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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

Cleared out, just in time

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Today’s main goal was to get to my mother’s place and clear out her refrigerator of perishable items, then get her bubble packs to the hospital, before the snow arrived.

My daughter came with me to help out, so she was able to get started on the fridge while I packed a bag of stuff for my mother. There were a few things she asked specifically for, and others I grabbed that I knew she would want, such as her daily devotions book (which is held together with duct tape, she’s read and re-read it so often), the LED candle I got for her for when she said her prayers and when someone from church brought her communion, and a couple of rosaries. A neighbor has been bringing her mail for years and sliding it under her door, and there were a few envelopes we brought for her, too. Of course, I also brought her knee warmers that I washed and added elastic cord to, which will hopefully keep them from sliding off, and the warm sleeping cap I made for her yesterday.

I had done a grocery shopping trip for my mother shortly before she went into the hospital, so there was quite a bit for us to bring home! Some things had to be thrown away, so we took out her garbage, too. I even remembered to give her rosemary plant a deep watering. There are still a few things in her fridge that aren’t perishable that we are leaving until we come back to shut it off and clean it all out. Not sure when that will happen.

Once everything was packed up, checked out, put away and tended to, my daughter and we had 5 of our hard sided grocery bags to bring home (!!!) plus the items to bring to the hospital. That included her bubble packs that they asked for, plus I found and grabbed the prescription anti-fungal medication for her infected toe that she never used, as she can’t apply it herself. My daughter remembered to grab the baggie of foot care stuff I brought for her, which can now only be used by her, unless sterilized.

It didn’t take very long with two of us working on it, and we were soon loaded and heading to the hospital.

When we got there, my first stop was at the nursing station to drop of my mother’s bubble packs. I pointed out the eye vitamins, and the woman I spoke to said they just don’t have those at all. I also brought out the anti-fungal medication and explained that my mother couldn’t apply it herself. I don’t know that they do that sort of foot care. You’d think they would, considering it’s a hospital, but as I told her what it was, she seemed very… confused? Not sure what other word to use, but it left me thinking, it’s not going to get used.

My mother was sleeping when came in, so we tried to be quiet, but she heard us and got up. We showed her what we brought for her, some of which needed repeating, but she eventually got it and was able to instruct us on where to put things. Then we stayed for a bit of a visit and a chat. That went over well, for the most part – she was happy to see my daughter this time. There were a couple of head shakers, though.

She started telling us that things are quieter at night, now, because she was saying something (I shudder to think how she phrased things). There’s even a hand written sign on her door, to keep closed at all times. She started getting into her favourite thing to complain about: people laughing. As she went on about it, we tried to say, laughing is good. It’s healthy. It’s one thing to have an issue with how loud things are, but there’s nothing wrong with laughing.

Turns out, she really does think there’s something wrong with laughing. People shouldn’t be laughing in the hospital, because there are sick people who are feeling bad, and that will make them feel worse. Of course, she is projecting herself, here, and assumes other patients are as bothered by it as she is. This attitude towards laughing is not new at all. Even when we would be in a restaurant or something and people at another table would laugh loudly, she would get angry. As if she thought they were laughing at her (in some instances, she really did think people were laughing at her, even though they were talking about something else entirely). There were a few times when she would suddenly, loudly, do her sarcastic imitation of a laugh. Got some strange looks out of it, as you can imagine. My daughter even tried to point out that sometimes, people laugh to make other people feel better, and my mother’s response was that they could smile or say nice things, but laughing was for … I think she said for the bar or something like that, but I can’t quite remember. Basically, in her mind, no laughing should happen in hospitals. Because she doesn’t like it. She even tried to misuse the Bible to justify it, bringing up the verse about being happy with those who are happy, crying with those who cry, completely out of context. (ESV Romans 12: 15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”)

As you can imagine, both my daughter and I were rather stunned that my mother was so upset about other people being happy around her.

She also brought up her other favourite complaint: how the staff dresses. She said she’s been telling the nurses and doctors that they should “dress nicely” so people can tell them apart from the janitor – and, according to her, they agree with her. ??? I don’t think that’s quite it. What got us is when she started on how the doctors and nurses deserve more respect than the janitors, because a janitor doesn’t even need 12th grade, and that’s why they should dress different so people should be able to tell them apart.

She said it in such a way that I had to interject and tell her, she needs to treat janitor’s nicely, too, because they also deserve respect. She started mocking about, oh, yes, they call it “equality” and so on, but basically doubled down on how the housekeeping staff are somehow “less”. I told her, they need to be treated with respect because they are children of God, too. She actually found a way to dismiss that while pretending to agree with it at the same time. Then she mentioned some other things about the staff, making it clear she’s been grilling them about their historical and ethnic backgrounds. She was all smiles when she brought up that one nurse’s background was from Denmark. Then one of the other nurses – an Asian male – same up and her entire body language changed, and she was “oh… him.” !!! I’ve met this guy twice, and he also phoned me to follow up about my mother’s meds, asking me to brig her bubble packs over so they could give her her eye vitamins. Between my mother’s attitude and his own body language while talking about my mother, I strongly suspect she said or did something inappropriate towards him.

After updating my family, my sister brought up something that happened during her visit. A couple of guys came in, delivering water bottles. My mother said to them, “Men? You should be in construction!”

*sigh*

We talked a bit about her medications. She told me, one morning they gave her 12 pills. Another, they gave her 9. Her morning meds are usually 6 meds, including a half pill. Whatever they’re doing, they’re either not explaining it to her, or she’s forgetting if they have.

While we were there, a nurse came in to give her 2:00 water pill. So they are clearly giving her more of those than she used to take with her bubble packs. From the looks of her legs, they may want to increase the dose more!

My siblings and I are frustrated by the lack of information and communication. My mother would be difficult to communicate with, but if that’s an issue, they should be calling me. I’m top of the list of my siblings, not just because I live the closest, but because I’ve been her advocate at medical appointments for about 8 years now. If they can’t reach me, they should be calling my brother, who is her PoA. There just doesn’t seem to be anything to go on. Even when I ask the staff at the nursing station and talk to her nurse of the day, they don’t seem to know anything about what’s going on.

It’s still better than for her to be at home, of course, but we’re all pushing for her to be discharged to a nursing home, and there’s just nothing. No feedback. No communication. Meanwhile, my mother is getting all these meds that look different from what she’s used to, and she has no idea what they are giving her. Not that she understood quite all of what she was taking before, anyhow.

She told us she said to the doctor? someone, that she’s taking all these pills, so why is she still feeling so bad? I had to tell her – again – that none of the medications she is taking is for what she is feeling. They are for other, specific, things. She doesn’t get that. Apparently, taking blood pressure medication should also stop her hip from hurting. 🫤

By then, we were more than ready to leave. I could see my daughter was getting extremely uncomfortable with the things my mother was saying. We needed to get home before the weather turned, anyhow.

We did have time to make a couple of quick stops along the way, including a fill at the gas station. Still, we cut it close. As we got closer to home, we drove right into heavy snow. Thankfully, it didn’t last long and the system moved on. Tomorrow is supposed to warm up a bit, again, with no snow, so hopefully we’ll be able to get some stuff done outside.

Speaking of outside…

After we got home, my daughter finished unloading the truck after we brought the first bags of my mother’s fridge stuff in, while I moved on to giving the outside cats their evening food and warm water.

Check this lady out…

What a beauty!

She is getting SO much more matted!

She was supposed to go to the rescue after the 20th, when a space was opened up, but the weather had other ideas. At this point, I’m hoping to have that happen maybe after New Year’s. I don’t want to push them too much on it. They are so desperate for fosters, and they have quite a few cats – mostly kittens, actually – that just aren’t being adopted. They’re really working on getting the word out, both through local organizations and social media, too, posting adoption pictures every chance they can. Some cats and kittens get adopted quickly. Others… crickets.

I was hoping that tomorrow I could stay home and get things done, but I’m looking at our cat food supply, and the weather, and thinking a trip to Walmart might be necessary (the local feed stores would not be open).

I really don’t want to do more driving. We were supposed to be able to hibernate until after New Year’s!

The Re-Farmer

Gloria!

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Yesterday was not just the Fourth Sunday of Advent, but also the winter solstice. Last night was the longest night of the year. From how on, our days will finally start getting a little bit longer!

I’m really going to enjoy that.

I also hope you’ll enjoy this very enthusiastic version of Angels We Have Heard on High. When I was a kid, I used to love belting out the Gloria. I certainly didn’t match how Vasc does it, though!

We can get out now… for now

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Knowing we had a pharmacy delivery coming – and more snow – as soon as I finished giving the outside cats their food and water, I headed to the garage to break out little Spewie.

I then spent the next 2 hours clearing enough space in front of the garage to be able to back the truck out and turn. Then I had to go in to warm up and have breakfast. My down filled coat was completely wet, so I ended up borrowing my daughter’s leather coat. It has no lining, but it cuts the wind completely, so the layers I had underneath were more than enough to keep me warm.

The first picture in the slide show above is what I got done in the morning. For a lot of it, I had to first break up the crust of snow at the top with a shovel before I could get through with little Spewie. With the wind, I was working only in one direction, so the wind could blow the snow away from me. I still got covered in snow, but at least it wasn’t as bad.

When I came about out to work on the driveway to the gate, I broke out a second 100′ extension cord. That was just enough to reach the gate. Thankfully, beyond the gate was blown clear. There was just the plow ridge at the end that needed dealing with.

Which I never got to. As I write this, my younger daughter is actually out there, working on it.

It took another 2-2 1/2 hours to get the driveway cleared to the gate. Dragging that much cord around sure didn’t make things easier! By the time I was done, the snow was starting to come down pretty hard. The wind was worse than the snow, though. I’d gone back to the gate with the shovel to work on the plow ridge but once at the gate, there are no longer any trees to block the wind, and it was just too brutal to keep going.

I discovered something while working on this. I have a step counter app on my phone. When I got in after the first 2 hours of walking back and worth, the app had me at a ridiculously low step count. I had my phone in my chest pocket, so there was no chance of snow getting in and getting it wet. It was so snug in there, it wasn’t counting most of my steps. When I headed out later, I had them in a pants pocket, but I had so many layers, it was still missing most of my steps. We’re talking off by thousands, not just a few steps here and there!

Once inside, I found someone had hung up on our answering machine. Caller ID told me it was the pharmacy, so I gave them a call. It was about the timing of our delivery. Even with the weather getting worse, the driver was already out! So I basically just stayed in my boots and my layers until I got the call from the driver that he was just a few minutes a day (something we have requested the driver does, since we keep the gate closed). I made sure to tell him I hadn’t been able to clear the plow ridge, so he might not be able to pull into our driveway. Then I bundled back up again to meet him at the gate. The plow ridge wasn’t too bad, but a bit much for a sedan, so he just pulled over on the road. As I asked him about road conditions, I noticed something extra on my husband’s bag of prescriptions.

Something that needed to be signed. With his meds including controlled substances, he has a form he (or I, on his behalf) needs to sign for them, once a year.

Neither of us had a pen.

So I brought it in and my husband signed it, then called the pharmacy about it. We hoped he could just take a picture and email that in, but they need the physical paper. He’s getting his bubble packs delivered next week, so we can give it then, or I can bring it over the next time I’m in town.

Which might be tomorrow.

My sister had called the hospital this morning and sent an update. My mother was finally no longer in ER, but in a room, where she has a TV and a phone. She was much happier! She’s going to be on IV for another day, and then… ???

Once I had the chance in the afternoon, I called the hospital again. The nurse I talked to had just checked on my mother, and she was napping.

I had a chance to talk to her about our concerns that she might be discharged to home, and that we felt she could not live independently anymore. We were hoping that, with her in the hospital, perhaps the doctor could make the decision, since home care wasn’t.

Now, when I say “home care” for this stuff, it’s not the local office that takes care of her visits, but a higher up office. Anything we do with the local office when it comes to paneling my mother for long term care gets sent to this higher department. That department is where everything has been stalled. My mother got paneled a second time, less than 2 months ago, and the local home care coordinator had heard nothing since she gave them the updated paperwork.

That department has a liaison in the hospital.

If the doctor thinks my mother needs to go into long term care, but the liaison disagrees, guess who has the final say?

Not the doctor.

The nurse completely understood when I expressed my frustration.

I did have a chance to tell her that my mother can be her own worst enemy. She will complain loudly about minor things, like her “dry mouth”, but it took us (including the home care workers) about a week or more to get her to finally use the Lifeline and get to a hospital.

Guess what my mother has been complaining about to the nurses?

Yup. Her dry mouth.

She can’t accept that she’s simply sleeping with her mouth open. She won’t use the spray. She won’t keep herself hydrated.

The problem with her complaining about the dry mouth is, she’s not talking about why she’s sleeping with her mouth open in the first place. She’s having trouble breathing when she lies down. This isn’t even a sleep apnea thing, because she struggled to breathe when the paramedics had her lying on her back for a few seconds before raising her up to a more seated position.

The nurse assured me that the doctor was aware of the situation. I knew I was forgetting something, and now that I’ve written this, I remember. I never mentioned her macular degeneration is getting worse, and we can’t even transport her to the specialty eye clinic in the city for treatment. She’s losing her vision. More reason for her to not be going home, but to go into long term care from the hospital.

Even the nurse was commenting that, when someone is approaching 100 years of age, like my mother is, they really should be able to just go into long term care if they want!

So I got that update from the nurse and passed info along to my family. My brother and I had already made plans to visit my mother tomorrow but, now that she’s in the hospital, we’re looking at going to her place to pick up some more clothes and whatnot for her, then going to visit her in the hospital.

Assuming the roads are open and cleared.

Then I got a surprise.

A phone call from my mother!

We had a chance to talk for quite a while. She actually sounded better than she has in quite a while. I told her that – then told her to try sounding sick! 😄

My mother being my mother, she had all her usual complaints. She used to work in a hospital 70-75 years ago, so she knows how they are supposed to be run, and always brings up the same thing. There’s always noise, day and night (I told her, she was in the ER. There’s no difference between day and night in the ER! But it should be better, now that she’s in a room). She can here the staff – and instead of using the word “laughing”, she starts to “laugh” in a very mocking and nasty way. She makes this complaint so often, it seems that hearing other people laugh is the thing about being in the hospital she hates the most. She doesn’t like the sound of other people being happy. As for being in a room now, she complained that she could hear another patient, calling for help.

She didn’t care that a patient needed help. She only cared that it was noise she didn’t want to hear.

Then she complained that she can’t tell the difference between a nurse and a janitor, because they all dress the same (she thinks they should be in those old style starched white uniforms, still).

Of course, she was also complaining about how they are giving her her medications. They look different (different pharmacy, different supplier), so she doesn’t think they are the right medications. There was one that she takes at bed time that they didn’t give her until the morning, so that’s another thing that made her believe they are giving her the wrong medications, different medications, they don’t know what they are doing…

If there’s any sign that my mother is feeling better, it’s that she’s hating on everyone around her again.

When I mentioned to her that we were planning to go to her place to get her some clothes, she wanted me to bring her medications. She doesn’t trust them. I told her, I could bring them, but they would have to lock them away (they had to do that with her T3’s that she brought with her) and would not be allowed to use them. They have to use their own supply, not hers. What was obvious was that, if she had access to her own bubble packs, she would be taking her own medications on top of what they were giving her.

She really is her own worse enemy at times!

She also told me the doctor said that she would be there for another week, and that a nurse told her that she had water around her heart. I knew she didn’t have any in her lungs, but the only thing mentioned to us is that they were trying to get the swelling down on her legs. No one has said anything about her heart, and no one has said anything about how long she will be there. When she was in the hospital before, she had told me the doctor said she would be there for another three weeks, but when we brought it up with the doctor, he had no clue what we were talking about.

So that whole situation is just a mess. It will be good when we can go to the hospital in person and talk to the doctor directly!

Whether or not we can get out tomorrow, we shall see. The snow is supposed to continue, off and on, for another 5 hours or so. It’s not a lot of snow, but the blowing snow advisory is on until 7 or 8am. Checking my weather and highway conditions groups, highways are being closed again all over the place.

I expect our roads to be plowed. It’s our own driveway that will be the issue. All the clearing I did will help, but my daughter told me that drift I’d cleared from under our gate was already back, and there was no sign that I’d cleared it earlier.

Also, she is so happy with her Tough Duck overalls. They cut wind like nobody’s business! They aren’t lined, but she didn’t feel the cold at all.

I need to get me a pair, too!

So that’s where we are at. It’s all one day at a time right now.

The Re-Farmer