Today, my mother had a telephone doctor’s appointment to get the final test results from her recent ER visits. The previous results would have already been sent to her doctor, but there was the one culture test that takes 5 days to get results. Today would have been enough time for that test to be completed, and the results sent to her doctor.
Her appointment was for 10:30, but I left early to do things like put gas in the truck and pick up a breakfast/lunch of some sort at the grocery store, since my mom has been complaining about the prices of take out food. I ended up getting a Chef’s salad and a couple of croissant sandwiches. They didn’t have a lot of prepared food to choose from, that early in the day.
When I got to my mom’s, I was about half an hour early. My mother told me that she’d had a phone call at 9am, but she didn’t get to it in time. No message was left, but she thought it might have been me. It wasn’t, so I checked the call display on her phone, which only showed the number, date and time, but nothing else. I tried to do a reverse look up and, sure enough, it came from the town the clinic is in. That was as much as we could find out, but it was likely the doctor, calling 1 1/2 hours early! It was also just after the clinic officially opened.
Still, we figured since she didn’t get through, she’d call at – or close to – the appointment time. We also knew that it might be late, if things got busy with her in-person patients.
After half an hour past the appointment time, I called the clinic, just to make sure. It was confirmed that the doctor did try to call in the morning. I ended up being transferred to someone else and I explained the situation again. She looked up the information, then assured me that she would let the doctor know to call us, and that we were waiting for her call.
So… I guess she wasn’t going to try calling again, after not getting through to my mother earlier? It seems my mother’s name wasn’t on the list anymore.
We waited.
And waited.
My mother was starting to get really tired, so she tried to lie down for a nap, and I waited with her phone.
And waited.
At least I got to watch the latest Tasting History video that went live today. 😁
The clinic doesn’t answer their phones between 12 and 1. It wasn’t even 12:15 when my mother started saying that we should call again. I explained their telephone hours to her, but she had a hard time understanding the concept. She did, at least, understand that there was no point in trying to call until 1pm.
When 1:00 rolled around, I called again, just to see what the status of things was.
It was confirmed that my mother was still on the list of people that would be called – and I was assured, my mother would be called.
The doctor, however, was in the ER.
The clinic is part of the hospital building, and the doctors take turns being the on call for the ER. Today was her turn.
The receptionist was really apologetic, but there was nothing she could do – there was no way to know when the doctor would be able to call. Meanwhile, I still had errands to do for my mother, and I couldn’t stay there all day, waiting.
We ended up rescheduling the appointment, this time in the afternoon. I’ll be coming back to my mother’s for it, the day after tomorrow.
When I asked about the stuff my mother had wanted me to pick up for her, she said to forget it. Just go home! She was more than ready to try for a nap again, feeling very tired and very frustrated.
So I’ll do the errands for her on Thursday. I think I’ll go over in the morning, do the errands first, then wait for the call with her. If I wait until after the call to do the errands, it’ll be dark by the time I’d be heading home, and I’d really prefer to avoid that if I can. Yes, I did get deer screamers for the truck, but there are an awful lot of deer out there this year.
The end result is, we still have no idea what her test results are, and what next steps can be taken to figure out what is going on with my mother.
When I got home, I found my answering machine blinking, but no message. My caller ID, however, gives more information, and I could see that the call was from the clinic. The doctor had tried to call me, immediately after trying to call my mother, but I was already on the road to my mother’s place at that time.
On the one hand, I can appreciate that she tried, but it frustrates me that a telephone appointment is not being treated as an appointment, but a free-for-all. We’ve had some telephone appointments for myself and my husband with similar issues. The call comes in much earlier, much later, or not at all! So it’s not an issue with this doctor in particular.
Ah, well. It is what it is.
I just can’t help but feel my day was completely wasted for it, though.
My mother and I ended up in the ER for just under 6 hours.
She got her scan done – it turned out to be another ultrasound – and we were sent back to the ER waiting room until the results came in.
The problem is, for people waiting for scan results (we weren’t the only ones), they get squeezed in between patients with more urgent needs. Plus, only a doctor can discuss the results, not the nurses, and they were really busy. All 14 ER beds were full.
So what I thought might take a couple of hours, ended up much longer!
On the plus side, the cafeteria was open, so my mother did actually get a chance to eat. It was closed when she was there with my brother, yesterday. It was a real demonstration about just how hungry she was when she agreed to have a quesadilla, the only hot food option available. She had to ask what it was and agreed to have one. My mother will normally flat out refuse to try anything new, so this was a big deal!
I also almost drained the battery on my phone, distracting her with things on Pinterest. We tried watching a few short videos, but that was pushing her attention span to the limit, so I went back to Pinterest.
End result, when they finally called her in?
Nothing.
They found nothing wrong in their scan.
Now, with her symptoms, there is obviously something wrong, but they have no idea what. They took a sample for a culture test, which takes 5 days, so see if there’s a bacterial cause. They will phone my mother only if they find something wrong. Meanwhile, all the data will be sent to her doctor, and I will be booking an appointment for her in the near future – but not too near. We’ll see how it works out, with the Christmas holidays.
As for my mother, it seems she’s ridiculously healthy. Not bad for someone who is 92, very round, with busted up knees, and constantly complaining to us about various health problems, and is convinced the doctors are hiding things from her, like that she has cancer or something (she doesn’t). At one point, as my mother was being taken to an examination room, even the nurse that was supposed to be leading the way, only to have my mother race off ahead of her, commented on just how fast she is!
Anyhow.
Once she sees her regular doctor, she might get referred to a specialist to try and figure out what the heck is going on.
Funny how my mother complains about her health so much, but she’s had these symptoms for months and ever thought much of them. She figured they’d go away on their own.
*sigh*
Meanwhile, tomorrow we have to go to yet another town for my eye appointment, which means I won’t have the time I need to finish any of my 2023 garden analysis drafts. It might be a couple of days before I can get back to those.
This has got to be the busiest December for outings we’ve had since moving out here!
My mom was sent home from the hospital after many hours waiting and several tests. What she thought was the problem turned out to not be the problem – but there is a problem! They couldn’t get a good scan, so she was told they would phone her on Monday with an appointment.
Well, they must have gotten a cancelation or something, because they called this morning! I was planning to phone her this afternoon and let her know I would get her there whenever they called her for. Instead, I got a call from her while in the middle of breakfast!
She is booked for this afternoon. She told them she would need to arrange transportation, and they gave her a number to call if she could not get any.
Then she phoned my brother. The one who is farthest away!!! There was no answer, so she called me. She said they were ignoring her calls. I told her, he was with her all day. He’s got a lot to catch up on and was probably outside. She refuses to believe that. *sigh*
Anyhow.
I will be driving her. I just got back from taking her car out of the garage so I could check her tires. They are fine. It’s still a mystery why they were so low, last time!
I messaged my brother and he called me soon after. It turns out they hit the ground running, early this morning, and have already been to several places in the city. At the time my mother called, they were most likely at the gas station, tanking up. They will be out again for more errands before he can finally catch up on things at home.
My brother just goes, non stop!!!
I had a few things I wanted to get done today, but I will have to get the girls to do most of them. They can’t, however, do my garden analysis posts. My last scheduled post went up today, so my buffer is gone. If there I’d no post tomorrow, it would be because things took longer or something, with my mother!
Now to go see how the gravel roads are with her little car. I’m not looking forward to it!
This morning was pretty routine. As I was finishing up my morning rounds, I was able to get a picture of this handsome fella. Or lady. We don’t know!
One of quite a few black and tuxedo kittens for this year.
Yes. That’s a kitten!
We can’t get near most of them. Unless they have very distinctive and easily seen markings, we can’t tell them apart enough to give them names. I counted 34 cats outside this morning.
This afternoon, my daughter and I headed into town so that she could get used to driving the truck. For all that we saw the grader making passes down the gravel roads twice yesterday, the main road was still sheer ice! You could see snow ridges on the sides of the road and parallel scrapes in the ice in a few places, but for the most part, it looked untouched. WTF? Thankfully, the truck handled it much better than my mother’s car did.
With gravel roads, everyone typically drives down the middle of the road, unless there is oncoming traffic. Most of the roads are just barely wide enough for two vehicles, but we’re next to the “main” gravel road, which is wider and gets more maintenance, due to the higher amounts of traffic it gets. As we were going down that last half mile to our place on the way home, where the ice is the worst, my daughter moved aside as far as she could to let an oncoming car by. She had traction, but we could see the car start to fishtail, while trying to move to one side!
Once in town, we parked and walked to a few different places. I am still trying to find craft materials for the Christmas decorations I’m crocheting this year. I’m almost out of fibre fill, and I hoped to find tiny decorative items I could add to them as finishing touches. At the very least, I hoped to find some Styrofoam balls to use, if I couldn’t find fibre fill. So one of the places we tried was a dollar store. I found a bag of “snow” that I could have used as fibre fill, but it was insanely expensive for what was in the bag. I did find some packages of foam balls, but only needed one. I’ve been using cash lately, so I didn’t even have enough change to buy it. They have a minimum purchase to use debit, and I wasn’t going to buy something I didn’t need, just to use debit, so I didn’t get anything. My daughter found some knitting supplies she wanted, though. With that done, we went to a local store that has the only other supply of yarn in town. While the dollar store has the big name brand yarns, this place has a section of high end, imported wool yarn in remarkable range of colours. Expensive, of course, but worth it for my daughter. I can barely touch the stuff, as it’s a type of wool I react to. I had no idea I was allergic to wool until I tried a high end brand of 100% virgin one time, years ago. I was working on a scarf and had the length draped over my arm as I worked. I developed red welts where the wool touched me that were so defined, you could actually make out the stitch pattern in my flesh! My daughter was able to get a couple of skeins, and then we tried another store. No Christmas crafty stuff there, either. It’s been so strange. I’m looking for stuff I used to be able to find easily, every Christmas, for years. Now, it’s basically just finished decorations, jingle bells, or ornament and craft kits for kids. I might have to go to a Michaels the next time we’re in the city. They are the only dedicated craft store franchise choice we’ve got. I should be able to find at least something I can use, there!
While we were out, I discovered my daughter hadn’t even had breakfast yet, so after dropping her purchases off at the truck, we walked over to one of the restaurants in town that doesn’t close for the winter. We went to a Greek place and ate in, then grabbed a couple extra meals for take out for my husband and other daughter at home.
My daughter, meanwhile, LOVED driving the truck, after we’ve had to use my mother’s car for so long. Excellent visibility, better traction and handling, and no weird noises from the back all the times. Plus, she’s figured out where everything is, so she’ll not have to worry about that when it’s time for her to drive me home after my eye appointment, when my eyes will still be dilated.
While all that was going on, I was keeping in touch with my brother. When I was with my mother yesterday, one of her errands was to talk to the pharmacist. After asking her some questions, he told her she would need to go to a doctor before he could help her. She balked, because the doctor that took her on after our previous doctor moved to another clinic, is not someone she likes. My mother’s racism aside, she has a very strong accent, speaks very quickly, and tends to talk over people instead of listening. My mother mentioned not being able to understand what she was saying. The pharmacist started nodding along. It turns out quite a few of his clients are having troubles understanding this doctor. I had troubles, too, but that’s normal for me, with my auditory processing issues. I’ve only seen her a couple of times; once with my husband and I think only once with my mother. She might be a good medical doctor, I can’t say, but it doesn’t do much good if her patients can’t understand what she’s saying.
So I was going to start making calls on Monday, since I still need a new doctor, too, and see if the closer clinic has the new doctors they were expecting, and if any were open to two new patients. If I couldn’t have made an appointment then, I would have gone back to the other clinic and made an appointment for my mother.
Then I updated my brother on this. He and his wife were quite concerned. A family member had a similar issue that was left untreated for too long and developed sepsis, which is insanely dangerous. They survived, but I believe they were permanently damaged by it. My brother was planning on visiting my mother anyhow, so they looked up a quick care clinic that would be open, and my brother was going to take her there. After calling her first and she agreed, he was on the way when my SIL called the quick care clinic. She was told they had no room to fit her in !!! So my brother decided to take her to the emergency, instead.
They are still there, and it’s been about 4 hours. Another patient there was complaining because they’d been there since 4am and still hadn’t been seen, which means they were in the ER for something like 12 hours before they were seen! Other patients were triaged and rated more urgent and treated first.
My brother has been keeping us updated as much as he can, but he’s basically on baby sitting duty. My mother has said they should just leave a couple of times already, on top of her usual snarky comments, nasty assumptions and insulting behaviour towards others. There’s nowhere they can get food or drink while waiting, without leaving the ER entirely, and then they’d probably have to start all over again, so that’s a problem, too. My brother is going to be completely worn out by the time he gets home! Meanwhile, she’ll probably just get the prescription that the pharmacist couldn’t give her on his own and be sent home. Something the quick care/walk in clinic could have done, too, if they’d been willing to take her.
Hopefully, they will get in soon and be on their way, though it’ll mean my brother will be driving home in full dark, and there are a lot of deer crossing the highways of late! *sigh*
The worst of it is, I know my mother won’t appreciate what my brother is doing for her at all.
Oh, dear. I just found out she got away from my brother, stormed over to the nurses desk and made a scene. The nurse ended up going to the waiting room to make an announcement to everyone to explain their waiting times. It’s at 6 hours now, but had been at 12 hours overnight. To be fair, they’re making a 92 year old woman wait for… going on 5 hours now. You’d think their triage would take that into account, though my mother is easily mistaken as being decades younger.
Welcome to “healthcare” in Canada.
*sigh*
Okay, time to get off the computer for a bit and get some work done, while keeping my phone glued to my pocket as my brother updates us!
The cats are quite enjoying the box I found to better stabilize the platform I rigged up for them as a way to store the wire mesh door we made to keep cats out of the old basement in the summer. The one that reminds me of Nosencrantz so much especially likes to just be a loaf in it! I’m constantly seeing cats milling around under there, though, and they do like that rigid insulation!
Also… I’m not 100% sure I recognize the cat on the left. It’s getting so hard to tell some of them apart!
I counted “only” 34 outside cats this morning.
As for the inside cats, Tiny, aka: The Beast, is now big enough that it’s safe to let her out of isolation. With the loss of Snorri, we no longer have to keep the door to my bedroom/office closed, even overnight. Tiny has been thrilled with her new freedom to explore the rest of the house.
The rest of the cats are thrilled to be able to go into my room again. As I write this, there are currently 8 of them asleep on my bed, with all but one of them in a single, huge pile of fur!
Gotta get more adoptions done!!!
Anyhow…
The plan for today was to help my mother with errands so, while doing my rounds, I took the time to open the doors to where her car is parked and give it a quick check.
I almost immediately noticed the back tire on the driver’s side looked awfully low. The tire that had gone flat before was the front driver’s side tire, so this was not expected at all.
The car barely fits in this addition to the garage, so I backed it out, then checked the tire pressure.
It was only 10psi!!
So I pumped it up, but saw no sign of a leak anywhere. I checked the front driver’s side tire, and it was really low, too, though not enough to be noticeably flat.
Of course, I checked the other two, and they were slightly on the slow side, too.
The bizarre thing is, when I took the car in to get that tire checked, the employee that worked on it thought it was the passenger side tire that was leaking and was done checking it when I returned to the garage. I told him it was the driver’s side tire, so he took that one off. He could not find a leak in either of them. All the tires, however, were topped up with air, just in case. I was there to see it done.
So why would all four tires be low, with one practically flat? We even used the car a few days ago, when we had to pick the truck up from getting its new battery.
I’m so glad I took the time to check on her car, so far in advance of needing it! With all the driving around I did with my mother, the tires have held their psi. No evidence of leaks, anywhere.
Very strange.
If it weren’t for the fact that we have snow on the ground that would have given evidence, I would be concerned that a certain “someone” made their way into the garage and let the air out. As it is, the only foot prints in the snow have been our own.
Another reason I am glad I checked the tires.
Road conditions sucked.
But only the gravel roads, and only those sections shaded by trees. They were sheer ice! Even though I was driving slowly and cautiously, ever now and then, the car would suddenly start fishtailing. Not much, thankfully, and not for long, but enough to be a concern. The last thing I’d want is to hit either ditch on the sides of these roads. They are very deep and very steep! The chances of being able to drive out, even with 4 wheel drive, are very low.
We got a light and fluffy snowfall overnight, which didn’t help matters.
Even on the highway, for the first while, I was not confident driving at the speed limit for quite some time.
Oh, how I wished to be driving the truck, instead!!!
Thankfully, today turned out to be warmer than forecast – again – and the paved roads melted clear by the time I was heading home.
Except the gravel roads, where were even slipperier!
As I was reaching the intersection by our place, though, I saw the grader coming through. Our section of the road had just been done. He had to move aside for me to be able to turn in, so at least the last 200 ft or so was good!
This should have been done long ago. People are really upset with our current municipal counsel. For some reason, they didn’t go with the usual company for road maintenance – a local company that has all the equipment and storage facilities on hand, and had done an excellent job of keeping our roads cleared and safe as quickly as possible, every year we’ve been here. Instead, they’ve decided to lease a grader, rent someone’s space to store it, for a ludicrous monthly fee – and a 125 hour limit. Oh, and they’d have to hire a driver each time, too. They only got the grader today, which means for the past while, roads like ours have been just left as they were. It got so bad in areas that the school division would not allow buses to drive on them, for safety reasons.
Which means parents on these dangerous roads had to drive their kids, however many miles, to meet the bus at the highway, instead.
Hopefully, it will no longer be an issue for the rest of the winter.
Anyhow.
Since I was there with the car, my mother wanted to do as many errands as she could, so we stopped at quite a few places. For all that my mother is 92, uses a walker, frequently complains about how bad her knees are (but won’t wear her brace), and is clearly struggling at times, once she gets going, she is really hard to keep up with! At the grocery store, we’ve switched from her using the shopping cart as a walker, to her using her walker and me pushing the cart, so that she has the option of sitting down if she needs to. Once she gets going, though, she just races off! Unfortunately, she’s one of those people who doesn’t really watch out for others or, if she does see them, all but barrels right through them. Yikes!!
We got it all done, though, and she was quite glad to get home and finally rest!
For me, it was just a stop at the gas station, then home, and I was sure glad to be home, too!
I thought I could look forward to taking it easy for the next while, but…
There was an answering machine message when I got home. A reminded for my eye appointment on Monday. I was very glad to get it! I have my phone set to send me a reminder 1 day in advance, so I wouldn’t have forgotten or missed the appointment. However, my eyes will be dilated for a field of vision test, which means I have to get my daughter to drive me home.
Other than parking in the garage, she has yet to drive the truck.
So tomorrow, we’ll be heading out for her to do some practise driving. Pretty much everything is in different places from any other vehicle we’ve driven. It’s also just a few inches wider and longer than the van – just enough to really affect getting in and out of parking spaces, or taking turns. It won’t take long for her to get used to it, but better to do that in advance, then when I need her to drive me home because I’ll essentially be blinded.
I just checked my calendar and see I have a reminder to get my bloodwork done on the same day my husband’s CPP Disability comes in, before Christmas instead of after. That, at least, is not an appointment. I just need to show up at the clinic and ask for the requisition for that should be on file, then step across the hall to the lab to do the tests. Since I will likely be doing our first January stock up shopping that day, and don’t usually have breakfast until I’ve reached the city, I can swing by on the way and get the bloodwork done while still technically fasting.
Then there’s the extra city trip that my daughters will need next week.
Good grief. I try to keep the winter months as close to home as possible, but this year it looks like our December is going to be filled with outings!
We were supposed to reach a high of 4C/39F today. We’re at 7C/45F right now! It turns out we hit 7C/45F yesterday, too. The snow is melting away, and it feels like spring!
Before I go on, though, we must first have the cuteness.
Snorri is just enveloped by David! The Beast (aka: Tiny) is bigger than Snorri! He’s all fur, so he looks bigger than he really is. I have to be so careful at night. He has a thing for curling up behind my neck, or on my legs. He’s so light, sometimes I can’t feel him there at all, and I have to check if he’s on or behind me before I try to roll over.
He does have a thing for necks! If he can get at one, he’ll climb right up any convenient human and settle into a neck, purring.
Snorri’s eyes are still really leaky, but he’s most definitely getting better. I hope he’ll start getting some meat on those bones soon! He certainly has a good appetite.
When feeding the outside cats this morning, I did repeated head counts. I kept getting 37, though I did get 38 once. I think I double counted someone. All the usuals that sometimes show up later were there – Rolando Moon, Brussel and Sprout, Broccoli, the orange and white, both Adam and Driver, Judgement – plus the ones that are almost always here; the printer babies – all the white and greys – the orange tabby, Hypotenose, Syndod, this year’s lone calico and tortie kittens, etc. Then there are the black cats and the grey tabbies. We have so many gorgeous cats this year!
One of the places I put a bit of kibble is in the space the smaller cats use to get under the cat house. While trying to count, I spotted a little white face, eating at the opening. I could only see a bit more than the nose and mouth, so I couldn’t say for sure if it was one of our usuals. There is one white and grey among this year’s kittens that I thought it might have been, but when I went to count the cats in the sun room, he was there. I can’t think of any other small, white faced cat that it might have been. I also spotted a couple of tabbies that I wasn’t sure of. It’s entirely possible they’re from this year’s kittens that are just bigger, and we were bound to have kittens from litters the shier mamas kept further away, finally starting to show up on their own. These ones are adult sized cats, though.
Well, no matter. They are welcome to food, water and shelter! Even Sad Face has become a permanent fixture. The next time there’s a cheap spay and neuter day, I hope we can snag him!
How bizarre that the visiting tom we kept having to chase away because he was so aggressive to the other cats, is now more approachable than all the female yard cats. !!
With so many cats to feed, it’s no surprise that we were running low on kibble, so today I made a trip to Walmart. When I got there, I found that Black Friday sales have already started. Another bizarre notion. This is a US thing, since we have our Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. Meanwhile, Black Friday doesn’t even happen in the US until the end of this week, but Canada has Black Friday, too, and the sales have started already.
I was able to juggle the budget a bit and take advantage of some of the sales. Along with the cat food I was there to get, I was able to get things like a case of 24 cans of tomato soup at 77¢ each – easily the best deal among the things I got, since those cans now cost closer to $2 each. One of the things on my list, however, was not on sale. Butter. Even their house brand butter is almost $7 a pound! It would be cheaper to buy whipping cream and make it.
I didn’t buy whipping cream, and got only 1 pound of butter. We’ll just have to use the ghee more often, until our next big city shopping trip. The next time we’re at Costco, I’ll have to stock up on more butter than usual. Another of their big buckets of ghee wouldn’t go amiss, either!
Once I got home and we unloaded the truck, I had to feed the outside cats early. I was just going back to park it in the garage when I saw a couple of cats under it; one jumping up into the undercarriage somewhere, and another jumping up onto a front tire!
Yes, I make it a practise to bang on the truck before starting it.
The sound of kibble was enough to get them away from the truck, though.
In other things…
I called my mother last night, and it was like talking to a completely different person. She went from yelling and raging at me the day before, to cheerful and pleasant. I asked how she was doing, and she went into her usual complaints about her breathing; this time, she tried to blame it on the macaroni she ate. *sigh* After she went on for a while, I more specifically asked about her mood. She was all ready to act like it never happened, and she was never angry or said all those horrible things to me. We talked about it for a bit, and I tried to stress with her that if our vandal starts calling her about me, it’s because he’s trying to cause problems between us. She did try to defend him again, saying he was just telling her what’s going on, and I had to tell her, he has NO idea what’s going on. She quickly changed the subject. She didn’t quite apologize, but she did seem to try and make amends, in her own way.
I told her about our plans to get the hand pump on the original well serviced, so that we can then change the well pump and have back up water if something goes wrong. It took some time to explain to her why the well pump in the house needed to be changed at all. It has been changed in the past, but that was more than 20 years ago. The foot valve in the well, however, is original and some 45 or so years old – I think it was dug in 1974, but it might have been the year before. She couldn’t remember the exact year.
So she’s happy with the plans. Her only thing was to tell me to talk to my brother about it first, and I told her, I talk to him about everything. No living person knows this place better than he does. He was old enough to actually do a lot of this stuff alongside my dad. My other brothers were still too young for much of it, and some of it was done before I was even born. My sister is older, but she wouldn’t have been allowed to be part of this stuff, even if she were interested, because she is female. My mother then started going on about how great my brother is, and what a good job he’s doing with the farm.
Just the day before, she’d yelled and hung up on him when he called her out for how she allowed our vandal to manipulate her and treat me like crap.
She was like a totally different person.
Meanwhile…
In checking the trail cam files, I could see our vandal trying to figure out what was going on. The day the guys where here to pick up the vehicles, I saw him pull into our driveway while the gate was open – but not far enough to be trespassing! – to turn around, then slowly back down the road, so he could better see through the trees to where we were. I even remember seeing a vehicle backing up on the road, while the guys were jacking the truck out of the dirt and putting tires on it. On the trail cam files, I saw our vandal go by again, later on. Then, after the guys were gone and the gate closed, I saw a different vehicle pull into our driveway and turn around. From another camera, I could see that the driver of this vehicle was a mutual friend he’d clearly gotten to check things out.
On today’s file check, I saw our vandal in the morning, slowly driving past our driveway, then slow down even more as he drove past the bushes, trying to see through them to the other scrap vehicles.
Needless to say, we are no longer fake locking the gate.
It amazes me how furious and possessive he is about the junk. Yeah, some of it was his, but he abandoned it years ago, and neither vehicle that was taken had ever been his to begin with. The ones he’d left are in such bad shape, they aren’t even good for parts. Just the scrap dealer. Which is why he dumped them here, instead of keeping them on his own property. He was using this place as a garbage dump.
So we’re going to have to keep an extra eye on things for the next while.
Something else we might be able to keep an extra eye on is the sun room critters. My SIL gave us a camera. It was a Superstore freebie for purchases over X amount of dollars, and they had no use for it. It’s one of those little security cameras you can link to your phone to keep an eye on things through a live feed. It is not an outdoor camera, but if we can set it up in the sun room, we should be able to confirm what critters (most likely racoons) are knocking things over in there during the night. If it could handle outdoor conditions, I’d want to set it up facing the cat, kibble and water shelters, so we can see what, besides cats, is eating all the kibble, and sometimes knocking the heated water bowl right out of the shelter! Having a critter cam in the sun room, however, would be a good thing! It mostly comes down to how the device is powered. If it’s USB, we’ve got nothing to plug it into in there. We just haven’t had a chance to even take it out of the box, yet!
Who knows. I might be posting critter cam pictures on here, soon!
The cats just love this upper level set up! Here we have Hypotenose, Syndod and the unnamed tortie. When I fed them this morning, I think I counted 35. Or it could have been 32. I never got the same number twice, and it’s way too easy to double count!
The day started out well. It was lovely out, and I think we exceeded our predicted high of 3C/37F.
Today was the day the guy, and his son, who wanted to buy some scrap cars from us was to come over and pick them up. They arrived with a couple of trailers and four trucks altogether, as his son’s friends came along again, as did the guy’s neighbour, to help out.
It’s a good thing they had three big strapping young men along! What a job it was!
Their first goal was to get the pick up truck. They had to cut trees away first, then jack it up out of the ground it had sunk into, replace the two front tires, and put tires on the back, which had no tires at all. They were then able to use one of the trucks to pull it out of where it was parked, so they could load it onto a trailer.
That’s when things got considerably more difficult!
All four tires were seized up.
They dragged it far enough out, though, then brought the longer trailer around. Unfortunately, the ramps on the trailer turned out to be too narrow.
As all this was starting, we could hear cows. We’d had to go through the “gate” by the barn (it’s just an open part of the fence with a chain and the electric fence across it; I eventually found the barbed wire gate, mostly fallen apart and buried in tall grass). This meant taking down the electric fence, which ends at this gate, so that was easy enough to do. When the renter’s cows are here, that fence is live, of course, so when I heard cows that sounded awfully close, I went to the gravel pit, where there is water, in case a neighbour’s cows got in or something.
I found 3 cows.
But I heard more.
So I kept walking and could soon see the rest of the herd.
The renter’s cows are still here! I haven’t seen them – or even their tracks – in a while! He leaves feed for them out by the gate he brings them in by, so I guess they had no reason to go any further than the water in the gravel pit.
As I walked back, I took a closer look at where the renter sets up the battery and solar panel for the electric fence. I’d looked on the way out, but didn’t see anything.
It turned out the solar panel had been flipped upside down, on top of the battery, and was covered in snow. I’d say, high winds caught it. I’ve no idea how long it’s been out of order, since I didn’t even know the cows were still here!
Well, I guess it worked out, since we had to go through there, anyhow.
Yes, I have since let them know. At least I hope so. I sent direct message, but I might have to find their phone number and call them, if those haven’t been seen.
Anyhow.
On finding the truck could not be loaded onto that trailer, they took it across to the car graveyard. That car was also deeply sunk into the ground, but it did have all four tires and – amazingly – they were able to pump them up and they held air! Long enough to move it, at least.
The guys were so excited by this little car. I think it’s going to end up restored and driven again, rather than just used for parts! Its interior was largely gutted, but it still had its engine.
Mostly.
So that got loaded up rather quickly.
Next, they went to look at a third vehicle over by the storage shed. After cutting their way through the forest of burrs, they were able to open the doors and look inside.
Unfortunately, it turns out things are badly rotted out in there. After talking about it, it was decided they would not take that one. It was good only for scrap.
The other two next to it caught their attention, but they instead went looking at the tractor. The son still wants to buy that, but that won’t happen until spring. He did pay half as a down payment, though.
Then it was back to the truck. It took both the winch on the trailer, plus another truck with a tow strap, to drag that thing up the ramps and onto the trailer. The truck is so long, it barely fit! But, they got it.
So that was done, and the guy was saying he might be interested in some of the other vehicles, too. We shall see.
Now, with all this noise and commotion, I knew our vandal would be wondering what’s going on, since he tried to sue me for this stuff, among other things. The only reason I could even consider selling anything is because the judge threw it out. I know that wouldn’t change his mind that he is somehow entitled to all this junk, even though he had plenty of time to remove things if he wanted them, while the place was empty for two years. He certainly removed all sorts of stuff that wasn’t junk, long ago, so it’s not like he wasn’t able to. I wasn’t sure if he would suddenly show up and start screaming or something, but I didn’t see him. He’d still have heard things from our place and gone looking, though, so I knew I’d have something to deal with something, eventually.
Once everything was squared up and I was settled back inside, I started messaging my brother to let him know, and ask him how he wanted me to get the money to him. The vehicles are paid for, but the guy is going to look up the VINs and make up proper bills of sales for them, which my brother will have to sign, since he’s the owner. The truck actually had its old registration papers in the glove compartment!
While I was messaging my brother, which would take a while, since I knew he and his wife were on the road at the time, my phone rang.
It was my mother.
I knew it was going to happen, but I wasn’t expecting it that quickly!
I barely said hello, when my mother was yelling, what’s going on? What’s going on?
Yup. Our vandal had phoned her already. I don’t know what he actually told her – he would have been making things up, anyhow, since he wouldn’t know anything – but boy, did he have her wired up! It took some doing to calm her down but, as short as I can make it, my mother seems to have thought that this was some instant thing. As if some guys showed up, out of the blue, with trailers today, and I just let them haul stuff out. When I told her this was over a week in the making, she was incensed that I hadn’t told her earlier. I said, there was nothing to tell until it was done, and I was planning to phone her after I finished talking to my brother. Well, she just kept on yelling, going on about how we’re only after her money, she paid for the roof, and she is never going to pay for anything anymore… ???
As near as I can figure, going back to when she called a scrap guy to come out and look at the stuff, our first summer here, she is thinking that the money from selling the scrap would have paid for the roof, but she paid for the roof, so… we’re after her money? The thing is, when I told her the roof was leaking, she kept arguing with me, saying that they already replaced the roof (25 years ago), so it was fine. Perfect. Just like she thought everything here was perfect, as she tried to talk us into moving out here. It took years just to convince her it really did need replacing.
I eventually calmed her down and told her I needed to finish talking to my brother, and then I would call her back.
So I finished messaging him, telling as much as I could, but I knew they were probably driving and wouldn’t be able to see it right away. I even sent some pictures. I also told them about the call from my mother and the terrible things she was saying. Then I called my mother back.
*sigh*
It took some doing, but I was able to get it through that I had already talked to my brother about all this, because I can’t do anything here without him. We don’t own anything here, other than things we bought or brought ourselves. I would never do anything like that without talking to him about it first, anyhow. She made a big deal about how I wouldn’t know the value of things (because I’m female), and I had to explain to her that, by selling individual vehicles for parts, we’d get more money than selling them to a scrap dealer. I also reminded her that she’s been after us for years to get rid of all those vehicles. So that’s what I’m starting to do.
She went into some real mental gymnastics in both calls, constantly going back to how we’re just after her money (clearly, our vandal said that to her), how she was entitled to know what’s going on (she no longer owns own the property so no, she isn’t; we keep her in the loop out of respect), and demanding that the money goes towards fixing the place, because she paid for the roof, and she gives us more money than other parents do, and… on and on it went. She even tried to guilt me about how letting us live here was a kindness. I had to remind her that she begged us to move out here for years before we finally agreed, so our being here was helping both ways. She did, at least, agree to that!
I then told her I needed to let the renter know their electric fence isn’t working and got off the phone. Once I was done messaging them, I updated my brother.
His wife answered, telling me he was furious at her behaviour and was going to call her.
I ended up getting a call. He’d tried calling her several times and her line was busy, so he wanted to check if I was talking to her. I think she was probably talking to our sister.
Some time later, I got a call from my brother again. They’d actually pulled over on the side of the road to try calling our mother again. He got through to her and tried telling her she’d done the wrong thing by yelling at me and letting our vandal manipulate her, that she needed to apologize to me, call me and make it right. She, however, just kept yelling at him, then when he said she needed to make it right, she hung up on him.
Our vandal really made a mess of things with her, and she’s doing exactly what he wanted her to go; he’s trying to turn her against me and my brother (maybe my sister as well, but she’s not involved with the farm), and she’s letting him.
What chokes me is how she goes on about how badly we’re treating her, or how we’re just after her money, but is completely oblivious to her own part in all this. Like our vandal, she takes no responsibility for her behaviour, and if people actually stand up to her and call her out on her behaviour, they’re the ones that are treating her badly, and she’s the victim. She has also tried to control me, and our finances (including my husband in this) for as long as I can remember. The one person who actually does want all her money is our vandal.
You’d think my mother was rich or something, with all this going on. She’s got next to nothing, and the only reason she has what she has is because my brother has been taking care of things for her. She also goes on about how she just wants us all to get along, but plays us against each other, every chance she gets.
Which reminds me. I need to email my sister and tell her what’s happened, thanks to our vandal.
I took the truck in to get things checked out; along with the “service tire monitoring system” warning on the computer display, I started to get a “left rr tire low, add air” warning. Plus, the check engine light was still on. The battery needed to be looked at, too.
I dropped the truck off, then headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things and wait until I got a text to come back for the truck. This was just a look-see appointment, not an appointment to get any work done.
When I got back, he explained about the sensor issues. And it is sensors that are the problem, not actual mechanical problems. The tire module probably has a low battery, so that will need to be replaced. The part is a somewhat over $60, from what he could remember. As for the battery, he checked, and no, HE did not replace it. The previous owner had replaced it. He looked it up and it’s a 2019 battery, so past warranty. He recently changed suppliers, so he couldn’t give me an idea of the cost.
Overall, though, we should have no problem waiting until December to get this done, if we have to. The priority would be getting a new battery. The sensors are just turning on lights.
That was when I commented about the computer display, and how the manual said there was a control panel for it in a location that is not included in this model, and there’s no button.
Yes, there is!
Of course, I had to get him to show me exactly where it is, because we’ve looked and looked. There HAD to be something, but we just couldn’t find it.
He showed it to me, and I STILL had to stick my head right in to see it.
I took this picture of the dash after I parked at home. Can you see it?
If you spotted it in that V between the top gauge on the right, and the speedometer, you’ve got good eyes! We LOOKED in that area! We looked all over the console. We missed it completley.
He got a laugh about that.
Once I had the truck back and the groceries loaded, I parked long enough to message my family, then cycled through the computer display. I’ll have to spend some time going through the different displays to see what some of them are for, and how to use the trip function, but the main thing is, I was no longer seeing that “service tire monitoring system” thing anymore. I was finally seeing the odometer reading!
Also, the temperature in Celcius.
It took me a moment to figure out why there was a W above the temperature when I realised I was driving West. It has a compass display, too! Woo Hoo!!!
Yeah, it doesn’t take much for me to get all excited. 😄
He asked me to text him tomorrow and remind him to look up the prices of things and send me an estimate. He’s been very busy lately, mostly with tires! Even as I dropped the truck off, he was taking delivery of a cargo van load. People are getting their winter tires, so it’s a good busy!
I will probably not be home for much of tomorrow, though. Thankfully, it was warm enough today, and the ice is all melted off the roads. I will be calling my mother later to confirm, and am expecting to help her with some errands tomorrow. Of course, tomorrow is also supposed to be our last “warm” day. I’ll have to get the girls to take care of the winter mulching for me. I’d rather be working outside and taking advantage of the last warm day. My mother seems to have developed a strange gift for disrupting our ability to get things done that are weather dependant!! It’s not like she pays attention to the weather forecasts and plans this, either. Ah, well. It is what it is!
First, though, I need to have myself a late supper. I was in town for far longer than I expected, and didn’t think I’d need to get food while I was out!
I don’t mean this, though. THIS is totally worth it.
Tiny: The Beast
Totally.
What was NOT worth it, was a trip to the city.
We didn’t drive anywhere yesterday, but I was keeping on top of updates on road conditions, in a Facebook group dedicated to highway conditions in our area. It was warmer than today is expected to get, but we had “snow squall” warnings over the region, and winds were quite high at times. Lots of people were describing icy road conditions and advising people to stay home, if they could.
Today is working out to be a much more pleasant day. No wind to speak of, lots of sun, but our high is supposed to be only -3C/27F The question is, did the sand trucks get out?
The answer turned out to be, no.
I waited until late morning to head out, as even when it’s just below freezing, the paved roads tend to warm up more and melt.
Not today!
Where our gravel road reaches the highway, there is an exit lane on the other side into our little hamlet. Right away, I could see hints of what was to come, as the entire junction was sheer ice. There was a large truck pulling a trailer that I waited for, then I pulled onto the highway behind it.
The load on this trailer was an unusual shape. You know those trucks that are designed to haul windows? There’s a triangle shaped frame in the middle, and windows are loaded on either side, resting at an angle leaning towards the center? It was something like that, except much, much larger.
Along the highway, we were hitting alternate patches of sheer ice, and clear road. The curves were the worst, of course. As the truck was pulling out of a set of curves, there was a pair of vehicles on the side of the road ahead. There was no oncoming traffic, so the truck moved over the center line well ahead of these vehicles, to give them space, and I did the same. These were not vehicles in any sort of break down, but rather pulled over to do work of some kind. Once I cleared them and moved back into my lane, I barely started to accelerate again, and I could feel my back end start to fish tail! It was a quick recovery, but a bit of a surprise, since I didn’t think I was even on ice at the time.
It wasn’t much further when I saw the trailer ahead of me start fishtailing! I could see no reason for it, as the driver was clearly doing his best to drive to the conditions. My guess is, the load got hit with a gust of wind. Thankfully, I was making sure to keep quite a distance between us, because if I’d had to brake to avoid the truck, I would have gone skating, fancy new tires or not!
Thankfully, the big truck didn’t have to deal with that for much longer, and turned onto a gravel road soon after. By then, I’d already decided; it wasn’t worth driving all the way to the city. There is nothing essential we need to get there, and what we do need can wait a few days. I only continued far enough to reach an intersection, pulled over to message my family, then used the intersection to do a U turn and go back.
The north bound lane was even icier than the south bound lane. When I saw 4 deer running across the road, I was quite happy to have been driving slow and not at all needing to brake or avoid them.
I did decide to stop at the post office before going home, though. The exit and the section of road going through town was easily the iciest I saw the entire time. Since I was in the store to get to the post office, anyhow, I picked up one of their awesome hams as a treat for today.
As I was driving back to the junction, I found myself getting passed on the right, but a little utility vehicle! It was driving on the shoulder, which was clear gravel, unlike the paved road I was driving on, so that thing could easily go much faster, safely, than me! I was happy to be back on the gravel road, which was more snow than ice!
I’m glad we were able to do such a big trip last week!
On the way home from the post office, the computer display on the truck suddenly started telling me my left rear tire was low on air.
It isn’t.
I’ve got an appointment at the garage for tomorrow afternoon to get these codes and the tire monitoring system checked, out. With the tires, it’s the sensors/monitors that are the issue, not the tires themselves. The other codes could be a number of things, but since he’d serviced the truck from end to end himself, he knows it’s mechanically fine. The only thing he’s now second guessing himself over is whether he’d put in a new battery or not. He told me he did but, with it draining like it is, suddenly he’s not so sure! When he asked me if I noticed the brand on the battery, I told him I couldn’t see. I could barely see to attach the cables when I hooked up the charger. I’m too short! He got a laugh out of that, at least. 😁
Seriously, though. We’re going to need to get a step stool of some kind that we can keep in the truck at all times. I’ll need one just to check the oil!
So that means I won’t be going into the city tomorrow, either.
We’re supposed to reach highs above freezing, starting tomorrow and over the next few days – depending on what app we look at! That will clear the roads, at least. The way things are going, I won’t be able to get to the city until the end of the week. I got a call from my mother last night. It was a very strange call, where she complained about how terrible she was feeling, and how she’d called my brother (the on that lives more than an hour’s drive away) and he’s not calling back, etc. I called her out when she started saying terrible things about my brother for not being instantly at her beck and call, reminding her that I’m the one that’s the closest, so she should be calling me, first. Or, calling for an ambulance, if she was really feeling that bad. Oh, no… she doesn’t want to do that…
Then she started asking me what, of her things, I wanted, because she didn’t want her fighting over her stuff when she was gone. I told her, don’t worry about it. We won’t be fighting over her stuff. She was, however, making it like she was expecting to die because she had a headache and was feeling weak. ???
By the end of the call, when I finally got out of where her what she wanted, it came down to wanting someone to come visit. I told her I was going to the city today, and taking the truck to the garage tomorrow, so I could come over on Thursday – and she should be ready for a grocery shopping trip by then, too. She started saying she doesn’t need one, because she has milk now… *sigh* She has always had difficulty with planning ahead. I can’t even say if it’s gotten worse as she’s gotten older! So I’ll have to call her tomorrow and solidify my coming over.
She was sounding much better by the end of the call, too. After I got off the phone, I messaged my brother to let him know my mother was wanting him to call – and forewarning him that she was dragging up how he used to come out every week – and bring chicken! (the same chicken she now tells me not to bring her) – after work. I’ve reminded her, time and again, that he did that before we moved out here, so he had no choice. He made that trip every Friday for years, until we moved in and he no longer had to keep checking on the place.
I got a call from my brother later on. He’d gotten through to her and, after cutting off her immediate attempts to try and guilt trip him and make him feel bad, they actually had a very good conversation, and she was sounding quite well during their talk. So that worked out in the end.
Talking with my family about this, it’s really hard to not feel bitter about this whole thing with my mother. She’s expecting us to “be there” for her when she “needs us the most” – and by “we”, she really means my oldest brother. The thing is, she was pretty much never there for us. My family and I were out of province for most of the time, so we weren’t as affected by it. They would come out with their children to visit, and she’d leave, saying she would rather be “with her religious community”. She sure as heck wasn’t there when my brother needed her, and when my father needed her the most, she moved out and left him in the tender “mercies” of our vandal. So for her to now expect us to drop everything, ignore our own responsibilities, family and friends, and cater to her because she’s got a headache… Yeah. It gets hard, sometimes.
But I digress…
As I’m writing this, I’m also messaging with the Cat Lady. She’s dealing with their move, while also trying to work out getting those 6 spots for us for the cheap spay and neuter day. It looked like it would be only females, but the clinic recently posted an update, and they will do males – and will do trapped ferals where someone may not even know if they are male or female! We won’t be able to have kittens sharing a carrier, though, so she’s going to try to find a couple she can lend us (we have 4). The problem is, with the move, they are using their carriers to move their own cats. Most will be going into a kennel (the owner is a friend who is planning to shut down their kennel to appointments, to house most of their cats for a week), but some will be going to the new house earlier, while other will be staying in their old house until pretty much the last minute, depending on their various catonalities and medical needs.
However it works out, we’ll be getting 6 cats done on November 11, with the rescue paying for 4 of them, and us paying for 2 of them. I really want to get all the bigger kittens done. The females are getting old enough they could potentially go into their first heat, and the last thing we need is for that to happen with their intact brothers around! After that, we’ll still have the three littles, but they’re still way too small.
Yesterday, I got out the Montana Morado corn cobs that had been set aside to continue drying in a cardboard box before trying to remove the kernels. Unfortunately, a few small cobs were still to unripe and started to get fuzzy instead, but we still got this out of it.
It came out to almost exactly a cup of kernels.
I’m waffling between keeping some as seed for next year, or just processing the whole thing. We don’t have a corn mill, but we want to make flour out of it to try. We might have a coffee grinder strong enough, but I think my daughters want to try using our larger mortar and pestle. Which is still pretty small, but we’d be doing it in batches, anyhow.
The other thing that happened yesterday was related to the truck financing.
Yes. We have the truck.
Yes. We have signed the financing documents with the lender, and the finance company representative that’s been helping us all this time.
Yes. The lender had actually said it was done, after we’d sent in a cell phone bill in my husband’s name as yet another proof of ID.
Then yesterday, they told her the cell phone bill wasn’t good enough. They wanted more.
By this point, the entire office was in an uproar about it, I was told. She’d gone to her managers about it, and they were getting involved with the lender to get this mess fixed up. It’s gotten so bad, she was starting to think someone else at the lender’s office had a problem with her, and was messing with the file because of it. We’re not the only file of hers that’s had issues, but none to the point we’re at now. Not only was the entire office getting involved to help out, she herself had stopped working on all other files but ours. The problem is, we already gave them pretty much everything we had. I did eventually sent in an image of my husband’s CPP Disability T4, which only has information they already have on it. They kept wanting something with my husband’s name and address that was sent within the last 30 days (the updated proof of income not being good enough, since they sent it to use digitally, apparently), but most of what we have is all done online, and/or is in my name.
Eventually, a manager had an idea, and suggested we contact the electric company and have my husband’s name added, then have them generate a bill with both our names and our mailing address to send in. This manager had to do that, themselves. They are in a different province, however, and in our province the electric company is run by the government.
I tried it anyhow. I logged in, but the name is one thing that cannot be changed by the client. I found a phone number, though, and after going through the automated system, eventually got to where it would sent me to a customer service rep. All lines were busy, of course, but I had the option to get a representative to call me back, rather than sitting on hold, so I chose that.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long. After explaining the situation, the rep was able to do it in her software, but when I logged out and logged back in (refreshing the page didn’t work), on my end of it, our names were all mixed up. She tried again, and basically removed my last name entirely, and that finally worked out by showing “[my name] & [my husband’s entire name as it shows on his birth certificate]”.
She could not, however, generate a statement for me. The change would not show up until the next billing cycle, which I wouldn’t get until the middle of next month.
The personal information page, however, had our names and mailing address on the same screen, so I hoped that would be good enough. I did a print screen and save as PDF, and sent that in.
I have not heard anything since, which tells me it may finally have been accepted!
We are all just blown away over how this has been made to be more difficult that it should be. They had more than enough to establish my husband’s identity. It just sounds like someone had a bee in their bonnet and wouldn’t let go.
Then I got a call from my mother.
Now, when I last spoke with her on Tuesday, I made sure she knew that I would not be available on Wednesday or Thursday, because we were getting the truck on Wednesday, and my husband had a medical appointment on Thursday. My sister was planning to visit her on Wednesday, so she would be able to help my mother with groceries, etc.
Well, she helped with the groceries, at least.
When my mother called, she told me she had run out of her prescriptions, which come in bubble packs. She had planned to take her walker and go to the pharmacy, but it’s been raining and unpleasant. She said she also had a letter from the doctor to give to the pharmacist, and what was I doing tomorrow?
So we arranged for me to come over today so we could have lunch together, and then I could help her with the pharmacy.
I headed out earlier to pick up some gas, first, and would normally have picked up some fried chicken for lunch from there as well, but it was too early in the day for that. They wouldn’t have any for quite some time. Instead, I went to the Chinese restaurant by her place and got take out. Yes, even though she told me she didn’t want to eat from there anymore, because she’s decided they use cats for meat. Well, she did enjoy her meal – then told me not to get food for her from there anymore, because she things they are using cat meat. She claims she saw on the news that a restaurant in the city was caught doing this, and now assumes all Chinese restaurants do this, but 1) the first time she told me about the cat thing, she told me it was one of her neighbours that told her they were doing this and 2) when asked, she couldn’t tell me anything about this story she heard, other than it was in the city. No idea where in the city, or even how long ago she heard this.
The thing is, this is a small town, and there are only so many options. The gas station has fried chicken she loves, but she’s decided she’s not supposed to eat it because it’s bad for her (even though she only eats it rarely). There is a restaurant she goes to pretty regularly that specializes in fried chicken, among a wider menu, but she complains because their food is always cold and not as good, so that’s out, too. There’s another restaurant, but it doesn’t do take out, and finally, there’s the Chinese food place. Which has excellent food at prices even she used to make a big deal out of, because they give so much food for the money. That’s it. Those are the only options for take out. The remaining alternative is for her to make lunch and 1) I wouldn’t want to make her do that work and 2) … let’s just say, my mother’s food combinations don’t always work out. My brother always bring food when he visits, because he has gotten physically ill from food she’d slapped together to make a meal. This isn’t even a “make do with what you have” thing. My mother could be a great cook with some thing. With others… frankly, I’d rather eat cat.
Anyhow. I brought lunch, she ate and enjoyed it, but chastised me for it. Knowing she will complain about anything I bring (when my sister brings her food from the Chinese restaurant, my mother speaks glowingly about it), I’ll just bring whatever I want that is available.
For the rest… Well, I’ll make it as short as I can. Overall, it was a good visit, but there were a number of concerns that came up.
First; my mother is really struggling, physically. Her knees are hurting her a lot, but she still refuses to take the T3s, because they are “narcotics”. Even though she took a pain killer before she left, it was clearly not enough.
Second; my mother’s cognition is failing. The “letter” for the pharmacist turned out to be the new prescription from the doctor for her bladder concerns. A prescription my mother declared she would not fill, when we got into the car after her appointment. She doesn’t trust the doctor because she’s female and not white. When the pharmacist brought out her bubble packs, my mother was shocked, because she though she wouldn’t be getting them, because of this “letter”. When she found out it was to have a new prescription on top of the unchanged regular prescriptions (for all that she complains she’s taking soooo many pills, she really isn’t), she was upset. She completely forgot that she had a new prescription and what it was for, but filled in the blanks by deciding it was a letter – a letter she thought the pharmacist somehow already knew about, even though she had the only copy – that said what she wanted it to say.
Third; she’s having trouble keeping her medications straight. We went over them after I got her home, and she had a couple of them mixed up. Which wouldn’t matter too much, if she were simply taking them when she was supposed to, but she keeps trying to drop this one or that one. She had tried to tell me on the phone that she was feeling better without them, but today, she was telling me how bad she was feeling without them. It also turned out she had changed when she was taking one of them that was supposed to be taken before bed, which basically negated the whole point of that particular medication helping her while she’s lying down. She was taking it with her evening pills, but she takes those so early in the evening, it wouldn’t be useful by the time she got to bed.
Oh, when I had the chance, I asked her why she didn’t get her refills while my sister was there to help. She said she still had a day left, so she didn’t bother. We’ve all been trying to tell her, she needs to get her refills before she runs out, but she seems downright offended by that idea. As if there were some sort of law against it.
In the end, was I was looking up her medications to tell her what each specific pill was for, she got me to write it out. which leads me to one last concern. Her anger issues. It’s not even a new thing. It’s just more hair trigger. As I was writing things out, she was at first happy to see how I was printing it out so clearly and easy for her to read – but then got angry that it too me two lines to write out the description and information, then what the pill was for. Then she wanted little drawings of the pills and was furious because I didn’t make the doodle where she though it should be, etc.
I was able to de-intensify things well enough but, my goodness, that gets exhausting.
Still, it got done. She has her medications, including the new one. I told her (as did the pharmacist), to try it for the 30 days. He only gave her half the prescription, since it’s basically a test. If, after 30 days, she finds it helps, she can let the pharmacy know and they’ll add the next 30 days into her bubble packs. If they don’t help, she can just stop using them. I added that it could take about a week to for them to start working, so to go keep taking them for the 30 days.
I won’t even get into the other stuff that came up. The medications thing was enough to suck the energy out of me on its own, but of course, it wans’t the only thing.
I had left early enough that I could have done some work outside (something else she gave me a hard time about), but by the time I got home, I just didn’t have the spoons anymore. After updating the family – and writing an email to my siblings about the medication things and the concerns I was seeing – I’d pretty much reached my limits.
The problem is, next week, the cold weather is supposed to finally hit us. Which means things need to be prioritized differently. Getting that second trellis bed started has just dropped down the list over things like mulching the garlic more, as well as covering the orange carrots we plan to store in ground for the winter, etc. We’ve been leaving that last bed of onions as long as possible, but we’re going to have to take the whole thing in and process them for freezing right away.
As glad as I am to have the truck and to be able to bring my husband to a medical appointment in it, it looks like those two days were the last really pleasant ones we’re going to have for the year. Since then, it’s been overcast and rainy. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit better, and then that’s it.
Ah, well. There’s only so much we can do. The world won’t end if it doesn’t all get done.
Right now, I need to decompress and get some solid sleep!
The Re-Farmer 