Medical

Well, that didn’t turn out as planned

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

We’re looking at a gorgeous day today. Bright and sunny, with an expected high of -5C/23F. Which we are as I write this, shortly past 2pm, with a “feels like” of -1C/30F

My one outing planned for the day was a trip to the dump, which is open long hours on Saturdays. I was up at my usual time, which is when all the cats seem to want to use all the litter boxes at the same time, and start getting antsy for the kibble. I topped up their bowls and closed up my door so Butterscotch could use the litter without being harassed by other cats, then tried to get a bit more sleep before heading outside to feed the yard cats, then load the truck.

Butterscotch, however, decided she really liked having the room to herself (Freya was there, but she just chills on my bed after she’s dong eating) and was racing all over, before finally settling down on the cat shelf by the ceiling.

She may have settled, but quite did not happen. Instead, I got a phone call.

It was home care, letting me know there wasn’t anyone available to do my mother’s med assist this morning.

So I quickly got up, updated the family, then called my mother to let her know there was no one available this morning, and that I would be there within the hour.

My mother is convinced that no one is showing up because they want to “fix her” – meaning, keep her from getting care and med assists, so that she would die. I told her, they are short staffed. They’re always shorted staffed. There could be many reasons no one was available.

She refuses to believe that. 🫤

After reassuring her that I would be there to give her her pills, I took care of the outside cats then headed out.

The outside cats were loving the relatively mild morning! Rolando Moon (in the second photo) was just rolling in the snow.

I noticed something about the kids in the isolation shelter, though.

One was missing!

No Grink!

I eventually found him, eating in the kibble house. It’s the first time I’ve seen him out of the isolation shelter in weeks!

Anyhow…

I had reached my mother’s town and was about to turn down her street when my phone started ringing. I don’t have hands free, so I left it to ring, but I immediately thought that it was home care again. As I got to her building and parked in my usual spot, there was one other vehicle there. Again, I felt sure this was home care, and that they’d found someone to do my mother’s meds.

After I parked, I checked my phone but did not recognize the number. I was about to listen to the voice mail message when a woman with a clip board came out from the car.

Yup. She was from home care, and she had just called me, hoping to catch me before I left, to say my mother’s med assist was done. We have never met in person before, but she said that when she saw my truck turn onto the road, she just knew it was me!

She updated me on how things went with my mother. The person who was scheduled to visit my mother this morning had called in sick. The person I was talking to was the weekend schedule coordinator, and she had tried to find another home care worker to visit my mom. Unfortunately, none of them would have had the combination for the lock box in their sheets, so she did it herself! She said she would be back to see my mother again, for her other med assists.

Since I was there anyhow, I went in to see how my mother was doing.

She was complaining, so she was doing well. 😄

She was making a big deal over my having to drive all that way, and how it was such a bother, etc. etc. I told her, this is my job, and I’m happy to do it! Moving out here was not just about taking care of the property, but to be close enough to help her when she needed it, since my other siblings live so much further, and have jobs. Mostly, though, she was demanding my brother come out at the drop of a hat, even though he lived the furthest. Especially after the title of the property was turned over to him, so that it would no longer be in the will, due to the antics of our vandal. If it were my brother who had driven all this way out, she wouldn’t have had any such feelings. If anything, she would complain that he didn’t do enough. Which is how she behaved before we moved out here, and he did come out more often.

While I was talking to her, I noticed her pulse oximeter was still on her table. I’m actually surprised she hadn’t hidden it away. So I got her to sit back and relax while I set it up.

Her heart rate and O2 levels are better than mine!

Then I asked her if there was anything I could help her with, such as getting dressed for the day or empty her commode. She said no, but that’s when I found out her morning visits have not been going this. They were supposed to be scheduled extra time for this, and it sounds like this hasn’t happened.

I’m going to have to call the case coordinator back and bring that up. I’m also going to have to bring up another issue…

As my mother was griping about home care not making it in (no sympathy at all that someone had called in sick, nor appreciation that someone else went out of her way to get to my mother and give her her med assist) and it’s such a bother for me to drive aaaaalllll that way (which is about half the distance my sister would have had to drive, and a quarter of the distance my brother would have had to drive, though neither of them were available)…

It came down to her meds being in a lock box, but if there is an “emergency” like this, she could just take her pills herself…

…

… as she indicated to the top of her fridge, where there is a pharmacy bag with her unopened bubble packs.

The only bubble pack in the lock box is the one that home care aids are actively using, along with their duotang of forms they initial every time they do her meds, and her inhaler.

I suppose it would be a tight fit, but doctor’s orders are, my mother does not have access to her meds, because she messes with them.

I didn’t do anything about it at the time, as it would have brought about a rage reaction, but I did tell her this was not a good thing – and that her continuing to rail about how her medications shouldn’t be in a box, and to leave them on the fridge, and don’t tell anyone they’re up there – we all examples of why she needs to have her medications in a lock box to begin with!

I’ve already updated my brother on that, but will also be talking to the case coordinator about it. It might be having all 4 weeks of bubble packs in the lock box made things a bit tight, but when my brother and his wife brought the new, bigger lock box, everything fit in there just fine. They should never have been taken out. The home care workers had been putting them on the fridge, out of my mother’s reach, before we got the lock box, but apparently, my mother can reach them. If nothing else, she could use her cane to simply knock the bag down.

So… that was a thing.

I asked my mother if there was anything else I could do, and she remembered a couple of things we forgot to put on her shopping list yesterday. So I went to the grocery store to get those for her, as well as a sandwich and a drink for myself. I hadn’t had breakfast yet and was starting to feel ill and dizzy.

That done, and once I was sure nothing else was needed, I headed to the gas station to top up the tank again. Before heading home, I updated the family, adding that I would back the truck up to the house so we could load it for the dump run.

It’s been a while since we’ve done a dump run – there was no way I was going to do it while we were being hit with the worst of the last polar vortex – so there was quite a bit. She moved the bags into the sun room for me, then I took them to the truck. She can only use one arm for this, since her ganglion is still really painful. Once the regular garbage and recycling was loaded, we had the very careful job of loading the bags from the honeypot. It’s been warm enough, only one of them was partially frozen. Even with using the stove pellets to absorb liquid, some of them definitely got extra care in loading! With four adults, with always at least one person having digestive issues, it seems, we’ve had to change the bags out quite a bit!

Double bagged, of course.

Once loaded, it was a quick run to the dump and then home. Before I left, though, I had a quick talk with my daughter.

Last night, my husband brought up the idea of going to town to a restaurant, just to have somewhere to use a real toilet again, instead of the honeypot. He would have done right then and there, if it hadn’t already been too late in the day for such a trip. I did, however, go through the budget and crunched some numbers, and found that we could manage it.

So I asked her to bring up with my husband and her sister (who was in bed after her night’s work) about this being an option.

When I got back, we were talking about my taking my husband and younger daughter out for a lunch, then taking my older daughter out for supper, after she’d had her full day’s sleep. My husband, however, had a really bad pain night and was simply not up to it an outing, and asked us to bring something home for him, instead.

So my daughter and I headed out and chose to go to a newer restaurant in town, that is associated with a brewing company. The city we lived in before we moved out here had a HUGE craft brewing community, and my daughters enjoy good beer, so we used to go to these whenever we could. I don’t like beer, myself, but I was willing to taste test theirs. 😄 This is the first time we’ve got to a restaurant/craft brewer since moving out here, so… more than 7 years.

We ended up both getting bison burgers (both skipping the jalapeno and I skipped the tomato). My daughter upgraded to a poutine with hers, while I got the coleslaw instead of regular fried. The burger was really good – and very messy! My daughter really liked her poutine, too. My coleslaw was surprisingly bland, though. It wasn’t bad, by any means. Just not what I expected. Both our meals also came with a couple of spears of pickles, with the cucumbers pickled in their own signature beer brine. My daughter also got a pint of one of their signature brews, which she quite enjoyed.

Once we were done there, we stopped at the DQ to pick up a meal for my husband, then headed home.

For now, I’ve got a bit of a break. I’ll be heading outside again to do the evening kibble and warm water soon. It’s so night out, I might not even bother putting on a jacket! I certainly didn’t wear my down filled parka today.

Then, I intend to wrangle my older daughter out of the house for supper. Knowing her, she will try to refuse. She has barely left the house – even to just go outside in the yard – in years. A down side to living in the boonies. Her work is all digital, so she doesn’t have to go anywhere, and since she works nights and sleeps days, she’s not around to go on trips into town or whatever.

What I really want to do right now, though, is go to bed! I got very little sleep last night, my attempt at sleeping in failed, and instead of just one outing today, I have had three, with one more in the works.

I guess it’s a perk that, with all this extra running around, I get to use public washrooms and eat food other people cooked but, to be honest, I would be just fine staying home. I do want the rest of the family to be able to get out, though. I really wanted to get my husband out. It’s been a rare thing for him to have an outing that doesn’t involve medical appointments!

I really, really hope my brother can get that pump working again, tomorrow. This is the longest we’ve had to use the honeypot, do sponge bathing, etc. yet, and we’ve had all sorts of plumbing problems since moving out here. At least we do have access to hot and cold running water. We just can’t let it go down the drain to the septic tank in any usual amounts.

Ah, well. It is what it is!

The Re-Farmer

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

Isn’t it supposed to get warmer?

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I checked the temperatures during the night, shortly after 2am, where we were at -29C/-20F, with a wind chill of -43C/-45F

I checked again shortly after 7am – when I would normally be getting ready to go outside to feed the cats and do my rounds.

It was -31C/-24F, with a wind chill of -42C/-44F

I checked again about half our later, and the temperature was the same, but the wind chill was back to -43C/-45F

Okay. I’ll just wait for things to warm up a bit before I feed the outside cats. They wouldn’t want to be running around in these temperatures, anyhow.

More than an hour later, and the temperatures hadn’t changed.

So I went and gave the outside cats their not-frozen kibble and warm water, and basically skipped my usual rounds entirely.

The thermometer in the sun room, at least, was reading around -15C/5F at the time. Still cold enough that the heated water bowl has frost around the top of the water level, with a layer of ice around one side, and cats had frost on their face fur. I don’t bother to put kibble in most of the trays anymore – the ones I can see they aren’t eating from. Instead, I scatter it in spots on the platform and shelves, under the heat bulb and the couple of trays they do eat from. Even outside, where their kibble trays are over full with frozen kibble, I leave very little fresh kibble, but have instead scooping some of it back into the bowl I used to carry their food. The bowl in the catio gets extra kibble, since it does warm up in there, but it looks like the birds are the ones eating the kibble under the shrine. The isolation shelter, however, gets the rest of the kibble in the bowl, including what I’ve scooped out from the frozen trays. The cats finish that bowl off completely!

Today was our day to do the litters which, with using the stove pellets, gets dumped into a separate compost pile behind the outhouse. This is one of those jobs where the girls do the inside part, and I do the outside part. We waited until past 3 to do it, though! By then, it was -23C/-9F, with a wind chill of -34C/-29F, but it was bright and sunny, which meant the sun room and the isolation shelter where much warmer – and filled with cats!

I got the above photos earlier in the afternoon, though. I was able to get a few shots from the bathroom window, which got their attention, but they didn’t run away. In the first photo, we have Fluffy, who is doing well enough to be on the very top shelf of the shelf against the old kitchen well. Most of the others were crowded in the opposite shelf, against the window, enjoying sun spots.

Instagram cropped the next photo for some reason, even though I set it to “full size”, so you’re not getting the full effect of having those three cats starting at me! It’s the little one in the middle that has me laughing, though. Those eyes!!!

The last photo of the thermometer shows it reading about -5C/23F. That thermometer is on a cold wall mounted about two west facing windows, so it would actually be reading colder than the ambient temperature – and certainly colder than the temperature in the sun spots filled with cats!

Slight interruption while writing this.

Well… not “slight”.

My mother called. As we were talking, it came out that she apparently did not get her second and third med assist visit from home care. It took a bit of questioning to find out this apparently happened on Saturday (today is Monday). According to my mother, then the home care aid that was supposed to show up on Saturday showed up on Sunday, she told my mother she didn’t know my mother was home from the hospital, so that’s why she didn’t show up. Which makes no sense.

There was also a very confusing thing my mother started taking about the medications she was taking in the hospital. After much questioning to figure out what she was talking about (it sounded like she had brought hospital medications home with her), it turns out she “remembers” me packing her medications from home, that she’s brought with her to the initial appointment that had her going to the ER, the day we brought her home. She said, don’t you remember, you put them in the bag, because they didn’t fit in my purse. W

Which did not happen. I’d already taken her partial bubble pack she had in the hospital, then took all her old bubble packs and pills from her place, to the pharmacy the day before she came home. Then, before we came to get her, we were able to pick up her new bubble packs from the pharmacy, with the updated prescriptions.

My mother has no memory of this. She thought her partial bubble pack was in the lock box, to be used so they wouldn’t “go to waste”.

I’ve already called and left a message with home care, explaining what my mother told me about the missed med assist visits. I should get a call back, tomorrow.

My mother, meanwhile, is upset that she can’t get at her own medications to take them herself, if home care doesn’t show up. Yet she clearly doesn’t know what is happening with her medications anymore, if she thinks she still has her old prescription bubble pack being used right now.

I made sure to message all this to my brother. One of his responses was, and they say Mom doesn’t need full time care?

*sigh*

There is a reason we have to have home care visiting my mother for her med assists. Many reasons, really, as well as reasons her medications are now in a lock box.

We really need to figure out what’s going on!

The Re-Farmer

Is this love?

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I lost track of things and forgot that today was Valentine’s Day!

This morning, I had a 8am telephone appointment with my mother’s doctor. Normally, I would be outside, giving the cats their food and warm water. We were still under an ongoing extreme cold warning (which is now finally over), so I would have basically just taken care of the cats and skipped most of my morning rounds!

With the phone appointment, however, I messaged my daughters, asking if they could take care of the outside cats. I was pretty sure my older daughter had gone to bed after a night’s work, but I wasn’t sure if my younger daughter was available.

She was, and she took care of the outside cats for me, while I waited for the call.

Which was about half an hour late, of course. My daughter was back inside, updating me, when the phone rang. With the cats’ food trays and bowls so full of frozen kibble, we’re figuring out ways to make it so they can actually eat it. With the isolation shelter open again, I’m thinking of taking some of kibble from the kibble shelter and putting it in the isolation shelter. When there was just two cats, there was excess kibble, but once the other cats started going in there again, the bowl was empty, and even the kibble scattered about was eaten up!

As for the phone call, it wasn’t my mother’s doctor that called, but another doctor working with her. I explained about my mother having been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and how we were told she needs to see a doctor every month to monitor her kidney function, now that she’s back on the water pills. They didn’t actually have everything in my mother’s file yet, and the doctor had to ask me when she had been discharged!

They did have the results of her last bloodwork done while she was in the hospital, though, and he could tell me her kidneys are doing just fine.

The problem, of course, is making a 93 yr old who struggles to walk, climb into the truck and drive to the clinic, over and over, because there are no local doctors available.

The hospital in her town does have a lab, though.

My mother won’t need to physically go to the clinic every month.

They will mail bloodwork requisition forms to my mother every month. The local hospital will not accept these forms being faxed to them. It would have been better if I could physically pick it up, to eliminate any risk of the form being lost in the mail, but that’s just not an option.

I will, however, be in that town next week, and will be stopping at the clinic to get my own medical files to take to my new doctor, before my daughter and I have our appointments. So he got a form printed out and it will be waiting for me when I get there. As my mother had bloodwork done this month, already, she won’t need to get it done again until next month.

Aside from that, she can have telephone appointments to go over the results, though they do that only if there is a problem. She won’t need to physically come in for an appointment unless there is a need. We will have to continue to monitor her for swelling and breathing issues, which the doctor at the hospital already explained to us, and my mother is to go to the ER right away, if problems start up again.

That done, I updated my siblings in our group chat, as much to make sure I wrote down the details while it was still fresh in my mind as to share it with family. Then I phoned my mother to update her.

As I started talking to her about the monthly appointments the hospital doctor said she needed, and that I called the clinic about them, my mother got somewhat agitated. It took a bit to figure it out, but she was under the impression she had a physical appointment with her doctor. I had told her I had made a phone appointment to talk about her case, but since then, she got it in her mind that this was an appointment with her, not about her. I clarified and told her, I’d made a phone appointment with me, that I had just gotten off the phone, and I was calling to let her know how it went.

She stayed very quiet as I went through the call which, in itself, is unusual. Normally, she interrupts and starts taking the conversation in other directions. I’m not completely sure how much she understood, but when I got to the part about going to the local hospital for monthly blood work, she said that we would have to keep track of that for her.

Which, of course, was already the plan!

She then started talking about her medications and the lock box. To make is short, my mother was very angry about having the lock box, the home care aids cant get into it, she doesn’t need this big box and can manage her own medications.

I was alarmed when she said the home care aids can’t get into it. She said she didn’t get her medications this morning. At first, she made it sound like it was because the aide couldn’t open it, but if that were true, I would have gotten a phone call. Or my brother would have. This happened only once, with one person, though. My mother had 2 other visits the day before, after the new lock box was brought over, and got her medications. Now she was saying the aids can’t get into the box at all?

I asked if she got her morning medications, and she said no.

No one showed up.

????

Again, if they were short staffed, I would have got a phone call, because I would have had to drive to my mother’s to give her her medications.

Then I noticed the time.

It wasn’t even 9am yet.

They are supposed to give her her medications before 7 an 9am.

I mentioned the time and said, they probably just haven’t made it yet.

Well, my mother was still quite angry. She can manage her own medications. They don’t always come at the same time. She doesn’t need this big box.

We talked for awhile and I reminded her, this was doctor’s orders. It was for her own safety.

Oh, so my children don’t trust me?

I brought up that she herself has noticed she is not remembering things. Then I brought up the pill boxes full of loose pills I’d found when I got her old bubble packs to take the the pharmacy, and that the pharmacist had to dispose of them. She has a history of messing with her medications, and things like that were why she needed a lock box and med assist from home care. This is for her safety.

I didn’t bring it up with my mother, but in the group chat with my siblings later, I mentioned that all these pills she had in there were pills she did not take when she should have. Plus, she ignored the days and times on the bubble packs, just staring from the top, and taking them whenever she had her breakfast, because she is supposed to take them with food (except I don’t think any of them actually specify to take with food). And by “with food”, she means with a couple of crackers or cookies or a piece of toast and, before we got the home care med assist, she would take them at 5am and 5pm and before bed, instead of the times on the bubble pack. As a result, she often had a couple of active bubble packs going at once, and really made things harder for the home care aids.

But all of that would have been too much to talk to her about. We basically just have to bring it down to “doctor’s orders” and “it’s for your safety.”

Our call got interrupted, though, by a knock at the door.

The home care aid had arrived to give her her morning medications.

My mother has no understanding of how much she is messing herself up.

After I got off the phone with my mother, I updated my siblings again. My mother’s behavior is a strong demonstration of just why having that lock box, and home care visits for her med assist, is so important. We were able to chat for a bit, wondering about how my mother will handle having a Life Line, once that gets set up.

It can be really hard to help my mother when she keeps trying to sabotage our efforts. These group chats and updates are extra important, because my mother will say one thing to me, then something different to each of my siblings, then tries to play us against each other. This is something she has done for pretty much as long as I can remember though, of course, as a child, I had no understanding of what she was doing.

Aside from the group chat, I got a Valentine’s Day message from my SIL, which is when I was reminded that that’s what today it.

Which got me to thinking about the whole theme of Valentine’s Day being about love, and about what it means to love someone. Years ago, I read a point someone very wise said.

Love is a verb.

Most of us think of love as a feeling. Something you “fall into”. An emotion.

Which all can be part of love but, in the end, love is not how we feel, but what we do.

The English language rather fails when it comes to the word love. There are too many definitions for one word. The Ancient Greeks had different words for love that I think we could not go wrong, bringing back. They also viewed their words for love on a sort of scale. There are nine modern and ancient words for love. Here are four ancient ones.

The first type of love – the basest form – is eros. Eros is physical love, and the root of our word, erotica. Eros is about sex, really. In English, it would probably be better translated as “lust”. Eros was considered the lowest form of love.

The next type of love is philia. This is platonic love. Yes, there is a physical aspect to it – hugs and kisses between friends that have zero sexual connotations – but philia is brotherly love. The love of deep friendship. Philia is used in many ways in our language. Philadelphia is known as the “city of brotherly love” based on the Greek definition. It is also found in the suffix -phile. One example being bibliophile, a lover of books.

The next type of love, higher on the scale, is storgê. This is what might be called, family love. It is particularly used to described married couples raising their children together.

The highest form of love, however is ágape. This is unconditional love. Sacrificial love. Agape is independent of any external factors. It is given wholly, and expects nothing in return. Agape is the foundation of Christianity; that Jesus set aside His godhood to live fully human; a sinless life we could not hope to achieve, take on the punishment for our sins we all deserve – all of us, throughout humanity, throughout time. An execution so horrific, a new word was invented to describe the pain. Excruciating. Ex crucio. From the cross. To die in our place, so that He could conquer death, that we may live. All we have to do is fully accept this gift of His, yet we have no obligation to do so. That is the height of agape love.

So what is love, in our daily lives?

Love is what we do.

Love is to be friends with someone, be apart for years, yet when reunited, it’s as if those years apart never happened.

Love is seeing each other at our best and at our worst, and still being there for each other.

Love is a couple growing old together, facing the world together, long after the tingles have faded.

Love is a parent denying a child something they want, in favour of something they need, even when the child has a blowout and says they hate us for it.

In one of my recent devotions, these verses from Luke 11 were included.

5Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity e he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

While the devotion was about persistence in prayer, as both a parent and someone with a lifelong interest in how people lived in the past, this line stands out to me.

‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 

In context for the time period, most likely the family was sleeping together on a mat woven of reeds or grasses. Even overnight visitors would join the pile. Can you just picture it? Husband and wife, lying on the floor, their kids snuggled up around or even on them. Dad there with a toddler on his chest and another child on each side, while Mom lies next to them with a babe at her breast… and then there’s a knock at the door! No wonder the response is “don’t bother me… I can’t get up…” !!

For most of human history, that’s how we slept. That’s how we lived. We had almost constant physical contact with each other. It wasn’t until the Victorian era that houses started to have rooms set aside just for sleeping, and that children got separate rooms to sleep in. Even now, in many places around the world, separate bedrooms (and sometimes just having beds) are a luxury, and the idea of children sleeping apart from their parents would be unheard of.

Sadly, we live in a world hungry for love. Real love.

We even hunger for the platonic physical aspects of love that used to be just part of our everything living, before cradles and cribs and separate beds and bedrooms became the norm, among other changes. Our culture has become so hungry for philia and storge, many turn to eros to fill the emptiness. We have reached a point when many cannot view any sort of physical affection as being anything but eros. A parent can’t even kiss their own child on the lips, or a mother breastfeed her baby, without people viewing it as something sexual in nature.

Our current culture, at least in our Western nations, has redefined love in other ways. To far too many, love means to always go along with what a person wants. To validate and enable anything they do, even if they are self harming in the process. It means to agree with anything they say, no matter how wrong they are. If you do not do this, you get accused of hate – another word that has been redefined dramatically!

Which brings me back to today.

Today, my mother was very angry about her medications being in a lock box. When told the reason why, she tried to turn it around and accuse us of not trusting her.

For some people, the “loving” thing would be to do what she wants. To make her “happy” by giving in. Take away the lock box, and let her take her meds whenever she thinks she should, or only the ones she thinks she should, even though she can’t remember what all of them are anymore, and certainly doesn’t know what the new ones are.

That would, of course, be wrong and even harmful. So the loving thing to do is NOT what she wants, but what is good for her, even if she can’t understand it and has hairy fits about it.

When it comes to my mother, I don’t “feel” love for her. I don’t know if I ever have. Years of confusing and abusive behaviour made that impossible. But she is my mother, and I still “do” love for her. She can get mad at me and yell at me and say cruel things to me, but I will still “do” love. Or she can flip like a switch and suddenly become oddly generous or kind, and I don’t know if it’s real, or if she’s trying to mess with me. It doesn’t matter. I will still “do” love. That doesn’t mean I’ll put up with the behavior, and I will call her out on it – which is also a way to “do” love.

I can make similar parallels to our home life, where my husband has to sleep in a hospital bed in another room. We may not be able to share a bed, but we can still “do” love.

Or where our daughters gave up so much to move out with us, turned the poorly insulated upstairs into their own apartment, and put up with freezing winters and boiling summers up there.

Or my younger daughter crawling out of a warm bed this morning, to go outside in freezing temperatures, to feed and water the cats while I wait for a phone call.

There are so many ways to “do” love.

This Valentine’s Day, I wish you much philia. I wish you storge and agape and even, if appropriate, a little bit of eros!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Image generated by WP AI

The Re-Farmer

Home again

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Well, I’m certainly glad I got the truck in, even with the bitter cold!

As I write this, we are at -23C/-9F but it’s sunny enough that, instead of a wind chill, our “feels like” is -21C/-6F Which actually feels balmy, compared to this morning!

When I got home, I found this fluffball enjoying the sun.

I was actually able to pet this one, this morning. He (she?) was in a cat bed in the sun room, back towards me, so I snuck up and started giving shoulder rubs. S/he turned to look at me, but I think was just too cold to run away. There was frost on its face fur!

I can see why the vets would think our current crop of fluffy cats are Norwegian Forest Cats! We just thought of them as long haired tabbies.

Anyhow.

I headed out later than I normally would have – making sure to give the truck time to warm up! – as I wanted to go to the post office. The store it’s in closes at noon today, so if I didn’t pick it up this morning, it would have to wait until tomorrow, and we’re going to have a cat in the truck, tomorrow.

The store opens at 9 and drop off time at the garage was at 9:30. It typically takes half an hour to get to town, so I sent a quick message saying I might be late. Much to my surprise, I was actually 10 minutes early! No slow vehicles to get stuck behind, no road conditions to slow me down, it was a perfect drive in! I hadn’t realized how rare that is, considering what I’ve become used to, lately.

While dropping off the keys, we went over what was being done. He had me for fixing a slow leak, and I said the valve would need replacing. It’s been a long time since they checked the valves for leaks, plus my tires have been rotated since then, so he was going to check the whole tire, anyhow. I remembered to ask if he could check the oil level, too. It’s been so cold, I haven’t done it in a while. I was also down to have the passenger side windshield piper replaced. I forgot to tear off the loose bit, so the entire drive to town, I was hearing the flappityflappity sound of the loose piece hitting the truck in the wind. 😄

My plan had been to go to the motel next door, where there is a Chinese restaurant, to have breakfast and wait – it was only expected to be an hour – then pick up a few things at the grocery store after getting the truck back. Walking to the main doors of the hotel, however, I found the doors locked. It was still too early!

While the walk was only about a minute, maybe two, I was already feeling the cold, so I went across the street to the grocery store. There was no way I was going to walk into the downtown area to try and find someplace open I could stay at. I knew the closest one didn’t open until 10, anyhow.

I didn’t have much to pick up, but I took my time about it. The deli had hot breakfast sandwiches available, so I picked up a couple of those for breakfast. They were wrapped and the stickers had a price, but nothing about what kind they were. I thought they might be breakfast bagels, but they turned out to be sausage and egg on an English muffin. They were quite good, too. Just on the small side. 😁 A heartier breakfast would have been preferred, in this cold! I ended up eating in the grocery store vestibule, because there was nowhere else indoors available. I also ended up getting a couple of soft sided grocery bags, one insulated, one not, since all of mine where in the truck. I’d picked up another whole chicken for the freezer – they are still on sale, with even the heaviest chickens in the $10 range. According to my receipt, I saved $7.85 by weight. They still had the 5 count bags of avocados available and on sale. They were already down to $4.99, when they are usually around $7.99, but my loyalty card brought it down to $2.99. We still have some at home, so I only got one bag.

After taking my time to get everything, then taking my time to eat my breakfast sandwiches, I finally headed back to the garage across the street. It was already noticeably warmer by then, too. It was only a couple of degrees warmer, but enough to really feel the difference.

The truck hadn’t been taken in, yet. A delivery truck had come in, and the trailer was long enough to block both bay doors. They were done unloading, though. I went in to get my key, so I could put the groceries in the truck, but the mechanic already had it. He just to move a couple of small vehicles (including the most adorable import trucks; I believe they are common in Europe, but they are rare, here) out of the bay once the trailer was moved, then he could bring my truck in. That gave me time to put my bags in the truck. He’d asked me to start the engine for him if I could, but he was done before I was!

With the truck going in about half an hour late, that meant I still had an hour or so to kill. Not that I was in any hurry, but there just aren’t a lot of options for places to go and just hang out, in the winter. It was late enough that I knew the DQ would be open, and they were pretty close, so that’s where I went. I was their first order of the day, and still the only customer, by the time I left! Which was good for me; I got to miss the lunch crowd.

When I meandered my way back to the garage, I saw the company truck was gone, so it was just the mechanic. The truck’s tire was still off and waiting.

He confirmed that it was the valve that was leaking, however they found that the sensor’s battery was simply dead. Considering it would be 14 years old, that’s not too unexpected!

So I waited in their office for the owner to come back. I had two options for the fix. I could get the valve replaced with a valve and no sensor. That would be cheaper, but I would have the warning light on my console display all the time. Or I could get the valve and sensor replaced. Which is what I was budgeted for, anyhow.

He told me he’d checked all the tires, and got zero readings. None of the sensors are working anymore! I know at least one was working, last summer, as we got a low tire warning. That was what got us looking for the problem in the first place, and where we found that three out of four valves had slow leaks. Two were barely noticeable, while one – the one getting fixed today – was leaking more. He suggested we get the others replaced, as we can afford it, which is what I was already planning to do.

So the sensor got replaced and programmed. If you click through to the next image in the Instagram slide show, above, you’ll see our bill.

Oh! Instagram cut it off! I had set it to full size. Crud.

For all but the oil, the .99 was cut off the prices. I’m glad I got the wiper done here. It turns out he can get them at discounted prices. If I’d gone to Canadian Tire, which I might have been able to do tomorrow, the same blade would have cost closer to $50. He also topped up my oil with half a liter, which was nice. The synthetic oil for our truck is quite expensive, so paying for just half a liter is fine by me! The truck will be back next month for an oil change, after getting the engine cleaned and the oil sensor replaced. Hopefully, that will get all residual moisture out of the system, and we will no longer have issues with it.

Anyhow, the grand total came out to $149 and change. Lower than I had budgeted for, which is nice.

What was also nice was seeing that he didn’t charge me for labour!

That done, I just made a stop to fill the tank (I was just under 3/4 tank, and it cost almost $62 to fill, at $1.569/L), then headed home.

Along with the adorable fluffy baby in the first photo, I saw many other cats going in and out of the garage! That always makes me nervous, as I drive in.

I also spotted these two.

It looks like I caught The Grink while he was winking!

The sunshine through those windows would be making it extra cozy in there. For all that there is a 250w heat lamp aimed towards the back, I’ve been finding frozen remains of wet cat food in their bowl! The bowl isn’t directly in front of the heat lamp, but it is right next to the bed they are in. Even the spoonful I put on the shelf above had been mostly frozen.

Gosh, I wish Fluffy would let us handle her! She needs pets. And hugs. And cuddles. So does The Grink! We haven’t even been able to touch her (or him), never mind check her incision.

Midnight was hanging around when I came by, but not close enough that I could see his shaved spot. 😄 It’s too bad he got out of the isolation shelter, but at least it was him, and not her. Neuters are far less of a concern. I was happy to see he still has his collar, too.

So the tire is now done, and the oil is topped up. We are good to go for tomorrow’s trip to the vet! The isolation shelter will be opened up again, and the other cats will be able to snuggle up in there again. Considering I regularly counted as many as 15 cats in the upper level at once, I’d say that might explain why I’m seeing so many cats in the rafters of the garage lately!

In other things, after I got home, I made sure to call the eye clinic in the city. My mother’s appointment was for next week, but she really balked at going. Which I totally understand. She is still recovering from her edema, so the more time she has on her water pills, before a long drive like this, the better. That got rescheduled to a month from now.

The weird thing was getting a call from home care. They wanted to confirm the lock box code, which surprised me. Did my mother not get her morning meds? Apparently she did, so… why confirm the code? The other concern was that my mother’s inhaler wasn’t in the box. My mother had brought the one from the hospital home in her purse, so it wasn’t with the bubble packs. The new inhaler, still in its box, probably was. We’re not as concerned about the inhaler as with my mother messing with her medications – the new lock box came in yesterday, so last night, my brother and his wife drove out to set it up for her. My mother tried to insist, she can manage her medications herself, but my brother just told her, doctor’s orders. In fact, if they had known she would be without a lock box when she got home, because the first one was too small for her bubble packs, they would not have discharged her.

The weird part was when the home care lady tried to confirm a code for a lock box I knew nothing about. When I expressed my confusion, she asked, isn’t there a lock box for the building?

Now, I know they have a lock box for the fire department/first responders, right at the main entrance, but a medical lock box for the building? I’ve never heard of one!

I did have to ask if my mother actually got her medications this morning, if there was doubt about the code on the new lock box. Now that I think about it, the lock box was set up before my mother’s last med assist of the day, so if there was an issue, it would have first happened last night, and I would have gotten a call then. As far as she could see from the files, my mother did get her medications. It was just the inhaler that was of concern, because it was not in the lock box. In the end, it was decided the inhaler would be kept in the lock box, too, just for consistency.

At least that is taken care of!

Meanwhile, I’m glad to be home and no longer having to drive anywhere until tomorrow. I was hearing weather reports on the radio while I was driving. The entire province is still under an ongoing extreme cold warning, with some places expecting wind chills of -43C/-45F – all well to the south of us, though. According to my weather app, our region’s cold warning is expected to end at 8:18pm this evening.

How strangely specific.

Our overnight lows are still expected to reach below -30C/-22F, so I’m guessing that means the wind chills in our area are no longer expected to reach the -40C/F range.

I probably sound like a broken record by now, but I am so done with winter right now.

We are still at our high of the day (-21C/-6F). At least the sun room thermometer was reading 0C/32F when I checked a little while ago. It may not be the most effective sun room, but it’s enough to have some decent passive solar heat, even on days like today!

*sigh*

Time to go feed and water the outside cats, before the temperature starts dropping again.

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

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

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