This morning, I woke to find a message from my older daughter. She had been up all night, not feeling well at all. Her sister stayed up with her to be available to help out.

Not being in a position to cook for herself, she sent me some funds and a request. After talking to her about it, I added a Walmart trip to my list of places to go today.

The first order of business, was to load up the truck with garbage and recycling for the dump. My younger daughter helped me, but she had been up for more than 24 hours, so she was pretty dead on her feet! She headed to bed shortly after the truck was loaded.

Silly me, I headed out right away, forgetting that the dump is not on summer hours. They open at 10am now, not 9am. Thankfully, I remember that before I was a mile away, so I turned around and headed home. It worked out for the better, since I had time to have a real breakfast before going.

The dump was surprisingly busy today. Driving up to the pit, I found a row of four trucks, two with trailers, unloading. I rarely see more than two vehicles at once.

When I checked in with the attendant and told him I had household garbage and recycling, he said I hoped I had only glass! They have one recycling bin for glass, and the rest for general recycling. Six big bins, and they were all full. The recycling gets taken to the city for processing, and it hadn’t been done yet. After I was done unloading into the pit, I found the least over filled bin. Normally, as per instructions on signs, recycling would be removed from any bags; there’s even a separate blue bin, the size of a large trash bin, just for the bags. I didn’t do that today, and just set all the bags on top. When I saw the attendant going by, I made sure to tell him I was leaving them in the bags, so things wouldn’t get blown away. He appreciated that!

Once done, I headed home long enough to change out of my grubbies, then headed out.

On the way to the truck, I spotted this adorableness.

I’ve turned off the heat lamps in the sun room again, since it stays warmer overnight, but for the next couple of days, I’m leaving the heat lamp on in here. When things warm up again, I’ll shut it off during the day and turn it back on at night.

The cats were really appreciating the heat lamp!

It’s been a while since I’ve been to anywhere I could pick up a card, so I stopped at a small department store to get a Mother’s Day card and signed it before going to the TCU to visit my mother. I stopped at the nursing station first, to ask how she’s been.

The woman that had spoke to us before to talk about my mother wanting to see a doctor, and about her medications, was there. She told me that, after our little meeting, my mother had gone to the nursing station to watch her prepare my mom’s supper time medications – and was already telling her, they were the wrong medications.

They aren’t.

In the end, it comes down to my mother simply refusing to believe the nurses know what they are doing, and believing that they are deliberately messing up her medications, because she’s old and they want old people to die.

*sigh*

The staff tell her what the different pills are, every time they give them to her, explaining which is which and what they are for. She apparently just looks at them and nods her head, most times, and that’s about it. Yet I know she’s been writing notes on a pad she keeps in the drawer under her bedside table, of what she’s getting and when, writing down the descriptions of each pill and making little doodles of them, later on.

As we were talking, another nurse came behind the counter and settled in. Hearing us, she said, “Oh, we’re talking about [my mother].”

“Yes.”

“Ah…”

All I could do was shake my head. It’s not the first time I’ve had that response about my mother! She did clarify that this was a good “ah”. She was my mother’s nurse, this morning.

As we were talking, I brought up about my mother calling me, demanding I take her over to the clinic down the hall, so she could make an appointment with a doctor there. I had told her, I already asked them about it. They won’t do it. Which the nurses both confirmed with me. I told them, I had repeated this several times, until my mother hung up on me – and that’s the last time I have talked to her!

They wished me well on the visit. 😄

After getting updated on things, I went to my mother’s room to see if she was there. She wasn’t, so I headed to the common room. There were other people visiting with another resident in some armchairs by the door. My mother was in her favourite spot; an armchair right in a corner, between two large windows. Snoozing!

She woke right away, though, as I grabbed a chair and settled in beside her. I gave her the card, which she asked me to take out and read to her.

There wasn’t much to talk about, really. My brother had called her yesterday, as he and his wife were going to spend Mother’s Day weekend with their grandsons, in another province. The TCO recreation person had gotten permission from us to take her out for a Mother’s Day meal at a nearby restaurant, which is fully accessible. There were enough ladies to do this with, so they were splitting it between two days. I didn’t know which day my mother was going to be going, and I asked her about it. She said she didn’t go, because she hadn’t been feeling well. In the end, it worked out, because my sister visited that day.

She then asked me what I was planning for Mother’s Day and I ended up telling her about the all-terrain walker my husband got for me, which should arrive soon. Something that can handle being used around our yard as I work, and to keep hand in case I have another fall, like I did last year, where my daughter brought my husband’s walker for me to use to get back to the house. I even mentioned to her that I have my appointment at the sports injury clinic in the city on Monday. That got my mother talking about how my brother and I should really get my sister to be more involved in taking care of my mother, because I have so much to deal with, even though my sister doesn’t understand my mother’s medications like we do. I told her, it makes more sense for me to be the one, because I am the most available, and live the closest.

After a while, my mother brought up about wanting to see a “real” doctor at the clinic down the hall. There are three doctors that some in from the city, she says. Women doctors. She should see them. I tried to explain, again, that the clinic won’t do that. She is under a doctor’s supervision where she is, and there are nurses to take care of her. Nurses that play doctor, she told me. With some of them, she doesn’t believe they are nurses at all. One, because he’s male, and men can’t be nurses, in her mind. She had the same attitude about the male home care workers.

Before she could go off on another tangent, she then told me about the nurses messing up with her medications and not giving her what she’s supposed to, at the right times. She described an incident she says happened more than once that made absolutely no sense to me. Partly because she said she was supposed to have her blood pressure medication at that time, which I knew she didn’t. She got that one earlier in the day. She insisted, and then told me about how this person had given her her Tylenol, but not her other medications. When my mother brought it up, she claimed the person said she got was she was supposed to, but then took a pill out of a blister pack and gave it to her. My mother said she took it.

None of this made sense to me.

In the end, it was a short visit. My mother got her lunch while I was there. A chicken burger, with lettuce and tomato, cut in half, potato salad, canned peaches, tomato juice, milk and the hot water she requests in place of tea. She ate only half her burger, the potato salad, her peaches, had a few sips of tomato juice, but mostly drank the warm water. She offered me the other half of her burger, because she didn’t want it to go to waste. She said she doesn’t have as much appetite anymore. Overall, she seemed pretty down, tired and depressed. She did add that she looks forward to when it’s warmer, so maybe one of her children will take her out to that restaurant for dinner. Considering it was cloudy and trying to rain, I can understand that. Overcast and rainy weather always leaves me feeling drained and tired, too. The only time she showed any sort of energy was when the group of people across the room suddenly started to laugh. My mother glared at them, her eyes filled with absolute rage. That is something she complains about constantly, every time she’s been in the hospital over the years, and now that she’s in the TCU. Other people laughing. She has even berated people in restaurants for laughing. She complains about the noise and how disruptive it is, but I’ve come to realize, it’s not really the noise. She just hates other people showing happiness. Often times, she also believes that they are laughing at her, specifically. I think part of the problem is that she can’t conceive of other people being happy, because she, herself, never is. When – if – she laughs, it’s never out of happiness. It’s usually to mock people, or to try and manipulate them. I honestly can’t remember my mother ever laughing out of happiness, in all my life. I’m sure she had at some point, but I was probably too young to remember it.

My mother’s mind must be a terrible place to be in.

There was very little to talk about, so I helped her put aside the bedside table with the food tray so she could get up, and walked her to her room before heading out.

From there, I drove to the nearer city to do my Walmart run. Since it shares the parking lot, I swung by the Dollarama first, to see if there was anything to pick up. The gardening supplies are being stocked, and they have some really good stakes and plant supports and much better prices. They didn’t have much for those, this time, but I did end up getting a sprinkler hose. Something I can set up under a covered garden bed, so I can water without having to take the cover off completely. I do have a couple of soaker hoses, but they release water so slowly, it takes forever to water a bed. It’s just a cheap one, dollar store hose, so I don’t expect it to last very long, but it’ll last long enough that I can decide on whether it’s worth getting more. At some point, when the budget allows, we’ll probably get a drip irrigation system. Not until we trench a hose from the house and set up a replacement garden tap.

That done, I headed to the Walmart. I had a small list of my own, as well as stuff my daughter requested, and it didn’t take very long. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something, but had no idea what. It didn’t help that this location is still in the process of being renovated, and everything has been moved. It was also really busy, not just with customers, but with pallets, trollies, pallet jacks and more, blocking the aisles.

I remembered what I was forgetting, just now. I don’t even know where the section is, anymore. I was going to pick up water soluble fertilizer to add to the water for the earliest transplants. They’re getting big enough to need it. It’s will probably be at least 4 more weeks before any of them can be transplanted outside, unless I’m able to cover the beds with plastic.

That done, I headed home, though I did have to stop for gas along the way. Gas prices are still $1.889/L

After everything was unloaded and put away, I updated my siblings, then called the TCU. The woman I spoke to before visiting my mother answer the phone, which made things easier. I explained, as best I could, what my mother had told me. It didn’t make sense to her, either.

What I now know, however, is that the Tylenol they get comes sealed in blister packs. The medication my mother gets before bed, which is a blood thinner, not a blood pressure pill, comes in a paper packet that is torn open. My mother had said the nurse had waited and watched her take the Tylenol, but it had to have been her blood thinner – yet she’s never said anything about a pill being taken out of a paper packet.

I was assured that, when my mother is given her medications, each one is shown to her and explained. When talking to me about it later, it’s clear my mother doesn’t believe them. She’s had it explained to her, many times, that even though the pills might look a little different – or a lot different, as is the case with her eye vitamin – they still have the same medication and dose in them. My mother keeps saying, they are the wrong pills. Especially with that eye vitamin. Before, she had been getting the gel version, which is large and almost black in colour. Now, it’s a round white tablet.

I explained that this has been an issue in the past, when the pharmacy changed suppliers for one of her meds. It looked every so slightly different in size and tint. My mother decided that the pharmacist had changed her prescription and was giving her something else. My siblings and I explained it to her. The pharmacist explained it to her. The doctor explained it to her. She never accepted that. I told her about my mother having to have a lock box for her meds, and that I’d found a pill organizer with probably 50 pills in it that she’d taken out of her bubble packs, long before she got the lock box.

I don’t think the problem is that my mother isn’t able understand that the same medication can come indifferent forms. I think it’s more that she refuses to accept that as a possibility. She would rather believe people are incompetent, or deliberately messing with her medications.

*sigh*

Still, the nurse said she would look into what my mother described. She asked if I knew what the nurse looked like, or when it happened, but my mother’s sense of time has gotten very bad, and she only gave a description of things that bothered her for some reason. The hat the nurse was wearing, the fact that she had curls of hair hanging out from under it, behind her head, and that she was wearing a cross body “purse” (with how my mother described it, I don’t think it was a purse) that she never took off. It wasn’t much for her to go on. All I could be relatively sure of is that what my mother described would have happened after the nurse had her meeting with us, so within the past week. In the end, though, I can’t even be 100% sure of that. My mother made it sound like it was recent, but she’s done that about things that have happen days, weeks, even years ago. So who really knows.

Meanwhile, I’m getting messages, photos and video from my brother and SIL, hanging out with their grand kids. Oh, and their son and daughter in law, too. 😁 They’re having a blast! I’m glad they could make the trip out.

All in all, even with the short but rather odd visit with my mother, it’s been a good and relatively productive day. Tomorrow is expected to be cooler again, so I will use that as my excuse to get a real, honest to goodness, day of rest. I hadn’t pushed myself hard yesterday, but I still needed to get my husband to slather on the diclofenac last night. Even between that and the painkillers I took before bed, I was awakened this morning by sharp pain in my hips. Both of them. Which, strangely, lessened as soon as I was up and moving around.

I’m really looking forward to my appointment at the sports injury clinic on Monday!

Hopefully, I won’t have to deal with it again, tomorrow morning!

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer