Category: health

Last Night Sucked

Last night sucked but I think it was all in my head. At least I don’t know if my reaction to the situation was appropriate, or was it a huge overreaction. It honestly doesn’t matter, the night just sucked.

I didn’t sleep much on Monday night. By the time I finished up my parent sitting duties (around 8:00pm) I was really tired and starting to get crabby. When my mother started dozing off in the living room I tried a couple of times to get her to go to bed. At one point she actually said she was going to bed and then fell back to sleep. My father offered me the TV remote when the Sox game ended. Not because he was going to sleep, just because he was being nice. I knew he wanted to watch the news so I let him. That was the last I saw of the remote.

When did my temper tantrum start? After 10:00, at least. Maybe around 11:00? I really needed to sleep, that’s all. I know they are both half deaf and crank the TV volume, I know they put the TV on as background noise (my mother’s TV is on right now even though she’s not in the room with it), I just really needed to go to sleep.

My father woke up a little before 1:00 and turned off the TV. He also turned off the air conditioner, so you win some and you lose some, I guess. My mother was still asleep on the recliner but I didn’t care anymore. I turned on the light in her room and lowered the volume on the TV. I didn’t turn it off because I’m pretty sure if I did she would not be able to turn it back on by herself. I wanted her to be able to have enough light to get back to her room if she needed to, but I sure as hell turned off the light in the living room before wiring myself up to the CPAP and going to sleep. I woke up a little less than four hours later, because I always wake up after a little less than four hours when I am on that piece of shit love seat that passes for a couch, and she was in bed with the TV and the light both off. I was able to go back to sleep eventually and I ended up with 4.75 hours of sleep. Yipdy-fucking-doo.

My mother was up long before I was. After she finished her morning routine I went into the bathroom to do mine. When I walked in there, I knew my father’s piss jug (they gave him one at the hospital to take home in case he has an emergency in the middle of the night and can’t get himself up in time) was half full. I made a note that I would empty it for him before I got him his 8:00am pills. When I got out of the shower the piss jug was empty. No one walked into the bathroom while I was in there. If they had, they might have seen me throw a temper tantrum over the empty bottle of shampoo, but no one did. I have to assume that means one of them, most likely my mother because I’m pretty sure my father didn’t stand up until around 8:20, dumped the jug full of piss down the kitchen sink. So remind me not to put anything in the fucking kitchen sink today.

…and after all that, I get to punch into work now. Woo-fucking-hoo.

Yes, I am probably overreacting to everything. I honestly don’t care. I am due for a temper tantrum or 12.

Bed Time is Never

So the TV is cranked and my father is sleeping on the remote. My mother is asleep on the chair next to me while the TV in her bedroom is still on and cranked. They are both sound asleep and I’ve just accepted the fact that I’m not sleeping ever again. My little “bed” is made and ready for me (it’s a two seat couch that’s about two feet shorter than I am) and my CPAP machine is hooked up even though I’m never going to sleep again ever. I’ve got noise cancelling headphones on even though I swore I’d never do that because I need to be able to hear them and I’m listening to music on my iPad at full fucking blast because I CANT FUCKING TAKE THIS ANYMORE.

I can’t wait to have to work tomorrow even though I’m never going to sleep again for as long as I fucking live and I am so fucking pissed off right now that I can’t fucking fucking think fucking straight.

Oh Good

My mother came into the living room, sat down in my father’s recliner, and fell asleep. That was an hour ago. Dad is asleep on the hospital bed. The TV is still on and the volume is alarmingly loud because they are both half deaf…

and now we’re all sleeping in the fucking living room

What the fuck??????

Step Taken

Just heard from my brother. The thing that was supposed to happen today that represents another step toward the end of our long familial struggle happened today. He said it seemed to go well. He mentioned a couple of times that everyone is on the same page. Us… Them… Those other folks too… all on the same page.

Good news.

Back at it Tonight

I am going to be back at my parents house tonight. I’m trying to be optimistic and keep my head together but there are a couple of things going on at work that are seriously getting under my skin. I’m trying to be helpful but it’s just not working. I don’t know why or how, I just know that I’m about to take a nutty off the deep end of life.

I’m trying to eat my lunch but the universe just won’t let me. To make matters worse, I just dropped a pretzel on the floor. What a sad waste of a delicious snack food.

Oh, and the Red Sox are playing the Yankees right now and the Yankees are up 2-0 after two innings. Yippee.

On the up side, another small step toward a solution to the parent health care problem is scheduled to happen later today. It’ll be wrapped up before I get there so I will be sending red head vibes and crossed fingers from home.

I don’t want to be in a perpetual state of freak out, or an endless state of annoyed. I just want things to be manageable, you know?

Okay, I am going to finish my lunch now. Wish me luck.

“Exercise”

The clock was fast approaching 10:00pm and thanks to our glorious flake day I still hadn’t closed two of my Activity app rings. Move was about 3/4 done, but exercise… I had five minutes from going up and down the cellar stairs for laundry and flood clean up, but that was it. Five minutes down and 25 to go.

When Jen went to bed I went down stairs to check on the flood situation. While I was down there I “exercised” for 15 minutes. That’s the longest I’ve gone at once since I started this whole ring closing push two weeks ago.

After that I went upstairs to the bed room and gave my back a good 20-30 minutes of rest before getting up and finishing with 10 more minutes. Kick ass! I had all three rings closed at 11:00, with a full hour to spare.

I’m going to be busy tomorrow so it’s not a guarantee, but I’ve got a shot at my first perfect week in a long time.

Kick ass, dude.

Late Lunch

I had a late start to my lunch break today. Hopefully that will make the second half of the day feel a little quicker. I often play mind games with the clock like that. Does it make a difference? Probably not.

I am feeling really stressed out today. I am trying so hard to keep a level head, but I feel like a temper tantrum is coming at any moment. I’m suddenly feeling really tired. Probably because I just ate a nice PB&J lunch and I’m full and my brain thinks some shut eye is a good idea. Instead I am taking diet pepsi through an IV directly into my heart. The caffeine is helping, but I fear it won’t be enough.

I have actually been able to get some good work done today, but my mother is having a rough day today and everything is getting under my skin. She’s not complaining about pain at all. She did for a while, but mostly today it’s just been memory. She asked me where her husband was. I said he’s in the bed in the next room. She said no he wasn’t. She said she wanted to go home. I told her she was home and that this has been her home for more than 50 years. She said it used to be her home but not anymore and she wanted to go home to her parents house. I had to tell her that her parents weren’t in their old house anymore. Because they are both dead, she said. Yes. She said her mother died recently. I told her it’s been 23 years.

It’s so stressful, and feeling like I’m leaning against the tipping point isn’t making it any easier to deal with. I really need to go home and see my family. I haven’t seen my wife in almost 48 hours. I haven’t seen my step son in 24 hours. I haven’t talked to my step daughter in over a week. I’m just feeling crushed right now and they are the only thing that can straighten me out. I love my parents and clearly I’ll do anything for them, but for fucks sake I have a family of my own and I miss them so much.

Ugh… I don’t even remember what I was going to talk about. Give me a second, I have something in my eyes. No, I’m not crying, you’re crying. Wimp.

Okay, I have to get back to work. Talk to ya’ll later.

Feels Like Home

Last night was pretty quiet. My mother fell asleep sitting up on the side of her bed. She was like that for over an hour. I woke her up and told her she should lie down or she was going to hurt her back. She told me she hadn’t been sleeping and that I was crazy. Now she’s complaining about how much her back hurts.

My father didn’t sleep terribly well either. He has some aches and pains but I am not sure that is what was bothering him. I heard him sleeping and waking off and on. He’s supposed to take some Metamucil with his morning pills. He’s complaining that I made it too thick. Sorry, dad.

I went to bed a little earlier than I usually do when I am here. I turned in at 11:15 or so. I woke up a little before 4:00am again. That keeps happening. This time I woke up on my own. Both of my parents were sleeping. I didn’t fall back to sleep until sometime around 4:30 and then I stayed under until about 6:00. I got five hours and 45 minutes of sleep. That’s like hitting the jackpot around here.

I got up and started getting ready for the day. I showered, packed up my dirty laundry, packed up my CPAP machine, and took it all out to the car. That’s when a little piece of home followed me here.

I often bitch about the friggin’ wildlife in our yard getting into our trash barrels. It’s pretty common for them to knock them over and scatter shit all over the place. As I was walking back from the car to the house I saw that something knocked over one of my parents’ trash barrels. I got to have the homey experience of cleaning all of their shit off the yard too. Hooray.

The home health worker is going to be a little late today. She should be here around 9:15. I only have two short meetings on my schedule today. I am seriously hoping for a quiet day at work. Yesterday wasn’t bad, but overall I really need things to go simply and smoothly today. I can already feel my fuse getting shorter and shorter. I just need to keep my head down and not lose my shit over something irrelevant.

Duck and cover, everyone. Here comes Friday the 13th. In the immortal words of that guy Samuel L Jackson played in Jurassic Park, hold on to your butts.

Long Day

I’m a little more than half way through my 48 hour parent sitting shift. I have been here for approximately 28 hours but I swear it has felt like 9,000.

Nothing bad happened today, it just seemed to drag on forever. My father has been fine. The home health worker sat around bored for most of her shift, but she was able to pitch in with dad on the couple of instances where he needed a little help. My mother hasn’t had a bad day pain-wise, but memory wise has been difficult. They were supposed to go and get their haircut at 1:00pm. My sister was going to come over and pick them up and drive them to the appointment. On the way over the woman who cuts their hair called her and said she was on her way to the house. What?

So instead of my sister and my nephew coming over and then everyone leaving the house but me, every one stayed and we added the hair stylist too. It was really hard to work while all 600 people were here. My step son coming over for lunch made it all better, but I ended up putting noise canceling headphones on and cranking the volume so that I could almost shut them all out. It didn’t work that well, but it was better.

The whole time the hair dresser was here my mother kept asking her how she found them. She was constantly insisting that this is not her house even though all of us assured her that this is the house she’s been living in since 1969 or so. She wouldn’t have it. She was positive she wasn’t in her house and she didn’t know where she was and therefore the hair dresser should not have been able to find them. My father whispered to me that she is getting much worse. She is. It’s heartbreaking and it’s awful.

Tomorrow is another day. They have another appointment in the afternoon, but it’s a tele-health appointment with their primary care physician. My brother is going to come over and take the call with them. I have a meeting at about that time so I don’t know if I will be able to join them. My father has been plowing through bottled water this week and we ran out of his favorite kind. Also, strangely, he is craving Rice Krispies. My sister stocked up on both today and will bring them by tomorrow. My goal is to focus on work as much as the situation will let me, and then when 6:30-7:00pm finally arrives I will get the fuck out of here, go home and watch The Suicide Squad with my wife and my step son, and not come back here until Tuesday night.

I need this to be over. I need to spend time with my wife. I need to spend time with my step son before he leaves for school in a couple of weeks. After that, I need my fucking band to get back together and that can’t happen while I’m parent sitting. I need this to be over.