healthcare

Getting things done

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The main thing on my schedule for today was to go to my mother’s and help with her grocery shopping, but of course, there was plenty of things that had to be worked around the time I would be gone.

Part of my morning routine is to top of the dry kibble for the inside cats, luring (or chasing) them out of my office/bedroom and closing the door, leaving only Butterscotch and our elderly Freya in the room. Freya doesn’t bother Butterscotch, ever, so that works out. Once the other cats are out, I keep them out long enough that she can use the litter box without getting harassed by some of the younger cats, eat and drink, and just de-stress for a while.

She seems to be getting use to the routine, and has started to go around more and more of the room, like she used to when she first was brought in from outside. Which means that every now and then, I’d come back into the room and I can’t find her in any of her usual spots.

Today, I found her up by the ceiling!

She hasn’t gone up there in ages! It used to be one of her favourite spots to take naps, but it’s a favourite spot for a lot of the cats. I didn’t dare move too close and startle her away, but I did manage to zoom in for a photo.

Clearly, she was not trusting me, even though I didn’t come any closer!

Once the inside cats were done, it was time to do the outside cats. While we still have lots of donated wet cat food, since it’s too cold to give any to the outside cats, we were getting low on dry kibble in the bin. I reached a level where it was a mix of regular store kibble and a particular brand of feed store kibble. It’s been a while since they had that kibble, so I thought they might be willing to eat it again, after changing things up, but nope. I can see by the trays that they are actually picking out the other brand of kibble, and leaving the feed store kibble behind!

Getting more kibble from the feed store got added to my to-do list – just not that brand!

Once the outside stuff was done, I had time to look up some things and found we had at least on package ready to pick up at the post office, so I would leave a bit earlier to do that first.

I also decided on a style of camp commode honeypot to use in place of the bucket we’re using as a honeypot right now. I ended up choosing this one (not an affiliate link). It was the tallest of the ones I was looking at, has the elongated opening, can handle a lot of weight and still be stable (at least, that’s one of the selling features), has a padded seat, and can be folded up to take less storage space.

Plus, it was on sale. Bonus!

It has already been shipped, and should get here in about a week. Our septic pump should be working again well before then – I hope!!! – so this will be for the next time we have septic or plumbing problems!

With the way things have gone since we’ve moved here, I’m resigned to having some sort of septic or plumbing problems pretty much every year.

Another thing on my to-do list was to call the home care case coordinator. After talking to my mother on the phone on Monday, and finding out that no one showed up for two of her med assists on Saturday, I had left a message with the case coordinator. Today is Friday, and I hadn’t heard back yet, so it was time to call.

The case coordinator was in her office, so I got to talk to her right away, rather than leave another message. When I told her why I was calling, she was right on top of it, and had been looking into it.

According to my mother, when the person who was supposed to show up on those two med assist visits on Saturday showed up for the Sunday med assists, she told my mother she didn’t go to her place because she thought my mother was still in the hospital.

The case coordinator had confirmed she had visited my mother on the Thursday previously, so clearly, she knew my mother was home. There was nothing on the files to say that she did not visit my mother on the Saturday, either.

If my mother had been in the hospital still, she would never have been on their list to visit at all, but she was. There is no reason for the home care aid to have not shown up at my mother’s on that day.

The incident has gone up to someone higher up on the authority chain, and we should be hearing from her soon.

Since I had her on the phone, we covered a few other things. I let her know about the monthly bloodwork requisition forms I got yesterday, and that these would be stored in the lock box, so the care aids will know there will be something extra in there that they don’t have to deal with, other than leave them there.

I also asked if there was any progress in getting my mother into supportive housing or long term care. When it comes to the paperwork part of things, the case coordinator I’d started this with, who now works in the town the hospital my mother was in, had done as much as could be done at their end. Her file is just working its way through the system. It’s just really hard to get someone into long term care from the community, rather than from a hospital.

She did, however, talk to me more about the things to look out for that could help the process out. Basically, anything that makes it unsafe for my mother to be at home, both physical and cognitive. Physically, my mother is very concerned about falling, because that wrecked knee of hers now sometimes gives out. Frustratingly, the fact that she hasn’t fallen, and has managed to catch herself, means that they consider her okay to be on her own. With cognitive issues, my mother isn’t one to wander off and not know where she was going. Even if she did tend to wander, she physically can’t go very far, so that’s almost a moot point. There is her memory failures, though. Something my mother is noticing herself and quite alarmed by. So far, though, they have not been the sort of memory failures that would endanger her. She couldn’t remember until I questioned her, what day the home care aid didn’t show up, for example. She wrote it down, which is good, but then she couldn’t remember where the paper she wrote it down on was. None of this is endangering. Forgetting the stove on would be an example of endangerment – but my mother is aware enough of her own increased forgetfulness that she is super careful about that and constantly checks to make sure the stove is off (she does not use the oven at all).

Still, she gave us more things to keep an eye on that could help get my mother into the long term care she wants to be in.

The call done, it wasn’t much longer before I had to start heading out. By the time I got to the post office, a second parcel had been processed, which was nice. If it hadn’t been, it would have had to wait until Monday.

From there, it was to my mother’s town, early enough to go to the feed store and get a 40 pound bag of kibble, in the brand that cats will eat. While there, I asked about my order for 4 pounds of lysine (they come in 2 pound containers). I’d ordered some a while ago – before we had run out – but it still wasn’t in, the last time I was there. I had asked for it to be ordered again. This would have been at least a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve been there often enough that the guy is starting to remember me, but he couldn’t remember anything about lysine. He looked my file up but couldn’t find any order made. He was going to order it for me again when I happened to see something tucked into the shelf on the other side of the reception area that looked about right.

Sure enough, there were two 2 pound containers of lysine there! They don’t carry it normally, he knew nothing about it, and never noticed tucked into the shelf until I spotted it.

I bought the lysine, and he cancelled the order he had started, since this will last us a few months. I’m glad I spotted it. We’ve been out for a while, and I’m starting to see more coughing among both the inside and outside cats.

That done, it was off to the gas station to top up a bit, and pick up my own lunch of fried chicken and wedges, as my mother was getting her Meals on Wheels today. From there, I could finally go to my mother’s – and was even earlier than I told he to expect me!

Which gave us a chance to chat and visit while we waited for her meal to arrive. I was able to go over the bloodwork requisition forms with her, and she was happy with the idea of putting them in the lock box for safekeeping. I also updated her on my conversation with the case coordinator.

When it came to keeping an eye on things with her, I made a point of saying (again, though I doubt she remembers) that if someone like a doctor or nurse asks how she is feeling, this is the time to tell them the worst of how she if feeling! Not to brush things off by saying, “I’m doing all right”. My entire family is horrible for this. We could be sitting there with blood gushing out of a wound, and if someone asked how we’re feeling, we’ll say we’re doing just fine! It has taken me so many years of effort to get out of that habit, and I still fight it at times, so I totally understand what my mother is doing, and why. My mother’s response was, nobody wants to hear the bad stuff. I told her, when it comes to the doctors, they NEED to hear the bad stuff!

I honestly don’t think she got it, but at least I tried!

Meanwhile…

As I was getting some things from the cupboard for her, I took a look to see how stocked her fridge was, and noticed a container of what looked like soup, that looked out of place. I had immediate suspicions.

As we were sitting and chatting some more, my mother suddenly started telling me that our vandal has not been doing well, that he’d had to go to the hospital for a second time after his surgery, and that he was scheduled for more chemo today. She knew so much, I asked if my sister had been telling her this, since my sister is sometimes still in contact with our vandal (we all used to be very close to him). My mother immediately started to look sheepish.

No, they (he and his wife) visited.

Yesterday.

*sigh*

There is just no use in telling my mother she needs to cut ties with him. You’d think all those years of horribly abusive messages he left on her machine would be enough, or all the things he “borrowed” from this property when it was empty, and never returned, to the point she asked us to move here, but nope. Apparently not.

They had left her the mystery container of soup I saw in her fridge. My suspicions were correct.

I didn’t bother saying anything, though. There was no point.

Then her meal arrived, and we had our lunches together. I had suggested we go through her shopping list before hand, but it turns out she hadn’t made one! That is a first. She had gotten into sorting through her papers yesterday – she has a terrible habit of keeping way too many things that should be thrown out – until 1am, and never got to doing her shopping list!

So after we finished eating, we worked on her list, and even had a recent flyer to check out some sale prices.

That done, I was soon at the store, and even took advantage of some of their sales to get stuff for ourselves. We are still avoiding dirtying dishes as much as possible until we can use our plumbing again, so I wanted to pick up more sandwich meats at the deli. There are a few cuts that they have at the best prices I’ve seen anywhere. When I got there, I saw that most of this group had actually gone up in price – but they were still well below even the sale prices I’ve seen elsewhere. One type didn’t go up in price at all. So I could basically get twice as much meat as what I got at the other store – at sale prices – and still paid less. There were a few other things at sale prices I was able to take advantage of, though this being close to the end of the month, the budget is pretty low.

The good thing is, our temperatures have warmed up enough that I could leave the bags of my own purchases in the box of the truck without using insulated bags, and not worry about things freezing for quite some time! In fact, as I write this, it’s past 7pm, and we are still at a lovely -13C/8F right now! Granted, the wind chill is -21C/-6F, but after getting hit with the polar vortexes, that isn’t too bad at all!

Which meant that I didn’t have to hurry off after putting away my mother’s groceries. I was able to do some light housekeeping for her before heading out.

Before leaving, I messaged home to ask one of my daughters to meet me at the garage to help carry things in, so I wouldn’t have to pull into the yard or make two trips. Since I was the one carrying the 40 pound bag of cat food, I went ahead and did their evening feeding and warm water top up, while my daughter put away the groceries.

I am absolutely convinced The Grink has not left the isolation shelter even once, since the ramp door was opened!

Then, since we have lysine again, I broke out the Bullet. The lysine powder is pretty granular, so I grind it to a fine powder that will stick to the kibble. The first couple of batches were ground with raw pumpkin seeds until I ran out of seeds. That jar went for the outside cats, as the pumpkin will help them combat worms, and I’m sure the smallest cats are small because they have worms. Putting something in their food is pretty much the only way we can treat them, since most of them are too feral to catch, even if we could afford to take them to a vet.

The inside cats got cat soup with lysine in it.

Of course, there were dishes to be done. Since the septic tank is full and can’t be drained until the pump is fixed, we can’t drain water down the sink. That means doing dishes in one basin, rinsing in another, then tossing the dirty water outside. We keep pots and bowls in all our sinks right now, so we can still run water before we fill a kettle, wash an item or two, wash our hands, brush our teeth or sponge bathe, then take the containers outside to dump out the dirty water.

Inconvenient, but not as inconvenient as not being able to use the toilet!

Hopefully, this will only be until Sunday, when my brother comes out. I’m really, really hoping the pump can just be fixed, and we won’t have to find somewhere to buy a new one. There’s only one place that I know of that carries the one brand that still makes these pumps, and I have never seen them in stock. The city locations don’t seem to ever have them in stock, which makes sense. City people aren’t on septic systems.

Well, it is what it is. We deal with the hand we’ve got!

What else can we do?

Today, at least, I’ve managed to get quite a few things done while also being able to help my mother out, which saves on multiple trips! Tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll load up the truck and I’ll finally make a trip to the dump. We’re supposed to reach a high of -4C/25F tomorrow!

I am so looking forward to that!!

The Re-Farmer

Well, that took a lot longer!

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Longer by a few hours!

My daughter and I planned to head out early for our appointments and errands. Before that happened, I’m happy to say the electric company showed up to replace the bulb in our yard light. It hasn’t been working right for quite a while. I’d submitted a repair request through their website, but the only way to do it was as a “report street light outage”. I never got a response, so I sent out another repair request about a week ago. This time, I included both versions of our physical address, neither of which exist on online maps, so I also included our section number. Which is what our electric bills use as our address already. Last time, the section number was the only address I’d given. I guess it worked, because today, they showed up!

The repair guys were just leaving when I headed out to warm up the truck, so I had a chance to talk to them. We now have an LED light, which should last longer, and should also be brighter. My daughter and I got home late enough today that it was actually on, confirming that it’s working again.

Yeah. It took that long before we got home!

We were on the road pretty early, which worked out well. Our first stop was at the clinic to get my medical files printed out so I could transfer them, but before that, I made sure to get the bloodwork requisition for my mother.

I spoke to the receptionist about my mother needing these every month, and that the doctor I’d talked to on the phone had said they could mail it.

Her eyes got a bit wide on that.

The frustrating thing is that they’re now allowed to fax the forms to the labs. I’d thought it was just some labs, but nope. None of the labs in our province are allowed to accept faxed forms.

It’s a government thing, it turns out. It basically comes down to them assuming everyone is able bodied and mobile, has access to transportation, and lives close to clinics and labs. If you’re someone like my mother, but don’t have family or friends who can help out, you’re SOL.

After confirming that my mother will be getting tested for the same thing every month, she came up with the idea of simply printing me more copies. I got 7 of them. My mother’s doctor likes to see her patients in person at least once every 6 months, and my mother hasn’t been in since last summer, so after my mother gets her first lab results in, I’ll see about getting her in to talk to the doctor about the results, follow up on various other things, and get her physical. Until then, the forms can stay in the lock box with her medications.

I was very happy that she could do that!

Then I got my own medical files printed out and paid for. After that, my daughter and headed out and parked near our new doctor’s clinic, where we could also walk over to a Subway for lunch. The plan was to have lunch, have our appointments, and hit the grocery store, without ever having to move the truck!

Which would have been very convenient. 😄

The first thing I noticed was a sign on the clinic doors stating that they were not taking any walk ins today. I hoped that would mean we would be seen on time.

We were not.

I dropped off my medical files while my daughter and I both checked in, roughly half an hour early for my daughter’s appointment, then we waited.

And waited.

Happily, my daughter through to bring her knitting along. She got quite a bit of progress on the cuff of the sock she’s working on!

By the time she was called in to an examination room, it was more than 40 minutes past her appointment time. Mine was supposed to be 15 minutes after hers, but I didn’t get called in for another 45 minutes – and my daughter wasn’t done her appointment yet!

While I was waiting, though, I remembered to ask about my medical files. I’d brought printouts, which would have been scanned into they system. What was going to happen to the paper copies?

It turns out they get put into a secure box for shredding.

I asked if I could get them back when they were done with them (I did just pay $35 for them!), only to find out they already were. The receptionist got the keys so she could get them our of the shredder bin for me! So I now have a physical copy of my files. It should be interesting to go through it all!

Once I got those, I kept waiting. Even after being called in, I was waiting long enough to get a message from my daughter telling me when she’d made her next appointment, in April.

My own appointment was pretty straightforward. I was following up on the new prescription pain killers. With the dose she gave me, I was to take one or two capsules, once a day. I told her, I’ve been taking 2 before bed, which have been helping get more pain free sleep, but it doesn’t help me any during the day. After confirming details on the medication, she updated my prescription. The dose per capsule has been doubled, so I can just take one instead of two, but I can also take them twice a day, if I feel the need.

That done, we talked about her now having my medical files, so my next appointment should be for a physical. Once we worked that out, when I left, I booked my next appointment on the same day as my daughter, so we can just make one trip again.

My daughter had gone ahead to the truck and sent me a message while I was updating my calendar. My husband had let her know that the pharmacy had called about her prescription, and wanted to know if she needed it filled right away. I told her to say yes, and that we could go straight there once I was done.

When I got to the truck, my daughter was talking to our pharmacy, so I quietly let her know I needed to talk to them, too. Once she was done arranging for her prescription to be done, she let them know I needed to talk to them, too.

I explained that my prescription had been modified, but they had not yet received the fax. I told them where we were driving in from to get my daughter’s prescription, which gave them an idea of how long we would be, and she said she would keep an eye out for the fax for my prescription.

Our plan to go the the grocery store we were parked next to went out the window, as we needed to get to the town our pharmacy is in before they closed. Part way there, my husband messaged my daughter to let us know the pharmacy had called him again, saying that my new prescription was received and being filled.

We got to the pharmacy in good time. We even had enough time for my daughter to pick up the melatonin the doctor recommended she start taking, and she reminded me to pick up some antihistamines. I don’t know what I’m allergic to, but I’ve been reacting to something almost every morning of late.

From there, we popped to a store across the street that had something my husband requested, and then we went to the grocery store for the stuff we intended to get after the doctor’s appointment. Mostly, food we could use to make meals with as little cooking and as few dirty dishes as possible, since Sunday will be the earliest my brother can come out to fix the septic pump – hopefully!

We’re going to be eating sandwiches a lot, over the next while!

From there, it was one last stop to get more gas in the tank, and we could finally head home, several hours later than we expected! As soon as we got home and the bags were brought in, I immediately left my daughter to put things away while I got a jug of warm water, then headed outside to feed the yard cats and top up their food bowls. It’s the latest they’ve been fed for quite a while. I usually make sure to feed them before it starts getting dark, as it gives them a chance to eat before and skunks or other critters show up.

From the smell of the sun room this morning, we did have a skunk visit last night!

While it made or a longer day than planned, I’m glad we were able to get everything done today, before things started to close. Tomorrow, I’m out again to help my mother with her shopping, and bring over those bloodwork requisition forms. If all goes well, on Saturday, we’ll be making a trip to the dump. Then, starting on Tuesday, things really start to get busy for us, first with taking the truck back to the garage to get some work done. Then we will have our stock up shopping and another medical appointment for my daughter.

Oh, she got another referral today. She remembered to bring up her ganglion. It has gotten so painful, she can hardly use her left hand. So she has been referred to a plastic surgeon to start the process for surgery. She was hoping to avoid it, but it’s gotten really bad. Hopefully, it won’t take very long to hear back. She’s been referred to an endocrinologist, at her last appointment. They are part of our medicare system, so I don’t expect to hear from them for a year or two. Plastic surgeons are private practices that also do medicare cases, so I would expect to hear from them much more quickly. It was certainly that way when I had my medically necessary reduction mammoplasty with a plastic surgeon.

We shall see how it works out.

All in all, though, I’d say it was a rather productive day! We don’t get a lot of those, this time of year. 😄

The Re-Farmer

One more day?

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Another day, where I wish I had the life of our cats.

Well, maybe not Butterscotch. She is frequently a ball of stress and anxiety. Before getting the above photo, I had lured the cats out of my room by loudly topping up kibble bowls in the dining room. Once I got all the cats, except our elderly Freya, out of my room, I could close the door. This gives time for Butterscotch to emerge from her corner to eat, drink and use the litter box. Last night, Butterscotch was looking distressed while various cats were at her food and water bowls on my craft table (which I can’t use as a craft table anymore), so I got the girls to be noisy about topping up the kibble bowls. As soon as the other cats started making their way for the door, poor Butterscotch RAN for the one litter box, hidden under my computer table, that she will use.

This morning, after luring the other cats out of the room and closing the door, I tried getting a bit more sleep. I had a very rough night last night, with many interruptions of various kinds. Usually, Butterscotch sleeps on my pillow next to my head. Lately, she’s taken to sleeping on my waist and hip. When I woke up, she wasn’t in any of her usual spots. It was a while before I noticed a cat in The Box. Without the other cats around, she finally discovered it! There is something about this box – it’s just the right size and dimensions, I guess – that the cats love, so I just keep it on my bed, next to the super fluffy, sparkly cat bed that was donated to us.

I had to go feed the outside cats, so I opened the door to let the other cats in when I left. When I came back, a different cat was in the box. Butterscotch was nowhere to be seen. As I write this, I got confirmation that she was hiding under the armchair again. One of the other cats was peeking at her, and I could hear her hissing and snarling. That is her usual response towards the other cats, even if they are completely ignoring her. Unfortunately, some of them are aggressive towards her, even to the point of attacking her when she tries to use the litter box. I have no idea why these cats started to do this. It wasn’t like this when we first brought her in. Sure, she has always refused to leave my room, but she was at least using all the room and even sleeping in cuddle piles on my bed, or coming to me while I’m on my computer, asking for pets.

Still, the indoor life is loads better than what it used to be for this old grandma!

I delayed going outside until past 9 but, like yesterday, it still wasn’t warming up. We were at -31C/-24F, and the wind chill was at -41C/-42F Another morning where I just gave the outside cats their food and warm water, and that was it!

We are supposed to get daytime highs that are slightly warmer than yesterday and, as I write this shortly past 10:30am, we have reached -24C/-11F, with a wind chill of -34C/-29F At least, that’s what my phone app tells me. My desktop weather app tells me we are at -26C/-15F, with a “feels like” of -25C/-13F Our expected high of the day is -20C/-4F. We are still under an ongoing extreme cold warning. Looking at the weather map, the polar vortex is currently extending through the Canadian prairie provinces, all the way down to Texas.

I was going to take my husband into town for some bloodwork he needs to get done. I’d suggested going in the afternoon, when we reach our high of the day, but he suggested we go another day!

I had no problem accepting that suggestion, though I will have to go to the post office. I’ll go when they reopen in the afternoon, which is when we should be at our high of the day.

Tomorrow, however, we are supposed to start getting highs above -20C/-4f, and lows above -30C/-22F and continue to warm up. Meaning today should be the last really cold day of the winter. We’re even supposed to hover just above and below the freezing mark for most of the last week of February.

I’ll believe that, when I see it!

This coming Friday (today is Tuesday), we should have a high of -6C/21F, which is great, since I’m now scheduled to go to my mother’s to do her grocery shopping and errands.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting to hear back from the home care case coordinator. I’d left a message last night, after talking to my mother and being told she missed two of her medication times because the home care aid never showed up – and when she showed up the next day, claimed she didn’t know my mother was back from the hospital. My mother also claims the aids all have trouble opening the lock box.

The problem is, we can’t trust my mother to be telling the truth. I have no doubt that, at least some of the time, she believes what she is saying, but she also has a history of simply lying outright. Finding out that she thought she was taking “hospital medication”, which turned out to mean her barely used bubble pack that she had with her in the hospital, and that she “remembers” me packing it in her bag when we brought her home, when I had already taken it to the pharmacy the day before, was both confusing and concerning. Confusing, because of how she phrased things. Concerning because what she remembers happening, did not happen and could not have happened.

Not that long ago, my mother’s blood pressure dosage had been changed. On picking up her newly updated bubble packs, the pharmacist gave instructions to set aside the active bubble pack with the old dose until I could bring it back to them, and they would use the pills in there in the next bubble packs, since only the BP prescription had changed. I made sure to tell my mother this, but I never found that old bubble pack. I thought I’d seen it and went to get it to take to the pharmacist the day before she was discharged from the hospital, but that turned out to be one with just her eye supplements. They had to do those separately until they got an official prescription that would allow them to put it with her regular bubble packs. I suspected, but now am confirmed that my mother never set aside that older bubble pack, and just used it up. The home care aids would not have known of any changes to her prescription and just given her what was there.

Meanwhile, her BP just kept going up and now she is on a completely different BP medication.

When I get to her place on Friday, I’ll have to remember to dig out her BP monitor that she keeps hidden in a closet, and test her. I already dug out her pulse oximeter, which I hope she has kept on the table with the lock box. Knowing my mother, she probably hid it back in the closet.

My mother gets very angry about that lock box and not being able to access her medications, but the more I discover things that she’s been doing, the happier I am that we have it! I wish we’d thought of it, long ago, when we first discovered she was messing with her medications.

Well, we do what we can. As alarming as some of this is, I’m hoping that the stuff she is doing will flag her file as more urgent for getting her into supportive living, or even long term care, which is what I think she really needs. She may be physically “too healthy” for a nursing home, but with her cognitive changes, I think she may be more than supportive living can provide. Plus, she actually wants to be in a nursing home and, at 93 years old, I think she’s earned that!

Funny how her own doctor – the one she doesn’t like because she’s black, female and has a strong accent – is the only one that immediately accepted my mother saying she’s ready for a nursing home. Home care and other doctors she’s seen have all basically said she’s too healthy and too mobile for it. I understand that there is limited space and the nursing homes tend to be for the worse cases, but a person shouldn’t have to fall and break a hip, or be at death’s door, before they can get the care they need!

But I digress.

Once this current polar vortex finally breaks, things will be easier for my mother, too. She’s feeling so much better after her time in the hospital – and even sounds better on the phone – she might even be up to crossing the street to go to church, again!

This has not been a very severe winter. In fact, it has been pretty mild, overall. In a way, I think that has made these cold snaps even harder to deal with than if it was just a cold winter, overall.

That and I’m just getting too old for this s***!

😄😂😄

The Re-Farmer

Home

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First, the cuteness!

Here we have David the Magnificent, formally known as F****d Up Dave, due to the eye problems he had that led to him being brought indoors. He is snuggling with Ghosty, curled up in his belly and using Mitsy. At least I think that’s Mitsy. Mitsy is using Clarence as a pillow.

Partially visible behind David is Tiny, The Beast, next to a small carboard box that is a favourite bed for many of the cats. Beside David’s head you can see part of Peanut Butter Cup.

What a bunch!

I didn’t get any pictures of the outside cats this morning. I headed out earlier than usual – it was just starting to get light – to tend to the outside cats and do my morning rounds. Once those were done, I messaged with my SIL, then headed out to my mother’s town to meet her. We were early enough that when we drove to the pharmacy, we had to wait a few minutes for the doors to open.

I was afraid I would be too early, but my mother’s updated bubble packs were ready and waiting. Once we saw the packs, we knew without a doubt that they would never fit into the lock box! Especially not 4 week’s worth.

From there, we head to the the hospital in the town nearer to our place. When we got there, we found my mother was all dressed and ready. We gathered up her stuff, including a lovely orchid and succulent pairing she got as a gift. My SIL took everything to her car and was going to move it closer to the doors, while I went to the nurse’s desk.

One of the staff came back to my mother’s room with me and we went over the paperwork. One page was ensuring that my mother’s stuff was accounted for, including that I’d already taken her old bubble packs, earlier. We went over her prescriptions list that was faxed to the pharmacy, with special attention to the new or changed medications. There were notes about my mother needing to have monthly follow ups with her doctor to monitor her kidney function, now that she’s back on water pills, and with the person in home care to keep in touch, in regards to supportive living.

This was all stuff for us to keep. Normally, it would go to my mother’s but she isn’t able to read or understand most of it. I took them home with me, and made sure to get photos of each page to send to my brother, just like I got a photo of the medication list in my mother’s bubble packs and sent it to him, after we picked them up. This way, we will all have at least digital copies of everything.

Once going over the paperwork was done, it was time to head out. We took it slow, and my mother had to stop to rest a few times. When we got to the lobby near the doors and gift shop, she stopped to rest longer in one of the comfortable arm chairs.

My mother says she is feeling a lot better now, which tells me she was feeling really bad the day she went into emergency! The last time I saw her, after doing some grocery shopping for her, she was not having as hard a time as she was, just today, after 2 weeks of hospital care!

She did have an easier time getting into the car than when I last drove her somewhere, while using my brother and SIL’s other car. She needed a stool to get in, that time. I’d brought it along today, just in case, but she was able to manage without it.

From there, it was straight to her apartment. The spot I usually park at, by a sidewalk to a door closer to her apartment, was blocked by a fire inspection vehicle, so we had to stop at the loading zone near the main doors. I had found a notification under her door during one of the times I checked on her place, about the annual fire and safety inspection. The date range was from the 6th and the 10th, but I had no way of knowing if they’d done her building yet. Seeing the truck, it seemed we got my mother home, just in time to miss it!

I went with my mother into the building while my SIL moved the car out of the loading zone, so she could bring everything in after parking. Some of my mother’s neighbours were in the common room, and they were quite happy to see my mother coming home. My mother also got introduced to the new building manager. After confirming which apartment was hers, he said they had just finished doing the inspection there. I don’t think she quite heard him, though, which is good, because she would have gotten quite angry. She is still convinced the exterminator guy stole a jar of change and dug through her boxes of papers to steal 80 year old passports. She now thinks anyone that goes into her apartment – whether it’s the exterminator, or safety inspectors, or any other official entrance – is there to go through her stuff and steal things.

After a brief conversation, we continued to her apartment, and my SIL caught up to us soon after.

Once my mother was settled comfortably into her chair, we went through some stuff with her. She wondered what the lock box was and we explained it, but my SIL took it with her. They should be able to return it. The new, larger one will arrive in a couple of days. So my mother’s medications will not be locked up until then. They’ve been left in the pharmacy bag and my mother is under strict instructions to leave them, and only home care can touch them.

Oh! I almost forgot.

While I was walking around the yard, doing my rounds this morning, I got a phone call. (It seems my “new” phone is much, much better and getting phone signals than my old phone!)

It was home care, letting me know that they did not have someone available for my mother’s morning medical assist today.

…

I said, that’s good, because she’s still in the hospital.

I did confirm that she would be getting her usual visits for her evening and before bed pills.

While it worked out today, I’m rather displeased. This was her first day back on home care visits, and they were already calling me about not having anyone to do a it! Her morning assist now included getting dressed and emptying her commode, too, not just her med assist.

This is a real potential problem. I live the closest, but it still takes me about a half hour to get to my mother’s, if I am able to leave right away. If we have a situation like a few weeks back, where all home care is cancelled because of a storm, it would be too dangerous for me to do the drive. Since my mother’s medications will now have to be in a lock box, she can’t even take them herself (which she shouldn’t be, due to her habit of messing with her prescriptions). It’s not like we live in the same town and I’m just blocks away!

My SIL and I were talking about this while waiting for the pharmacy to open, and agree that this could become a real issue. They’ve called me quite a few times since she’s been on med assist, letting me know that no one could make it.

We’ll do the best we can to manage things, but it’s just one more thing to stress how badly we need to get my mother into supportive living!

I went through the cupboards and fridge to show her what what my brother and SIL had picked up for her, and where they were. She asked about Meals on Wheels, as they would normally come on Mondays. I told her they would not be coming today, as I didn’t know what time we’d be getting her home, so I would be calling them later to get it started for Wednesday.

My mother told us she hadn’t had her lunch yet (which we knew, since discharge time is an hour before lunches are served at the hospital), and we assured her, we would take care of that.

Once we got everything worked out and organized, my SIL gathered up the lock box and I went out with her to her car, transferring stuff to my own vehicle that I would be taking home, before we said our good byes.

That done, I went back inside and made a lunch for my mother. Once that was ready and she was starting to eat, I said my good byes and headed home. I had lots of phone calls to make!

The home care coordinator is now aware of the situation with the lock box. I’d already called her this morning to give them the combination. The new one will have the same combination.

I had to call the clinic at the hospital near my mother’s place. She was wanting to change doctors to the local clinic, and seemed to think that the nurse practitioner that saw her was now her primary caregiver.

He isn’t.

In fact, while talking to the receptionist, she told me there’s even a note saying that he can’t see her as a patient, because she already has a family doctor.

The one my mother doesn’t want to see, because she’s female, black and has a strong accent.

So I had to call the clinic in the town that’s about half way between my mother’s town and the city. I explained things to the receptionist there a bit, and suggested a telephone appointment with my mother’s doctor might be more efficient. She agreed. I now have a phone appointment for this Friday. Her doctor should have all the files, notes and test results sent to her by now, but she wouldn’t have any reason to look at them, yet.

The receptionist I spoke to also does home care, privately, so when I mentioned my concerns about getting my mother to monthly appointments, and that I wasn’t happy she was sent home from the hospital, she totally understood. There are so few supportive living places, and they all have long waiting lists.

While I was at it, I asked about getting my own files transferred. I had the same doctor as my mother, as an interim doctor, after our regular doctor moved to another clinic. Now that the doctor my daughter is seeing has accepted me as a new patient, I have to get my files transferred.

I can show up at the clinic at any time they’re open, with $35 cash or check. They’ll print out my files, and I would deliver them to my new doctor’s clinic myself.

This province’s system is so antiquated.

Once I was done with that call, I called my new doctor’s clinic. I need to talk to her about my prescription pain killers. After explaining things to the receptionist, she was able to book me in right after my daughter’s appointment, next week. The appointments are in the afternoon, so if we leave early, we can go to my old clinic, get my files, then take them to the new clinic before our appointments.

After I was done all the phone calls, I updated my siblings, and then called my mother to update her. I had to explain about her doctor situation. She wasn’t happy. In her mind, the doctor that is at the clinic in the hospital next to her place should take her as a patient, just because she wants him to – even though she claims that “everyone” doesn’t like this doctor. They should get rid of that doctor and get a new one. She doesn’t understand that there’s only so many patients a doctor can take on, and that if they got rid of this one, a new doctor would just be taking on the other doctor’s patients, not taking in new ones. That clinic needs more doctors, and there just aren’t any. All the rural clinics need more doctors, but even among the doctors we have, few want to live and work in the boonies.

What I’m hoping is that, since my mother needs to have bloodwork done to monitor her kidney function every month, her doctor can send her a requisition and my mother can get it done in the lab, locally. She’d still need to make the trip to see the doctor in person, but hopefully not every month!

Hopefully, this won’t be for very long, and a space for supportive living will be found. We’ve already stressed with my mother to take any space that comes up, even if it’s in one of the towns she doesn’t want to live in. She just needs to get into the system as soon as possible. Once she’s in, it will be easier to get her transferred to where she would prefer – though where she would prefer is long term care, not supportive living!

It’s not very often they have someone who actually wants to be in a nursing home!

Well, it is what it is.

For now, my mother is home. We just need to go from there!

The Re-Farmer

Getting things ready

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

The down side was…

Slick is in heat.

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

*sigh*

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

Crud.

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

Well, we do the best we can.

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

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

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

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

Oh, dear.

THIS is why my mother is on med assist.

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

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

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

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

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

More on that later.

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

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

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

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

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

No one told us that.

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

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

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

Anyhow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We shall see.

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

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

What else can we do?

The Re-Farmer

Planning ahead

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… and forgot what she was going to say!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I sure would have felt it, though!

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

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

That’s a job for the summer, though!

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

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

The Re-Farmer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If that’s what’s doing it.

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

I most definitely had to drive slower.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We disagreed.

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

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

… since October.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah, well. We’ll work it out!

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

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

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

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

Oh, I almost forgot.

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

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

I booked for Monday.

I’m taking my mother home on Monday!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*sigh*

Well, we do what we have to do.

What other choice do we have?

The Re-Farmer

Moving forward

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First, the cuteness!

I would really like to be able to get that fluffy lady and get her spayed! She does sometimes let me pet her, but not very often of late.

This morning, I tried for a head count and got 29, which is the highest I’ve counted in a while. Not sure what to make of that, but cats will cat, I guess!

A brief update on our plumbing situation. Any time I hear a pump go off, I am checking the basement, even if it’s just the well pump. The septic pump makes a different sound now that the diverter is attached but, strangely, it sounds just like the fan in our bathroom!

There is still a leak somewhere, and I’ve had to top up the filter a few times. Sometimes, the filter cap will be tightly seals. Other times, it won’t be. There was one time I checked when I heard it go off, and the filter was low on water, but there was inflow happening. I waited and watched, and the inflow pressure increased as the water level in the filter increased faster than it drained out, and soon it was properly full and working right.

I updated my brother on all of this. He asked for some photos from different angles, and I figured he was planning to come out and see what he could do about it. Something he did eventually confirm, saying he was going to try something with the “back valve” on the pump. I assume there are valves, but I don’t know anything about what they are or where. I look forward to seeing what he does and learning more about it. Meanwhile, my SIL confirmed that she would be driving my brother out and drop him off, so he can take back their car that they loaned us.

My younger daughter and I needed to go into town to pick up our prescriptions today so, of course, we took advantage of the trip to run other errands.

This meant using the truck. I can’t be using my brother’s car, just because it’s there. I’d used the OBDII scanner last night and confirmed it was still the same sensor that was the issue, so there was really no excuse.

It ran just fine, but I really hate having the check engine light on, and the oil pressure gauge not working.

Our first stop in town was, of course, the pharmacy. My new painkiller prescription was filled yesterday, but my daughter’s was just put on file; when my prescription arrived, they called us about it, asking if I wanted it filled. They never called about my daughter’s prescriptions. They were going to need some time to fill it, so I left her to wait for it and did our other errands. The first was to return that security camera I’d picked up, so we could monitor the septic pump without running up and down the stairs all the time. We never did figure out why it wouldn’t connect to our WiFi.

The exchange was pretty straightforward and quick, so I had time to stop at a grocery store near the pharmacy. It’s not one we normally go to, but it was on the way. All I needed to pick up was butter, but on the way out I’d asked if my daughter had eaten anything, and she hadn’t. It was coming up on lunch time, and I knew she’d been up at around 3am and unable to get back to sleep. So I picked up something for her to eat as well.

That done, I went back to the pharmacy, where my daughter was still waiting. They didn’t have one of the meds as a generic in stock, so she got a name brand, instead. Another, they could only fill half of it. It didn’t take too much longer, though. My daughter used to work at this pharmacy, so she got to catch up a bit with former co-workers.

Since I was able to run our other errands while she waited, once everything was paid for, we were done in town.

This town, at least!

We were starting to run low on kibble, especially for the outside cats, so we made the trip to my mother’s town, next, and to the feed store.

The price on the 40 pound bags has gone up.

The lysine I’d ordered wasn’t in. It’s been quite a while since I requested it, so I was a bit surprised.

From there, we picked up some fuel and headed for home, with a quick side trip to the post office. I was giving one more day for the letter mail that got delayed by the postal strike. If it didn’t come today, I was going to assume it was lost and would have to make arrangements.

I was pretty happy to see that it had finally arrived – but also found a parcel slip. I was not expecting any parcels until next week!

The post office hadn’t reopened for the afternoon, yet, so I couldn’t pick it up. They’d reopen in only 20 minutes, though, so my daughter and I headed home and unloaded. She headed in to put things away, and I went back to the post office, just in time for it to reopen.

Look what came in early!

This is what my brother and I want to try on the ejector. We can’t use the 100′ extension cord my brother set up when he was going to try his heat gun, as it is for 2 prong plugs. We have two, but they are both in use right now. Once my brother retrieves his car, though, one will be freed up, as it’s currently what his block heater is plugged into. I don’t know that we’ll set that up tomorrow, though. If the source of the problem really is the over saturated soil under the ejector, thawing the stand pipe out isn’t going to do much good. It’ll just freeze again. And we certainly don’t want to be switching from the emergency diverter to the ejector on the pump, if only to have to switch it back again later.

We shall see what my brother thinks, when he gets here tomorrow.

Meanwhile, now that we no longer have a clogged drain from the kitchen sink, and the diverter is mostly working fine, we’ve been catching up on dishes and other cleaning jobs. We still haven’t needed to do laundry, though. I’m still on constant alert for the sound of the septic pump; I’m the only one that can hear it when it goes off, and only when I’m in my office/bedroom, which puts a limit on what I can get done.

I really hope whatever my brother has come up with, works!

I must say, though; it may be a pain in the butt to be constantly listening for and checking on that pump, things are a LOT more relaxed now that both the diverter is working, and that clogged drain is cleared!

Meanwhile, I’m hoping to get a much better night’s sleep tonight, with these new painkillers.

At least as much as the cats will allow… 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

What. A. Day!

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The important thing is, we can use our kitchen sink and laundry drain again! Yay!

We couldn’t wait until today to do our laundry, though, so yesterday we did something like four loads of laundry, with the hose draining out the door. The furthest end of the sump pump hose we’re using curls, preventing it from draining completely, so I kept going outside to lift the hose, from the door to the end, to get it empty before it froze.

This morning, we were expecting the plumber to arrive first, then a prescription delivery, hopefully before my daughter and I had to head out. My daughter had started her shower just as I was about to start heading outside for my morning rounds and to open the gate, when I heard a strange noise.

The septic pump had finally been triggered!

So I immediately dashed downstairs to check the filter.

Which was empty and running dry.

I shut the pump off, opened the filter, primed it again and turned the pump back on. It worked great! When it was done, the filter stayed full enough that the filter basket inside was floating and spinning slightly in the water – something I haven’t seen it do in quite a while!

From there, it was outside to feed and water the kitties, then do my usual checks, which this time included checking the outflow pipe. Everything looked clear, and there was no sign of backflow towards the house.

Yay!!!!

While doing my rounds, I got the truck running for a while, then popped in the OBDII scanner. The check engine light was on and the oil pressure gauge was still at zero. I did a full scan and got the same code as before: the oil pressure sensor that has already been replaced and cleaned.

At least it’s just triggering a check engine light, and not setting off the flipping alarm with the “turn off engine” warning.

From there, I cleared the codes and left the engine running until it shut itself off, as I’d used the remote starter to turn it on. Though it is much warmer today, I still plugged the block heater back in.

With our trip to the doctor’s office, though, I planned to use my brother’s car, which is parked and plugged in, outside. We had a bit of snow last night that needed to be brushed off, but that’s it.

Not long after I was back inside and checking the trail cam files, I got a call from the plumber. He was on his way and wanted to confirm directions to our place.

They can be a bit difficult to explain at times.

They got here soon after. Since the entry is where the laundry drain is, with the kitchen sink on the other side of the wall, I explained a what was going on there, then we went into the basement where I could show him the rest.

After looking over the pipes in old and new basements, as well as the plumbing under the sink, he decided to find a better way than trying to run his auger through where the last guy did. Access there is not easy, and it was put back together with adhesive. He didn’t want to cut anything there.

Since we knew the clog started past the laundry drain, he did it another way. He cut away part of the pipe in the root cellar, on the kitchen side of where the laundry pipe joined (not that he could have cut it on the other side, since it goes into a wall, there) and removed a couple of inches. It would then get sealed up with a rubber union and steel clamps, so that it would be easy to access, if we ever needed to have this done again. In fact, with our big drain auger, we’d be able to do it ourselves.

I don’t feel so bad about not trying to open things up where the other plumber went through now.

He used his smaller powered auger on the drain, and he really felt it when he hit the clog. After he worked on it for a while, with his assistant holding the other end of the pipe out of the way, he had his assistant go into the other basement to see if he could tell if the auger had reached the corner under the bathroom. I went along with him.

Not only had he reached the corner, but I could hear the tip of the auger rattling in the pipe near the old basement steps. He’d gone through the turn and was about 2/3s of the way down the other pipe to the septic tank.

After clearing things out, he sealed up the pipe, then headed for the kitchen to flush it. This will be our regular maintenance routine. He filled one of the kitchen sinks with straight hot water. After pulling the plug, he squirted some dish detergent into the vortex as it drained.

Then he did it again, with the other sink.

The first time, we could hear a lot of gurgling from the laundry drain pipe. A certain amount of that is normal, as we would be hearing the water pass by where it joined the main pipe. The second time he did it, we heard almost nothing from the laundry drain.

The assistant, meanwhile, was in the basement, making sure the new rubber union wasn’t leaking, and listening along the pipes. They couldn’t hear each other, so I went down and found him following the sound into the old basement. He could hear the water sloshing through the whole way.

I think the sinks were both filled and drained a total of three times each before he was satisfied.

I told him about what we’d found under the sink, and that my daughter had replaced everything but the trap, so he kept an eye on that, too. There were no leaks anywhere, so that was installed just fine.

While all this was going on, we chatted a fair bit. For some things, I explain the history of the plumbing, so far as I knew it. I even showed him our drain auger, and he quite approved. He let me know that, if we ever needed it, he does have a larger one. Hopefully, we never will!

He was one of the plumbers I have been talking to about the ejector, so while following the pipes, I showed him the diverter set up – and that the pump was triggered for the first time since the tank was emptied, just this morning. He was the one that has suggesting setting up an ice fishing tent over it with a heater, but we don’t even know someone we can borrow one from. He also suggested putting straw bales around the ejector, but we don’t have straw bales, either. We did get get straw, it was one of the big round bales, not the small square ones.

Oh, that reminds me…

While talking to the plumbing guy at the hardware store yesterday, we talked about the ejector and how to thaw it. He’s on an ejector system himself and said, this sometimes happen. I told him, it’s been some 50 years, and it’s never frozen before, so why now? He said it could be a few things and started listing some off. The only one I remember was when he said the ground could be saturated.

*dingdingding*

When they excavated down to the pipe to install the ejector, it was full of water. I even asked one of the guys if that was from the leaking old ejector, or if the water table was high. He told me it would be from the leaking ejector.

Which means the ground at the based of the new ejector was indeed saturated. Which would not have been a problem if this was done in the spring or summer. With nothing leaking anymore, it would have eventually drained away. The soil is clay heavy, so it might have taken a while, but it would eventually have dried up.

The ejector, however, was installed in… November? We were lucky not to have snow, which we did get, not long after.

Which means the water the drained to the bottom of the 4″ stack pipe had nowhere to go, and just kept building up and up, until it froze.

So… that rather eliminates any chance of us being able to use the ejector again until spring. The ground is already frozen, so even if we insulated around it, it wouldn’t make a difference.

*sigh*

We’ll figure it out.

The main thing is, we can now use our kitchen sink again!!!

In asking him why it would clog again so quickly after we’d already had it cleared just a couple of years ago, he said that having the laundry and kitchen drain into the main pipe so close together was not really an ideal situation. Between any grease from washing the dishes, to lint and such from the laundry, things build up pretty fast.

I’d been concerned about the pipe that didn’t get cleared, from the bathroom towards the septic. That, however, turns out not to be an issue at all. With all the water from showers and washing – even the toilet flushing – it would have kept that section of pipe pretty clear. There’s a lot less water running through from the kitchen to under the bathroom – and even less, when we started running the laundry drain outside. As the greasy water from the sink swirls its way down the pipe, the gunk would build up faster. Which is why flushing the drain with sink-fulls of hot water and detergent (he suggested using Dawn, as it is the best for grease cutting) regularly is recommended.

I asked him about using the bacteria and enzyme drain maintenance stuff, and he couldn’t really answer, as he doesn’t know much about it.

I also asked him about the possibility of the pipe from the house to the ejector getting clogged, and he said that was highly unlikely.

On top of all the other stuff we talked about, I mentioned that we want to replace the well pump, but there’s a risk of the foot valve breaking apart, so no one wanted to take the chance.

He pffffttt’d to that and said, just put in a check valve. No one really does foot valves anymore.

???

I’ve had three different plumbers look at that well pump. No one mentioned a check valve, so I asked him about it. He looked some up on his phone and found the style that would be used on our pump. He told me, just install that on the pump at the intake from the well, and don’t worry about the foot valve. Even if it breaks up, we’ll still get water.

I asked him, is this something that is new within the past few years?

Nope. They’ve been around for a while.

So now I wonder, why hasn’t any other plumber mentioned it??

Then, since we were walking around the three broken hot water tanks while looking around the basement, I told him about replacing the elements on the hot water tank recently, and what we found on the bottom. He told me, we need a water softening system to put a stop to that.

*sigh*

That’s something my husband has suggested, but a whole house system? That’s really expensive, and do we really want that for the entire house?

As to the cost, he was able to tell me that it’s $2500, installed, if he does it. He didn’t try to sell me on it; just let me know.

So all of that went fairly quickly. Before he left, I gave him my email address for him to send me the bill, so I still don’t know how much it will cost. I should get it tonight some time, but he told me that if I don’t, check my spam folder! That’s been happening a lot, lately, he told me.

That done, we can finally hook up the washing machine’s hose back to the drain pipe, but we haven’t done that, yet. Priority is catching up on dishes!

I wanted to head out early with my daughter for our appointment, but we still had the prescription delivery that I wanted to wait for first, so we could lock the gate behind us when we left. Not too long after the plumber left, someone used the washroom, and I heard the septic pump go off again. No surprise, considering how much hot water got flushed through the pipes!

I went down to check and…

It was running dry again.

I shut it off and primed the filter – the seal on that lid was quite tight – turned it on and it was working fine again. So fine, in fact, that it took only 2, maybe 2 1/2 minutes to drain the tank!

This is how it’s supposed to look.

Hopefully, you won’t have to go to Instagram to wash this.

The moisture underneath is from the water used to prime the filter.

When it was done, the filter stayed nice and full. I paused to update my brother on it (I’d been keeping him up to date with the plumber the whole time, too). As I was doing that, I heard a strange noise from the filter.

A very strange little noise.

And a strange sight.

You might need to turn up your volume to hear it. Somehow, there was air getting in.

I grabbed some paper towel and dried up everything around the filter and pipe joins, then watched and waited before checking them again. Everything was dry. There is no leak.

So what is happening???

One of the things I did a while back was put a brick and a very thin piece of Styrofoam under the filter to support the weight of the water in it. I ended up finding another thin piece to raise it up just a bit higher, so there is now no sag or play at all. I primed the filter again, and that bubbling did not happen again.

Were were good? I don’t know. But I did pass that on to my brother, too!

Not long after, the prescription delivery guy arrived, and my daughter and I were soon headed out to our appointments (after having to chase a kitten out from under my brother’s car!). We left early, making a brief stop in my mother’s town to pick up some lunch at the gas station – they had chicken kabobs available this time, which my daughter loves. Those sell out really fast, and they don’t seem to make more of them throughout the day. By the time we got to the clinic, we were only about 15 minutes early, so I’m glad we headed out when we did.

I went in first for my meet and greet. Her first question was whether or not I already had a doctor, and I explained about my previous doctor moving to another clinic, and having an interim doctor now. I’m sure she’d be fine to keep seeing me, but it’s just more convenient to have the same doctor as my daughter.

So this was mostly a question and answer session and I explained some of the issues I’ve been having, and she is now officially my doctor, too. I mentioned my painkillers just aren’t cutting it anymore, especially since I had to switch to acetaminophen. So I did get a prescription pain killer. I’d mentioned how bad the joint pain can get some days, where every joint in my body hurts. She asked me what supplements I was one, and I told her. She then recommended I go on a B complex instead of the B12 I’m on, as one of the other B vitamins should help me with the joint pain. She also told me to take double the recommended dose. I mentioned the Charlie horses I’ve been getting, but I have also run out of zinc, and suggested picking that up might take care of that, and she said yes. (I’ve also increased my salt intake, before I ran out of zinc, and that’s when the Charlie horses seemed to stop until just recently)

So once I was done, I went across the hall to the pharmacy to pick up the supplements while my daughter was seen next. Then I went to the grocery store that shared the parking lot and picked up a couple of small things we’d run out of at home. From there, I waited in the car for my daughter.

Which is when I got a test from my husband. He’s just picked up a call from the pharmacy for me. They’d received my prescription, and did I want to get it filled right away?

Talk about fast!

Of course, my husband had no idea what they were talking about, yet! So I called the pharmacy and said to go ahead and fill it, and that I’d likely pick it up tomorrow, since I was still in another town.

Then I got a message from my daughter clearing a calendar date in three weeks for another follow up appointment. So that was done, too.

My daughter got some adjusted medications and another prescription. Her bloodwork showed her to be vitamin D deficient. I wasn’t surprised by that. This is Canada, and it’s winter, after all! She has also been referred to an endocrinologist for her PCOS.

So tomorrow, we’ll both go into town to pick up our prescriptions.

This time, I plan to use the truck.

From there, we started for home. Along the way, we stopped in my mother’s town so I could go to a branch of my bank and take out cash, then we stopped at the home of the guy who empties our septic tank to pay our bill. With tip!

We made one more stop on the way back, at the post office. I wasn’t expecting any parcels yet, but there were a couple for my husband and some regular mail. The letter mail I’ve been waiting for since the strike delayed it, still isn’t in, though. This is getting ridiculous.

After that, we could finally head home. I’m sure glad for the longer days, as it wasn’t full dark, yet!

The first thing I did once we brought everything inside was do the evening cat feeding. My husband had let me know my mother had called (he does not answer calls from her), once I was settled, I checked her message. Apparently, when they delivered her new bubble packs, they didn’t deliver her inhaler. So I called her back and she told me her adjusted dose bubble packs were delivered, but there was no puffer. She then started going on about how it was a guy who delivered it this time, and she didn’t recognize him, etc. So I asked if she called the pharmacy to ask why it wasn’t there, and she said no, then tried to go back to talking about the delivery guy. I told her, she needed to call the pharmacy right away.

Which is when she asked if I could do it, because her English isn’t so good.

Ah. Okay!

Then she gave me the number, so I didn’t have to look it up.

The thing is, my mother’s doctor’s appointment was on Monday. Her prescriptions were delivered on Tuesday. Today is Thursday. Why didn’t she say anything on Tuesday??

So I called the pharmacy and quickly realized why my mother didn’t want to call herself. They have an automated answering service, which she has a hard time with at the best of times. With this one, after I made the first selection (after having to listen to a promo for vaccines first), it put me through another spiel for other choices. When I selected one of those, which turned out to be the wrong one. It took me to another and, as I was going through that, it started asking for things like the prescription number. WTF??? It did give the option to go back to a previous menus, and the net thing I knew, I was listening to the vaccine promo again.

I finally got to a real, live pharmacist.

They know be my now. 😄

When I explained what my mother had told me, the pharmacist said it was there. She’d put it in the bag herself.

I told her, my mother said it wasn’t, and she suggested it might be on the bottom of the bag, and described the box to me. It’s purple, so it would be easy to see!

I called my mother back and explained it should be in the bag with her bubble packs.

Oh! Let me go check.

It was there.

My mother had never looked in the bag. She had expected the delivery person to hand it to her seperately.

My mother was supposed to start her new bubble packs immediately, setting the current one aside, to be taken back to the pharmacy, so they could update the dose on one of her meds for her.

I didn’t get a chance to ask, but it sounds like she just kept using the same bubble pack instead of switching to the ones with the correct dosage in it.

*sigh*

I let her go, though, so she could go over the instructions for the inhaler.

I’m starting to wonder if she’s up to even using one.

Something I will have to follow up on.

Meanwhile…

This evening, I heard the septic pump go off again, so I went down to check. The filter was empty again! This time, however, I could see there was a very slow flow was water going in. It wasn’t running quite dry, but the flow from the tank was barely more than a splash. I stopped it and primed the filter again (it was tightly sealed), and it ran great after that. When it stopped, the filter was still full of water, and no sign of bubbles to show if there was some sort of air leak.

If this thing needs to be primed every time the pump goes off, that’s going to be a problem. I’m the only one that can hear it go off, and the camera I got to monitor it is going to be returned tomorrow, because it won’t connect to our WiFi.

This is incredibly frustrating.

If there is anyone more knowledgeable than me reading this and has some idea of what’s going on, please let me know! I’m running out of ideas.

As for me, I am done with this day.

I am so glad the plumber could come in this morning, and that we got that clog cleared. We learned a lot from him while he was here, too, and have steps to take to keep it from happening again – or at least keep it from happening again too soon!

I’m happy to learn about the check valve that would allow us to get that well pump changed and not worry about the foot valve.

I’m glad to finally and officially have a new doctor, and that my daughter got that referral to an endocrinologist, though it will likely take months before she actually sees one.

I’m glad the emergency diverter is working, even with the flow problems.

I’m thankful to have my brother’s car to drive today, even though it would have been just fine using the truck. I’m just paranoid about the truck. We need to get their car back to them soon.

I’m thankful for my other daughter’s financial help that paid for the septic guy, and is helping to pay for the plumber, too.

I may be done with this day, but it really was a very good day!

The Re-Farmer

A productive day, more or less

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Today, I needed to drive my mother to her doctor’s appointment, but didn’t have to leave until morning.

That gave me a chance to check on our emergency diverter set up that my brother made outside the house, ensuring that things were still sitting where they needed to.

Aside from making sure the PVC pipe my brother found was snug against the house, this is the important part.

The orange tarp partially buried in snow is the end of the insulated tarp covering the septic tank that we did not have to move. It was pulled away from the house, instead. This end gets frozen harder to the ground.

The two lengths of pipe need to be kept straight and slow downwards. At the bottom left corner of the above photo, you can just see the section of chimney flu that is supporting it closer to the house. We used basically what we could find in the dark. They will do the job, as long as things stay where they are supposed to. The shoveled area in the snow will basically become a skating rink.

In the distance, you can see the large flexible hose that was meant to be used. The problem is, it doesn’t straighten out entirely. Ever snake-like turn is an area that water could potentially slow down and freeze. The pipe is about 6″ in diameter, but even that can eventually fill and freeze solid. So it looks like we won’t be able to use it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Using my brother’s car (and making sure to give the engine time to warm up, first!), I headed out early enough to hit the post office.

Alas, the mail that I’m expecting that didn’t come in due to the postal strike, still has not come in. Nor has anything else. Not even junk mail. The strikers may have been ordered to return to work (as a Crown corporation, the Federal government has the authority to do that), but apparently, that doesn’t mean they are going to actually do their work.

Oh, something I learned about this strike. It turns out that Canada Post has two unions. One is for the regular postal workers we see delivering our mail and in the physical buildings, like in our little hamlet. The other is for the ones that work in the distribution centres and such. Those are the ones that went on strike. So, while regular postal workers still showed up for work, they couldn’t do anything, because the distribution centres were shut down. It was a rotating strike, so every week, a different distribution centre would be active again, allowing for some mail to trickle through. Of course, if it was going from one distribution centre to the next, that really didn’t make much difference.

But I digress.

From there, it was off to my mother’s town and, since I was so early, I swung by the hardware store. After talking to one of the staff, I picked up some reflective insulation. They sell this stuff in sizes large enough to wrap around hot water tanks, to narrow strips that would be wrapped around pipes. Which is exactly what I wanted. I also got a small roll of aluminum tape. I plan to wrap the outflow pipe where it butts up against the house, as that is the area most at risk of freezing. Then I plan to add some between the pipes and the supports. Where the log is, isn’t much of a concern, but the ceramic chimney flu and the brick can both chill the pipe and potentially cause an ice build up on the inside. Just a bit of insulation would prevent that.

From there, I made a stop at the gas station. I didn’t need gas yet, but I knew my mother would be getting her Meals on Wheels today. Though I had a large and late breakfast before I left, she had told me she didn’t like to be eating by herself, with someone watching her. So I picked up some of the potato wedges she likes so much, so that I could snack while she was eating, and she could have the rest with her supper, later on.

When I got to her place, though, she had just finished eating her main meal. So we had some tea while she ate her desert. 😊 We were able to have a bit of a visit before we had to leave, and I updated her a bit on what was going on, and that my brother had lent us their car rather than my SIL driving all the way out to drive both of us around, and that he’d installed the diverter. I’m not sure, but I think she was still living at the farm the last time (and first time) it was used.

We left early to go to her doctor’s appointment, and I’m glad we did. I ended up having to go back to her apartment to get her little folding foot stool. Even though the car is so much lower than the truck, she still needed the stool to be able to get in! That is a definite drop in mobility.

Once at the clinic, we had a long wait, as everyone was being called in late. Once in the examination room, we still had a bit of a wait. When the doctor finally came in, she started off asking if we could move to another room, but then she saw my mother and told us to stay put, she would go get her laptop. It turns out the clinic was having network problems with all the examination room computers, and that was why everything was behind.

So we tried to keep it short. The main thing was to get my mother rescheduled for the MRI we didn’t get to, due to dangerous road conditions. I confirmed that my mother’s file was up to date about her macular degeneration and treatment. The doctor has nothing to do with this, as my mother is being treated at the eye clinic in the city, but as the primary doctor, she is supposed to have all this information sent to her. Then we talked about my mother’s breathing issues. One of her neighbours has asthma and uses a puffer (inhaler), so my mother decided she should have one, too. So could she be tested for asthma?

The doctor just prescribed her a puffer. She explained that she could recommend her for testing, but that is done in the city, and my mother would be on a waiting list for probably a year. Using a puffer won’t hurt her. I don’t think my mother as asthma, but even if there’s just a placebo effect, it would be worth it.

After giving my mother a basic physical exam, the doctor adjusted one of her dosages, and that was it. We knew the doctor was behind because of the computer issues, so we didn’t talk about much else. Which is good, because my mother usually wastes time by asking personal questions, or bringing up issues that she has… opinions on, shall we say.

My mother wasn’t due for any bloodwork, but the doctor did want to see her again in 3 months, so I made that appointment before we headed out.

Since the doctor faxed the new and updated prescriptions directly to the pharmacy in my mother’s town, that was our first stop. I went in while my mother stayed in the car, as it was just too much for her to go in and out. My mother was due to have her bubble packs delivered on Friday, and has started her last week’s current pack, so when I got there, her new packs were already there and ready to go. So that got pulled and adjusted for the new dosage. Instead of delivering on Friday, they will deliver tomorrow. As for the last pack my mother just started, the pharmacist said for her to set it aside and use the new once when they arrive, and the current pack can be brought back and adjusted.

As for the inhaler, it would take an hour before it would be ready, so that will be delivered tomorrow, too. Having been given an inhaler to see if it would help with my own respiratory issues (which we’ve never found the cause of, and I’ve basically given up trying to find one), I was able to explain to my mother how they work and how to use one, etc. She’ll need reminding, of course, but I hope the staff that delivers her meds tomorrow will be able to explain it again.

That done, there was just a brief stop at the grocery store for me to run in and pick up a couple of things for my mother before I took her home. I didn’t stay too much longer after that. I’m glad the days are longer, and I did manage to get home while it was still light out.

In between all this, I was able to send the OBDII scan results on the truck to the garage and he was able to respond. It’s basically the oil pressure sensor again. The one that was recently replaced, and also recently cleaned out because it was triggering the alarm and “shut off engine now” warnings, because it thought the truck was out of oil. This time, it has so far just turned on the check engine light again (though I did clear the codes, so that should be off now), and it why the oil pressure gauge isn’t moving. He told me, even if he replaced the sensor again, it’ll keep happening, because of the weather we’ve been having. There’s really nothing he can do about it. I suppose I could pay him to take it apart and clean it again, but that’s about it.

So really, what I need to be doing is getting the engine warmed up and staying warm long enough to evaporate any moisture in the system and triggering the sensor. It’ll resolve itself as things warm up again, as there won’t be that build up of moisture anymore.

I don’t need to go anywhere tomorrow, and it’s supposed to be a bit warmer, so I’ll run the engine while I’m outside.

Which leads me to my phone call with my brother this evening.

I’d sent the pictures he took to the company that installed the ejector, and the response was the same. The pump isn’t pushing out the water fast enough to create the pressure needed. This frustrated my brother to know end, because he knows the pump is pushing fine. As for how long it takes to drain the tank, he told me that 5 minutes is about right, because our tank is about twice the size of most other tanks. It’s huge. I was so young when it was installed, I was probably not allowed to go anywhere near it at the time.

Plus, that ice wall on the sheet of metal roof the ejector expels the water onto shows just how far and how strong the flow of water is.

Or was.

I know I’ve described the ejector system before, but my brother sent me some info with a diagram. The image was a pdf and terrible pixelated, but I think I got a decent screen cap of it.

I don’t know if ours is from this company, but it’s the exact same design.

With our new ejector, it’s about 2′ above ground, so about 8′ is below ground. I think the original was more like 12′ based on how much more was above ground than the new one. The venturi pipe – the discharge pipe, in the diagram – should never stay full once the pump shuts off. Once installed, the venturi pipe can be (carefully!) removed and replaced, which is what we were supposed to do after using enough hot water to thaw the ice and free it.

One of the things my brother brought up again was electric heat tape. There are all kinds of heat tape, and my husband had sent me a link for one that he’d found on Amazon. As my brother voiced concerns that, if we did try to use heat tape to thaw the above ground portion of the 4″ stand pipe, it might melt the plastic, I sent him the link. It is safe for both metal and plastic pipes, and self regulating. It’s also available in a huge range of lengths. He estimated that a 12′ length would be enough to wrap around the pipe, up to the elbow coming out of the cap. It was affordable, so I ordered it. It’s estimated to arrive on the 17th, though, so we have other things to try.

One of the things my brother thinks is a contributing factor is the new location of the ejector. The old one was about 10-15 feet away, and had a big willow overhanging it. The willow may have protected it from the elements (even though the roots were probably why it was starting to lean backwards and eventually start leaking). Right now, the ejector may be in full sunlight, but it is completely exposed to the winds we get. With the temperatures we’ve had lately, that could be a contributing factor so a slow freeze happening, and to the slow flow I was seeing in the filter. As long as some water was getting through, it wasn’t freezing completely, though, and just building up. I have a theory. The night before I discovered no flow was happening at all anymore, the septic pump had not gone off at all. Normally, between the 4 of us, plus my older daughter working at night, there’s plenty of toilet flushing, dish washing and even at least one shower. That didn’t happen, and it may have allowed for the stand pipe to finally freeze solid, and the venturi (discharge) pipe along with it.

I had already been thinking that, in the spring, I would need to put some sort of fence around the new ejector. Being so much lower to the ground, the renters cows out traipse right over it, even with the metal sheet butted up against it to divert the flow of water. My brother was thinking we’d need to build some kind of semi-permanent shelter over or around it, to protect it from the element in winter. I say “semi-permanent” as we need to assume that, some day, it will need to have work done on it, and we’d need to be able to move it.

At one point, I thought of the catio. It has a clear roof and is wrapped in plastic, making it almost a mini greenhouse. It would fit over the ejector.

Then I remembered the metal sheet. It couldn’t fit on top of that, since it has a curl to it that ensures the water flows away, and not off the sides.

But, there was possibilities.

So, while we wait for the heat tape to arrive, we need to see if we can find something we can use to build a shelter over it for this winter. My brother thinks a couple of pallets set up as a V around it, then something on top, would do the trick. We have no pallets, but he’s sure he brought some. There might also be some scrap plywood we could find somewhere.

Which means, I have a task for tomorrow. Going through the barn and sheds to see what I can find that could be used to build a shelter over the ejector. Just something we can slap together for now, but strong and heavy enough to not be blown over and destroyed by the wind. Ideally, I’d find something clear for a “roof” and add a little passive solar heat.

Trudging around outside will also give me a chance to get the truck running and see how it does! We’re warming up over the next few days, including the overnight lows, which should help, too. The day after tomorrow, my daughter and I have our joint appointment. It would be good if we could use our own truck and return my brother’s car! They really do need two vehicles.

Well, we’ll see how it goes. There’s not much else we can do!

Meanwhile, our septic tank still hasn’t filled enough to trigger the pump, so we still don’t know if the diverter will actually work, yet. It should work just fine. It’s just that we’ve had so many things breaking down for so long, now, I’m getting pretty paranoid about it all!

*sigh*

Ah, well. We’ll manage.

What other choice do we have?

The Re-Farmer