn’t moved since June 27.
It wasn’t there, but I just checked the tracking information again. It still says it’s in a carrier facility in the US, but also it’s supposed to arrive locally by 8pm today. ???
Anyhow.
Once at my mother’s, she at first basically ignored why I was there, as she kept going through her “important” papers. Which are basically all old newspaper clippings, printouts of photos of dead relatives, and various other papers that she considered of great historical value.
My poor sister is going to be getting all this stuff.
Eventually, I got her to tell me what she was wanting me to take to the farm.
Which turned out to be a storage bin she wanted me to dig out of her closet.
So we went through that together, and most of it we might actually be able to use. I did put my foot down when it came to taking an old bra. She said it could go to the second hand store. I told her to just throw it away!!
Then there was another storage bin to go through.
It was quite a mix of things. Pieces of fabric that she used to use as a cover for an old couch here at the farm – a couch our vandal stole while the house was empty. Old curtains that had been using in the living room window. Why would she even take those with her? The living room window is huge, and there’s nothing in her apartment they could have been used on! There were some table cloths that look like they were among those my late brother salvaged from a restaurant he demolished, years ago (a lot of the cutlery we still use now was from that one job!). One thing I was very happy to take was a lacy crochet table cloth. My mother crocheted it. I remember it being used when I was a child! That, to me, is a treasure! There were a few things from Poland, and some strangely old sewing kits material, crochet hooks and knitting needles. Apparently, my mother bought the sewing kit – woven box – for me. I have no memory of that, though I do remember the woven box. What I was really excited to see what the darning mushroom inside! I remember using it to darn socks when I was a kid. I’ve been wanting one for years, but they are rather hard to find, and the few I have found over the years are strangely expensive.
After going through the bins, she got me to grab a bucket that was full of yarn and other odds and ends.
Including the Bamboo Silk yarn I’d used to make a wheelchair shawl for my aunt. A shawl my cousin gave to my mother after her sister passed away. Which my mother undid.
I talked to her about that, trying to get her to understand how I had made this for her sister, and it was something she could have used herself, that would have reminded her of her sister, but she undid it.
I washed it first, she assured me.
???
Also, her sister is dead now, so it doesn’t matter.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just…
…
no words.
I just have no words.
What makes it extra bizarre is that, here she was, spending all this time and effort to divide up her possessions to the family members she thinks they should go to, because she thinks she’s going to die any day now. She actually asked me what I thought about how much longer she’ll last. I told her I thought she had many years ahead of her, yet, and I truly believe that. Barring her doing something weird to herself again, like messing with her medications, she’ll probably outlive us all, even as her mobility and cognition decreases. She’s got the most amazing constitution.
But, she thinks she’s about to go any time now, yet still refuses to call an ambulance when she’s having the breathing problems she complains about. She did call my sister yesterday, knowing my sister works on Sundays, then hung up when, after complaining about burping so much (my mother has got it in her head that if she forces herself to burp, it makes her feel better, but she talks about burping a lot as if it’s something happening to her, rather that something she’s doing to herself), and my sister said people don’t go to the hospital for burping. My sister was so confused after being hung up on, she called me. I told her, my mother wouldn’t call me or my brother, because we’re both telling her that if she feels that bad, call an ambulance. This time, she tried my sister. But she won’t call an ambulance, and prefers talk about how she’s going to die any minute now.
*sigh*
So…
She was given stuff that belonged to her sister, including things that were hand made by me for my aunt, and she had no problem destroying them, but we’re all supposed to be falling over ourselves for the stuff she is “leaving” to us, most of which is important only to her, and a lot of which is literally just garbage, and expects us to keep them and value them long after she’s gone. As my mother set aside a stack of papers for my sister, most of which were printouts my sister made for her, at my mother’s request, I suggested that maybe she doesn’t need the empty, used envelop.
It’s not empty, I was told.
Well, I just saw her removing the contents and adding it to the pile of papers, but.. okay.
So the bucket of yarn and other items were combined with the other stuff in the storage bins.
Then my mother started talking about calling the lab to see if they were open, before I took her there.
I was taking her to the lab?
She had told me she was going to take the Handi Van to get her blood work done. She hadn’t done it yet, and since I was there…
Okay, fine. I put the bins in the truck, moved it to where she could wheel right up with her walker, prepped the foot stool for her, came back and…
She was still going through papers for my sister, and kept offering me juice or whatever… “sit down… have a rest…”
I told her, this was not a planned trip. I do have stuff to do at home. Oh, but you have helpers. I don’t have any helpers.
*sigh*
I did finally get her to set the papers aside, and focus on having her blood work requisition form ready, as well as her health card, so she wouldn’t have to dig for it once at the lab.
She really would have done better taking the Handi Van.
I had the foot stool out for her, but still had to physically help her get up into the truck. It’s much easier for her to get out – no foot stool needed – but getting in is so diffuclt.
That fact that she can get in at all is pretty amazing, to be honest.
The hospital the lab is in is just a few blocks away from her place. She was the only person there, so she got in very quickly. She only needed to give one vial of blood for the 5 things she’s being tested for. She asked about what she was being tested for, and the technician explained it – whether my mother didn’t remember me already explaining it to her after dropping off the form, or didn’t believe me when I did, I don’t know. When she mentioned one of the things being tested for was urea, my mother immediately launched into how this was a problem, and how she has just a few drops…
For the sake of the technician, I mentioned that, while that may be a problem, this blood test isn’t about that at all. Once the technician understood my mother was conflating different things, she made a point of saying that this was correct; the test results from this are about kidney function only.
I don’t think my mother got it, but that’s okay.
As we were leaving, I asked my mother if there was anything she wanted me to get for her while we were out, but the only thing she’s going to need to do is go to the bank, and I can’t do that for her. This trip already exhausted her, so it will wait for another day. Perhaps my sister will be able to visit during the week and can take her, using her car. That would be much easier for my mother to get in an out of.
Speaking of cars…
When I went in to reset the garage cam device, I noticed my mother’s car now has two flat tires on the driver’s side!
It hasn’t been used since the day I tried driving it and it started making a banging noise from the back.
I’ll have to use a hand pump on them. After discovering the leaking valves on our truck, it now makes sense to me why my mother’s car got flats so often. I suspect she has leaking valves, too. The other two tires look just fine. Which is good, because that side of the car is parked closer to the wall, so that the driver can get in and out without hitting a shelf against the opposite wall.
So that’s one of the things I was wanting to do today.
I think I’ll wait for things to cool down a bit more, though – and use lots of bug spray! We’ve been storing our bags of aluminum in the garage, in front of my mother’s car. Most of the cans are from cat food, so critters have been getting into them. Before I can pump up her tires, I will need to pick up and bag a lot of cans, first!
The cats have also been using the dirt floor as a litter all winter. With how much rain we’ve been having, we haven’t been able to clean it up.
They turn a remarkably bright green under those conditions.
So that’s going to need to be raked up, too. It’s still a bit damp for it, but it needs to get done!
The problem is, it won’t even start to cool down for another 3 hours or so, and the front of the garage faces south. Full sun and full heat!
*sigh*
It would have been good to get started before it got hot, but that’s when my mother called, wanting me to come over.
Well, I’m hoping the heat will be good for the garden. I was trying to remember how it was last year at this time, so I went looking at some of my garden tour videos for June and July of last year.
This was recorded on June 1, 2023
This is the one I recorded on June 16, this year.
Then there is the one I recorded on July 4, 2023.
We were much further ahead, as for as growth, at the start of July last year, than we are this year. We actually had peppers forming at the start of July last year! This year, only the hot peppers, which were started much earlier, are starting to bloom. The luffa are a lot smaller this year, too, even though they were transplanted at about the same time, and had a stronger, healthier start indoors this year. We also already had tomatoes forming by the start of July last year. Right now, we just have some of them blooming.
All that rain this spring has really set a lot of things back!
I did my June garden tour video in the middle of the month, so I will wait until the middle of the month before doing a July garden tour. Hopefully, things will have picked up at least a bit by then!
This has been a very different gardening year. Not only because of the weather, but just everything we ended up planting this year. I had so many things planned for that just didn’t happen. The balance between things that can be harvested earlier and throughout the summer, and things that get harvested all at once, is way off.
Next year will be different, again. Hopefully, we’ll have more progress on the trellis beds, and the area that was a squash patch last year will have new beds built into them, and we’ll have much more growing space.
This morning, while feeding the cats before doing my rounds, I made sure to be on the lookout for the newly snipped boys, and the kitten I found yesterday.
I’m happy to say the kitten is still hanging around the sun room, and I think I even saw one of the creche mothers – Adam – nursing it.
As for the newly snipped boys, I saw Syndol in the sun room a lot yesterday evening, but not this morning. I did see Stinky and Nosey, who were their usual selves. With Nosey, that means a combination of PET ME NOW and I’M GOING TO BITE YOU! Of course, I checked their nibs, and everything looks fine.
There has been no sign of Collin since he ran out of the carrier. It may be a while before we see him again!
I was scheduled to help my mother with her grocery shopping this afternoon, but I remembered that I still hadn’t picked up her bloodwork requisition at the clinic. I was supposed to do it while going to and from the city, since this town is on the way, depending on which highway I take. I completely forgot.
So, after I finished my rounds, I left early enough to pick up a couple of packages at the post office before they closed, then drove the 45 minutes to the clinic, got the requisition printed out, then drove to my mother’s place.
She didn’t quite understand what I was giving her when I handed her the printout. She thought it was test results of some kind, but she hasn’t had any tests done recently. She just remembered that they took 5 vials of blood last time, and thought this was the results. I had to repeat myself a few times, and read out what she is being tested for (she might be getting 6 vials taken, this time) and why. The call from the doctor telling her to stop taking her water pills for a month was based on her last bloodwork, and this is to see if anything has improved.
Once she understood, she said she would go to the local lab and get her bloodwork done, no appointment needed, on Monday. The town she lives in has a handi van available that, for a few dollars, will shuttle people with mobility requirements around town. It would be far easier for her to use that, than for me to drive her in the truck.
After getting that cleared up, we went over her shopping list, for both a pharmacy trip and the grocery store, talked about potential substitutions if things weren’t available or didn’t look good, and then I headed out.
I had a pleasant surprise while at the grocery store part of her shopping. I ran into an old friend/former co-worker and her kids that I haven’t seen in ages. They live on a farm in the area, and I pass their place fairly regularly, but we just don’t cross paths very often. So that was really nice.
After the shopping was done, I went through everything with my mother while I put things away. While talking about her blood tests, I’d asked her about drinking more water, and she remembered to add water bottles to the shopping list. I was happy to hear she found them very handy, though I got the impression she has not been drinking more water like she’s supposed to. Anyhow. The water turned out to be on sale, so I got her a bigger case this time. Water bottles will help her keep track, visually, of how much she is drinking, too.
She didn’t have protein of any kind on her list, as she apparently still had, but there was such a good sale on chicken legs and thighs, I got her a package. That one package could last her a week. She was quite happy with my additions and substitutions (all within her budget, of course), and even complimented me on how I’ve got so much “experience” with this sort of thing. I’m not entirely sure how she means it, but I’ll take the compliment.
In fact, the entire visit with her was good. She definitely was having one of her good days.
She had something going on in her building in the afternoon, so I wasn’t going to stay long. I did remember to ask her about the commode home care got for her. She told me, she doesn’t use it.
??
The problem was in emptying the reservoir. It’s light and easy to remove, but requires two hands to carry it. Since she would have one hand either using a cane, or using the walls and furniture to steady herself, she can’t carry it to the bathroom to empty it. So she has continued to use an ice cream bucket at night, rather than going to the washroom. How using the ice cream bucket is easier than walking to the bathroom in the first place, I can’t understand. I have no idea how she actually uses it, what with her messed up knees, but it has handle and she can carry it with one hand, so…
The solution turned out to be easy.
The ice cream bucket fits inside the commode reservoir, and the seat opening fits over it, almost exactly. She can use the commode, then easily carry the bucket away to empty it during the day.
Problem solved.
There was one other thing I remembered to ask my mother. When arranging for me to come out today, she mentioned having an appointment this morning – but it was a secret and she wouldn’t tell me what it was, and no one else was supposed to know.
Which means, of course, I had to warn my brother about it, because she has a terrible habit of causing problems he ends up having to fix.
So I jokingly asked her how her seeeecret meeting went this morning.
Well, it turned out, our vandal had somehow arranged with her to come over for a visit. Since his phone number is blocked, I don’t know how this was done.
The first thing I wanted to know was, was he alone? He has been behaving properly, when there is someone else there as a witness, but when it’s just him, that’s when he is verbally abusive towards her. It did turn out that he was alone.
I’m not sure what he was after, but whatever it was, I don’t think he got it. Apparently, he’s got cancer and is undergoing chemo, but she can’t even remember if it was his lungs or kidneys or whatever. But he’s taking lots of pills, and is getting surgery soon.
Whether this is true or not, I have no way to know, but I’m guessing he’s going to milk it for all he’s worth on her for… something. Usually, money, but who knows. Whatever it is, though, it’s going right over her head. After only a few hours, she was already forgetting most of what he talked about.
At least he didn’t start yelling at her in the doorway, like he usually does when he’s on his own.
After that, I headed home. Before settling in, inside, I made a point of doing some outside stuff first. Our high of the day was supposed to be 26C/79F, which I’m sure we did reach. As I write this, it’s past 4:30, and we’re at 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 30C/86F. It was definitely feeling hot out there, and the humidity isn’t helping. Especially when it comes to mosquitoes. We have SO many mosquitoes right now! They are just loving this weather.
I went to top up the cat kibble outside but, in this heat, they aren’t actually eating all that much. I still made sure to leave some spread out in spots around the house, where I know kittens are starting to come closer.
Then I was going to continue my evening rounds, when I saw a cat lying in the grass, in the shade of the storage house, looking like it was asleep.
Except, cats don’t sleep there. It’s too open and exposed.
It turned out to be Driver (Adam’s sibling), and he was dead.
There was no sign of injury of any kind on him. Since the snow melted, we had only been seeing him every once in a while. The few times I’ve seen him recently, he was very skittish and nervous around the other males; particularly Shop Towel. There was no evidence he’d been in a fight of any kind, though. He was just lying there, like he was taking a nap in the shade.
So bizarre!
I then had the problem of finding a place to bury him. We’re running out of places to bury cats and kittens. Too many big tree roots and rocks. In the end, I buried him where we were supposed to have a poppy bed this year, but it never got cleared out in time for sowing. We can build up the bed and plant flowers over him, next year.
*sigh*
This has been a pretty rough week or so for that. The litter of newborns, the baby raccoon, and now Driver…
Yeah, I know; this is to be expected when you live in the boonies, and we do have way too many cats, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
The rain started last night and, while never particularly heavy, it continued through this morning, and we’re still getting the odd showers. It’s only 17C/63F out there and windy, making it feel like 12C/52F, according to my apps.
Overcast, damp and chilly…
… not a surprise that I woke up in pain and have been feeling ready to fall asleep all day.
Definitely not the sort of weather to take the transplants outside, never mind actually planting anything.
So it’s been an inside sort of day, and not a very productive one.
I think I counted 25 this morning! I did not see Broccoli or her kittens, nor did I hear anything when I left food in the old garden shed for them. Hopefully, they were just being very quiet, and have not been moved.
I’m rather concerned about Patience, Peanut Butter Cup’s brother outside. While their fur colours are very different, they look very much alike. PBC had problems with a leaky butt that has improved substantially. Patience, however, has suddenly gotten worse. His poor behind is looking quite unfortunately and messy. Whatever the problem is, it’s only affecting him and (previously) his sister. So we can rule out quite a few possible contagious causes. We’re already dosing their kibble with lysine. We’re not in a position to start dosing them with something like the Healthy Poops stuff that we’re giving the inside cats through their daily Cat Soup mixture. It’s not like we can isolate the one cat and treat him, right now, either.
Well, such is life with semi-feral cats, unfortunately. Hopefully, he will improve as time goes by.
In other things, my mother had her home care panel yesterday, and it went “well”.
Too “well.”
He went through one of the panel lists with us – about a dozen pages – and a few times, he simply handed it to me to read over and mark things off. This dealt with her physical challenges. He explained, before we started, how the “marking” system worked, and what was used to determined the level of care a person might need.
Before he arrived, my mother had made a list of concerns, as I suggested, that we went over together. I’m glad I showed up early to do that. My mother’s writing is a mix of Polish and English, usually with English words spelled phonetically Polish. Others… I’m honestly not sure how she’s deciding to spell things! Some of the things she wrote down, though, I just couldn’t figure out.
There are a few things she keeps trying to bring up with anyone she things is a medical professional of some sort, even when it’s not something they can answer – like asking the lab tech taking her blood about her urinary issues. This time, she was adding things like her burping. She complains about burping a lot, but as she talks more about it, she eventually says that she is having pains and making herself burp actually makes her feel better. After much questioning about the pain she’s feeling, she seemed to be talking about just below her solar plexus, but also about general chest pain. It is incredibly difficult to narrow things down because, no matter how many times we’ve tried to explain things to her, she cannot grasp basic anatomy.
While going over the list, there were things that, on their own, were not topics he could deal with, so we talked about what he was there for again, and the concerns she had, both physical and mental, that he could take into account.
Of course, once he was there, she found ways to talk about all sorts of things that were completely outside of his scope.
I’d also told her that this was the time to talk about her worst and most difficult days; the reasons why she doesn’t feel safe living where she is now.
When the time came, though, she – as always! – made light of the major things, and made a big deal out of the minor things!
I tried my best to keep her more honest, but he can only go by what she says and agrees to. So if she says she can cope with her knees, even though they are what puts her most at risk, he has to go with that. Meanwhile, she’ll start talking about waking up with a dry mouth at night as if it’s such a big deal, even though we’d already talked about how she’s probably just falling asleep with her mouth open. I tried to explain to her the difference between that, and having a medical condition that causes dry mouth, as they are VERY different, but she completely dismissed it.
In the end, he had a few things he could offer her from Home Care.
She rejected almost every one of them.
The only area she was willing to give in was for a commode to keep by her bedside, and you could see, it really was a “giving in”, not something she wanted. Frankly, I don’t know that she’ll even use it, but will keep using a bucket, instead. We’d already tried to loan her a commode, and she would not use it. Granted, one they provide would be a lot more comfortable and have hand rails. So we’ll see.
Among her concerns was how much harder it is for her to cook her meals or do her dishes, etc. because of her knees. She has to hang on to the counters, or use her cane, to get around her apartment. Meal prep was offered. One option was to have someone come to her home a couple of times a day to basically do a heat and eat, or prepare a soup and sandwich type thing. They only have 15 minutes, so they can’t cook a meal from scratch. Not something that would be very useful for her. The other was to have someone come every couple of weeks for 2 hours, and do a whole meal prep from scratch, with the complete meals left in her fridge and freezer to heat up as needed. That would have been very useful for her.
She turned it down, because she prefers to cook her own food – or use Meals on Wheels.
She actually had home care a few years back, as she was recovering from surgery. She hated it and was nasty to the home care worker. Back when I was a kid, she actually did home care for extra money every now and then, and she doesn’t understand that what she did, 40 years ago, is completely different from how it’s done now. Even the qualifications have changed. If today’s requirements existed back then, she could never have done any home care at all.
Basically, she wants help, but hates getting help, because it’s never “right” or good enough.
One of the things she brought up was moaning about how she’s probably going to need a wheelchair soon (she’s been saying that for a few years now). I reminded her, we have one waiting, if she needs it. It’s my late father’s wheelchair that was brought to her, but then she decided she didn’t need it, so I took it to store here until she decides otherwise. I mentioned that my brother tried to give her mobility scooters and even a powered chair (much smaller), and she started going on about how they are so jerky to drive, and they have batteries. I had to explain that she’s a bit paranoid about batteries, but was unable to elaborate.
When talking about the wheelchair, though, I remembered to point out that she might not be able to use a manual chair. She might not have the arm strength for it, anymore. Operating a manual wheelchair is hard work!
By the end of it, it was obvious she didn’t “need” the long term care situation she wants to move to. The guy even expressed frustration early on, as many doctors have no idea what the approval process for LTC is, and just assume if they say a patient needs it, they’ll get it. There are so many people on the waiting lists for LTC, only the most severe cases actually get in.
There are, however, other options.
We’d been talking about Assisted Living for my mother, which is a step below LTC, however there is another step that’s basically between places like where my mother is now, and Assisted Living, called Supportive Housing. (In other provinces I’ve lived in, Assisted Living and Supportive Housing was pretty much different names for the same thing.)
There are very few such places, though. He named a few towns and the city, none of which are places my mother wants to live in.
There is, however, one in the town my brother lives in.
He suggested we look into it as somewhere my mother can go. I looked it up later, and the place is just a few years old. The building is split between Supportive Housing and 55+ Independent Living, which is sort of like what my mother is in now, but with better amenities. My brother and his wife will check it out, when they have the chance, because their website really kinda sucks. 😄
There were quite a few things, however, I needed to tell him that couldn’t be talked about in front of my mother, so when we were done, I walked him out to his vehicle. As we were passing through the lobby, there was a folded up wheelchair available for residents, and I told him that’s much like the one we have that my mother would be using. He told me he was glad I caught on that she might not have the arm strength to operate a manual wheelchair anymore. That’s not something they typically have to consider, since anyone at that stage would be using a motorized wheelchair – which my mother doesn’t want.
Once at the relative privacy by his vehicle, we chatted for a while. I clarified a few things for him, but there was so much, I missed a few others I wanted to bring up, but forgot about until later.
With some of them, he asked if the geriatric care nurse that had done the cognitive assessments was told about. With some, I couldn’t remember but, with others, I know I did discuss them with her. This was also where I mentioned the situation with our vandal, which is also relevant, but from the cognitive function area, not physical mobility and self care, which is his area. With things like her physical condition being worse than she made it out to be, there was really nothing he could do. If she says she’s good, he has to accept it. Her cognitive impairment isn’t severe enough to override that for her own safety.
So… my mother sabotaged herself again.
He is going to follow up with the person who did the cognitive assessments, though.
The other thing he’s going to arrange is for an Occupational Therapist to come in. If there are any changes that should be made to her apartment, they can make recommendations. This sort of assessment, done for my late father, is why this house has arm bars and hand rails, everywhere, and why we still have his bath transfer chair, should my husband’s bath chair no longer be enough.
I think my mother should really be using a hospital bed – especially with her concerns about breathing. Maybe if the OT suggests it, she’ll finally accept? She really ought to be sleeping more upright, for her breathing issues, and have a bed that is lower to the floor to make it easier for her to get in and out of. When I bring it up, though, she says she “doesn’t want to bother anybody”.
Which reminds me… I did bring up that a lot of the health complains she makes – the minor ones, not the serious ones she makes light of – are clearly more about her wanting attention. A better way to describe it, though, would have been that it’s about control, too, but I didn’t think of that until just now.
Oh, I also remembered to talk to him about mental health. At some point, she did have a diagnosis, but we don’t know what it was. My brother had tried to track down her old health records, with no success. When we first moved here and I was packing up the stuff in my mother’s dresser, I found a full box of pills prescribed to her. The doctor that prescribed them passed away quite a few years ago. When I looked up the medication, one of the things it’s usually prescribed for is manic depression (now called bi-polar disorder, I believe), but that may not have been her diagnosis at the time. She has a very long history of simply stopping medications she’d been given, or not taking them at all. I told him I believe she may be paranoid schizophrenic; she’s a textbook example of that, and I told him about some of the things I remembered her doing when I was a kid. This is not a new thing. It’s just getting worse as she gets older.
As we were talking, he gave me a copy of another assessment he had – this one is “only ” six pages long – that we didn’t cover. It’s a Behavioral Assessment. When I was able to go over it, I realized we really needed to have done this one – but there was no way we could have done it with her! She is not aware that these behaviours of hers are a problem, and feels entitled and justified to act that way. As I went over some of the questions, my first thought might be “no, she doesn’t really do that”. Then I’d read the examples and realize, yes, she does this. A lot! But these are things she doesn’t usually do when she’s alone at home. She does them when she’s with us.
I was able to talk to my brother about the home care assessment, yesterday evening. With some of the stuff, my brother has more information than I do. I sent him images of the Behavioral Assessment, and he was going to try calling the home care guy some time today, in between meetings. Hopefully, they’ll be able to connect.
So that’s were we’re at now.
In limbo, really.
My mother’s just on the edge of qualifying for the level of care she’s asking for, but not quite there yet. At least when it comes to the stuff we talked about at the time. If we’d been able to do the other assessment, it probably would have made the difference.
Still, even if we can just get her into Supportive Housing, it’s a foot in the door, and there would be trained people seeing her every day that could make determinations, as to whether she needs more help than they can give her. Once she’s on that path, it’ll be easier to get her the next step up, compared to where she is living now.
One thing about the place he recommended. If she moves there, I will become the one living furthest away from her. There would mean no more errands, or driving her to medical appointments, from me.
It would be back on my brother, as he would be the closest to her – and she has been so horrible towards him! If she’s living in the same town as him (they don’t actually live in the town, but on an acreage), she would expect him to be waiting on her, hand and foot.
Before I get into how things went, I want to share some adorable news. While checking in the old garden shed while Broccoli was eating at the other side of the hose, I found both kittens, curled up together on a grow bag next to their cat bed. I was able to pick both of them up and cuddle them! The black and white male hissed at me a bit. The calico mostly just started at me. Neither tried to run away. The calico’s eyes are changing colour! The black and white still has very blue eyes.
I straightened out the cat bed and set them in it, before leaving some kibble for Broccoli just inside the door. I’d already left some in a sheltered spot outside the shed, and when I closed the door, I found her there, munching away. Happily, she is tolerating my visits to her babies, and not hiding them.
One of my goals for the day was to plant some summer squash in the pots we’ve got outside the main doors into the house. I got some seeds scarified and presoaking while I did my morning rounds, then planted them after I had breakfast. While checking the garden beds, I noticed the one available chimney block planter at the chain link fence and decided to plant in there, too.
In the pots, I decided on white patty pans (a new one for us), green Endeavor zucchini, and yes, I found a package of Magda seeds! I’d ordered a variety pack of summer squash years ago, and accidentally ordered three instead of one – and those extra seeds are coming in handy! The chimney block planter got Goldy zucchini. Hopefully, we’ll have space to plant out more summer squash in other places, but for now, we at least have these in. I had to add sticks around where the seeds were planted, to make sure no cats lay on them!
Then I found cats lying on my onions that were transplanted! I remembered I had a packages of disposable plastic utensils in the old kitchen, so I stuck those in among the onions. I don’t know that they’ll all survive being squashed flat by cat butts, but at least now they have a chance!
One of my other goals for today was to start transplanting into one of the shifted beds in the main garden area, with or without a frame. My daughter, however, figured we should be able to drag that second log out of the spruce grove today. So that’s what we started on.
Since she debranched it and cut it to length, all the space she cleared around it has grown back! The mosquitoes in there were brutal, too.
Dragging it out was a pain. We used a rope to heave it forward a few feet, then I’d go to the other and and swing it around a foot or so, we’d drag it forward some more, then back to swinging the other end around, until we finally cleared some trees and had a straight line out of the spruce grove. Even then, we had to make our way between a narrow space between trees at the edge of the grove. It was a bit easier to drag once we were clear of the spruce grove, but an 18′ log is pretty heavy!
Oh, wow. I just used a log weight calculator. I don’t know the exact dimensions for the calculator, but at the lowest estimate, it would be 210 pounds/95kg. At the largest estimate, 337 pounds/152kg. I would guess it’s actually closer to about 250 pounds/113kg.
I don’t feel so bad, now.
Earlier in the morning, I’d taken out the weed trimmer and trimmed where I would be working around the beds, as close to the ground as I could. I also trimmed around the logs that were already by the raised beds – the grass and dandelions were so tall, you could barely see them!
After the log was dragged out, my daughter wanted to start mowing part of the lawn. It’s still damp, but it really needs to be done! She started on a section in front of the house that did not get mowed at all this year, around where the kibble and cat shelters are. It’s one of the densest sections of lawn we’ve got. She started off with the mower set high, then tried to go over the densest spot with it set lower, but the grass is so wet, the lawnmower kept clogging! She was collecting the grass clippings, which means she was stopping and starting often, to empty the bag. After a while, the lawnmower just wouldn’t start anymore. She switched to using the weed trimmer around the edges for a while, as we left the mower in the shade. After maybe half an hour, it started again. When it happened again, my daughter just stopped for the day. She was so hot and tired by then, she couldn’t even grip the pull cord anymore!
While she did that, I worked on the logs.
One of the first things to do was go over all of them with the baby chainsaw (cordless pruner) to cut away all the sticky-outy bits. Stubs of branches, lumps in the wood, etc. I did the 18′ lengths first, then the 4′ lengths. Being able to set the 4′ lengths across the long logs made it a lot easier! Once the bits were trimmed off, I broke out the draw knife and debarked the 4′ lengths. When we built our first high raised bed out of logs, I didn’t bother debarking them, as it was an experiment. What I’ve since found is that ants just LOVE to build nests in the logs, between the bark and the wood! Insects, in general, like to get in there, and of course, moisture collects between the layers, too. These logs have been out in the elements long enough that things were already getting in between the layers. After everything is set up, I’ll be making sure to use the jet setting on the hose to pressure wash the logs!
Once the bark was clear, it was back to removing sticky-outy bits again, that had been hidden in the bark.
Once the 4′ end pieces were done, I moved the marking posts with the twine on them over, then brought the short logs close to where they will be assembled. Then I worked on one of the 18′ logs. That was made easier by setting the ends on other logs, including a pile of them still mostly buried in the grass. These smaller logs will be the upright supports for the trellises, once the trellis beds are assembled. For now, though, they provide a surface I can use to roll a big log around, while debarking it!
By the time I got the first 18′ length debarked, I was totally hooped. We were at 17C/63F, with a humidex of 20/68F, and I was working in full sun. It felt a lot hotter than that, to me! It was time to stop for sustenance and hydration. I think I might still make it out this evening, but I’m not sure, yet, if I’ll get back to the logs. I might do some other transplanting, first. For now, though, even if we just get the 18′ lengths in position, the soil inside can be spread out, and some of the winter squash can be transplanted. The 4′ ends can be permanently attached, later. So finishing the second 18′ log is a priority, but I’ll see how I feel physically, first. I don’t need to go to my mother’s tomorrow until the afternoon, so I can hopefully do some transplanting in the morning, but I definitely won’t be working with the logs in the morning, when I have to leave for my mother’s!
I did get a bit of an update about her. I haven’t talked to her since she hung up on me yesterday, when she was trying to convince me her pills are all wrong. My brother spoke to her, and he mentioned he’d heard she hung up on me. She started going on about how her pills are all mixed up, and he basically repeated the same things I did, adding that the pharmacist knows which is which, and makes sure they are in the right places in her bubble packs. She ended up changing the subject. She told him she hadn’t gone to church today, because she wasn’t feeling good (no idea why) then asked if he went to church today. He reminded her, they go to their church on Saturdays (she’s said to me a few times that she doesn’t think they go to church anymore. I remind her that they go on Saturdays, but she doesn’t believe me!). Then he mentioned this Saturday was particularly special, as they attended the funeral of a dear friend’s mother. My SIL sang during the service, while my brother played the guitar.
To which my mother lamented that my SIL cares more about taking care of her friends, than taking care of my mother…
My poor brother. He told me, he was absolutely speechless when she said that. He couldn’t think of what to say at all, so he told her he had to get back to working on their sump pump, and said goodbye.
When he told me about this, I remembered telling my mother about this upcoming funeral, and that my SIL was asked to sing, and her response then was the same. My SIL takes better care of her friends that of my mother.
Oh, I think I know why. My mother has been obsessed about her own funeral, and giving us instructions on what she wants us to do. She had brought up my SIL singing at her funeral. My SIL almost never talks to my mother anymore, and doesn’t come out when my brother does. Too many years of being told she wasn’t “real” family, just my brother’s wife, and my mother being horribly cruel to her, when my SIL has never been anything but kind to my mother.
My brother and his wife are such amazing people. They deserve so much better than how my mother treats them!
Ah, well.
Tomorrow, she has her home care panel. One more step in the process for her to go into long term care. I’m just really thankful that this is something she actually wants, and not something we have to figure out how to do around her!
I’m taking a hydration break, then we’ll be doing a dump run and an errand run into town, so I figured I should make a progress post before we head out.
Yesterday’s fast passing thunderstorm didn’t give us enough rain to saturate the cardboard on the bed I worked on, yesterday. I used a hose on the cardboard, but I’m not too concerned about getting it really saturated before adding the soil. That spot doesn’t have standing water right now, but it is very wet. Once the weight of the soil is on the cardboard, and it is compressed against the wet soil below, it will get saturated quite quickly on its own.
The first thing I needed to do was push my way through the jungle to get to the pile of garden soil. This is the first time it’s been uncovered this year. It’s amazing how much can grow under that … landscape cloth? I salvaged from around the old wood pile, years ago.
The soil was so full of crab grass rhizomes, I actually had to sort of pre-sift the soil with my hands and pull out as many roots as I could, just so I could shovel it onto the sifter over the wheelbarrow! I didn’t fill the wheelbarrow as much as I normally would, as I wanted room to mix in the sulfur granules. I broke open the second package for the first time, so we’ll be able to compare with the other beds, if there’s any difference in how well they help acidify our alkaline soil.
With the smaller loads, it meant more trips. I think was five or six loads? I lost track I made the bed deeper in the middle than the sides, since it’s going to have large squash plants in it.
Then I stopped for a cool down and hydration break. According to my weather app, it’s 17C/63F out there, with a “feels like” of 16C/61F
It felt way hotter than that, to me!
Before I get back to it, my daughter and I will be doing a dump run, then a trip into town. She and her sister have some of their own shopping to do.
Once I get back at it. I’ll be transplanting the three Crespo squash into the new bed. I’ve decided that, since I have to put something around them to protect them from deer, I will take advantage of that. I will plant pole or climbing seed beans along two sides and the barrier will be their trellis. The deer do eat bean plants as well, but if I put the netting on right, that won’t happen until the plants are much larger and better able to survive such an onslaught.
In theory, I could do a “three sisters” type thing, but the idea of planting just a few corn in the middle of the squash seems useless to me. If we’re going to plant corn, it’s going to be a much larger amount!
Anyhow, I’ll take a look at the bean seeds I have and decide if I want to do pole beans for fresh eating, or seed beans that will be left alone until fall to harvest. I’m leaning more towards fresh eating, since we’ve got so little of that started right now!
The first week of June is already done, and I’ve done none of the “after last frost date” direct sowing, yet! Okay, okay. It’s only 6 days since our last frost date, and we’ve been known to have frost even later, but it just feels like time is slipping through my fingers, with all the delays and interruptions.
Ah, well. We’ll get in what we can, and make do with what we have!
Then, just to make things even more frustrating, I got a phone call from my mother while I was writing this. When I asked how she was doing, she started going on about her pills, and my first thought was that she was going to ask me to take her to the hospital for some reason. As she kept talking in circles, I had to stop her and tell her to get to her point (I was just too hot and too tired to follow her when she gets like this). She didn’t aske me to take her to the hospital. Instead, she started talking about how she took all her pills – it sounded like she was saying she took all her pills at once! – and then about the one she was not supposed to take anymore…
I eventually was able to get her to explain to me that she had been going through her pills yesterday evening, and comparing them to her old, leftover pills that she never throws away, and comparing them to each other, and she has decided that white round pills in the morning (her water pills) and the round white pills in the evening (blood thinners, if I remember correctly) were the same pills, because they also both have the number 20 on them. I explained to her that the number is for the pharmacist to know what the dose is, not what kind of pill it is. She said, they’re mixed up. I said no, that’s why they’re in the bubble packs. So they don’t get mixed up. Don’t take them out of the bubble packs, so they don’t get mixed up!
She hung up on me.
So my mother has decided her pills are “wrong”. The one I identified for her as the water pills are not really her water pills.
She is absolutely determined to mess herself up, and convinced that others are deliberately giving her the wrong medications or telling her the wrong things, because they are hiding things from her.
This is not the first time we’ve had these issues. It’s just getting worse, as she gets older.
I ended up sending an email to my siblings to update her. Then I called the guy at home care and left a message about what’s going on, and what she’s doing to herself, because there’s no way we’d be able to talk about this during his meeting with her. That would really set her paranoia off!
Hopefully, between my siblings and I, we’ll be able to convince her to take her medications as directed.
Now that I think about it, my mother probably took her pills out of their bubble packs so she can see them more closely, and now can’t tell the white round pills apart. If she only did that for one day, that wouldn’t be too bad, but who knows, at this point.
*sigh*
I wish I could say this is a new thing showing up with her cognitive decline but, to be honest, she’s always done this. It’s just getting worse as she gets older.
I admit, I was shorter with her than usual. I was hot and tired and just didn’t have the ability to follow her along when she starts talking in circles like that. I really think a big part of it is, she wants us to be paying attention to her, and to jump when she says jump. There is very much a control element involved. Again, not a new thing, but at this stage, it’s far more disruptive, and far more potentially harmful to herself.
I’m glad that she actually wants to go into a nursing home, and asked for the process to be started. Her reasons why may be about her physical limitations, but I really think it’s her cognitive issues that are the more urgent safety concerns right now.
Well, we’ll see how things go when the home care panel is done on Monday. Hopefully, she’ll get in for that required brain MRI soon – or that it is not something that would delay any decisions to get her into long term care.
There were a few things that were planned for today. The trip to my mother’s was the biggest one, but I was also planning to get a quick, low raised bed for the Crespo squash done, as well as to finally get a family photo done.
This adorable little lady still won’t let us anywhere near her. She is from the latest litter of last year, and isn’t quite a year old yet. I really, really want to snag her before she goes into her first heat, but she just won’t allow it!
When I did the morning feeding, I didn’t even try to do a head count. They come and go too much, this time of year. I did check in the old garden shed to see how the kittens were doing, but they were not visible. I saw them through my bedroom window, last night, playing among the stuff pile at the back of the shed, over the rotted out hole the cats get in and out of. That was reassuring, as I’d feared Broccoli had finally moved them. This morning, though, I didn’t see or hear anything, plus there was still kibble left from yesterday, just inside the door. I didn’t see Broccoli at the kibble house, which is what usually happens when the mamas have moved their kittens further from the house and don’t necessarily hear the kibble hitting the trays.
I’m happy to say, though, that when I went around the back of the house this evening, to check on what I thought was where I was hearing a cat fight, I spotted the black and white one playing among the remains of a pallet, then Broccoli popped out to check on what I was doing. So the kittens are still in the garden shed.
After my morning rounds were done, the weather was good enough that I thought we could finally get the group photo done, out by the lilac hedge. As I was setting up the tripod, my husband and older daughter started coming around, when my daughter suggested we find somewhere else.
My husband was barefoot.
I had no idea my husband no longer had outside shoes! He has tried to buy himself some sandals online, a couple of times, now, but … well… let’s just say, my daughters now have new sandals. When I would take him to medical appointments, he would wear his grandpa slippers, which I thought was just a comfort thing. There was no way we were going to let him walk through the old garden area to the lilac hedge, in bare feet! Especially since he doesn’t feel pain in his feet anymore.
So we decided we will wait for the Dwarf Korean lilac by the house to start blooming, and do the photo there. Hopefully, he’ll have outdoor shoes by then, but if not, it’s only a few steps from the house and there’s nothing there he can injure himself on. These lilacs will bloom in a few weeks, so it’s not much of a delay.
I had thought I would have time to start some projects before I had to leave for my mother’s, but decided to head to her place early, rather than work on things that would get me dirty and sweaty. 😁 I figured I’d pick up lunch for us, too. I checked the grocery store, first, to see if they had those hot dinners she likes so much, but they didn’t. Instead, I put some gas in the truck, and picked up some fried chicken and wedges at the same time.
I gotta say, my messed up left elbow is annoying. When starting to put fuel in the truck, I couldn’t squeeze the lever on the nozzle! I had to switch hands to do it! Strange how an elbow injury can prevent certain motions in the hand from happening. It wasn’t even the pain. The hand just couldn’t squeeze while in that angle!
Ah, well.
I tried calling my mother before I left to let her know I was coming early, but there was no answer. When I got there, she was in the lobby, chatting with a neighbor, so seeing me then was a surprise for her. 😊
She didn’t even give me a hard time for what kind of food I brought, so she was definitely in a good mood.
We had our lunch first, which is when I noticed something on her table that needed to be dealt with. It was an appointment card for a local doctor that she made with my sister, but never told me the date for. She’s wanting to change doctors, even though any doctors out here tend to not stay long, and only come out a few days a week from the city, anyhow. But she doesn’t like her current doctor, and while her racism and sexism plays a part, the reality is, it’s hard for her to make the trip, and between the doctor’s strong accent and fast speech, and my mother’s own grasp of the English language, she has a really hard time understanding what the doctor is saying. The problem is, the appointment with this new local doctor was for Monday.
The day she’s getting her Home Care panel done.
When I commented on it, she asked if I could call and cancel it for her. Which I did, as soon as we finished eating. It was a very quick call, which really surprised my mother. I think she expect them to give me a hard time for cancelling or something, but it was no issue at all.
That done, we brought out her bubble packs and I started looking up her medications. It turns out the water pills she’s on are a round white pill – and she’s taking two different round white pills! They are taken at different times of the day, though, so they were in different bubbles in her pack. While I was at it, I went through each of her prescriptions and wrote down what they were for, and what they looked like, so she could keep track. She thought her water pills were the one that’s split in half and taken twice a day, but that one is a heart pill! It took a lot of repeating and explaining, with both of us writing things down, but I think she finally has it straight as to which pill she is to stop taking, and when. What finally seemed to help make it click for her is that she is now taking 2 pills in the morning instead of 3, but everything else is the same.
I wasn’t going to confuse things by pointing out it was actually 1 1/2 pills. 😁
She has one prescription that is for acid reflux that is in its own bubble, to be taken before she goes to bed. As we were talking, she mentioned that she takes it with her evening pills, because she didn’t want to be bothered with taking a pill again before bed.
She takes her evening pills at 5pm. She doesn’t go to bed until past 10pm.
Suddenly, the problems she was having that the Pepto helped with makes sense. The one medication that should have prevented that was being taken way too early in the day.
*sigh*
But we got it straightened out, and she says she’ll take that one pill before going to bed, again.
She absolutely will not change the times she takes her morning and evening pills, though. It’s 5am and 5pm and that’s it, even though the recommended time frames on the bubble packs would mean not having to get up at 5am every day, but at a far more reasonable hour!
Not something that’s worth giving her a hard time over, though. She just takes her pills, then goes back to bed for several more hours.
After that was done, we went over her shopping list, and then I went and did her shopping for her. I even remembered something we talked about, but wasn’t on her list – a small case of water bottles! It turns out, she remembered that after I left, so she was really happy when she saw me carry it in.
We then spent some time talking about her need to increase hydration, and how these 500ml bottles can help her keep track. I was able to show her that the amount of water she should be drinking was 4 of those bottles – which seemed to shock her. It’s only 2L. The average amount of water an adult female should be drinking (including about 20% fluid from food) is just under 3L. I don’t expect her to be able to start drinking that much right away, but it’s a visible and easy way for her to keep track.
On her list was some canned soup, for those days she doesn’t want to cook, but now also because she is keeping in mind that she should eat more soup for hydration. As we talked about it, she mentioned that she couldn’t open the cans. She had to get a neighbour to do it, for her! She says she needs a new can opener, but she is also having more trouble with her hands. The easy solution would be to get her an electric can opener, but I think that might actually be beyond her.
We’ll figure something out. The good thing is, she has neighbours that are willing and able to do it for her, until then!
Remembering that she was having trouble using the can opener, I remembered to open one of the water bottles for her, just in case, and jokingly nagged at her until she drank some.
She took the tiniest of sips, and that was it! I’m hoping it’s just because she’s not used to drinking from a water bottle, and not because that’s how much she usually drinks at a time!
Oh, I was also able to help her put some things away, that were still sitting in the middle of her living room, from the last time the exterminators were there. While I was doing that, I noticed the traps they’d left in various places, so I checked them. There were a very few insects caught in them, but no bed bugs. So that is encouraging!
While I was sorting through some things to put away for her, I pulled a jar out of one of the bags.
A jar with change in it, labelled “bingo”.
My mother seemed surprised to see it, but then started saying they don’t play bingo anymore, so maybe she should use the change.
I think this is the jar of change my mother claims the exterminator stole from her. When she talked about it, I had in mind that this was a larger jar, like a pickle jar or jam jar or something. Not a tiny jar like this one. Now that I think about it, a larger jar like I thought she was describing doesn’t make sense, as she said it was completely full, and she wouldn’t be able to pick up larger jar with the weight of change in it. Her hands are just too messed up with arthritis.
It didn’t stop her from checking inside the jar while I continued sorting, and making comments about how the exterminators just love going into her apartment, so they can go through her stuff, while she’s gone.
*sigh*
Ah, well.
After I finished at my mother’s, I headed home, then took the time to send an email to my siblings to update them on how it went, before heading outside. I’ll share more about that in a separate post. While I was working in the sun room, though, I spotted a visitor!
The double lilac in the old kitchen garden are starting to really open up. With the recent deluge we had, with other areas getting snow, quite a few people on my gardening groups lamented the loss of everything they planted on the May long weekend. Quite a few others responded by saying to not put out any tender transplants or seeds until after the lilacs start to bloom.
We have 5 different kinds of lilacs, and they all bloom at different times. These double lilacs bloom first, and we’re still almost a week away from our last frost date! So that’s a rule of thumb I’m going to ignore! 😄
Speaking of thumbs, we’ve got more Red Thumb and Purple Caribe potatoes coming up. No sign of the German Butterball, but they were planted quite a while later. Of the sugar snap peas, the first ones we planted still have a whole three sprouts growing, but the second planting has quite a few breaking ground now! The carrots are still so tiny, it’s hard to tell how many have actually survived. We’ll need to plant more, anyhow. The spinach seems to be struggling, too. We’ve had both excellent results with spinach, and absolutely awful results. In this bed, though, I would have expected better results. We’ll see how they do as our weather clears.
I also spotted some tiny, distinctive leaves in the wattle weave bed. The chamomile successfully self sowed!
I headed out to go to my mother’s early, first to make sure the truck was prepped for her to be able to climb in, and to be able to get her folded up walker in, behind her seat. The little step stool I got was also handy. Of course, I checked the tires, because I always check the tires! The spare is holding up nicely, but that front driver’s side tire needed a top up again. It’ll be good when we can finally change out those valve stems, but my goodness, our budget has been hit hard these last few months.
Before going to my mother’s, I swung by the post office to get the mail. I’ll get to what was in there in just a little bit! As I was in the truck, updating the family before leaving, who should pull in, but our vandal. At first, he seemed to avoid looking at me, but as he got to the door of the store, he actually waved hello, pleasantly, before heading in. My hands were occupied, so I just smiled and nodded. I have heard that he’s been going to AA and such, as well as struggling with health issues, so maybe he’s improving. I’m not holding my breath, but there was a time when we were very close. One can hope things will get better.
Once at my mother’s, I was early enough that we could go over a few things first. She had two shopping lists; one for the pharmacy, and one for the grocery store. She also had a few little things she needed help with that I could do when we got back, plus some stuff she wanted me to take home with me. This included a church bulletin, which is basically just a newsletter. When we had a church to go to in the city, I really liked their bulletins, as they were basically what the service was for the day, with either responses right in the bulletin, or page numbers for them in service books/hymnals. This was especially appreciated when we first starting going there.
Gosh, I miss that church.
Along with the bulletin, she had a couple of women’s magazines for me. The social workers that visit her building give them to her, then she passes them on to me instead of putting them in recycling. I told her, we don’t read them, so go ahead and recycle them. This was about the only time my mother went on a bit of a rampage. Apparently, she wanted us to read the magazines because we (meaning my daughters) don’t go anywhere (she assumes), and don’t do anything (???), so we need to be exposed to stuff like magazines. I told her, these particular magazines are pretty much all about selling weight loss products. Oh, but they have good recipes! To which I said, Mom. We have the Internet. We have access to everything that’s in this magazine, and more. If fact, we can have access to these magazines, too! She finally stopped pushing after that. I must say, I am getting rather tired of her basically giving us her garbage to get rid of.
Speaking of which, she also had a container of something frozen… for the cats.
*sigh*
At least this time, it wasn’t something full of onions! I mentioned that onions are poisonous to cats, and I think she remembered.
We left fairly early for her appointment, so we had a bit of a wait. That gave me time to show her some photos and videos on my phone that my brother and his wife had sent me, as they are currently out of province. As time passed, I ended up showing her pictures on Pinterest to keep her occupied. I know what to look for, for her, and she seems to really enjoy it. She never got much chance to complain about how long it was taking, which she started to do a whole 3 minutes past her appointment time. 😄
The appointment itself went far more quickly than I expected. When we told the doctor we were there for a long term care assessment, she looked up the file and read the report from the woman that assessed my mother’s cognitive abilities a while back. The one area of note involved memory loss – more short term than long term. There is a medication that can help with that, but I already know my mother wouldn’t want to take another prescription. It turns out to be a moot point. One of the medications my mother is on is for a heart condition, and this medication is dangerous for people with heart conditions. Not that my mother actually has one. When she last saw the coronary specialist, it was shortly after we moved here, and I was there for it, along with my brother. My mother has a very healthy heart, and she was most unhappy to hear that, since she was convinced she was having heart problems and that he must be lying to her (we now know she was feeling really bad heartburn, but it took a few years to figure that out!). This heart medication she’s on is for something else. However, if there’s any sort of contraindication, my mother is not going to get this other prescription.
As for the long term care assessment, I was expecting my mother to get lots of questions, but the doctor basically accepted that, if my mother feels she needs to be in long term care, then she needs to be in long term care! There are just hoops to jump. The first ones, we could take care of right away. My mother got requisitions for lab work, chest X-ray and an EKG. All of that was available right across the waiting room. The only set back there was my mother had to get onto a bed for the EKG. She really struggled to get up there, and there wasn’t any way for us to help her. There was a stool available, but that was actually more difficult. Later on, as she was struggling to get into the truck, she told me it was easier to do that, then get onto that bed for her EKG!
The next things she needs will be done later. She’s got a referral for a home care panel, which will be done in her home, and she has a referral for a brain MRI. Once the doctor gets the last of the results, it all gets sent in for the long term care referral. I’m assuming there is some sort of approval process, then she gets put onto a waiting list.
I had been told we’d be asked to give the names of our top three preferred long term care centres, and I had that ready. However, when it came up, the doctor said there isn’t a choice. You get wherever there’s an opening. Which I found rather strange. Still, even if she doesn’t get in where she wants to be, my mother can be transferred later, when there is an opening. Transfers take precedence over the waiting list.
So the ball is now rolling. My mother is getting increasingly eager to move into a nursing home! I think part of that eagerness is because she feels that, if she ever did need help where she is now, like if she had a fall or something, the people around her couldn’t be relied on to come to her aid. She wants to be somewhere with a staff that has that ability to help, and I think she recognizes her own decline, to a certain extent. Talking about things like memory loss, during the drive back, we talked about things like forgetting the stove on – something she is already extremely cautious about, even if she hasn’t used the stove! When I commented that, if she were having such issues, she wouldn’t even know it, she immediately agreed. I think that was something else she was aware of, but didn’t have the vocabulary to express.
So that was done.
Before taking her home, we made the stops we needed for her shopping. She stayed in the truck! After everything was brought in and put away, I did the few things she needed help with in her apartment. By then, it was time for her to take her evening meds, and she was feeling really tired. So was I!
Once at home and I brought in the mail, I had a package I was told was coming – but the contents were a rather hilarious surprise!
The ingredients are pumpkin, flax seed, coconut, chicory root, turmeric, ginger and banana. The dose for under 25 pounds is 1/2 Tbsp per day. The container holds about 28 Tbsp. When we make our cat soup again (we are currently out of wet cat food), this can replace the ground pumpkin seeds we are using now. Until then, it can be dusted onto the kibble.
Not all the cats have … issues… but it certainly won’t hurt! Turmeric is anti-inflammatory, and I’m sure our elderly cats will appreciate that, too. It should be interesting to see how they respond to it! Apparently, cats like it enough that it comes with a warning that this is to be used as if it were a treat, not as a meal, and to start off slow.
So that is something we will start using tomorrow. The lysine we ordered came in early, along with some other cat meds, too.
Today, the plan was to meet my brother to help set up my mother’s air conditioner for the summer. Since I was going to be out anyhow, I planned to go to the grocery store after, and pick up some eggs.
Since I was out anyhow, my daughter asked if she could bribe me into picking up some stuff for her, at which point it was worth the gas to go to the town we usually shop at.
Of course, nothing quite goes to plan, does it? I like it when that turns out to be good, which is how it worked out, today.
My brother and I pre-arranged to meet at a gas station before going to my mother’s together, so I left early to tank up, first. Once we connected, we both headed over to our mother’s place. My SIL was a sweetheart and sent a lunch for us all, with enough extra to feed my mother for at least another day. She is such a saint. She no longer visits my mother, because my mother has been so incredibly cruel to her, but she still loves her and does stuff like this. Which makes her a much better person than me. My mother has literally thrown away food my SIL made for her – frozen in individual meal portions – so she wouldn’t have to cook while recovering from surgery, because she decided it wasn’t “fresh”. She actually gave it to me to give to the cats. It wasn’t until later that I found out where it was from. I’ve tried to bring my own cooking to my mother as well, but got nothing but complaints, so I’ve given up completely. Now, she complains because I spend money on food, which makes me bad with money in her eyes. We can’t win, no matter what we do, but my brother and his wife just keep being so sweet to her! Which is a big part of why I was happy to join him today. Not only do I get to see him, but my mother behaves differently when both of us there, compared to how she treats him when he’s there on his own.
Setting up the AC didn’t take long at all. It’s one of the portable AC’s, not a permanent window one. Basically, it just involved removing the Styrofoam insulation that’s set in the window for the winter, and hooking up the duct from the machine. He’d taken the original window out and replaced it with a board the exact same size, and the window part of the AC set up installed in the middle, then cut 4″ wide Styrofoam insulation to fit on the inside, taped in place, for the winter.
Of course, once it was set up and plugged in, we had to test it. The outlet it’s plugged into has its own switch on the wall, which he taped in the On position, and even wrote “AC” on it, so no one would flick the power off from that outlet.
And… someone did. The tape was still there, but the switch was off. He turned it on while I was next to the plug, which has a reset button on it that I heard beep… but the AC would not turn on. If the switch was pushed in further, it would beep again, but that was it. So there’s clearly a connection problem in there, but not something we could deal with. That’s something my mother should call for a maintenance request for, though she won’t do that, of course. My brother could fix it, another day – and knowing him, he probably will – but technically, he shouldn’t. At least not without getting special clearance from Public Housing.
What we found, however, is that once the tape was put back over the switch, it was enough to hold it in place and keep the power on, and the AC was working fine.
That done, we had lunch, which was way more difficult than it should have been. My mother had delayed her breakfast and made “extra” for us, so she kept trying to make us eat her toast and cheese chunks, while trying to not eat the food my brother brought, because she made breakfast… As we were setting up lunch, my brother went into the fridge and found it almost empty. Oh, yes, my mother says. I’m running out of things… but I’m good for a few more days.
*sigh*
It took both of us to convince her to take advantage of the fact that we were there and could do it right away, instead of having me come back later in the week. So once we finished lunch, I started making a list with her. That’s when she said she wanted bleach, for her bathroom sink.
???
The sink was draining very slowly, so she wanted to use bleach to clear it.
So we explained that bleach won’t fix something like that. She would need a drain cleaner – maybe. My brother went over to take a look, filling the sink to see how bad it was. It turned out to be pretty bad!
Then we took a closer look, and there was all sorts of gunk visible. So my brother got a wire coat hanger, turned it into a small hook, and started pulling stuff out.
While he did that, I did my mother’s grocery shopping.
By the time I got back, the sink was draining like a dream, and my brother was “fixing” her TV. She was complaining about how the picture was too small – she was seeing black borders around the images. The problem turned out to not be the TV or its settings at all. Her cable provider recently upgraded, but not all the channels she gets are HD, so some channels automatically fill her screen, while others don’t. There was nothing wrong with her TV.
Meanwhile, as I put away the groceries, my mother was checking out the receipt and suddenly said, I told you I didn’t want lettuce.
???
I took a look and sure enough, there was iceberg lettuce on there – and it was voided, then her cabbage was listed. The cashier had put in the wrong code, then fixed it. My mother, however, was convinced that she was charged for a head of lettuce because she once got charged for a watermelon she didn’t buy, some 10 years ago (which I’m not sure actually happened; I think she mistook a promotion on the receipt as a sale item, which she once did with shipping I helped her with). So once everything was put away, I got out my phone with its calculator and added it all up. The total I got, minus the lettuce, matched the subtotal on the receipt. When to told her this, she gave me a look we all know too well. She didn’t believe me. She then tried a different tactic and implied the change she got was wrong. Well, I’d given her her change with the receipt, and it was still on the table, so I added that up and it matched the receipt, too.
You’d think that would have made her happy.
It didn’t.
Instead, she now thinks that not only is the store cheating her, but I’m lying to her about it.
*sigh*
Still, we dropped that.
As always, my mother tried to bring up all sorts of things in the most negative way, even trying to twist things to make it so that her behaviour is not a problem, but that everyone else is – including a nasty dig at my brother’s wife in the process.
*sigh*
My brother was way more gracious than I would have been, by that point!
My brother had told her yesterday that he couldn’t stay long, as he had an event to get ready for later today, but as we were getting ready to go, my mother kept trying to make us have tea, or eat something, or… I had already told her I needed to run errands, too, and she started giving me a hard time about how I’m always running errands. I told her, if I’m going to be going out anyway, I want to do as many things as I can, so I’m not going out several times a week. Of course, we’d already been there for a couple of hours, so it’s not like we were rushing off. Then she tried to make me take a little jar of “keys” home. Why? Well, she doesn’t have room for them. I looked in the jar and didn’t see any keys. Instead, I saw a mix of all kinds of objects; the sort of stuff you’d find in a junk drawer. Any keys that might have been in there were completely buried. I asked her, why are you giving me your junk? Oh, there’s lots of room at the farm.
*sigh*
That’s the problem, I told her. There’s too much stuff at the farm, including stuff people gave to her and Dad 50 or 60 years ago!
So she tried to tell me that I could sell the metal to a scrap dealer.
…
At that point, my brother stepped in to end the conversation, because it just wasn’t worth trying to explain it to her.
I didn’t take her jar of junk.
Then we both had to leave.
Which just made my mother angry, saying we were leaving because we didn’t like what she was saying (at that point, she was into a completely different rant about a topic unrelated to any of us), and we were like, no, it’s time to go, that’s all!
Sadly, while that was true, we were both glad to be gone. I’ve tried to explain to her that her behavior towards people drives them away, and she just excuses it with “I just say what’s on my mind.”
*sigh*
While my brother had to rush off to get home, I was able to make a quick stop at the hardware store, where I finally picked up a bale of peat moss for the garden, first. Then it was off to town and for what was supposed to be just a few items.
Ha!
I didn’t get a picture of what my $137.99 looked like, though. Just the receipt.
My daughter had requested the energy drinks and coffee creamer. The cases of energy drinks were quite a bit cheaper than most of their sales, so I got two. Usually, it’s just maybe 50¢ off per case, but this time they were $1.30 off per case.
My husband requested the Coke, which was also on sale, so I got two 12 packs of those. Not much of a sale, but better than nothing. He requested the Sweet Chili chips and corn chips, which were not on sale… good grief, they are expensive these days! That came out of his budget, not the main budget, though. 😄
The flats of eggs were not on sale, but they are about 3 dollars per flat cheaper than at my mother’s grocery store – if they have any flats at all.
Pierogi were on sale as well, so I got a couple of bags.
One of the big savings was the butter. I haven’t seen butter for less than $5 each in four years! The other was the chicken, which was a buy one, get one free, deal. It was a mix and match option, but I chose two whole chickens instead of parts and pieces.
So while I ended up buying more than expected, we’ve got more butter and extra chickens in the freezer, and that’s always a good thing!
Once I got home and everything was put away, I really needed to just sit down and decompress for a while! Visits with my mother – even good ones like today (yes, this was a good visit!) – really take a lot out of me.
While I was out and about, we got hit with passing rain several times, so things are wetter out there now, then when I left this morning. The next two days should be cleared and warmer, so I’m hoping to finally get some work down outside – including working some of that peat into various prepped beds, and finally planting my potatoes! I’m hoping to get another bed of peas, spinach and carrots planted, too.
The rain has delayed getting other beds ready, but most things won’t be planted until after June 2, so we’ve got the rest of May to get those done, and build new ones.
I counted 31 yard cats this morning! Likely because it’s a rather chilly and damp morning – and I was a bit later than usual for bringing food out!
With the chill and that damp, I don’t expect to get much done outside, but I might get some seeds planted into cells this evening. I might wait another day, but when I checked the mixed melon seeds when shutting down the lights last night, I saw a whole bunch of radicles peaking out! None of the other seeds are showing them yet, but almost all the mixed seeds were sprouting. I checked again this morning, and it looks like we’re at not quite 100% germination with the mixed melons, already! This was the packet that had 21 seeds in it. The large celled trays I am trying out this year have 21 cells, so that works out, if they all make it. I don’t want to put them in soil too quickly, though. A bit more time in the warmth and dampness above the heat mat will be good for them.
Speaking of dampness…
While checking the status of the basement, I was able to shift the new blower fans to focus more on the stairs. The space under the stairs is looking pretty dry, as well as most of the concrete floor, but it’s going to take longer on the steps.
We should probably remove that carpet that’s nailed to the stairs. Most likely, it’s scrap carpet salvaged from somewhere that my parents acquired and added during the years we lived out of province. Likely to make them less of a potential slip hazard? Or just because they felt like it. I don’t know. I think, in the near future, we should pick up a gallon of durable paint, get rid of the carpet, and paint the stairs as soon as possible, so there aren’t any exposed holes in the wood. The girls have plans for fixing the basement up a bit, including painting the ceiling – the exposed floor beams and joists – white, to brighten up a really dark area. I’d like to get more of those shop lights that we are using as grow lights. I prefer them to the lights that are already down there and, to be honest, I’m not too keen on replacing the existing wired in fixtures just yet.
But those are plans to slowly work on over time.
I checked the root cellar floor as well, and it’s mostly try, so the box fan remains. The hydrometer I’ve got in there was at 60% humidity still!
We might later need to move the new blower fans to the counter shelves. The pedestal fans are still aimed at them, and there is significant improvement, but there’s a lot of stuff blocking air flow. We’ll probably need to move some things out – and it’s a good excuse to finally drag out the old door from our old van that my brother was able to replace for us, shortly after we moved out here. Yeah, it’s been sitting there all these years, just in case parts were needed. Now that we no longer have the van, there is no reason to leave it there.
Other than the weight and how awkward it would be to get it up the stairs and out the door!
Anyhow.
After I did my rounds this morning, I called my mother. She sounded better, but she told me she was preparing to head out to the clinic. I asked how she was feeling, and yes, the Pepto seemed to really make a difference. We talked a bit about that, and then she went back to talking about going to the clinic today.
Why, if she’s feeling better?
She kept jumping back to my brother telling her that she needed a doctor to say she could move to the nursing home, and I eventually figured out that she believed she could just show up at the clinic, have a doctor say she needed to move to a nursing home, and basically start getting ready to move.
She has gotten really eager to move out of where she is and into the nursing home! Specifically, the one in town, where her sister and my father spent their final time, as well as many old friends and neighbours of hers.
Once I figured out why she still wanted to go to the clinic, I told her it doesn’t work that way! I told my mother she would need to make an appointment, then told her I would call the clinic about it right away, and get back to her.
Which I did, and had a great conversation with what turned out to be an unusually knowledgeable receptionist on the topic. It turns out she also does home care and is quite familiar with the process.
One of the things she told me is that we need to give the doctor a “top 3” of nursing home choices, not just the one my mother wants to live in, and they all have to be in the same region.
My mother’s doctor, however, is on holiday for most of May, so the earlier appointment I could get for my mother was at the end of May. She booked my mother for a longer appointment, since it is for a long term care assessment, and made sure the appropriate forms were attached to the appointment file.
I really like the people in this clinic!
Then I called my mother back with her appointment, and explained things to her, including how this just puts her on a waiting list, so the whole thing can take months, and she might not end up where she wants to be. We talked about other towns with nursing homes, and even the smaller, nearer city, which is in the same region (the bigger city is its own region, by itself). When we’d talked about assisted living previously, she was adamant she never wanted to live there, but now that we’re talking nursing homes, she actually seemed quite okay with the idea of living there. Particularly since it puts her closer to both my brother and sister. It’s roughly half way between us and my brother’s, so our trips to see her would be about the same length of time. My sister would be only maybe 15 minutes away, at most.
But, who knows? We have to get her assessed first, and we now have an appointment to get that ball rolling.
My mother updated, I then updated my siblings. While we can all help out, ultimately, it’s on my brother, as Power of Attorney for my mother, to finalize things on her behalf.
After all that, I was finally able to take a breather, have breakfast and start this post – at lunch time! 😄
I’m glad to have gotten that done, but I’m also glad to NOT be making a trip to the clinic with my mother, nor anywhere else. I don’t even have to go to the pharmacy; my husband’s refills are going to be delivered today.
Between all the phone calls and writing, and the cool, damp weather, what I’d really like to do now is go for a nap. Weather like this always makes me so sleepy!
The Re-Farmer 