Category: health

That Sucked

I called my parents today just to say hello. My mother gave me both barrels, right in the face. Boy is she unhappy about moving into an assisted living place. Boy did she let me have it. My favorite was when she said you’re not going to help me get out of here, are you. Yeah, that was the best. Honorable mention goes to the time she said if she had to live there the rest of her life then the rest of her life is going to be really short. No, I am not going to get you out of the place that will take care of you better than anyone you have ever met before can take care of you.

Yeah, that was fun. It was easy to pay attention to work after that. Sure it was.

Self Isolation Day Three-ish

So… what day is it today? It’s the second full day of our little self induced quarantiney thing-a-doo. Does that mean it’s day two or does Friday count as a day even though it was only a partial day? How do these things work? I’m going to call it day three. I don’t know how long it’s going to go. I don’t have the ‘rona so I am never going to get my pabst blue ribbon test results (you gotta read back a few posts to get that joke. I think I pulled it from two previous posts… sorry about that) so when am I clear to re-enter society? We’re thinking about another rapid test on Wednesday or so? If that comes back clean maybe we’re okay? Maybe another pabst blue ribbon to go along with it? I don’t know. Maybe I just stay in Harry’s room for the rest of eternity? Fun, huh?

I didn’t forget to liberate the CPAP machine last night. On Friday night I slept for four hours and 45 minutes and the restful sleep percentage was something stunningly low, like 46% or something. Last night I got seven hours of sleep and the restful sleep percentage was 71%. That’s more like it. I did wake up around 5:00am and didn’t get back to sleep until almost 6:30 so that’s a pretty colossal fail. Other than that, the sleep was pretty good. I feel almost awake now.

When I came home from my pabst blue ribbon test on Friday (that joke getting old yet?) I told my beautiful wife that I was going to need junk food to get through this. It was all like, engines full, stress eating ahead! Then last night I finished dinner before 7:00pm and didn’t have a single bite to eat afterward so I guess the stress eating commences today. I guess. I started my intermittent fast two hours early, which means I can start eating again two hours early, which means 11:00am which is 14 minutes from now so… there is likely to be a significant amount of M&M’s devoured during much of today’s weekend work day and shit.

Okay. Back to it.

Shit.

Was I Wrong?

This whole time I thought that getting them into a safe place where they can get the care they need 24/7 would make me feel better. I don’t know if it’s some sort of adjustment period that I didn’t factor into the equation, but I really don’t feel better today.

Maybe it would feel different if we hadn’t hit the snags we hit yesterday. I knew my parents would need time to adjust to their new normal but I didn’t expect I’d need so much time too.

It’s only day two. I doubt day three will be better. Maybe day four?

Wrong

I am so tired of everything going wrong. I feel like I’m screaming into a hurricane and no one can hear me.

If I didn’t have Jen to help me through this I don’t think I would have made it this far. She’s my rock. She’s my hero.

I love you, sweetie.

Screaming

I’ll probably write up the events of the last three days at some point. Maybe later today.

I just wanted to take a second to mention this one tidbit. Over the last few months there have been a bunch of times when I wrote something along the lines of, I am going to start screaming and when I start I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop. You all ‘member that? Yeah, I ‘member!*

Well you’ll be pleased to know that there did in fact come a time when I did in fact start to scream. It was yesterday afternoon while sitting in the car. Fortunately I was able to stop.

So… win. Yay for me.

*Thats a South Park joke. FYI.

First Last Time

I’m getting ready to head over to my parents’ house. This is likely the last time I will go there while my parents are actually there. It won’t be the last time I go there because there is an eternity of work to do still. It’s just that after today my parents won’t be there anymore.

I expect a lot of emotion. Sadness, nostalgia, all of that. I expect tears. Probably not from me though. My tiny little brain has associated that house with all of the failures and mistakes I made during the first 36 years of my life. Specifically from the day I dropped out of college in 1990 to the day I moved back after getting out for a year in, I think, 1996, to the point where I was a college graduate working a full time job and still living with my parents in 2008.

It’s going to be hard for me not to jump up and down and celebrate while the rest of my family is sad and teary.

Home

I’m home. I’ve been home for an hour or so.

Without saying anything that might jinx things, or giving specifics, last night was most likely my last parent sitting shift. There has been a plan in the works to resolve their health care needs for a while now and those plans should be reaching their conclusion in the morning. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, insert your please don’t jinx anything spell or hex or whatever it is here.

I’ll give more precise details after it’s all done, but suffice to say that it should be over tomorrow, and last night was my last overnight. My sister is there now so she gets the last shift overall. We’ll all be at the house in the morning to carry it through the next step, but then that should be the end of the overnight stuff. It won’t be the end of everything, just the regularly scheduled overnights.

I’m so tired right now that I am not sure if anything I’m writing is making any sense, I just know that I need it to be over and we’re so close I can smell it and I am absolutely terrified that something is going to go wrong and fuck it all up.

Please please please don’t let anything go wrong and fuck it all up.

Wrapping Up

My parent sitting shift is coming to an end soon. It’s going to run a smidge late tonight, I think but that’s okay. I still don’t feel comfortable (or confident) in sharing what’s been happening, though the images from the last 24 hours probably paint a pretty good picture.

After my three hours and 20 minutes of sleep overnight last night, I have been more or less taking Diet Pepsi via an IV directly into my veins. Anything to keep my system as caffeinated as humanly possible. Give me that caramel colored, carbonated, caffeinated, gold.

Further proof that things are changing on the parent sitting front, I am going home tonight and coming back in the morning. Current theory is I’ll get here at some time between 8:00 and 9:00. I’m sure there will be further discussion between the siblings tonight. I might be asleep though. I’ll likely be sleep-texting or something 21st century like that.

I was off work today and most of the goings on were wrapped up before noon. That means I had a lot of time to mess around with 50/90. I got some work done, but not as much as I should have. The whole no-sleep thing held me back a little, I think.

I’m sure there are other things I would normally write about at this point, but I think I am going to wrap it up and put my computer away. Jen and I are going to have a simple dinner tonight. I miss her like crazy after being away for 24 hours. I wanna go home. I wanna see her. I need to give my sweetie a hug (or two).

Right then, clicking Publish now. Until next time….

Example

Dad wanted some leftovers for lunch. He and mom were looking in the fridge but couldn’t find it.

Rob: Someone might have thrown it out.
Mom: What?
Rob: (louder) Someone might have thrown it out.
Mom: Someone might have thrown it out.
Dad: What?
Mom: (louder) Someone might have thrown it out.
Dad: I know.
Rob: (pulls a little more hair out of his head)