healthcare

That worked out unexpectedly well!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, the cuteness!

I just got back home again and spotted Poirot in with her babies, and had to pause for this.

I actually couldn’t see the little black one until viewing these files on my desktop! The little voidling disappears into the void of his mother’s fur. 😁

Last night, I remembered that we hadn’t done my mother’s monthly blook work yet, and that she had a fasting blood test to do as well. I made arrangements with her to come over this morning, aiming to get her to the lab, which is just a few blocks from her place, as early as possible, so she wouldn’t have to keep fasting for so long.

I ended up having a ridiculously early morning. I’ve been waking up as the days get light, which means I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier for a while now! This morning, it was about 5:30am, and I didn’t need to get up until later. While in the washroom, though, I heard suspect kitten noises, so I got a daughter to join me to check on them while feeding them. It’s much easier to get wet cat food to the kittens with a second person! I still had to close up the inner door on the sun room to let the babies have a chance to eat. Poirot and Brussel had left when I started dispensing the kibble, with Poirot heading off somewhere in the outer yard. Caramel’s kittens were in the cat house, of course, so I tucked their tray into the entry, hoping they would find it and eat before the other cats discovered it. I have noticed that the other adult cats don’t go into the cat house at all, now that the babies are in there, which is good.

By the time I finished my rounds, Poirot was back and at the sun room door, wanting in but too scared to let me come close and open it for her. It doesn’t actually close all the way; things have shifted too much over the winter. It jams onto the threshold enough to stay closed, but if a cat were to push against it, it opens – something some of the other cats have already figured out!

I headed out to my mother’s for about 8:30am. As I parked and headed in, I saw someone leaving and immediately thought it was probably the health care worker. Sure enough, I was right; I had just missed her. My mother remembered not to have breakfast with her pills, which was good. She was all dressed and ready to go, too… including a grocery list! Which I was happy to see, as I forgot to suggest I could do her grocery shopping while I was there. We had time to go over her list and the new flier. Whole chicken was on an excellent sale and she was okay with getting one, which made me happy. She is not getting enough protein, and we all need more protein as we get older.

That done, we headed to the lab in the hospital. She was the only one there, so they were able to take her in and get it done very quickly. So quickly, she actually complained as I was helping her out of the chair, that everyone is in such a hurry! The technician didn’t actually hurry, but was efficient in doing a very basic blood draw, but for someone who struggles just to get in and out of their slightly higher chair, I’m sure it feels way too fast!

Since she was out and about, and in need of breakfast, I suggested we try out the newly renovated and re-opened restaurant that she’s been wanting to go to for some time. Even when they were still closed and very much under renovation, she tried to get me to stop and go inside to see if they were open yet. 😄 I drove past it on the way to her place, so I knew it was open for breakfast. She happily agreed, but was then surprised when I drove to the highway. She wanted to go to the “new” restaurant, and this building has been there for a long time.

???

She then told me her neighbours were talking about a new restaurant. This was the only one that I knew about.

With the new renovations, this place now has a wheelchair ramp, but no automatic doors, which I found a bit odd. If I had not been there with her, my mother would have had a very hard time getting in on her own. They are clearly not completely finished with their plans, with dining tables in only one half of the space. Tables spaced nice and far apart, with plenty of room for someone to get through with a walker, even if there were people sitting in the chairs. At this time, though, there was only one occupied table.

We had a basic eggs, hashbrowns, meat (I had sausage, my mother had bacon) and toast breakfast. It was quite good, and the portions generous. Given that my mother was literally breaking her fast, she was quite hungry, so that worked out very well.

More people came in while we were eating and, my mother being my mother, she started talking to people at the other tables. As I was coming back from paying the bill, I caught the tail end of someone explain to Mom about the new restaurant she had been hearing about. It turns out it was more like a canteen in the rec centre that is only open a few days a week. No wonder I hadn’t heard about it!

Once we were done there, I took my mother home, since she was clearly getting pretty tired. When we got to her door, though, we found something in front of it.

A reusable grocery bag with a card in an envelop sticking out of it.

My immediate thought went to our vandal, while my mother started listing off all sorts of other possibilities.

I was right. Our vandal and come by and, with my mother away, had left things at the door for her.

My mother was so tired, she settled into her chair without pausing to take her jacket off. The bag turned out to have four mini fruit pies in it. I opened the card for her, too. It was a mother’s day card, and she was quite delighted by the chickadees pictures on the front. I opened it up and there was a note written inside from our vandal. It was from both him and his wife, though clearly his handwriting. The note was a brief mention about something his “cancer counsellor” told him. It was unusually benign, which suggests to me his wife actually saw and knew about the card, though it still reeked of manipulation. Other cards and letters he has left with her were typically quite nasty.

My mother was too enamored by the pretty chickadees to notice or care.

Once she was settled and comfortable, I headed out with her shopping list. I also needed to go to the post office, which is almost directly across the street from the grocery store, so I parked at the grocery store, then grabbed the envelopes to walk across and mail them, first.

I immediately noticed a very familiar looking vehicle.

While I was getting the envelopes out, I saw our vandal getting into it. My mother and I must have just missed him at her place by minutes!

As I walked across to the post office, he left the parking lot and I was concerned that he might have seen and recognized me, and would decide to go back to my mother’s again. So I got things mailed and did the shopping quickly. Not that it would have taken long, anyhow; my mother’s shopping lists are not long.

When I got back to my mother’s place with her shopping, the first thing I asked was if everything was okay. She was surprised to see me back so quickly – she hasn’t even taken her jacket off, yet! I explained to her about seeing our vandal and that I was concerned he would come back, if he’d seen me.

Then we promptly forgot all about him.

After the groceries were put away, I stayed longer to do a bit of housekeeping for her. There wasn’t much she needed done, so I was soon on my way home.

It was actually quite disorienting to realize it was not even 11:30 when I left.

By this time, things were starting to get quite hot, and the high winds were in full force. Our expected high of 27C/81F has been dropped to 25C/77F, which we are at right now and are expected to stay at for several more hours.

When I got home, I had to check on the raised bed covers, and they are all holding up to the wind. The portable greenhouse, however, is not doing as well. We had to tie the door open, as it was over 50C/122F in there. The door faces the house, and the wind is from the south, so at least the doorway is sheltered, but plastic covering the frame is still ballooning. At some point, the ties for the door came loose, so it was flapping. My husband’s window faces it, so he was able to let us know and my daughter fixed it. She ended up draping a broken hose over it, and pushed the cat trap right against one side of it, to try and reduce the ballooning. That actually helped quite a bit. Unfortunately, the plastic around the doorway is starting to tear. Where it’s attached to the zipper already had some tears, and that’s gotten much worse, but even at one corner, where the tie down loop is, has started to tear.

*sigh*

I can’t say I’m surprised by this, but I really was hoping it would hold out longer. At least the roof and three sides are still holding out. It’s just the side with the doorway. We’ll still be able to make it work out.

It’s getting time to feed the outside cats for the evening, so I’ll be heading outside to check on things soon. With this wind and heat, though, there is no way I’ll be able to continue clearing out the garden bed I started on, yesterday. The high winds are supposed to continue through the night, but tomorrow is supposed to be cooler (as in, just under 20C/68C) and the winds are supposed to die down by then, so I should be able to finish clearing that bed then. I have decided that I will plant peas down the middle of this bed, and potatoes on either side. Once the bed is clear, I will set up posts to hold trellis netting down the middle, then get netting on it right away, so that’s over and done with, before planting anything. If things go smoothly, I should be able to get the peas and potatoes planted by the end of the day.

If things go smoothly.

I don’t really count on that. 😄

Now to go feed some kitties and check for wind damage!

The Re-Farmer

Baby moving day and a visit to the doctor

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, and update on Poirot and her babies.

We tried getting her to move into the cat cage. The babies were tucked into the cat cave, for darkness and warmth. We watched and could tell that she knew where they were, and I kept an eye on the critter cam. My older daughter, who works at night, checked as well, though there was no way to see if a black cat was in the darkness of the cat cave.

When I came out to do the morning feeding (waaayyy to early for me!), I took a peak and could see the babies. I pet them, mostly to make sure they were actually alive, and they immediately started crying for mama.

My daughter helped me with putting the food out, with me setting the dry kibble out first, to distract the other cats, while she split up a couple of cans of wet cat food for the babies, then passed them to me. I made sure to put some wet cat food inside the cat cage, but could not see Poirot anywhere.

So I continued my morning rounds and, while coming back from switching out memory cards at the gate cam, I spotted a whole bunch of cats following from a distance on the driveway.

Including Poirot.

I continued me rounds, hoping she would go to her babies in the sun room but, as I finished up, she was still outside. She just would not go to them.

So I decided to take the cat cave, babies still inside, and moved it back to the water bowl shelter, where she seemed to be hanging out the most. I even put some wet cat food inside the cat cave.

She did come over and stick her head in to eat, but would not go inside.

I hung around behind the cat house, watching her, but she just jumped onto the roof to eat, then back down again. I could hear her kittens crying, and she would stick her head in, but not go in all the way. Which you can see in the first image below.

Okay, so she doesn’t like the cat cave. I decided to take them out and put them on the cat bed she gave birth in, that was right beside it.

I then headed into the sun room and stood by the old kitchen door, messaging the family to update them.

Which is when Poirot suddenly ran into the sun room.

With something black in her mouth.

Her black kitten.

I froze and watched through the sides of my eyes so as not to scare her out. She brought the kitten to the set up just behind me, only to drop it. She tried again and dropped it again.

The way we have things set up in that area, we have a couple of plant stands of different heights in front of the mini greenhouse frame that is now used only by the cats. These are against one of the shelves that supports the platform, and where we store several open cat carriers for the cats to be comfortable and familiar with them. At the moment, there is one on the bottom shelf, and the cats keep pushing the door closed – not latched, but it doesn’t swing open on its own. There had been one the next shelf up, but we had to use it and it is now sitting directly on the floor, opposite the cat cage. I even toss a bit of kibble inside so the cats are comfortable going in and out of it. Then there is a cat carrier on the third shelf up, which is the shelf that supports the platform at that end. Because of the platform, it’s turned sideways, so the open doorway faces the top of the mini greenhouse.

That’s where we found the black kitten, yesterday evening. It has a cat blanket inside that the cats have managed to not drag out and onto the floor, like the other ones.

It was clear to me that Poirot was wanting to get to that carrier. After dropping her kitten yet again, it started crying loudly, so I took a chance. As soon as I moved, she backed away from her kitten, but not very far. I picked it up and put it into the carrier.

She immediately jumped up the shelves, into the carrier, and settled to nurse and groom her kitten.

At that point, I decided to give in. I went and got her other two kittens and brought them over. As I came close, she started hissing at me, but immediately stopped when I put a kitten in, and was grooming it before I could put the last one in. The kittens immediately went hunting for nip.

I then went and got some for the remaining wet cat food intended for her and put it in close enough that she could eat while her kittens continued to nurse. I then hung around and found things to do until I could see she had mostly finished eating.

I then went and got the last squeeze treat for her. She once again started hissing at me when I got close, but then she discovered the treat, and she started eating it. As with Brussel, once the tube it too empty to comfortably squeeze with one hand (I have to use my other hang to hang on to something, since I’m having to lean forward so much to reach the mama), I pulled it back, then squeezed the last of the treat out of the tube and onto my finger and thumb, then reached in again to let her lick the last of it off my fingers.

Which she did, without hesitation.

Meanwhile, Brussel was sitting in her spot by her kittens, under the platform, watching me. I had developed a routine of giving her a squeeze treat before going into the house, but I had none left. We did still have other donated treats; they look a bit like squares of chocolate. I opened a couple of them and broke them into their little squares. There was enough for me to scatter some for Brussel and her kittens, Poirot in her cat carrier, then around the kibble trays for any other cats that happened to still be around.

If you scroll through the Instagram post, you’ll see a video of a very happy Poirot.

The problem is, if the kittens ever squirm their way out of the carrier, which would not take much to do, there is a very real chance they’d fall to the concrete floor below. The girls and I are doing to use some of the cardboard I’ve set aside for the garden and sort of box the area in, so if they do get out, they’ll just be on cardboard, and there will be no gaps for them to fall through.

Poirot definitely won this battle! It would be safer for her to be in the cat cage and, especially, in the warmth of the cat cave, but being in a carrier is hardly a bad thing. I tried calling the rescue in the city the Cat Lady recommended to me, but there was no answer and no option to leave a message. If we can get through to them and they are in a position to taken in a mama and kittens, it will be much easier to do that with them already in a carrier!

So that was my morning adventure!

Once back inside and breakfasted up, it was still quite early, so I took advantage of it to lie down for about an hour. I’d say “take a nap”, but my phone’s notifications kept going off, so not much sleep was to be had.

My daughter’s appointment with the doctor was at 1:30, and we needed to be on the road by 12:30. We ended up leaving shortly after noon, instead, which gave me time to swing by the feed store in my mother’s town and pick up a couple of 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats.

Which I have forgotten in the truck… 😄

That done, we continued to our appointments. We were early, but not early enough to have lunch, first, so we just went in and waited. My appointment was at 2, and we both got called in about half an hour late.

The primary thing for both of us was to take care of the disability paperwork the doctor asked us to bring in. We’d already filled out our portions. For me, it was all about my osteoarthritis, which she listed as severe. At one point, I told her that it’s really hard for me to even think of being disabled. I mean, it’s just arthritis, right? Everyone gets arthritis, eventually (meaning OA, of course, not rheumatoid), right? Everyone gets sort feet, right? She just started laughing and shaking her head.

The forms ask about things like being able to walk and needing to use mobility aids (I did have to use a cane, just yesterday evening, which I haven’t needed to do in quite a while), and she listed canes, arm bars, hand rails and the bath chair, as well as sometimes needing to have someone else prepare food for me. What the paperwork doesn’t have a space for it specifically about hands. Just walking. While my walking is affected, my hands are really the more of an issue for me, as I have trouble turning door nobs, or being able to do things like hold a cup.

Which reminds me. We’re going to need to replace the door knob on our bathroom door with a lever style handle, sooner rather than later. As we were talking and she was filling in different parts of the form, I mentioned that I was diagnosed back in 2000, and was already using a cane before then, and she went back and added that in, too. I had checked off the box giving the okay to get retroactive disability payments, but I really don’t think that’ll happen all the way back to 2000!

Now, I fully expect us to both get rejected immediately. That happened with my husband. When he took the letter of rejection to his doctor, the doctor told him they always reject the first application. Just send it in again. Which we did, and my husband’s application was accepted the second time. Now, that was back in…. 2014? 2025? Somewhere around there. So we’ll see if that’s still the case. After the paperwork got the appropriate clinic stamp and scanned for our files, we got them back – after paying $50 each – and will need to mail them out ASAP.

Beyond that, we went over various things and talked about my meds. I’ve been bumped up from T2s to T3s.

I mentioned how I’ve started getting Charlie Horses again, now that I’m active outside more. I’m already taking the supplements that would help, and she suggested I add squats to my regimen. This would actually be quite difficult for me, since my knees are shot. My legs are already over developed, since muscle is the thing keeping them from bending in directions they are not designed to do, but doing squats (and stretches, but I am already doing that) should also help. Talking about it with my daughter, later, I’m not entirely sure how I would do them. My knees are simply not stable enough. We do have an exercise bike, so that might work, too. I will try doing squats, too, though. As long as I’ve got something I can grab on to for support, I might be okay.

Meanwhile, the doctor says she doesn’t need to see me for a follow up for 3 months, and wrote me up to get bloodwork done just before then. My daughter had more bloodwork done after her appointment, so she’s booked to come back next month.

We both had changes in prescriptions, so we messaged my husband to call the pharmacy and let them know to fill the faxes they would get, as we were on the way. This gave him a chance to add anything he needed for himself, but there wasn’t anything this time.

By the time we got to the pharmacy, it was letting late in the afternoon, and neither of us had had lunch. So we ended up getting some take out before heading home. It was late enough that I left my daughter to take things in and split up the food while I went out to do the evening cat feeding.

Poirot was still curled up with her babies in the cat carrier. She did growl a bit at me, until I put the food bowl down in front of her, just outside the carrier. Hopefully, we will have better luck at socializing her than we’ve had with Brussel. For all that she now expects to get the wet cat food and the treats, she still growls and attacks my hands. Aside from a couple of times I took advantage of proximity and managed to pet her, she does not like it when we get within reach, if it doesn’t involve food!

The bigger kittens, meanwhile, are all over the sun room. The third white and grey kitten is still there and joining the cuddle piles with its siblings – litter mates and adopted siblings alike!

The long days are really starting to throw me. It feels like it should be the middle of the day right now, and it’s getting past 6:30pm as I write this! We’re expected to drop to freezing, or even below freezing, tonight, so I’ll be heading out one more time to make sure the heat lamps are on, and the plants in the portable greenhouse are brought into the old kitchen for the night. Our temperatures are expected to lurch back and forth all over the place, from highs of near 30’sC/86’sF and lows of 12C/57F or higher, to much more pleasant daytime highs, but lows just barely above freezing again. We’ll be getting high winds again, soo, too.

Somewhere in there, I need to get all sorts of things done outside!

Ah, well. Spring does tend to be a very mercurial season! We just do the best we can.

What else can we do, right? 😁

The Re-Farmer

Not the day I planned

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

But first, the cuteness.

While doing my rounds this morning, I tried to move Poirot’s kittens into the cat cage in the sun room. I set them into the cat cave in one of the cubes and waited, but Poirot would not go into the sun room. So, I eventually moved things around in the water bowl shelter.

I accidentally reposted the first picture, and Instagram won’t let me delete it. If you scroll through, you’ll see a video of mama getting wet cat food while her littles try to nurse.

After she was done eating and moved away, I first put them into a cat carrier set in the space between the three shelters. She went in, and when she came out, the white one was clinging to her side! It fell off and Poirot ran a short distance away, so I but the kitten back into the carrier, then took it into the sun room. I made sure she could see me moving them into the cat cage. I then went inside and monitored the critter cam.

She wouldn’t go in.

After while, I moved things around in the water bowl shelter, then took the kittens, still in the cat cave, and set that up in the water bowl shelter. My concern is, we’re supposed to get a couple of cold nights, and that shelter is too exposed. Inside the cat cave would, at least give them more protection.

She seemed to accept the new set up. When we did the evening feeding, she went to the kibble bowls, then had some of the wet cat food we gave her. This time, though, she didn’t finish it off, so it went elsewhere.

Just a little while ago, my older daughter came in to tell me she found the white and grey kitten on the floor in the sun room. The white kitten was still in the cat cave, and she was asking, how many did Poirot have? The black kitten was missing!

I ended up finding it in one of the cat carriers we keep in one of the shelves supporting the platform.

On the third level.

I really hope that kitten she found hadn’t fallen down from that height!!

I ended up setting the cat cave back into the cat cage. Today was another warm day, but with a cold wind. I think she was trying to find a warmer place for her babies. That carrier would have been okay, if it were at floor level, but she ignored the two that were at floor level!

So now I’m back to monitoring the critter cam.

Meanwhile, Brussel’s two are very active.

Gosh, Kale looks just like her mother!!!

Also, Oofus the Brave is now Sir Robin the Brave. 😄

While my daughter was helping feed the outside cats and taking the wet cat food to Poirot, she found a strange kitten!

It was one of Caramel’s. They are getting active enough to actually climb out of the cat house! We do have a board set up as a ramp, just for the little kittens to be able to get in and out.

So my daughter took one of the other food bowls for the kittens that wasn’t being used, and put it inside the entry to the cat house.

The kittens loved it!

When I took this picture, I saw the food was all gone, so I brought over the container of wet cat food that Poirot didn’t eat and switched bowls. Caramel and her kittens cleaned it all up!

Meanwhile, after my daughter told me about finding the kitten in the sun room, I went looking for the black kitten. We were concerned it might have crawled under something and couldn’t get out. While I was looking for it, I found something – or should I saw, someONE – else!

The missing mostly white kitten! I had seen the mother trying to lure away Eyelet last night, and was afraid they would be gone by morning, so I was relieved to see Eyelet and Grommet were still there. Now it seems the mama has brought her third baby back to the sanctuary of the sun room!

Now I just hope Poirot will join her babies in the cat cage. It’s the safest, warmest place for the babies. That forecast of 0C/32F in a couple of nights is now a forecast for -1C/30F

We shall see how things work out.

Meanwhile…

I was outside way earlier than I wanted to be, doing my morning rounds, and had intended to try and get a bit more sleep after breakfast.

It was shortly after 9 when my phone rang.

It was my mother, and she was in high dungeon.

The home care worker had shown up to do her morning med assist, but her Monday bubble pack was missing its morning pills. This is because, some time ago, my mother had gotten the extra bubble packs down from on top of her fridge and taken them herself. She didn’t follow the days, but just took from the top corner; the Monday morning position. Her extra bubble packs are now stored in the lock box. The home care workers make sure to take the meds from the correct day’s bubble, even if it ended up being in the middle of a pack – which drive my mother bonkers. End result is, now that she was almost finished her current set of bubble packs, the Monday bubble was empty, and the home care worker refused to take them from another day.

It was difficult to understand my mother, as she was in rant mode and all over the place, but from what I got out of her, there was an old bubble pack that had just one day’s meds in it, and the home care worker could have given my mother that, but it was a Friday set of pills, not a Monday. So my mother didn’t get her pills this morning, and she was really angry about it. I asked if she wanted me to come in, and she said no. She didn’t want me driving all that way.

Her refills were to be delivered today, but she said they deliver after the pharmacy is closed, so that would be after her supper time med assist.

I told my mother I would call the home care case coordinator and talk to her about the situation, then call my mother back. I actually had to hang up on my mother because she started basically shouting “stupid, stupid, stupid” over and over again when I’d already said my goodbyes and told her I would call bac soon.

When I called the home care office, the case coordinator answered after the first ring. She was obviously expecting my call!

We talked about the situation and she confirmed what I already tried to explain to my mother (and the care aid did, too). They absolutely have to go by the days and times on the bubble packs, because some people take different pills on different days. The home care aids aren’t trained on the medications themselves. They just have to follow the care plan.

Then she told me she wanted to get together with me to go over my mother’s panel for long term care. Things have changed, and the paperwork needed to reflect that. So we made an appointment for this afternoon.

I then called my mother back.

She was in a completely different mindset, and was actually pleasant on the phone.

As we were talking, I decided I needed to get her meds, rather than wait for delivery. I told her I had an appointment in her town, so I would leave early, get her meds, drop them off and go to my appointment.

Once that was arranged, there really wasn’t anything of note I could start working on in the time period before I had to leave, so I ended up leaving even earlier than needed. I got her refills, which were already in the delivery area. It ended up costing over $200 (her pills are so cheap!), so I took care of that, then headed to my mother’s. She did pay me back.

The first thing I did was confirm that her new painkiller prescription was in. She told me that, after the doctor suggested it, she started using the topical painkiller she uses on her knees, on her back. Between that and Tylenol, she’s fine. But she also complained about waking up in so much pain, she couldn’t move to even reach her painkillers, so… I’m not even going to try and figure it out.

I opened up the lock box to put her bubble packs in, which is when I found out she still had pills for the rest of today, and tomorrow morning. She started telling me how she had told the care worker to just give her the pills for tomorrow morning, and started to get all angry again.

That was much of my time with my mother today. She would go from calm and normal speech, to getting really angry about something – but was associating thing with other things that are completely disassociated!

After a while, I got a message from my daughter. The case coordinator had call the farm to let me know she was available early. So I said my goodbyes and headed out right away.

When I got there, we updated each other on what happened this morning. It turns out the care worker had called the case coordinator from my mother’s place and she could actually hear my mother start to yell at the care worker.

The sad thing is, these home care aids probably deal with much worse in other homes!

We went through the entire panel for both physical and cognitive areas. Some of the questions are hard to answer, because we’re simply not with her to hear or see her engaging in the behaviour.

Along the way, I did tell her about what our vandal has been doing, since it does affect my mother’s health.

That reminds me; apparently, the last time he spoke with her, he said she had called the police on him and wanted to put him in jail. Which she never did, but he believes it.

By the end of it, the case coordinator told me she would go through it all and sort through the information to make sure they got to the right spots. With how my mother has been behaving, it’s looking like she may have crossed the threshold they need to get her into long term care/assisted living. I do hope it works out that way, because my mother really shouldn’t be living alone. As I was getting ready to leave, my mother was again saying how much she wanted to live in the long term care home so many of her old friends, her sister and my father, lived out their last days. I told her to take whatever comes available, just to get into the system! She can get into where she wants to be, later.

All of which has been very long and mentally exhausting. I’m literally falling asleep at my keyboard as, I type this, and have been correcting some of the craziest typos, and more than a few weird sentences!!! I’m hoping to get to bed early today. Tomorrow afternoon, my daughter and I have doctor’s appointments. We’ll both have the paperwork the doctor asked us to bring in, to start the application for disability.

Which means another day of delay with the stuff I want to get done as quickly as possible!

Ah, well. Such is life, eh?

I will be calling it a night soon, though. I’ll just make one more walkabout outside to check on things, then start heading to bed.

I am so…

…so…

…so…

…tired.

The Re-Farmer

Yeah, we got snow today

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

The forecast was possible rain and snow during the night.

It was snowing when I head out to do my morning rounds, and kept snowing, of and on, throughout the day!

Not enough to bother the yard cats too much, though.

The first two images above are from a poplar branch. I don’t think I ever noticed before that they get catkins like pussy willows do! So we have signs of spring, even as winter is trying to hang on as long as possible!

The last photo is the covered bed in the old kitchen garden. As I was out there, it was about -1C/30F. In both the covered bed and the portable greenhouse, the thermometers were reading about 0C/32F Not much difference – even in the portable greenhouse, after adding the water filled garbage can as a heat sink. I don’t think the water has in there long enough to get completely warmed up, yet.

On the schedule for today was to head to my mother’s to take her to her doctor’s appointment in the early afternoon. I still had plenty of time, as I was sitting down with my breakfast after doing my morning rounds.

Then the phone rang.

It was home care.

No one was available to do my mother’s morning meds. She’s scheduled to get them done, along with extra time to help her get dressed, if she needs it, empty her commode or even heat something up for her breakfast, at 8:55

It was almost 8:30 when I got the call.

*sigh*

So I quickly called my mom to let her know that I would be heading over as soon as I finished breakfast. My mother kept trying to keep me on the phone as she complained about my having to come out for this and I kept having to cut her off and repeat that I needed to eat and run, and we could talk when I got there. After the third or fourth time, she finally let me go! 😄

When the home care aids do her med assist, they have a folder that’s kept in her lock box where they sign off for the day’s visit and make extra notes, if needed. So when I do the med assist instead, I write up the time and date, saying that I did her meds, and include any other notes that might be necessary. So I knew what time I got there to give her her meds. It was exactly 9:15 by her clock, so only about 20 minutes late.

What I noticed as I was getting her meds out was a bubble in her pack that should have been empty, but wasn’t. Her previous Friday morning pills were still there. So I asked her about it.

She told me that she had taken her meds herself, from one of the extra bubble packs on her fridge, that morning.

!!!!

I was sure I’d pushed them far enough back that she couldn’t reach them! I don’t know how she got them down!

I told her, that was NOT a good thing to do. Apparently, the home care aid agreed, because my mom told me she put the rest of the packs into the lock box. Between the bubble packs, their folder, the blood work requisition forms, and other items in there, having an entire month’s worth of packs in there is tight, even with a lock box as large as this one. That’s why I hadn’t put them all in there myself, when I brought her refills home.

*sigh*

After giving her her meds, I did a few other little things for her, like emptying the commode and taking care of her garbage. My brother had recently visited her and brought a few grocery items she’s always running out of, but when we spoke on the phone last night, I told her to see if she needed anything else and to make a list. She did need a few things, and we still had plenty of time, so we went over the list and then I did her grocery shopping for her.

After that was done, we still had time to visit.

If you could call it that.

She spent a whole lot of time criticizing me for not being dressed “presentable” enough (while I was there, I accidentally tore my jeans), and for having messy hair (my hair was braided and I had hat head), and I should have short hair like she does. In the past, these are criticisms that would have caused me to have all sorts of issues, but I am well past that point in my life now. I call her out on this stuff, now. She doesn’t really get it. She feels completely entitled to say stuff like to about and to, anyone and everyone. Even complete strangers! Then starts going on about how people who aren’t “presentable” are uncivilized, etc.

She totally doesn’t get the double standard and hypocrisy she’s displaying!

Then she brought up the Easter baskets; I’d picked up a paska at the grocery store for her own basket. She remembered that we do Easter baskets, too, and bless them ourselves. She suggested that I bring our basket to her place on the Saturday before Easter, then she and I could go across the street to her church to have them blessed together.

I told her, the last time I brought our Easter basket to be blessed with her, she gave me a hard time about having a bad basket.

Oh, she said. That’s because it was so huge. Would you like me to give you an Easter basket?

I told her, we have all kinds of baskets of all sizes.

She told me I should just bring a small one. Just a little one…

I told her, our basket is the right size for our family.

Now, part of the reason for the size of basket we use is that we spread everything out so nothing is completely buried, rather than jamming everything on top of everything else. We also do things like have our ham on a small plate, have oil (we’ll be having truffle infused olive oil this year) and vinegar in little jars, salt in one of the many pinch pots I collect, a bowl with olives, another with butter, etc. The containers take up a fair bit of space. Plus, of course, we like to lay it out to make a pretty display. So there is actually not a particularly huge amount in the basket. But, it’s the size of the basket that bothers my mother, and people will think bad things if they see such a big basket getting blessed in church…

Never mind that I’ve seen people bring in even bigger baskets than any of ours to be blessed!

Anyhow, when she kept going on about how we should have a small basket like hers, I told her, THAT is why we don’t bring the basket in for blessing with her. She then started saying that maybe I could have a less hard heart, just for her…

…

I pointed out, she is the one that has the hard heart with this! She totally does not understand that she is the biggest reason we don’t go to church right now. We’ve tried going to some of the local churches, including the RC Church I grew up going to, and I was saddened to see how … wordly… they had become. My mother’s church is the only one that seems to remain true, so even though I’m Orthodox Lutheran now, the RC church by her place is the one church I would be going to.

Just not with my mother. I did try to, and she made it quite clear that she did not think I was good enough. I don’t put up with that.

I so miss the church we went to before moving out here!

But I digress!

My mother ended up wanting us to leave even earlier than I’d planned. That did give me time to stop at a gas station, and at a post office in the town my mother’s appointment was in (she believes the staff at her local post office steals her mail. Especially her mail to Poland). We still got there an hour early.

I did have some issues with my mother trying to drive from the passenger seat! Like telling me which way I could go to leave a parking spot and not understanding why I wasn’t driving, when I hadn’t even finished putting on my seatbelt yet. The direction she was telling me I should drive would have had me popping a curb and driving over concrete. Or insisting I undo her seatbelt for her, while I was backing up into the loading zone at her place, so I could have the space to help her out of the truck. It’s been a long time since she’s done stuff like this.

As for the appointment, it did go well, overall. She did dive into something completely new – though she says it’s been an issue for at least a year (???) – before we finally got to talking about her hospital stay and the results of her last two blood tests to monitor her kidney function.

Her kidneys are fine.

My mother was written up for some X-rays, which we could do right after the appointment, and some blood work, which required fasting, so that will have to wait. Since we’ll be doing her next kidney monitoring bloodwork in the first week of May, it can actually wait until then and she can do both in one trip.

While all this was going on, I got a message from my husband. The tax preparer had called and our files were ready to pick up. So, once I got my mother home and her new lab requisition form tucked into the lock box with the monthly ones, I had to dash off. From my mother’s place, it was about a 450 minute drive to get to the tax preparer’s office in the town North of us. After signing what I had to sign and paying for the job, I had to grab the form my husband needed to sign, drive home, get him to sign it, and drive back again! We could actually have brought it back another day, but I wanted to just get it done.

On the plus side, by the time I got home, the snow had stopped (when we were driving to my mother’s appointment, we drove into much heavier snow) and was even all melted away. Which is fine. A little more moisture is not a bad thing. We’re not getting anything close to the spring flooding we’ve had in the past. The old basement floor is completely dry, and the sump pump hasn’t gone off even once. Which means we could actually do with more moisture! It’s getting into fire season.

As I was driving home with the form for my husband to sign, I could see smoke to the west of our place. I figured someone was doing a controlled burn, though it was a windy day for it.

When I was driving home later on, on the last few miles of gravel road, I found myself behind a fire truck with its lights flashing. Maybe half a mile from our turn off, I saw more flashing lights behind me, and pulled over for the second fire truck to go by. Both continued on past our turn off. I could no longer see smoke, but somewhere near by is a fire big enough to require at least two trucks! (There could have been more that went by before I was there to see them.) There’s nothing on the live fire maps, though, so it isn’t a forest or wild fire.

Something to be aware of, with everything drying up so quickly.

Anyhow.

Today ended up having a lot more going on than expected. For now, I’ve got some cat carriers to prep and in the morning, we need to try and snag 3 pregnant females for the vet.

Wish us luck!

The Re-Farmer

Slight change in plans…

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I got a phone call from home care this morning.

No one was available to go my mother’s med assist this morning.

Hmmm…

I was already planning to go to town today, but not for a few more hours. Instead, I arranged with the girls to take are of feeding and watering the cats outside, while I quickly took my meds, got dressed, grabbed our empty water jugs (the main reason I was going to town today) and headed out to my mothers. Since I had three water jugs to take along, my older daughter came down to help me with the doors before feeding the outside cats. She wasn’t impressed that I got another call to cover a no-show (nothing was said about why, this time, and I didn’t ask). She asked if the med assists were being done by volunteers, or if my mother was paying for the service. I told her, it’s covered by our health care system, so they are being paid. My mother has a list of names for all the home care aids she can expect to see. there are ten names on that list. It does seem odd that, with so many aids just for the scheduled route my mother is on (there would be many others), there isn’t someone who can cover when one can’t do the scheduled rounds.

Ah, well. It is what it is. At least the weather is better!

I did remember to phone my mother, first, to let her know I was on the way!

When I got there, my mother was not at all impressed. She’s angry that I have to drive aaaaall that way (it’s about 20-25 minutes of driving time, so not that bad) to do her meds. At least she didn’t start yelling about how we need to get rid of the lock box because she can do her meds herself.

She did, however, get upset over how I was taking the meds out of the bubble pack, and where the lock box was sitting, and where I put the note pad…

She began telling me how the home care aids would pop the pills out of the bubble packs “in the air” (meaning, not over the table, but right into their hands), and pills would go flying all over. Which may have happened a couple of times but, as far as I know, this was before she went to the hospital. It’s why I brought over the tiny dish so the meds could be put into it and double checked.

There was a different reason I was having issues with the bubble pack, though. I was opening the last bubble in this particular pack – and discovered it had been taped shut. I mentioned the tape and my mother said one of the aids did it because she had opened up the wrong day’s bubble.

I got the pills into the little bowl, then checked on the printout inside the cover of the bubble pack to count how many there supposed to be for her morning medications.

One was missing.

A few days ago, while digging for the lab work requisition form, I found a loose pill on the bottom of the lock box.

Now we know where it came from.

When the next aid came to do the med assist saw the pill and my note, she got a tiny envelope for it, labelled it and put it back in the lock box, so I was able to open that up and include it with the rest of the pills Mom was to take this morning.

I then made out a detailed note about when my mother got her medications, what I found and what I did, including putting a new bubble pack into the lock box.

My mother also has an inhaler to take morning and night and I asked her about it, but she said she hasn’t really been taking it. It was a test to see if it would help any with her breathing issues, and it made no difference that she could tell. So we skipped that.

Since I was there anyhow, I did some other stuff for her. The aids are supposed to have extra time booked to help my mother with things like a meal assist (she usually has food ready before they arrive). Some they ask if she needs anything done. Some of them never do. For her morning visit, this includes emptying the bucket in her commode, but they’re also supposed to be available to help her get dressed if she needs it.

I stayed with her to visit for a bit longer, basically waiting until the pharmacy in town opened at 9am, so I could phone them. When my mother started to complain again about my coming out – she is convinced the aids are cancelling simply because they don’t want to do their jobs – I told her that my being able to come out, and having a reliable vehicle to do it, is a blessing. That seemed to take her aback a bit, and I think she liked the idea of thinking of it that way.

After saying my goodbyes to my mother, I spent some time in the truck to update my family and my siblings before calling the pharmacy. With the meds my husband takes, I wasn’t sure they’d even be ready so quickly; he’d called in his refills just yesterday. As we were talking, she asked my time frame, so I told her where I was (which gave her an idea of how long it would take) and why. We deal with this particular pharmacist often enough that she remembers our names and most of my husband’s medications. When I mentioned that there was no one to do my mother’s med assist this morning, she completely understood. They had been in the same situation with her own mother – they even had a lock box. She said they often had home care cancelling visits for them, too. Being in another town, they had their own home care office and staff, but the issue was exactly the same. Last minute cancellations that the family had to cover, frequently. It seems to be a pretty universal problem, and not just in our province.

As for my husband’s refills, they wouldn’t be able to have them ready today, so that’s still scheduled for delivery in a couple of days. Which is fine. I still needed to make the drive to town. I just wasn’t going to go to the pharmacy as well.

Once in town, I got the water jugs refilled. I have a “frequent buyer” list where, after getting 10 refills, I get one free, so one of my refills was free today.

While there, I picked up a couple of things for home, as well as things for our Easter basket. I think we have everything we want to put in it, this year, except for a small ham, which we might simply skip this year.

That done, it was just a quick stop for fuel before heading home. After unloading the truck to my daughter in the house, I left her to put things away while I parked the truck and closed up the gate. I had noticed the plastic on the cover over the raised bed in the old kitchen garden had some gabs fluttering in the wind, so I got the clear duct tape to secure it more.

Before finishing up and heading inside, I spotted Brussel with her babies and decided to give her a squeeze treat. She was really nervous today, though.

I found myself wondering if other cats had been bothering her and her babies – or maybe a skunk or a raccoon! In the two videos above, you can see how agitated she was.

Once I started giving her the squeeze treat, she was right in there – still agitated and somewhat aggressive, but very quick to start eating the treat! When I had to move my hand out so I could use my other hand to squeeze out what was left in the tube, she actually snarled at me and attacked my hand, trying to pull it back! I ended up squeezing the remaining paste onto my fingers (it didn’t start out on purpose!) and let her lick the treat off. She was okay with that, even as she continued to snarl at me.

It should be interesting to see if she has calmed down any, when I do the evening feeding.

I’m glad I was able to go into town for errands today, though. As I write this, we’ve reached our expected high of 6C/43F We’re actually supposed to stay above freezing overnight, but in the wee hours, we’re supposed to start getting a combination of rain and snow, which is supposed to continue through tomorrow. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 2C/36F, but if the long range forecast is at all accurate, that’s going to be the coldest high we have from now on. We’re even expected to reach 15C/59F in a few days! Things are supposed to cool down again, and we’re even supposed to get more mixed rain and snow later in the month, but daytime highs are no longer expected to dip below freezing.

Not including wind chill. That’s a whole other animal!

I will continue to monitor the temperatures inside the greenhouse. While it gets colder overnight, it still maintains at least some warmth. I might decide to try starting seeds inside there, rather than in the basement, when it’s time to start the next batch.

As it is now, I am expecting to start potting up the pre-germinated tomato seeds tomorrow. I could do some tonight, but I want to be able to do all of them at once. Maybe not all 4 varieties, but at least all the seeds in a couple of varieties, just because of space issues.

With how chilly it is in the basement, they should handle the cooler night time temperatures in the greenhouse fairly well! My younger daughter has made a point of working on things while in the basement, so that the heater can be left running. She’d been down there for a couple of hours when I joined her for a bit, and the thermometer was still at 12C/54F. Meanwhile, the thermometer in the greenhouse was reading 19C/66F!

With the combination of rain and snow we’re getting tomorrow, I’m not going to uncover the raised bed but, by the day after, it should be thawed enough that we can take the mulch off the winter sown seeds.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what manages to germinate.

The Re-Farmer

Again! but some good stuff, too (plus a bit of a rant)

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

First, the cuteness. I haven’t been able to take photos of the cats much lately, but I did get this adorable shot, yesterday.

Or was it the day before yesterday?

I’m losing track.

I was tending to the flexible hose for the emergency septic diverter, getting any liquid sitting in it, out, and the cats were very interested! Syndol, however, went for a post-eye view! 😁

This morning, I was just starting to feed the cats outside, when my cell phone started ringing.

*sigh*

There’s really just one place that calls my cell phone.

Home care.

Yup. They were short staffed again. This time for my mother’s morning meds.

Given what time it was, I quickly finished feeding the cats, grabbed my purse, then finished short rounds before heading to my mother’s. With what time she’s supposed to take her morning medications, I didn’t have time to change or call her ahead. So my mother got a bit of a surprise when I came in the door instead of home care this morning!

I wasn’t there for very long, but a lot happened in that short time. She has some confusion about her meds and that led to her making all sorts of assumptions and accusations. Then she commented on how the case coordinator we had a meeting with yesterday had said we’d soon be getting rid of the lock box. Very clearly, she said this, according to my mother.

Which is the opposite of what she actually said.

After answering her as best I could while doing her meds, I took her blood pressure. It is much better this early in the day than in the evening. She had already made herself some breakfast, but I was able to empty her commode for her. I offered to help her dress, but she was happy to stay in her warm and fluffy night gown today, as she doesn’t need to go anywhere. My sister will be coming by later, so she will be able to do more light housekeeping and laundry for her. Hopefully, she also found a hot water bottle and some Velcro shoes for my mother, too. Finding shoes that my mother can get her feet into is even harder than for me. She has massive bunions and bunionettes, so her feet are much, much wider at the ball of the foot, even compared to mine. My sister was also planning to bring some microwave dinners as well. Home care will be able to heat those up for Mom, if she wants them to.

As we were talking, my mother mentioned that our vandal and his wife had stopped to visit her not long after I’d left yesterday. !!! It seems they were on the way back from another chemo treatment. Apparently, he was so sick, he couldn’t sit down, but had to lie on the couch and, even while driving, has to lay the seat back.

If he’s that sick, he shouldn’t be visiting my mother.

But, he’s playing her like a lute, and it’s working. She feels so sorry for him, and started telling me how my brother and I shouldn’t be “afraid” of him, and that we should basically suck up to him because he’s sick. She heard the messages he’d managed to leave with my brother’s voice mail, and knows full well he claims we caused his cancer, among other far more vile things he said about me and my daughters. Unfortunately, she is easily swayed. I don’t know what he’s trying to get out of her (and I doubt his wife has any idea that he made those calls), but he’s certainly succeeding in getting her to feel sorry for him. I think my brother may need to keep an eye on her accounts to see if any checks made out for large amounts get cashed!

After I left, I decided to stop at the post office to pick up a couple of parcels. I have another that’s supposed to arrive tomorrow, and was going to pick them all up on my way home from getting the truck to the garage, but went ahead and got the two that were there today, anyhow. More on that later!

Once I got home and updated my family, I called up the case coordinator. She was actually in her office, so I was able to talk to her directly. I knew she would have heard the messages I’d left yesterday, but there was no need for her to follow up on those. I wanted her to know about how my mother had declared she had said the opposite of what she really said, about the lock box, and about my mother’s confusion with her bubble packs.

I also mentioned that our vandal had showed up yesterday. She is somewhat aware of that situation. We talked about how it would work out if my mother were in a nursing home. Particularly the one she wants to be in. I would hope that we’d be able to ban him from visiting her, but they don’t really have security. Their security is to keep nursing home patients from wandering off, not to keep people out. The only real way to keep him away would be if there were a court order, and we looked into that several years ago. My mother would have to go to court herself, which she physically can’t do. My brother, as PoA, could only do it on her behalf if a doctor declared my mother mentally incapable of doing it herself. That she is physically unable to doesn’t matter. Granted, her cognitive decline would make it difficult for her to do it, too, but she’s not far enough gone for the PoA to kick in, in that regard.

Either way, it’s disturbing that he keeps showing up at my mother’s, and that she lets him in. At least his wife is with him, so he’d be on better behaviour. Apparently, he’s so unwell, he can’t sit, and had to lie down. Even while in the vehicle, he has to have the seat back. Even the case coordinator wondered, if he’s that sick, why is he stopping to see my mother?

Once all that was done, I could finally make myself breakfast – brunch? Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Once again, I am giving up sugar and simple carbs. Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, that sort of thing. The first year I did that, it was not that difficult. Last year, it was oddly difficult. But then, it wouldn’t mean as much if it was easy.

I ended up making a creamy meat soup for breakfast, with bacon lardons, celery, mushrooms, ground beef, mushroom broth, cream, a can of mushroom soup and a handful of shredded cheese (cheddar and mozzarella). It turned out delicious!

That done, I finally got to opening the packages. One of them was the keyboard protector I originally bought for myself. March is a birthday month, though, and after talking to my younger daughter, I found that my older daughter would not want what I originally planned to get her. Knowing that she has the same issues with cats on her keyboard that I do – and her computer is how she makes a living – I decided this might make an acceptable gift, instead.

When I took it out of the box, I discovered some pleasant surprises!

This is what I got. (not an affiliate link) Just a basic acrylic piece in the large sise, that would fit over my ergonomic keyboard.

It was not the only thing in the box!

The cover itself came with self adhesive, no slip pads to protect the desk surface. There is also an optional back cover, with clear Alien Tape type stuff to attach it, if necessary.

Then there was the clear acrylic phone holder.

A colourful round mouse pad.

and… what the heck???

An odd looking stick and some brightly coloured fuzzy things???

The odd looking stick turned out to be a “fishing rod”, and the fuzzy things were the “lures”.

It was a cat toy, with two different fluffy “lures”.

I called my younger daughter down and asked her if she thought her sister would like it as her birthday gift. We knew she wouldn’t have much use for the phone holder, and the cat toy would, of course, be for the cats, but she said that yes, her sister would like the gift. So she took it upstairs to set up over her sister’s keyboard as a surprise.

Then she got the cat toy out and put it together with a highlight marker yellow lure, discovering that the rod was telescoping!

The cats went absolutely insane over it!

Unfortunately, one of them woke up my older daughter after parkouring off of her stomach to get to the other room and try and catch the lure!

So my older daughter now knows what she got for her birthday – and then promptly fell back asleep!

My younger daughter was able to get all the cats downstairs and played with them for some time. Only the three grandmas were completely uninterested, and stayed on my bed! Tin Whistle was the most insane with her leaping and twisting and flipping through the air. Amazingly, the cat that was almost as acrobatic was Tin Whistle was Cheddar! He’s such a big boy, I really did not expect that!

When she saw Tin Whistle actually starting to pant (cats should NOT pant!), she stopped and tucked it way into the bathroom, where the cats are not allowed, until next time.

I plan to get two more of these covers. One for my own keyboard and one for my younger daughter. While I did balk slightly at the cost, the extras that came with it more than made up for it! Only the optional back panel was included in the description.

I am getting quite the giggle out of this “Engrish” description of the large sized cover.

【large size】20”long x 7”Width x 4.7”high. 0.4” thick；- this is large enough to cover each of them with enough room for keyboard. It’s high enough allows boys with large palms to type without any hindrance. that you can use the keyboard easily. It’s thick so it can take the weight of you chonky adult cats easily. Compared with glass, the sturdy and drop-proof acrylic material makes it safer.

Boys with large palms!

You chonky adult cats!

Too funny.

On a completely different note, I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady today. They’ve been in the US for the past while, combining a family holiday with her husband doing a presentation at a conference. It turns out he was offered a job and they are seriously considering moving. Or, more accurately, she would really like to move. He’s not too keen on moving. As someone who has moved so many times, I’d be more like her husband on this one! Plus, they’ve been in their house for less than 2 years. So why would she want to move?

Better weather (Florida).

Better healthcare (US in general)

No state income tax (her husband would get to keep 52% more of his income).

Better political leadership, both state and federal.

I can’t argue against any of those points. Especially right now, when our Liberal government has chosen a tariff war that will destroy our economy, rather than accepting the reasonable request of beefing up our border security, dealing with the fentanyl crisis and meeting our NATO obligations, all of which we should already be doing.

If you’re hearing about it in the news and the US is being painted as the “bad guy” in all this, and Canadians are all up in arms against Americans and boycotting, they are lying. We could easily have avoided a tariff war, but our governments, federal and most provincial, have decided to play a dick waving war. Most Canadians see that, but you won’t be hearing about them, in the media.

Like the quote, wrongly attributed to Sun Tzu, goes…

“An evil enemy will burn his own nation to the ground… to rule over the ashes“.

That is what our own government has chosen to do. Burn our nation to the ground, but now they can blame Trump for it. Our own government is the “evil enemy”, not the US.

Honestly, it’s gotten to the point where, if it were an option, I’d be moving, too. That whole “51st state” thing? That might well be the only thing that can save Canada. Lord knows, we haven’t been able to save ourselves. As I write this, Trudeau is still our Prime Minister, having stated his intent to resign after a new Liberal leader and PM is chosen, in a few days.

In our system. we don’t vote for our Prime Minister in federal elections. We have 338 elections for our Members of Parliament. The party that has the most winning MPs wins the federal election, and that party’s leader becomes the PM. The PM is supposed to also be an MP. Technically, he or she could still be PM if they did not win in their own riding, but they would not be able to debate in Parliament. In the rare event that this happens, an MP that did win would volunteer to step down. The party leader would officially move to that riding and be the MP in their stead.

On announcing his intent to resign, our Prime Dictator got the Governor General (who is supposed to be a neutral representative of the crown, but is a partisan T2 appointee) to shut down parliament. This was to avoid a planned vote of non-confidence which would have passed and triggered an election. The act was blatantly unconstitutional, but then, most of what T2 and his Liberals have done for the past 10 years have been unconstitutional and often outright illegal, and they’ve been getting away with it.

With T2 (not to be confused with his father T1, who was the most hated PM in Canadian history until now) saying he will step down when a new party leader is selected, there is now a leadership race. They managed to get rid of the one person that was actually competent (a woman born in India, and if there’s one thing our “feminist” PM can’t stand, it’s a strong, ethnic woman), so there are 4 people running for leadership. The one that they are blatantly working to install is Carney, a guy that hasn’t lived in Canada for more than 10 years, holds 3 passports, has destroyed the UK economy and, it turns out, has been advising our Prime Dictator for the past 5 years. So he’s been busy destroying our economy, too. Of course, he isn’t an MP, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He’s actually worse than T2. If (when) he is installed, he would automatically become PM – though when asked directly, when he would resign, T2 said it would be up to whoever won the leadership race. So… he might not resign after all.

Carney, meanwhile, has already talked about using emergency measures in Canada. My prediction (please, God, let me be wrong) is that, once installed into office, he’ll pull a Zelensky. Invoke the war measures act (aka: the emergency act) and declare martial law (because, Trump), and ban any elections. They can keep parliament from resuming, but can push through that “internet safety” bill they were trying to force through before parliament was shut down. This bill, if passed into law, would literally allow for people to be arrested for thought crimes and pre-crimes. Basically, anything anyone says that the government does not approve of can lead to charges, but it would also allow people to press charges against each other essentially for hurt feelings. It would allow them to ban opposition parties, start arresting anyone who disagrees with them, and give them the power to control the media, including social media.

It blows my mind that Canada has fallen so far. Worse, there are so many people who actually cheer this on.

So… yeah. I can understand why so many people have been leaving Canada (a trend that has been going on for years) for greener pastures, like the US.

I would certainly be sad to see the Cat Lady and her family go, but if they are able to escape, more power to them!

Thankfully, we live in the boonies. Things would be much worse if we still lived in a city!

I also mentioned to the Cat Lady about my having to cover for home care so many times. She completely understood our situation. Her mother had gone through the same with her mother (the Cat Lady’s grandmother. She had to be there almost all day, every day, because there were so many cancellations and screwups.

Suddenly, our situation doesn’t seem to bad!

When I got the call this morning, I confirmed that this evening’s med assists were still on schedule, and was told yes. I’m still half expecting my cell phone to ring, and be told they suddenly don’t have staff again.

What a mess.

Still, we do what we have to do, right?

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

A quick update

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My brain is feeling fried, so not much to say this time.

While heading to my mother’s for the meeting with home care, I noticed the trip meter on the truck was already at almost 450km. It’s only March 4, and I reset it when I filled the tank at Costco on Feb. 28. Just over 100km of that was the trip home. The rest was the first three days of March.

If I keep getting so many calls to cover med assists like in the past couple of weeks, this is going to be a very expensive month on gas!

I got to my mother’s early, in case she needed help with getting dressed or anything like that. She was already dressed and ready. She and I are alike in one thing: if we have some sort of appointment, we can’t sleep the night before.

Yeah, I’m didn’t get much sleep last night, either.

We got to talking and my mother quickly launched into an attack on my brother. She started accusing him of keeping secrets from her again, and said a few strange things. One was how he “brags” about his technology (he doesn’t brag. Even the slightest attempt to talk about his work is so far beyond her ability to understand, he avoids talking about his job at all). Then she said, she doesn’t want his technology, but his kindness.

No one has been kinder to my mother than him. No one has done more for her than him. He has covered her butt for decades. But because he doesn’t tell her all his personal stuff, and doesn’t always agree with her, doesn’t allow her to treat him like her personal slave, that means he’s not kind to her – then she suddenly started saying that it’s his wife that controls everything. !!!!

There was one thing she said that actually confirmed something we’ve suspected for some time now. A matter of phrasing, really.

She is getting my brother mixed up with my dad.

He looks more and more like my dad as he gets older. My mother and my dad were always butting heads. A very dysfunctional relationship. We’ve noted that she’s treating my brother like she used to treat my dad. Today, she actually started talking about him as if he was my dad.

Then there was a knock at the door, and the case coordinator arrived.

We talked for while about all sorts of things. They’ve not been able to find exactly what happened with the morning no-shows. The best they could come up with is that there was confusion and lack of communication because a previous shift scheduler has been away for the past month, and there is come chaos with the people filling in for her.

I tested my mother’s BP so she could see how my mother has to move around when just shifting from chair to chair, so I could access her left arm. My mother and I had already decided that, at the end of the meeting, I would take her to do her blood work, so the case coordinator could observe how my mother gets into the truck, and moves around in general.

In the end, it looks like my mother will start getting some meal assists – all they can do is things like make her a sandwich, or reheat leftovers. My mother was indeed already scheduled for longer time in the mornings, for assistance in dressing and emptying her commode, but it hasn’t been happening, so that will be looked into. I don’t think my mother is in “bad” enough condition for her to actually get considered more urgently to get her into supportive living or long term care. Which is so very frustrating.

After the meeting was done, I got my mother to the lab in the local hospital with no doctors, just a few blocks from my mother’s place, for her blood work. Only one vial was needed, and no one else was there to get done, so it was really fast. Just that outing wore her out, though, and she was glad to be home. It was just coming up on lunch time, so I got some food together for her before I left.

And that was pretty much it. I had actually intended to go for a nap, I’m so tired, but after I had my own lunch, it just didn’t make sense to try and nap, or I’d screw up my own night. So I’m basically just dragging my butt through the day until it’s a reasonable hour to go to bed.

I need sleeeeeeepppp.

Thankfully, I don’t have any appointments tomorrow, so I should be able to have a recovery day. Unless I get another call from home care to cover my mother’s meds again! Then I have the appointment at the garage for the truck to do a whole bunch of relatively small things before they become big things, along with replacing the oil sensor. Which means a few hours in town, while it’s being worked on. I should have several parcels to pick up by then. Two are already in and waiting. One is something I finally broke down and ordered; a clear acrylic guard for my keyboard, to keep the cats from walking on it and digging under it! Ghosty in particular is truly dedicated to waiting until I’m in bed, then digging under my keyboard. She’s even knocked it right off my computer table at times! That and many is the time I’ve gone back to my computer and discovered all sorts of strange things have been opened, some of which I have no idea which keys got stepped on to find!

Anyhow.

Time to move on to things that don’t require much thought processing. Like laundry!

The Re-Farmer

Good, yet not good

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, I’m back from going to my mom’s for her med assist. I’m glad I went, in one sense, and wishing I hadn’t had to in another.

It wasn’t just my mother.

After I’d called my mom to let her know I’d be coming over to do her evening med assist, I had time to get a few things done. It was absolutely gorgeous out today, with temperatures just above freezing. I fed the outside cats early and took the time to check on the flexible hose on the emergency septic diverter. The black plastic had warmed up enough that I was able to get quite a bit of the thawing ice chunks out. It wasn’t in any danger of getting blocked by ice, but I still wanted to get as much out as I could.

While I was outside, my mother called back and left a message, asking if I could pick up some milk and croissants along the way. Since my sister introduced her to croissants, not that long ago, it has become her favorite thing to have with tea!

Which just meant leaving a little bit earlier.

The first problem was actually at home. We’re all pretty unhappy about how often homecare hasn’t been able to do my mother’s med assist, just in the short time since she got out of the hospital. My siblings have expressed their dissatisfaction, but they have also expressed their gratitude that I’ve been able to take care of it. It would be a lot more difficult for them to do it! My husband, however… well, along with his physical disability, he also has military related PTSD. With him, it was more anger, and he started taking his frustrations out on me. Which I don’t put up with.

We are not a couple that has arguments, as others do. We don’t raise our voices at each other, or anything like that. But when we disagree on things, and my husband recognizes that he is starting to get a PTSD rage response, he has medications and coping techniques to deal with them, which is what he resorted to.

I’ll just leave it at that.

When I headed out, my first stop was at the grocery store to get the stuff for my mother and, since I was there, to pick up more of the deli meats for ourselves that this store has at better prices than anywhere else I’ve seen. Then I went to the gas station to top up the truck and pick up my mother’s favorite fried chicken and wedges. I wasn’t sure if my mother would have had her supper yet, but I wanted to make sure she had something available so she wasn’t taking her meds on an empty stomach.

I’m glad I did. It looks like she was just going to heat up a can of cream of mushroom soup for her supper, and was out of milk to make it with.

After putting away her things, we sat down for our supper.

My mother was just looking for things to rage at today.

The first was about my having to drive soooooo far, just to give her her pills. The doctor wouldn’t want that! I told her, the doctor doesn’t care. He just cares that she gets her medications. Then she raged that she should can take her medications herself. I side tracked that. She started saying that home care should just come once a day, and leave her medications for the rest of the day ready for her. I told her, they can’t do that. They have very strict regulations they have to follow these days. They can’t even take pills out of the bottles, but only out of bubble packs.

Oh, you’re always taking their side, she says.

Then it came up about my brother visiting her yesterday, after having gone to the farm, first. I mentioned I had been out and missed them entirely, and that he’d just gone to tend to their truck, as a way of saying he was at the farm for a very short time.

Which my mother latched onto. She’d forgotten that they’d sold their property and everything was at the farm now. We weren’t talking about it, because if she remembered, she would end up telling our vandal about it, and that’s the last thing we need.

Well, I won’t get into how it went with that, but she went into another rage against my brother and started to literally invent scenarios in her head about how he was “keeping secrets” from her, among other far less pleasant things. It took some doing to calm her down and distract her.

All before we even finished eating our meal.

Once we were done eating and got her table clear, I got her supper meds out for her to take, while I made notes for the next home care person to see, then prepared her before bed medications and puffer, before putting everything else back into the lock box. Then I got her blood pressure machine, which she had hidden away in a closet, and tested her.

After that, I started changing her garbage and doing some clean up, when she asked me to do her water bottles. She fills various bottles of water she uses for drinking and cooking from a tap in the laundry room that has softened water, and they were all empty. So I took care of that, then washed her dishes, before getting ready to head home.

As I was getting my jacket on, I reminded her again to take her last meds between 8 and 9pm, when she told me she’d already taken her puffer.

…

What? When???

It turns out that, while I was filling her water bottles, she decided to take her inhaler dose.

This is not the first time she tried to do this with me. During one of the past evenings I’d gotten her evening meds ready, she suddenly decided she should take her puffer dose right way. I stopped her and said to take it with her before-bed medications. This is supposed to help her with her breathing at night (I don’t think it’s actually making a difference, but it’s a trial). It’s not going to help her much if she takes it too early.

When I found out she’d taken it, I told her all the same things again. She seemed surprised by it. I have no idea why she gets it in her head to take it so early. She takes a puff twice a day. With her morning meds then, about 12 hours later, with her before bed meds.

Thankfully, doing this won’t harm her, but if she can’t be relied on to wait 3 hours before taking her before bed medication, I may have to stop getting them ready for her on nights like tonight, when home care is short staffed for both evening med assists. I will have to go home, then come back 3 or 4 hours later.

She’s already losing it over the fact that I’m coming at all. If I start having to come in twice in one evening, I don’t know how she would handle it. She certainly would think that her own actions have anything to do with it, but it does add another layer of concern.

Thankfully, we’ve got a meeting with the home care case coordinator in a couple of days. I should give her a call tomorrow, just to let her know about my mother’s behaviour, as it’s not something I could tell her about, with my mother there. As concerning as it is, perhaps this is one more thing that will get my mother into long term care, as she has been wanting for months now.

I didn’t stay too much longer after that. Thankfully, the days are longer now, so it was still light out during the drive home, and I could actually see the deer, well in advance!

Once home, my priority was to update my siblings – and apologize to my brother and his wife. My simple comment about him coming out to the farm and why set her off, and now she’s going to be even worse towards him because of it. My mother keeps saying how she loves all us siblings equally, but her actions belie her words. The twisted hatred she has developed towards my brother has been getting so much worse. It bothered me less when it was directed at me, the first couple of years we were living here, than it does now that it’s directed at my brother. No one has done more to help her and take care of things for her than he has, for so many years. He deserves so much better than this!

*sigh*

So, on the one hand, I’m really glad I ended up going to my mother’s, today, as she ended up needing help with other things as well.

On the other hand…

*sigh*

It is what it is, and there is little we can do about it but, my goodness, it shouldn’t be this way!

The Re-Farmer

Well, so much for that…

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Today was supposed to be a home day. And it mostly was.

Then I got a phone call.

From home care.

They don’t have anyone do to my mother’s med assist for her two evening visits.

Which means I am going to soon be on my way to take care of that.

My mother came home from the hospital on Feb. 10. Today will be the 20th day since she’s been home and her meds set up with the lock box. In those 20 days, this evening will be the 4th time I’ve had to do a med assist due to short staffing. Technically, 7 times, since she has two evening visits, and I’ve had to prepare her before-bed pills, too. Plus, she has had two morning no-shows, where someone was scheduled to show up, didn’t, and they don’t know why.

It’s a good thing we’ve got a meeting already set up in a couple of days. I had no problem being the one for them to call if they are short staffed, but that was supposed to be a fairly rare occasion.

This is ridiculous.

The Re-Farmer

Home care follow up

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Today, I took my daughter to the town north of us for a medical scan appointment she had. After that, we went to the livestock supply store to pick up four 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats. My daughter hadn’t been to this store before, so she got to spend some time looking around before we headed out.

I had just started the truck to head out when my cell phone rang. Talk about perfect timing!

It was the home care coordinator, following up on the messages I’d left. The last one I left, I told her I was going to be out, and to call my cell phone.

The first thing to talk about was the med assist visit that didn’t happen, two mornings ago. Under normal circumstances, if a home care worker didn’t fulfill a med assist, a note would have been sent electronically to the case coordinator, letting her know why.

She never received any such notice. They only thing they have is a record saying the visit was not fulfilled. My mother was home, awake and waiting for the home care worker, so it’s not like someone knocked at the door and there was no answer. In fact, if that did happen, they would have contacted me about it so that a wellness check could be done.

They are still investigating, to find out what happened. This is the second time this has happened since my mother got out of the hospital, so in only a couple of weeks!

The other thing to talk about was my mother’s extra bubble packs being on her fridge. I know that, when my brother got the larger lock box, all the bubble packs were put into it. He’d even commented on how well they fit. So why were the unopened packs taken out, with only the active pack inside the box? None of us know.

I told her about my own evening med assist visits after being called because they were short staffed. I explained I’d made notes of what I’d done to include in the lock box for their records. She asked if the bubble packs were all in the lock box again and I explained that I was going to do that, but my mother started to get very angry and demanded the inactive pack be put on the fridge, so I did, but made sure it was pushed back far enough that my mother couldn’t reach it herself. I talked to her about my mother saying these would be her “emergency” pills, if no one showed up again, and about what I found when I got her old packs to take to the pharmacy, and brought the loose pills in an organizer I’d found. I explained to her about how my mother had through the pharmacy had changed her prescription in one medication because it looked different, when the only thing that changed was the supplier for that medication.

We also talked about my mother now having a folding, indoor walker on loan from the Senior’s Centre, to use instead of her cane, because of her fears of falling. We talked about her increased memory issues, some of which my mother recognizes, some she doesn’t, and my mother’s own concerns about her finding it harder to communicate.

I did remember to mention that my mother needs an assist for her feet to trim her toe nails. That is something that home care should be able to arrange though the system. If not, my SIL found the name of someone local that does foot care, assessments, nail trims, etc. that we could call.

The coordinator was quite concerned about my mother’s memory issues, as that has gotten noticeably worse, and there is the increase concern for her safety due to reduced mobility. She wanted to talk to my mother directly. So we booked a time for next week at my mother’s, and I will be there.

Then, as my daughter and I were driving home, my phone rang again. Not a number we recognized, but I figured it was probably home care about being short staffed again. My daughter answered and put it on speaker phone.

It was the home care scheduler, letting me know that they did not have someone to do my mother’s med assist tomorrow morning.

🫤

So I will have to do that. She was scheduled for 8:55am, so I will make sure to show up around that time. I’m doing the Costco run tomorrow anyhow, so I can just leave earlier and stop at my mom’s along the way.

Once we got home, I phoned my mother to fill her in. When I told her about the appointment next week, which will be at 10:30am, the first thing she said was, why isn’t it in the afternoon?

*sigh*

I told her, because that’s the time the case coordinator had available!

While we will be talking about the missed visit, which is still being investigated, I told my mother the coordinator will be asking all sorts of things, so this is the time to talk about her worst days. None of this “oh, I’ll be fine, I can manage” stuff! She wants to be in a nursing home, so she can’t be making light of the issues she’s having!

Then I told her about tomorrow morning, and how I am going to the city anyhow, so it’s not problem for me to stop along the way.

Her response?

Can’t you tell them how far way you are?

I told her, they know where live. I am the closest. This is how it works. If they are short staffed, they call me.

Can’t I just do my own medicines?

No.

I didn’t even try to explain about doctor’s orders again.

Then she started to say, when she missed her medications, she felt fine, so it wasn’t a problem. Basically, implying that if they can’t come in for the med assist, she can just skip her medications and it’s fine.

I reminded her, most of her medications are preventative. They’re there to keep her from having a problem, so she isn’t going to notice anything if she missed them once here, and once there. But if it happens too often, then it can cause problems. One of her medications, for example, is for stroke prevention. If she doesn’t take that medication, she isn’t going to feel a difference – until she has a stroke!

To which my mother started saying, do you remember that oval yellow pill? The one for stroke? Do you remember that pill?

I told her, I don’t remember exactly which is which, but I do remember the yellow oval pill.

My mother then started saying, the pill is different now. It’s smaller.

I reminded her of the last time she had issues with this, when the pharmacy changed suppliers and the colour was slightly different.

Oh, the colour is the same now…

I told her, that wasn’t the point. The point is that not all suppliers have exactly the same appearance, but the medication would be the same. So it would be just as strong? she asked. Yes, it would be the same prescription. That has not changed.

I’ve been looking through her bubble packs in the last couple of evenings. Aside from one new pill and one changed dosage, neither of which are oval yellow pills, her pills look exactly the same as always.

When I once again confirmed that I would stop at her place on my way to the city, she started going on about how I go to the city sooo often.

I reminder her, I go to the city twice to stock up, at the end of the month, when pay comes in. That’s it.

We’ve had this exact conversation several times now. To her, it just seems like I go to the city all the time, because she isn’t noticing that an entire month has gone by since the last time we talked and I mentioned I was going into the city.

We got some more snow that started while my daughter was getting her scan done, and we’re supposed to get more, off and on, through the night. It should be done during the wee hours of the morning. Not heavy snow, but I’ll definitely have to be careful about slippery highways tomorrow. Our expected high of the day is supposed to happen around 7am, and then it’s supposed to keep dropping for the next 22-24 hours, when we’re supposed to reach an overnight low of -25C/-13F on Saturday morning. We’re supposed to go from that to a high of -10C/14F on Saturday, and keep warming up to a high of 1C/34F on Sunday! Monday is supposed to be 3C/37F! After that, the highs are supposed to drop to below freezing again, but not by much.

Just a few more weeks, and it’ll officially be spring. We might even have most of the snow melted away by then!

Won’t that be nice!

The Re-Farmer