Medical

An unexpected (good) sabotage?

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Today, I was able to get to my mother’s apartment, then to visit her in the hospital.

I wasn’t sure how that was going to work out, after learning how things went with my brother, last night.

My brother, SIL and their grandson went to visit my mother after my brother had put in a long day at work, driving out in what turned out to be a snow storm. We got a fair bit of snow here, but the closer you get to the lake, the more humidity and the heavier the snow. When they got there, they tried the regular doors to get into the hospital, but they were locked. I don’t even try the regular doors and go through the emergency room doors, but my brother forgets to do that. In the end, they decided he and their grandson would go in, while my SIL stayed with the car. That way, when they were ready to leave, she would drive around to the emergency room doors to pick them up, so they wouldn’t have to walk around the hospital in the storm.

Well, my mother was in “fine” form when they got there. At first, she didn’t really recognize them – I’m sure they were pretty bundled up in winter wear, plus, she wasn’t expecting them. For some reason, she was expecting me, but my brother told her I was coming tomorrow (meaning, today).

Then she started complaining about how late it was (it was still early evening).

When they told her about the poor driving conditions, and that my SIL was waiting in the car, my mother took it as a personal insult, and that my SIL didn’t want to “see her face”. Which is weird, because my mother hates my SIL (while saying she loves her) and has been trying to break up their marriage for years.

Anyhow, when my brother commented on how she went straight to the negative, she doubled down and got worse, so they left.

It was white knuckled driving, all the way home.

Needless to say, I wasn’t really looking forward to my visit today.

Road conditions were… passable, but not very good. It wasn’t snowing anymore, but there was plenty of packed snow on the roads, and blowing snow was starting to create drifts. Still, I’ve driven in far worse.

I got to my mother’s apartment, where I found her mail pushed under her door – a neighbour has been bringing her mail to her door for years. My brother will be getting that redirected to his place, once we know what’s going on with my mother after she leaves the hospital. I made sure to leave the Lifeline pendant with the base, checked her answering machine, etc. There were a few items she asked me to bring, one of which I couldn’t find. Which I was actually okay with, since it was something she meant to use to “educate” the hospital staff about the “history of Canada” that she’d written down. She would be wildly inappropriate about it.

I also grabbed her one live plant to take home, as she asked me to do, then headed over to the hospital. Blowing snow was even worse on that part of the drive.

Once at the hospital, I was able to park at my usual parking lot not far from the emergency room entrance. A few spots down, I noticed and SUV that looked kinda like our vandal’s, but didn’t think too much of it. It’s not an uncommon vehicle or colour.

Once inside, I made a quick dash to use the washroom near the emergency room waiting area (the emergency room was closed) before going to my mother’s. As I was leaving, I saw someone in one of the waiting room chairs, looking away from me, slowly getting up and starting to walk down the hall towards the nursing station.

It was our vandal. He wife was a few feet ahead of him, down the hall.

Our vandal didn’t see me as I passed him, and it’s possible he would not have recognized me from behind, while bundled up in winter wear, but his wife turned and saw me as I passed her. She looked really angry, before she even saw me. I said hello, but she just asked if I was going to see my mother. I said yes, and kept on going. I heard her start talking to our vandal, but didn’t pay too much attention. I knew they wouldn’t go to see my mother while I was there.

My mother seemed surprised to see me, even though my brother had told her I would be coming today. I brought out the things she asked me to bring, then brought out the gift I’d made for her.

She had mentioned using the sleep hat I made for her, using Blanket Yarn, to warm her hands, so I got more Blanket Yarn to make her a double thick muff for her hands in solid grey, then used leftover yarn from her hat to do the edging.

When she saw it, she immediately start making snarky comments about how we keep bringing things for her. I told her, this was so she could keep her hands and her head warm at the same time. She did not approve, though she did make a comment about how, in her younger days, these were very popular, and she had one that was all furry.

She then commented on how this was the same yarn I used to make a “scarf”. I’ve never used this yarn to make a scarf, but it turned out she meant the wheelchair shawl I’d crocheted for her late sister. I told her that no, I used Bamboo Silk to make that shawl, but my mother insisted it was the same yarn.

Then she started happily talking about how, after her sister passed away and my cousin gave the shawl to my mother, my mother had washed it, then “drrrrrrrr drrrrrrr drrrrrrr”, she said, as she mimed undoing the crochet. She said she had such fun doing that! Then she told me she balled the yarn up and gave it to me, then told me again that she made sure to wash it, first, so it was clean. Like somehow that was the most important thing? Or, she thought her sister was really dirty while wearing it?

My tongue was practically bleeding from my trying not to say anything. My mother still can’t understand the problem with her destroying something I’d made as a gift for her sister. No more than she can understand how much she hurt my daughter when we discovered she’d done the same thing with a shawl my then-early-teenaged daughter had made for her, after carefully selecting the yarn and colour, paid for out of her own allowance, and lovingly spending weeks crocheting it.

She mentioned my brother had come to visit, and I said I knew about it. Oh, you talked to him? Yes. Yes I did. She brought up how my SIL stayed in the car rather than come in to see her. I told her, they drove out in a storm, after my brother finished work, and reminded her of why my SIL stayed in the car, and how is it that she couldn’t appreciate that they were able to visit at all? She never even mentioned her great grandson. He may as well not have been there. She brought up how it “wasn’t the first time” my SIL stayed in the car rather than visit my mother. I was biting my tongue on that one, too. When I defended my brother and SIL, she just started crossing herself and changed the subject.

I did mentioned to her about seeing our vandal and his wife on the way over, and that they were unlikely to come visit while I was there, but might come later. I also added that I wasn’t going to stay long, because the roads were bad, plus I had her plant in the truck. She scoffed and said “of course” when I said I couldn’t stay long because of road conditions. Then started talking about how “every time” we say we can’t stay long, she forgets all the things she meant to talk about while we were there. One of the things she asked me to bring was her notebook and writing implements, so I told her that she can now write these things down as she thinks of them, so she won’t forget next time.

We talked a bit about what to do with her things in her apartment. When I told her I couldn’t find her notes and didn’t want to dig through her papers (she has bins and boxes of papers everywhere, most of it junk) to look for it, she was perplexed. Apparently, it should have been in the open and easy to find. That got her to saying how my sister is to take all her papers and pictures, and her clothes. I suggested she could give my sister her key, so she could do that when she’s able, and we don’t have to try coordinating with each other’s schedules. Not until we know officially know what’s going to happen with my mother next, though. She did make a big deal – again – about how we shouldn’t throw anything away, and not to leave things in the common room because the staff throws it out. She is really fixated on that, even though we’ve told her, many times now, that we won’t be leaving anything of hers in the common room for her neighbours.

Then there was a knock at the door and a nurse came in to take her lunch tray. It was the male nurse again. My mother did thank him for taking her tray, but you could tell, she was not happy to see him. After he left, she snarked about “red pants”. My reaction was along the lines of “so??” “On a man!” was her response. Yes, Mom. Men are allowed to wear colours.

She started crossing herself again.

*sigh*

So the entire visit was… okay, but not really a good visit. We quickly ran out of things to talk about – it hasn’t been that long since I’ve visited her last. Then, for someone who complained because I said I couldn’t stay long, she basically said, okay, we’re done. You can leave now.

🙄

Which was fine by me.

My mother is very good at driving people away from her, and making them not want to be around her. She is also oblivious to the fact that her actions are having this effect. The irony of this is, as negative as she gets with my brother and I, if our vandal have visited, I know she would be fawning over him. It’s like, the more abusive she is, the more she tries to cater to him, while being absolutely horrible to my brother, the person who has been helping her the most and has never been anything but kind to her for decades.

*sigh*

As I was leaving, there was no signs of our vandal and his wife, and the vehicle I’m now sure was his was gone, so it looks like they headed home after seeing that I was going to visit my mother. If this was something they were meaning to do after a chemo session, then that makes sense.

So it looks like I sabotaged a visit from them.

Which, under the circumstances, is a good thing.

Before I left, I did remind my mother that, if they came in together, our vandal would probably behave while his wife is around, but if he came in alone, I told her that she can use the help button to call someone, so that she’s not alone with him. We just can’t know, from one day to the next, what he will do.

Unfortunately, I trust my mother about as much as I trust our vandal. Especially after she manipulated my sister and they both lied about it, in regards to our vandal.

*sigh*

Anyhow.

After visiting my mother, I swung by the grocery store to get some hot dog fixings to do a cookout. There were some really good sales on, though, so I ended up getting more. I even got some beef stew meat – something that we can rarely afford to buy, these days. That done, I picked up a bit of gas and headed home. Between the groceries and the plant from my mother’s place, I drove up to the house to unload.

Once I was parked in the garage, I had something to eat, changed, then headed back outside to break out Spewie to clear the driveway. We got just enough snow to make it harder to drive around the yard, and I almost got stuck at the end of the driveway by the road.

In the end, I was physically able to only clear the area in front of the garage and a bit towards the people gate in the chain link fence. Not quite all the way, as I was using only one 100′ extension cord and didn’t want to add another. It was getting too painful after a while, so I had to call it a day before I was done. Tomorrow, I’ll have to head back out and start adding extension cords and doing the rest of the driveway to the road.

Before I went into the house, though, I did shovel the sidewalk and the cat paths, at least, before feeding the outside cats for the evening. The current forecast is now saying highs of -2C/28F over the next two days, then a high of +2C/36F on Tuesday. I want to clear as much as I can over the next couple of days, so that the paths and driveway have a chance to melt at least somewhat clear.

Somewhere in there, we should be able to get the fire pit going again and have ourselves a wiener roast! I’m quite looking forward to that.

As for today, I think the one thing that I would consider my top accomplishment was the inadvertent sabotaging of our vandal visiting my other. It still irritates me that she got him involved again, when we’ve been trying so hard to protect her from him. In her case, there’s a lot of self sabotage. She is often her own worst enemy, and I just don’t know what we can do about it.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Playing in the snow

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Things have warmed up quite a bit today. As I write this, we are at -7C/19F, which is warmer than the predicted forecast.

While I was out doing my morning routine, I decided to take advantage of the weather and do a bit of clean up. Mostly, scraping the packed snow off the sidewalk and shoveling that clear. Then I decided to clean up the path to the compost pile that was starting to fill in and, since I was there anyhow, decided to shovel a new path to the back of the garage. I just had to follow a trail conveniently marked out for me by a deer! 😄

While going past the garden beds there, I was able to mound more snow over the winter sown kohlrabi bed.

The other bed with the winter sown cabbage has a cover stored over it, so I wasn’t going to add more to that one. The cover itself has probably created air pockets that would also serve as insulation to protect the bed.

I look forward to seeing how the winter sown beds work out in the spring! I haven’t even tried to get at the ones in the main garden area. There’s enough snow covering the entire area that I’m not going to bother.

That done, I continued towards the garage, but the closer I got, the harder it was to use the shovel to break through the crust of snow near the top. In the first picture below, you can see a line where I hit with the shovel and managed to just leave a mark. There was loose snow under the hard packed snow, but even clearing that away, plus the loose snow on top, the shovel just couldn’t break through. It already has a crack in it, so I wasn’t going to bash too hard.

Now, what I could have done was get the ice scraper and chop it up, but… I just couldn’t resist.

I got my machete out of the garage, instead.

In the second picture, you can see where I started to clear from the garage side. I didn’t have that much distance left to clear. After shoveling aside the loose snow on top, I started cutting out blocks. Some of them were angled cuts, as I had to make a turn in the path. The snow on the garage side was packed all the way to the ground, and I had to cut blocks in half horizontally so that I could free the top block, then cut again to get the bottom loose. After a while, though, I started reaching where the bottom layer of snow was loose, and it got much easier.

In the third picture, you can see the last bit before I reached the cleared path. The cats really liked the new path! At one point, I even found one tucked into the gap under the hard packed snow in the first picture.

As for the blocks, I ended up setting them along the north wall of the path to the outhouse. A little extra to block the wind and keep it from drifting in, which you can see in the fourth picture of the above slide show.

Last of all, I tidied the new path up with the shovel. Once I was done and putting things away, the cats immediately started running up and down the new path! I’m sure the deer whose trail to the compost pile I cleared will like the new path, too. 😁

I have to admit, I was really, really tempted to keep cutting more blocks and building up more walls. Which I might actually do more of, tomorrow.

Today, however, I needed to go into town, so I headed in for breakfast, instead.

Once in town, my first stop was at the hospital to visit my mother. She seems to be doing pretty good, though she complains that they aren’t “doing” anything for her. I’m not sure what they can do, other than what they are already doing. She seems to be looking for some sort of magical fix for everything. She gets out of breath very easily. There’s nothing they can do about that. She has pain, and they’re already giving her painkillers and using the Voltaren. They’re still giving her water pills more often, to keep the swelling down. She wants the doctor that’s covering for the one on holiday to see her, but for what, exactly? She never quite tells me.

After a while, I told her to just enjoy being there and being taken care of. She doesn’t have to worry about her meals, and if she has trouble at night, she just has to push a button, and help will come. Which is exactly what she has been wanting, for a very long time – to have someone around and available, especially at night. At one point, she told me she had to call for help while in the washroom. She was in too much pain in her hip and back to get up. She asked them to rub on more Voltaren, which is one of the only things that really seems to help her, and she was eventually able to get up. The nurse wanted her to get up and walk right away, but she had to tell her, she needs at least a bit of time for the stuff to start working, first!

I don’t know when the regular doctor will be back from holidays, but once he is, my brother wants to book a meeting with him to discuss my mother’s situation. The only thing we know right now is, there is nothing about her going home. Still, until we get official word that she will be going into some sort of care facility, we can’t really do anything more about her apartment, utilities, etc. I suppose we could start packing things. I’m really not looking forward to going through all my mother’s stuff, but wherever she goes, very little of it will be able to go with her. Basically, her clothes and that’s about it. She might be able to hang some of the family pictures on the wall of wherever she ends up, but if she ends up in the hospital for an extended period, while waiting to a bed to open somewhere, we’ll have to store things ourselves until we know what her set up will be.

In the end, it wasn’t a long visit. There wasn’t anything much new with either of us, and I’ll be back again soon, I’m sure. Now that she’s in the town closest to us, I’ll have more opportunity to visit her.

From there, it was off to the pharmacy, and then to run what errands I could think of, while I was in town.

When I headed out this morning, everything was covered in frost. Normally, that would have gone away during the day, but we’ve been overcast all day, so everything was still looking like something out of a post card while I was heading home.

One nice thing about living in the boonies. I could stop in the middle of the road to take pictures, and didn’t have to worry about traffic. 😄

This is one of them.

The local company the RM contracts with to do the plowing did a fantastic job! There was a brief period few years ago, when a new council decided to lease a snow plow instead, then hire a driver as needed. It was a disaster, and the winter road conditions were the worst anyone could remember. That council was so bad, the province ended up disbanding it after too many people quit in disgust, then taking over until a new council could be elected. The new members went back to contracting with the same company that had been doing such a great job for so many years, and what a difference that has made!

Anyhow, that’s it for today, really. We’re supposed to have some pretty mild weather of the next while – a week from today, they’re now saying we might reach 0C/32F! Hopefully, I’ll be able to take advantage of it. If nothing else, we need to do a dump run when it’s open tomorrow, and then I can keep going to the feed store to the north of us, and get 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats for the month.

Other than that, I might just end up cutting more snow blocks. I haven’t built a snow fort since I was a kid. 😄

The Re-Farmer

First day of the new year – and of course, things got changed up! 😂

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Well, I hope you all had a wonderful time bringing in the New Year! Or, at least, a calm and peaceful one. 😁

I didn’t make it to midnight. 😄

It actually turned out to be a very strange day for me. I’d gone to bed early, so I was up pretty early. I did the outside cats stuff and my short, winter version of my morning rounds, then tried to go back to bed. After numerous interruptions, I did actually get some sleep. So, you’d think I would have been good to stay up until midnight. After all, I rarely get to be before midnight on a normal day. Instead, I could have easily gone back to bed by 5 or 6.

The other odd thing was my body was basically falling apart, all day. Just with normal walking around the house, I’d have a knee start to give out, or a hip start to dislocate. Even just reaching to flush the toilet had my shoulder socket trying to dislocate. Then there were my hands! At one point, I’d made myself a hot drink in one of my giant mugs, which are basically twice the size of a typical coffee mug. When I tried to pick it up by the handle, I found I didn’t have enough grip strength to clasp the handle enough to keep it from sliding through my fingers. I ended up having to ask a daughter to pick it up for me, so that I could grasp it with both hands. It wasn’t until the cup was half empty that I could grip the handle with one hand and not be at risk of dropping it. It was so bizarre!

That was yesterday, but when I woke up today, it was pretty much back to normal. I have no idea why I had such issues yesterday, that would go away overnight like that.

This morning I was feeling good enough that, after doing my rounds, I scraped and cleared the sidewalks and main doorway steps, tidy up the paths that were already dug, and even started to extend more paths. Little by little, I want to dig our way to the fire pit again, but I was going to head back out to open up the turn around space in the inner yard. We will be doing our Costco stock up trip soon, and I want to be able to back up to the house with more room to turn the truck around in the yard.

Well, that’s going to be my focus for tomorrow, instead.

I had called my mother last night to with her a Happy New Year, and she gave me a bit of a list of things she wanted from her place. One of those things was her short wave radio that my brother got for her, so she could listen to her Polish station, with Mass and praying of the rosary.

I passed on to my brother bout the radio, and this morning they told me they were going to her place to get it, and did I want to meet them at the hospital to visit Mom?

I suggested I meet them at her apartment, so I could back some things for her, then they could grab the radio, then we’d go to the hospital together.

So that was the new plan for the day. I was able to leave soon after, which was really early, but I wasn’t sure if I needed to do any shoveling at the end of the driveway. It turned out I didn’t, and there was no need for the plows to go by again. That had me at my mother’s place before they even left home. Which was just fine.

I checked her answering machine, then packed a few things in a bag for my mother, spotting some things I figured she would like to have, even though she hadn’t asked for them directly. I also made sure to water her rosemary plant. That will be coming here to the farm eventually, but I didn’t want to grab it only to have it sitting in a cold truck until I could get home.

I was even able to get the radio partially ready. I just couldn’t get the special antennae down from where it was taped to the window. I’m too short. So when my brother got there, that was all he had to deal with, so he was done and we were heading out in less than 5 minutes.

They have one of their grandsons with them for a while, and the long drives were great for him to get a solid nap in!

Once there, my brother immediately started trying to set up the radio and antennae. In the end, there was just no way to get a strong enough signal for her FM radio station. He was able to find it, but it was really hard to hear, and there was no place he could set up the antennae and get a better signal.

My mother could not grasp why this was an issue. She was instead convinced my brother had bought her a “junk” radio (it is a very high end shortwave radio), because she never had problems before. Meaning, also back here at the farm. My brother told her that we were getting AM radio, but what she was listening to was FM radio. I well remember how hard it was to get an FM signal here, having had to set up antennae wires from my radio when I was a kid. In the end, my brother was able to find an AM station that she used to listen to. No Polish radio, no Christian station, but one where she could at least listen to the news. All she has to do it push the red button to turn it off and on. We tried to stress for her to not touch any dials. Hopefully, she will remember that!

Meanwhile, I unpacked the items I brought for my mother, making sure where I was putting them for her. She was quite happy when she saw some of the extras I’d bought, as they were things she wanted, but had forgotten to ask for.

We then had ourselves a decently long visit. She did seem really tired, and had almost no patience. For example, when my brother started to set up her radio beside her, the folding hospital walker was in the way. He moved it aside and I was going to get it out of the way, but I first had to move the wheelchair aside. My mother started demanding I move the walker to a certain spot, which was basically where the wheelchair was sitting, but when I didn’t immediately do it – because I was moving the wheelchair – she suddenly became enraged and actually started to kick at the walker from where she was sitting, in such a way that could easily have resulted in a fall. When we managed to get her calmed down and I could finally move the walker, she basically just slumped into her chair and started saying how, she’s used to doing things herself, but now has to depend on us, as an explanation for her behaviour. I told her, even she couldn’t do two things, like moving a walker and a wheelchair, at the same time! Which she did acknowledge. Sort of.

It was a good visit, though at times a distracting one, with a very energetic great grandson around. My brother got some recordings of my mother telling stories and singing. I’m glad he thinks to do that. I hardly ever remember to even take photos when I visit!

Once we were done with the visit, we wanted to go somewhere to chat and catch up on things. Being New Year’s Day, the only place that was open and had seating was a Subway. It wasn’t a busy time of day, so we were able to stay and talk for quite a long time. Again, it was very distracted with their grandson, but none of us minded. Eventually, we were able to cover quite a few things, and I even learned more about things that happened while we were living in other provinces over the years. We’re all quite confused over my sister’s recent actions involving our vandal which, I learned, has been a problem for quite some time. It seems both our vandal and my mother have been able to manipulate her very easily. Which is odd, because she really should know better by now. In all honesty, it seems my sister is showing cognitive issues as well, and is not at all as healthy as she may seem. I see way too many red flags. But, she’s skinny, and we all know that skinny people don’t get sick, right? /sarcasm

In the end, we just have to work with the hand we are dealt with and do the best we can, for each other as well as for our mother.

It was getting pretty late in the afternoon by the time we parted ways. One of the two grocery stores in town was open today, so I made a quick stop to pick up a few things before our Costco stock up trip. I haven’t decided exactly when I’ll be doing that, other than not-tomorrow. We are actually supposed to warm up slowly over the next 7-10 days, with expected highs next week just a few degrees below freezing. A good time to do more snow clearing, very little of which can be done with little Spewie. The parts that can be done with Spewie still need to be broken up with a shovel, first. The snow is deeper than Spewie is tall, and much of it is now hard packed by the wind.

One thing I’ve been able to see through various windows are some pretty large fallen branches, but they will have to wait until spring for clean up.

So what was supposed to be a home day ended up being an out all day, day. The nice thing is that I’ve got the girls able to take over my usual outside routine while I’m gone – plus, I came home to supper waiting for me! 😊

As for my mother, we’re going to have to wait until her attending doctor comes back from holidays before we can have a meeting with him and discuss next steps. Once we have something solid to work on, we’ll be able to make decisions about my mother’s apartment.

*sigh*

I have no idea what we’re going to do with her furniture. It’ll probably have to come here to the farm, but we’ve pretty much run out of storage space for larger stuff. We still have all the stuff we cleared out of the house and packed away, because my mother insisted nothing be thrown out. Fair enough. Most of it is in too good a shape to throw away. She did say we could have a garage sale, but that wouldn’t work out well. Not just because of our relative isolation, but that would be an open invitation for our vandal to cause problems. She’s also adamant that nothing goes to any second hand stores, either. So what are we supposed to do with it all?

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out, in due time.

Until then, here’s some cuteness to share with you.

This is Leyendecker and Susan. Can you believe they are siblings from the same litter – and that Leyendecker started out as the tiniest kitten of the litter? He’s an absolute giant, compared to his sister. He’s not just a fat cat, but a big beast in general. He’s even bigger than Big Rig, who was the largest kitten of the litter. She’s a chonk, too, but not quite as big as he is. Susan is one of our smaller, lighter cats now. Their mom is Beep Beep, who is a pretty normal sized cat. Bigger than Susan, but still dwarfed by two of her last babies, before we were finally able to get her fixed.

Okay, I should have gone back over my old posts, first.

Susan is not from the same litter as Leyendecker. She’s one of Beep Beep’s, but older. Beep Beep’s last litter included Leyendecker, Big Rig and two orange babies, Saffron and Turmeric. She also adopted Butterscotch’s last surviving kitten, Nikko, from that year. The orange babies and Butterscotch’s baby all got adopted out. They were pretty much the first kittens the Cat Lady adopted out for us, before she started her own rescue. My daughters just reminded me that Susan is Cheddar’s sibling. So… she is still the tiny sister of a giant cat. Just not the biggest chonky boy of the household! 😄

It gets hard to keep track, at times! It’s a good think I journal this stuff here, or I’d never remember. 😄

The Re-Farmer

Not impressed

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Though I am impressed by Sir Robin’s balance.

His expression looks unimpressed, though!

This is what I find pretty much every time I open the inner door from the old kitchen. Sir Robin, perched on the edge of the screenless window. He stays balanced, even as I open and close the door! Sometimes, there are two or three cats on there when I open the door.

Today has been a pretty uneventful day, with just normal daily routine, except for two things.

The first was a call I got from my brother. He’d received a call from the hospital, and the first thing he said to me was, our mother is okay!

She had a fall today. She somehow managed to slide off the toilet. She was able to reach the call button, but when they arrived, she refused help. !!! She managed to get up on her own, which amazes me, considering the state of her knees. No injuries. No bruises. She’s fine.

She did, however, tell them she can’t go home. She can’t take care of herself anymore. I’ve been saying this from the start, and I know my brother has as well, but she is finally voicing it more directly, too.

My brother did try to talk to someone at the nursing home my mother wants to go to. He got the run around on who he should be talking to, only to be told he should be talking to someone else, instead, etc.

What I found interesting is that the staff there remember my late father, with fondness. My father passed away almost 10 years ago. He was in the nursing home for only about 6 months. Yet, they still remember him! That it is with fondness is no surprise. Every time I called my dad, he would always comment on how well they took care of him. My father was always showing his gratitude and appreciation.

God, I miss him.

The other thing was my sister. No details, of course, but she finally responded to my calling her out on her telling our vandal that my mother was in the hospital. I was careful to challenge what she did, without attacking her personally. Basic rule of debate and argumentation: attack the idea, not the person.

Well, she never addressed a single point I made, but instead attacked me personally while making herself out to be a victim again.

Long store short, I ended up blocking her on FB, and removing her from the family group chat.

There is background to this, which I will not go into, here, but I’m still disappointed. Not surprised, but I had hoped it would not end up this way.

The frustrating part is, my mother makes a big deal about how we wants us all to get along, but she’s the one that keeps playing us against each other, wanting us to keep secrets from each other, and it was her manipulation of my sister that lead to this.

I feel very tired right now, and not in a physical sense.

The Re-Farmer

So frustrating

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Before I get into the frustrating stuff, I will start with the cuteness.

All of them, fluffy.

That first picture, we actually named her Fluffy. We got her to the vet and they wanted a name. It was all I could come up with, quickly! We got her in only because she willingly walked into a carrier. Once in a while, she lets us pet her.

The second picture is of another fluffer, but with more white on the chest. With how much they move around, that extra white is the primary way we can tell them apart. That one has taken to hanging out on the window shelf while I put the food out, and has been willing to let me do that, and even not running away while I pet other cats beside it. It has even sniffed my fingers a bit. I’ve managed to touch him (I’m going to guess “him”, only because – as far as I can tell – he didn’t get pregnant last year), but he takes off when I do.

Then there are these two.

These are both among the oldest kittens of this past year. A matched set of adorable fluffiness.

Now that I look at the picture, I can see why the one tends to have its eye looking half closed all the time. There seems to be an issue with the inner eyelid.

Now, on to the frustrating part.

My daughter and I went into town today. I brought a couple of things for my mother, so we were going to go there first, then go to the grocery store for our last shop of the year.

My mother had requested some of her Pepto, because what the hospital was giving her apparently wasn’t working. She wanted me to sneak it in to her and not tell them. Which I had no intention of doing, but I did bring a bottle from the stash I brought to our place, because my brother buying her to many made her angry instead of thankful. I also grabbed another of my mini tagine sauce bowls for my mother to use to count her pills. I’m glad I had a set of four of those, because two are already at my mother’s apartment!

Our first stop was at the nurse’s station. I showed them the Pepto and explained why my mother wanted it. They had to keep it so that a doctor could authorize it, and she made sure to label it with my mother’s name as we talked. I also showed her the tiny tagine and explained about my mother using it to count pills, because home care would sometimes drop a pill while getting them out of her bubble packs. Now that she’s putting them in her palm to count them, she doesn’t seem to be seeing them as well, and has miscounted. I just wanted them to know what it was there for.

My daughter and I then went on to visit my mother.

The first surprise was that her door was not quite shut. There’s a sign on her door to keep it closed at all times.

The second surprise was when we walked in and found she had a visitor.

Our vandal.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When he saw us walk in, he immediately began to say his good byes and left, not making eye contact with us at all. I did say Happy New Year as he went by, but he ignored it.

After he was gone and I gave my mother a hug hello, I asked if she knew how he found out she was in the hospital. She just threw her hands up and said, maybe my sister. I wasn’t sure about this, since my siblings and I had been talking about making sure not to tell anyone about my mother being in the hospital, so that word would not get to him.

Thankfully, he was on good behaviour, even though his wife was not there, but she had specifically told him not to come around anymore, after his last yelling session at her place, not that long ago. It didn’t stop him from leaving a really nasty letter more recently. We really hoped that she would be safe from him in the hospital. She tried to say he was being okay, but I pointed out to her that’s because she’s in a hospital, not at her apartment – but that this could change at any time.

Then I told brought out her little pill counting bowl, which she was happy with. I told her about bringing the Pepto and leaving it at the desk, which she got angry with. She had told me not to do that, because she intended to basically sneak taking it without the hospital staff knowing. I told her, she can’t do that. They need to know what she is taking, when and how. She complained that they took away her painkillers and I said, it’s the same thing. They can’t leave medications because patients might make mistakes. Oh, but she doesn’t have that problem, so they should let her keep her extra meds. I had to tell her, they can’t pick and choose who they can do this with and pointed out that she does forget things.

Then she got mad at me for another reason. I was wearing my work sweats, and I’ve got a tear in one pantleg. She spotted the hole and got angry. I shouldn’t wear clothes with holes in them because we live in the best country in the world.

…

???

Needless to say, we didn’t stay long. Her lunch was about to be delivered, anyhow.

As we left, I stopped at the nurse’s station again. I’d called about our vandal before, and I wanted to confirm with them who he was. I made sure they knew I understood there isn’t much they can do, but at least there was an awareness of a potential problem.

I had suggested that my daughter go on ahead to the truck while I talked to the, but she stayed with me. She was concerned that our vandal might be hanging out in the parking lot. I later found out that he’s getting his chemo at this hospital, so he’s going to be there regularly.

*sigh*

Also, for someone who is dying, he looked really good and pretty spry.

Thankfully, he wasn’t stalking us in the parking lot, but we also had to keep in mind that he might also be at the grocery store we were going to. Once we parked there, I sent a quick update to my siblings in our chat group about him being there before going in (we never saw him in the grocery store, either, thankfully).

While shopping, I got a response from my sister, saying that people from church had recognized my mother, so that’s probably how word got out. I made a short response saying that my mother thought my sister had told him, but was just guessing. My brother tried to phone me on my cell, but it was just too loud for us to talk. My daughter and I had our own shopping lists, so we took care of that, loaded up the truck, then headed home.

My phone started dinging while we were driving so, when we stopped along the way for my daughter to check the mail, I took a look.

This is where I’m going to be fighting a battle between being honest about things on this blog, while being careful not to say things I shouldn’t, even though this blog is anonymous.

Long story short, my sister did tell our vandal about my mother being in the hospital – at my mother’s request. They both tried to hide that from me and my brother.

The whole point of our group chat has been to communicate with each other because my mother likes to play us against each other, telling each of us different things about the same topics and the like. We also need to protect my mother, not just from people like our vandal, but from herself, if necessary. Yet, my sister still let my mother manipulate her, and … let’s just say, she didn’t see the problem with this. Even after I pointed out that she put my mother’s health and safety at risk, by going along with my mother’s self sabotaging demands.

My brother and SIL, meanwhile, were on their way to visit my mother as well. Once we had the chance, we talked on the phone while they made a stop along the way. As you can imagine, they were pretty alarmed by what my sister did, too, and that our vandal showed up. My sister added something else that is of concern, too. Our vandal’s wife works for the health care system, in some administrative capacity, and apparently said something about the waiting list for the nursing home my mother wants to get into. There have been other things that have come up that suggest that she’s been looking up private medical files and passing things on to our vandal, and that seems to have happened again in relation to my mother. This, of course, would be a PIPA violation.

Anyhow, once at home and settled in, I responded to my sister about what happened. I tried to be very careful in addressing the issue without making personal attacks. She responded with a personal attack.

*sigh*

Unfortunately, all this shows is that my sister cannot be trusted when it comes to caring for our mother, because she allows herself to be manipulated. That is involved our vandal took it from being a minor frustration to alarming, because it has literally put my mother’s safety at risk – and both she and my mother tried to keep it a secret from my brother and I, because they both knew we were against our vandal having access to my mother!

*arrrrggggghhhh*

When they were done their visit, my brother called to update me while they were driving home. They had an all right visit. My mother wouldn’t have said anything except the noticed and commented on a box of chocolates (my mother keeps saying, she doesn’t want sweets) and a Christmas card signed by our vandal and his wife. She then acted like she just remembered that, oh, right, our vandal had come to see her – but he behaved well!

*sigh*

They explained to her, why this is a problem and told her that, if he shows up again, to use the call button so someone will come over, and see that he’s there. That will make things a bit safer for her, at least.

My brother had tried to get some idea of what’s going to be happening with Mom. Everyone is saying we need to talk to someone else, and no one knows anything. One thing we do know now is, if my mother gets paneled to go straight to a nursing home from the hospital, rather than being discharged to home, they will start billing her for her time in the hospital. She would no longer be their patient, so the province won’t cover her costs anymore, so she’ll basically be charged for room and board.

Which means we’re going to have to do something about her apartment, so she’s not paying both at the same time. Yet, we can’t really start doing that until we officially know that she won’t be coming back to her apartment.

My mother has so. Much. Stuff. In that tiny apartment. This is not going to be easy. Most of it is papers she refuses to throw away, but there’s important stuff mixed in with stuff that she should have thrown away long ago. She has a habit of reusing envelopes from junk mail or solicitations for donations and sticking important things in them, all mixed up.

Well, it will need to be done, and that will mostly fall on me, since I’m the closest and my schedule is the most flexible. At least I’ll have a daughter or two, to help me!

I really wish we didn’t have to deal with this whole soap opera going on, and could just focus on taking care of my mother!

Ah, well. Such is life. As my dad used to say, you can laugh, or you can cry, and I’d rather laugh.

So that’s what I’m going to do!

The Re-Farmer

A quiet day, with some updates

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Today, I actually did take a day of rest.

No shoveling. No errands. I went outside to feed the yard cats and that’s it. In fact, I stayed in my PJs all day.

I really needed this.

But first, the cuteness!

Ha! Colby looks so angry in that first picture. The second picture is a feral we can’t touch. S/he always seems to have one eye half closed, and it’s not always the same eye. We might have to call him/her Wink! 😁

The third picture is Hypotenose. He was really wanting attention today!

Last of all, we had Stinky, glowing in the sunlight, and the fluffy feral that looks like Fluffy, but has more white on the chest. This one is finally accepting the offer of food, up on that window shelf, and sometimes, I can sneak a touch.

In other things…

I’m happy to say, my left knee that I bashed last night is doing pretty good. There’s swelling and I can still see a mark, but it doesn’t hurt to the touch, like my right knee still does. That one is getting very colourful as it recovers.

I still can’t figure out how I managed to bash that left knee so hard into the door.

Meanwhile…

Last night, I got an automated notification from my mother’s Lifeline system. When their system reads there might be a technical issue with connectivity, it sends these with instructions to test it. My mother has the Lifeline pendant with her in the hospital. I’ll have to remember to grab that and return it to her apartment.

The notification came so late in the day that, when I called the 800# in the message, it went straight to an answering service that said to call back during office hours. So I called them up today. The call went straight to voice mail, so I let them know my mother was in the hospital and we don’t know when – or if – she is coming home, so to suspend her service for now.

I called the hospital to see how things were with her, and was able to talk to her nurse for today. He had just checked on her. We talked about her concerns with the pills she’s getting. He confirmed that she has been getting her eye vitamin for the past while, though it was a tablet version, not the almost black gel cap type pill she was used to. He told me she empties the pill cup into her palm and counts the pills every time, but sometimes miscounts. This morning, she counted 7 when there were 8, and he suggested she count again. She got the right number the second time. I explained about how, with home care, they would sometimes drop pills, so we had a special little bowl with a lid to put the pills into, that made it easy to count them. Her failing vision may be a contributing factor, too.

Still no information from any doctors on her condition, nor what the next stage will be.

I then got transferred to her room to talk to her, and she was very happy for the call. I told her some of what the nurse told me, and she requested her little bowl to put the pills into for counting. I don’t know when I’ll be at her place next, though, but she said there is no hurry.

She mentioned they took away her painkillers. These would have been her T3s from home. I suspect she may have been taking them, then forgetting she took them and took them again. She brought up again how, she’s taking all these pills, but she still feels this or that – things that are unrelated to what she is being medicated for. Then she asked me to bring her Pepto. It took some questioning, but it seems the hospital did have her some sort of substitute. White instead of pink, and more liquidy. Apparently, it isn’t helping, so she wants her Pepto – but don’t tell them about it! I told her, I can bring the Pepto (I have her spare bottles here at home), but she can’t be hiding things from the hospital staff. They need to know if she’s taking something.

We have plans to go into town tomorrow and pick up a few extras for New Year’s, so I can swing by to visit her as well.

Then she mentioned that her niece had visited her a few times.

This surprised me, because we’ve been making a point of not telling anyone my mother is in the hospital, so our vandal doesn’t find out. My cousin is still pretty close with him, as far as we know, so we weren’t going to tell her. I asked my mother who told her, and she thinks it was my sister, but didn’t know for sure.

After I finished talking to my mother, then updating my siblings, I called the nursing station back and explained the situation. There isn’t much they can do if our vandal shows up, but they are now at least aware of a potential problem. Hopefully, he’s too sick to visit my mother and try to guilt her into giving him money or something, and it’ll be a non-issue.

It really sucks that we have to even think about that sort of thing while my mother is in the hospital!

Well, it is what it is, and we’ll deal. The main thing is, there will now be a notice on her file and they are aware of a potential issue. If all goes well, he still knows nothing about my mother and everything will stay quiet.

Quiet is good.

The Re-Farmer

Again? Really?

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This has been a ridiculous year for me hurting myself.

Since we took care of clearing out my mother’s place of perishables and delivered stuff to her at the hospital yesterday, today was going to be a laundry day for all of us, and I was looking forward to staying home.

Then I fed the outside cats last night, took a good look at what we had left in their kibble bin, then at the weather forecasts. I decided it was worth making a trip to Walmart to get more kibble, just in case.

We had some snow last night, so I did some scraping of sidewalks and shoveling of paths this morning, after feeding the outside cats. As I was finishing up, I found these bundles of adorableness.

Bug is such a… bug! Those eyes!!

That tabby is one that sometimes lets us pet it, I think. The one we names Sweetie during our botched trip to the vet. There are two that are hard to tell apart; Sweetie lets us touch, the other doesn’t. I haven’t been able to pet Colby lately. He just towers over the other kittens! The mostly black one that’s on the left is, I think, Domino. The one that would have been big enough to spay during our botched vet trip, except that would have left Bug and Sweetie stuck in a strange place for hours. Again, I’m not sure, because there are two mostly black kittens that are hard to tell apart. Domino lets us touch, the other one doesn’t!

That done, I decided to check the hours for the feed store at my mother’s town and discovered they were open for short hours today (the other feed store is not open on Saturdays at all), which meant I only needed to drive for about half an hour, instead of about an hour. Plus, I could get bigger bags.

So I headed out in the late morning. The highway was pretty covered with packed snow and ice, and every now and then, I would get completely blinded by snow kicked up by oncoming traffic. Still, it was passable, and I’m glad I decided to go today rather than wait. We’re supposed to get more snow tomorrow. We’re going to have to clear as much of it away as we can, so it doesn’t build up too much on the driveway.

I picked up two 40 pound bags of kibble at the feed store, though I seriously considered getting three, just in case. They cost more at this feed store, though, so the budget decided that two was enough. We will be fine until after New Year’s. I’m just not going to assume we’ll be able to get out and do any shopping before it becomes a necessity.

My daughters had started up the laundry while I was gone, and one of them met me at the garage to help carry the bags in, so I wouldn’t have to drive up to the house. All was going well.

When it was time to feed the outside cats for the evening, I got up to leave my bedroom/office. My door was partially closed, so I started swinging it open to leave.

Somehow, I manage to absolutely slam my left knee into the edge of the door.

Hard.

Hard enough that my daughters came running down the stairs when they heard the noise to check on me!

One of them helped me get to the bathroom and, when I told her I was planning to feed the outside cats next, she took that over for me.

I knew I would need to be proactive, which meant taking my anti-inflammatories a bit early, as well as my prescription painkillers, which I hardly ever need to take. I’ve been taking them more often since I had my fall on the concrete floor in the sun room a few days ago. My right knee is decidedly colourful right now.

My older daughter was a sweetheart and reheated some leftovers for me, so I could take my meds with food (the anti-inflammatories can be very rough on the stomach if they’re not taken with a full meal). When I had the chance, I took a look at my left knee and found a remarkably rectangular red mark, the exact width of my door. 😄

Good grief.

This summer, I tripped on a branch stub of the tree trunk I was working on and had a fall severe enough I had to get my daughter to bring my husband’s walker and help me get up. My left arm and shoulder still hasn’t fully recovered from that. Then, blinded by my frosted over glasses, I tripped on the open door of a cat carrier and fell, hurting my right knee and jarring the left side of my body, which I am still recovering from. Now, I’ve somehow managed to bash my own knee against the edge of a door. Minor injuries are expected, given the sort of work I do outside, but this is the first year I’ve hurt myself this badly, so many times!

On the plus side, I quickly applied Voltaren to my knees (both of them, since my right knee still hurts), which tided me over until the pain killer and anti-inflammatories kicked in. So I’m feeling pretty okay. We’ll see, over the next few days, just how much damage I did to myself.

I was telling my daughter, I feel like I should just crawl into a cave and sleep for the rest of the winter!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Merry Christmas (plus an update)

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Wishing you all a joyous Christmas.

Image generated by WP’s AI – which really messed up the hands, as usual!!! Not sure what’s going on with that donkey and sheep on the left, either. 😂

Blessings to you and your loved ones, this glorious day!

Today, I headed over to visit my mother in the hospital earlier than planned, as we have predictions for “snow showers” this evening. I stayed until she was served her lunch – she got her turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy that she likes so much. When I was a kid, we never did turkey, unless we happened to raised some ourselves that year, so this is a preference she picked up (or finally got to indulge) some time after all us kids were grown and gone.

My mother is looking so much better. Yes, she is still struggling with pain and mobility, but her overall appearance and even mood are great. She honestly looks happier now that she’s in the hospital than I think I’ve seen her in years!

She has commented more than a few times on how good the hospital food is. She doesn’t have any dietary restrictions, and the meals I’ve seen look awesome. What I’m also appreciating is that she is no longer saying things like she needs to stop eating, she eats too much, because she’s too fat (I don’t remember my mother ever being thin). She has also stopped blaming her food, especially meat, for any problems she has had, like the mystery pain in her sternum (not related to her heartburn), or not being able to breathe at night, or headaches or [insert malady of the day here]/ In fact, now that she’s sleeping in a hospital bed that is set at an incline, I haven’t heard her complaining about her breathing, either. From what I’m seeing, she is getting an excellent ratio of protein in her meals; far more than she ate on her own, and the meals themselves are larger than what Meals on Wheels had, which she would say were soooo much food.

They are weighing her regularly, as a way to monitor how much fluids they’ve drained from her edema. She told me what she weighted today, and comments on how it was too much. I told her, this is how they keep track of how much fluids they’ve drained from her with her treatment, so she has probably lost quite a bit of weight, just in the time she’s been in the hospital. Plus, she’s 94 years old. Who cares? Seriously. If all the scare mongers were right when it comes to being fat, she should have died decades ago. Instead, she’s ridiculously healthy, as far as her vitals show. So much so, it’s almost a problem, because then the doctors just want to send her home, when she has mobility and the beginnings of cognitive issues that really should prevent that.

Thankfully, that does not seem to be the plan now. We have yet to see or talk to a doctor, and my mother says she’s seen a doctor only twice since she’s been admitted, and none of the nursing staff we talk to know anything. All they can tell us is, she’s staying for now. There are no discharge plans that they can see. I know I’ve stressed, every time I call and ask about it, that she cannot live independently anymore. I’ve even added that none of us can take her in; I have a disabled husband, and my siblings do not live in accessible housing. Plus, my sister (the oldest of us) is almost 70, so we’re not exactly spring chickens ourselves! Ha! When talking to one of the nurses one time and I mentioned that my sister (who has the closest thing to accessible housing, for at least part of her home) is almost 70, the nurse admitted she was shocked. She said she thought my mother was in her 70’s, so how could she have a daughter that was almost 70?

I told her I have plans to go to her place soon (probably tomorrow, if the roads are good) to empty our her fridge. There are a few things she asked me to bring to her as well. She told me they haven’t been giving her the special vitamin for her wet macular degeneration, so on the way out I talked to today’s nurse about it. I couldn’t remember the name of it – it’s not normally a prescription, but something you can buy off the shelf. My mother got a prescription for it specifically so they could be included in her bubble packs. He said he would look into it.

He phoned me at home some time later and asked more questions about it. Since I was at my computer, we were able to confirm the name of it. He asked me to bring her bubble packs so they could use what she has while they got authorization from their pharmacy to include it with her other meds. They should have had it on their med list for her, but I think the fact that it’s a supplement, not a prescription medication, it fell through the cracks.

My mother also admired the hat I crocheted for myself using the blanket yarn my daughter got me. She asked if I could make one for her, too! Something she can wear at night, because she gets so cold. My brother and SIL had brought her an extra blanket and slipper socks, but her head still gets cold.

So that is a project for me tonight. A simple hat worked up quickly, and I have enough of the blanket yarn left to make one.

Meanwhile, as I write this, my daughters are taking care of roasting the turkey and making our Christmas supper. Since I headed out when I did, everything got shifted around.

All in all, it’s been a very quiet Christmas, which we are quite happy with. When we lived in this province before, and my MIL was still with us, we would do Réveillon on Christmas Eve at my in-laws, Christmas day at my parents, then another big feast on Boxing day with my BIL’s family. As great as it was, we’re more than content to have our quiet Christmases at home. Or course, my husband can’t handle the trip to the city to see his family for any celebrations, anymore, either. Perhaps, one of these year’s, we’ll be up to hosting such a celebration, but my FIL isn’t very mobile, either, and probably wouldn’t be able to make it out here anymore.

The good thing is, with modern technology, we can still be “with” our family members on this happy day.

A quiet day

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I decided to not be an idiot today. 😄😄

My plan had been to see if I could do a bit more shoveling this afternoon. It was supposed to be relatively warm, and there was enough snow last night that the paths and sidewalk really should have been redone, on top of widening areas to make it easier to drive around.

Stinky was unimpressed by the snow.

After doing my morning rounds, I was still thinking of heading back out after breakfast, but in the end, decided against it. I’m feeling remarkably good, after yesterday’s fall. My right knee is certainly getting colourful. I’d hoped to escape it, but today, my entire body was starting to feel stiff and sort. Particularly that left shoulder.

Now, I could have just pain killered up and headed out anyway, but that would likely have set me back for days. In the end, I’m mostly happy I can get out of bed and walk. I’ve certainly had worse pain than this, but I also know what happens if I push myself too far.

Because I can be an idiot that way.

So rather than repeating past mistakes and potentially rendering myself immobile over Christmas, I decided to stay indoors. Mostly. We did get a delivery from the pharmacy today. I had no idea we were getting one. My husband’s bubble packs were ready, and their usual delivery day happens to fall on Christmas day this week, so we got them early. Since I was out anyhow, I did the outside cat stuff early, so I wouldn’t have to fight with my boots again, later on.

It was so hard not to grab the shovel. Just for a little bit…

😄

Instead of heading out and shoveling, I pain killered up and worked on some crochet. I found a ball of cotton and have been making dishcloths. My younger daughter, meanwhile, is in worse shape than I am, after wrestling with little Spewie for so long!

I’m extra glad we decided to just do lots of finger foods and heat and eats for our Christmas Eve celebrations. I’m still planning to do a turkey on Christmas day, but tomorrow, the girls will be taking care of things.

Now is a good time for quiet days.

On another note, I called the hospital to get an update on my mother. She is doing really well and responding well to treatment. The nurse said that my mother was one of her easiest patients, and has been very sweet. Which is a surprise, because she usually isn’t. I think she’s just really happy to be in the hospital right now. It’s not the nursing home she wants to be in, but she was very concerned about being alone if something went wrong.

I asked if she knew anything about the next stage of things for my mother, because she cannot go home to live independently anymore. She had not heard anything about that, but she did tell me, there are no plans to discharge her to go anywhere right now. So that was good news.

I had the call transferred to my mother’s room and we had a bit of a chat. My mother sounded really strong and cheerful. She even told me that she’s been using the hospital wheelchair to get to and from the bathroom! I brought her my late father’s wheelchair a while ago, since she was asking for one, just so she could try it out and we could see how the design worked for her. She refused to use it, insisting she wanted us to get her a new one that was smaller. 🫤

The one in the hospital is pretty much exactly the same size as the one she has at home.

I’m just glad that she is using it, instead of the hospital walker. It’s the kind that has wheels at the back, skids at the front and no seat.

She did have one complaint, and that was being cold. She’d asked for a blanket and they gave her one, but apparently won’t give her another? She thought they had the air conditioning on. Last night, she said she slept under her parka! So when I told her my brother and SIL would be visiting her tonight and were wondering if she needed anything, she asked for a blanket and more socks. So they will be taking care of that. I told her my sister was planning to visit her tomorrow, and I was going to visit on Christmas day. She was happy to hear that, but also said that we didn’t need to come out and visit if the roads are bad or the weather gets worse again. She’s happy with just a phone call. Now that she’s in the hospital, we don’t have to worry about her safety as much anymore!

So that was some good news, there.

Looking at the forecast. Christmas Day is now supposed to reach a high of -8C/18F with snow all day. Previously, we were seeing forecasts as warm as above freezing, but it changes constantly. We’ll see when the day comes, I guess! I’m just glad to be seeing milder temperatures again.

I’m getting too old for the cold.

The Re-Farmer

Okay, so maybe I’m a bit nuts

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After my fall this morning, I really didn’t think I’d be up to doing much of anything for the rest of the day. I still think I’m really going to be feeling it tomorrow…

… and yet…

I ended up falling asleep for something like four hours. Checking my knees, my right knee has some swelling, though not at bad as I thought. I’m sure the anti-inflammatories have made a difference! I can take these up to three times a day, and I now have a 3 months supply. I’ve been taking them only once a day, if at all, so I can take more without any concerns of running out.

Much to my surprise, while my left knee is also starting to let me know that it got hurt, too, I am not in pain, in a general sense. It only hurts when something touches my knee, even if it’s just a cat tail brushing against my knee as I walk by. I’m definitely developing quite the bruise on my right knee.

The left side of my body is also letting me know it’s not happy. This is the side that I hurt the most when I had my fall in the summer. My left shoulder in particular has never really recovered from that. After landing on my right knee, it was my left side that hit the floor – after I bounced off that bucket – so it’s no surprise that my left side is feeling it more.

Still, after my nap, I felt really good. I am not limping, but I already hobble because of the OA and bone spurs in my feet, knees and hips, so I’m just penguin walking a bit more. Walking doesn’t hurt, but WOW am I thankful for all those arm bars that were installed for my late father. I need those at the best of time, and now is not the best of times! I’ve also got the cane with feet that stands on its own at my bedside. I don’t need to use the cane for walking, but I can use it to help me get up and down from my bed.

My daughters took care of changing all the litter boxes today, but a path to the litter pellet compost pile had to be cleared. When my daughter headed out to start on that, I headed out, too. I actually felt good enough to shovel more!

While getting the shovel down from where we hang it in the sun room, I realized that I didn’t actually trip on the cat carrier after all. Even with my fogged up glasses, I knew where it way. What I couldn’t see was the open door, and that’s what my foot caught on.

The carrier has been repositioned! We keep the carriers in various places in the sun room so the cats associate them with safety and comfort, so I didn’t want to move it out entirely.

One of the areas I worked on was the cat paths. Part of this was done this morning, before my fall.

I cleaned up the path to to the catio, then made a new path around all the shelters. This gives access to the little solar panels for the motion sensor lights inside the water bowl and kibble shelters, so we can clear them of snow as needed. I also cleared a second path to the catio shelter.

In the last picture of the above slide show, you can see the path the cats have made in the snow, to where they can get under the storage house. I’ve started to clear a path that way, but not very far, yet. Over time, we will clear a path to the corner of the storage house, and also redo the path to the fire pit and wood piles, so we can use it.

My daughter, meanwhile, was going the much bigger job of clearing turn around space, after making the path to the litter compost pile.

While she struggled with little Spewie, I was able to go behind her and use the snow shovel to break up the packed snow that had formed at the top. Some areas were drifted higher than Spewie is tall, so breaking that up made it easier for the little snow blower to get at it. In between passes, I cleared out a corner at the sidewalk area. This way, once pulled up to the house, we’ll have more room to open the doors and walk around it, while carrying things.

We didn’t finish the job completely, as it was starting to get pretty dark. My daughter has issues with working in the cold, as breathing cold air triggers coughing fits and hurts her lungs. She was wearing a home sewn cloth mask, but it’s snug against her face. Which means it quickly got very wet, resulting in her breathing in her own condensation. My new coat, when zipped all the way up, has a collar that reached up to my nose. That creates a warm bubble of air that prevents coughing fits. My daughter’s coat doesn’t have that. We need to find something she can wear while outside that will created the warm air bubble, but doesn’t touch her face.

Right now, we have enough space for the truck to turn around, though I still want to round out a corner, at the very least. After that, we have some turn around areas in front of the garage I want to widen a bit. I had a chance to walk around the outer yard before heading inside. My brother cleared enough in the outer yard to drive up to the barn, as well as their trailer and camper. He even cleared a path to the electric meter for me, so I can access it to do a reading.

While working on the inner yard, I could see where deer were digging around the the flower and haskap bed between the sidewalk and the vehicle gate. While walking around where my brother had cleared the snow, I found evidence showing the deer were using the cleared paths to get around, too! Much easier than fighting through the deep snow. 😁

Once everything was put away, we came inside to hot tea my older daughter made for us – turmeric and ginger tea, for me! The Instant Pot stew that was started before we headed outside had just finished and was depressurizing, so we had hot food waiting for us as well.

So far, I’m still feeling good, though I can feel I’m stiffening up. I did take more anti-inflammatories and painkillers with my supper, so that should help.

Hard to believe it’s just a couple more days before we start our Christmas activities on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I’m still focused on digging things out, and have left all the decorating and such to my daughters. Not that we do much of that anymore, and what we do is limited to the cat free zone, AKA, the living room. It’s going to be a quiet Christmas this year.

We’re all good with that, anyhow!

The Re-Farmer