Tag: assisted living

Over the Counter Meds

My father has a cold. There is an over the counter cold medicine that works for him, but getting it to him is an event.

The assisted living place he lives in has an in-house med staff that comes complete with a pharmacy. The pharmacy isn’t in-house, but it’s contracted some how so they always go through the same place. Residents are not allowed to keep non-prescribed medication in their rooms. Prescribed medications are kept in a safe so the nursing staff can distribute it when appropriate.

So for over the counter meds, they can’t keep them in their rooms without a prescription, and you aren’t going to get a prescription for that sort of thing so… what?

The what is simple. We bring it to him. He takes two doses of this specific med each day. Morning and night. So one of us brings him each dose. On Friday my sister in law brought him both doses. Saturday was my sister. Yesterday was me. Today I brought him the morning dose and my sister will bring him the evening dose. He asked if we could leave him his evening dose yesterday while we were over there for Easter lunch, but that would break the rules and we don’t want to break the rules. We’re good citizens. They take care of my dad, I don’t want to thumb my nose at them.

The downside for today was that I overslept a little. I was planning to get up at 5:00am, get my exercise in, have some water, have some breakfast, maybe watch a Star Wars: Rebels episode or two, then go to his place (leaving insanely early because the morning rush hour might make my 20 minute drive more like 60 minutes) with enough time to get there and back by 9:00am so I can punch in to work on time.

Today though, dumb ass over here slept until 6:00am and then took forever to get into gear and just skipped the whole exercise and breakfast and water thing. I had a protein bar in the car on the way over there. That passed for breakfast. I was able to get my exercise in during my lunch break, which was not ideal but got the job done.

Tomorrow I need to get up on time so I don’t throw off my routine. Wednesday is an in the office day so I won’t have time to deliver the meds. My brother in law will handle it on Wednesday. After that, will he still have a cold? I don’t know. We’ll find out. The moral of the story though is don’t over sleep, dumb ass.

I’m Pretty Sore Today

Yesterday was a tough one physically mostly, but also mentally.

I am not going into a lot of detail here, but the back story is this. Last September my parents moved from their house in Tewksbury to an assisted living space in Billerica. Over the course of the next eight months my mother’s dementia grew steadily worse to the point where she was getting up in the middle of the night and falling down. On May 9th she had a fall and was taken to Lowell General Hospital. The assisted living space said they could no longer handle assisting her living so the hospital started working toward finding a new place for her. She was moved into a nursing facility in Andover and she’s living there now. That means that my parents, who are days away from their 55th wedding anniversary, are no longer able to live together. It’s crushing to say the least. My father was still in the same room at the assisted living place, but that room was in the memory care unit, which he does not require. So yesterday we moved him to a new room, one that is not in the locked down memory unit.

We had movers pick up a piece of furniture at the house in Tewksbury and take it to Billerica. They then moved everything from the memory wing in the basement to Dad’s new room on the first floor, then they took some of mom’s things back to Tewksbury. I bounced from place to place with them and helped out a little. Mostly just by punching in the door lock codes getting in and out of the memory wing.

After the movers were done (huge, huge thanks to them) I went back to Dad’s new room and helped unpack. My sister and my two nephews were there too. We had everything wrapped up by about 2:00 with one glaring exception. Dad sleeps on a rented hospital bed. The company that rents the bed handles moving it from place to place. They initially said they would be there to move the bed at 2:09. Then 2:48. Then 3:30. I had to leave before they got there. I’ll tell you why right now.

We had broken for lunch at around noon. Dad went to the cafe, My sister and the kids went to Wendy’s, and I stayed in the room waiting for maintenance to fix something in the bathroom and switch on the Cable TV. I started eating my little four ounce of chicken lunch but kept getting interrupted. In the end it took me about two hours to get through it and I spent a lot of time taking a bite, then unpacking something for a few minutes, then going back for another bite. I don’t know if my bites were too big, or if it was something to do with being active mid-meal, but I found myself getting pretty nauseous. I pushed through it, but I was feeling pretty bad.

Later, during the time we were done with everything but the waiting for the bed I started feeling sicker. I think it was due to lack of protein? Maybe? Lack of food? Something? I only had a protein shake for breakfast so I hadn’t eaten much. I was just feeling sick to my stomach again and weak and I was getting on toward being nervous about driving. I had to leave and go get something to eat. Once I was home with food in me I felt better. I feel bad about bailing, but at least now I have another couple of food experiences to keep an eye on.

So stomach wise, things are good today. Thankfully. Dad wise, he’s in his new place. He’s miserable about being separated from Mom, but otherwise he seemed okay yesterday. It’s possible he was just putting on a brave face for two of his kids and two of his grandkids, but he did seem okay. Here’s hoping he still feels okay today.

The hang up for me, personally, at this point is pain. I more or less was on my feet yesterday from 7:00am to 3:00pm. It was rough for Mr. Out of Shape here. Sure, I have a lot more energy and stuff since losing 100 pounds in the last seven months (WOOHOO!), but I am still really fat and out of shape and that was a lot of work yesterday.

Then to make things work, I still did my 30 minutes of walking. It was after dinner when I was all settled and feeling better. Jen and I were in the living room watching the tube and I got up and started walking. My Activity App credited me for 18 minutes of exercise during the day, but I have a streak of doing 30 minute walks going (I don’t actually remember when the streak started so I can’t tell you how long it’s lasted) and I didn’t want to ruin it. So I started walking. 30 minutes later I was a mess, but happy. Today I got up as usual and did another 30 minutes before work and now my legs are going to fall off. Poof, no legs. Figuratively at least.

Here’s hoping the pain lessens as the day goes on, but we will have to see.

Ouch, babie. Ouch.

Tuesday Stuff

Happy Amazon Prime Day. I don’t really know what that means, but my beloved wife spent her pre-work morning shopping for bargains. I don’t know if she got any, but we have a new dorm room to partially populate at the end of next month so fingers crossed for good stuff.

Today is my work anniversary. 18 years ago today I started a new job. Eighteen (18) years… That’s the longest I’ve ever stuck with anything in my whole life. It’s crazy. Crazy, I tells ya.

My father is moving to a new room within the assisted living facility he’s currently living in. The moving day is tomorrow. I haven’t seen his new room, but I’ve seen one that is similar. It’s bigger than his current room and it has an actual kitchen. I took the day off to help out. I’m not sure how it’s going to go yet. We’ll see. I’m optimistic that this is going to be a good thing. I am not sure if my father agrees or not. Again, we’ll see.

Bellana is coming home on Friday. Repeat: Bellana is coming home on Friday. We’re going to have both kids in the house at the same time and it’s everything. Literally everything!

My Ebay camera purchase that I kinda wanted to back out of but didn’t is supposed to be delivered today. Here’s hoping the lens that the seller chucked in for free actually works. I am not sure it will. Unfortunately, Amazon Prime Day doesn’t have any deals on Nikon lenses from the 80’s so there’s no help coming from there.

18 years. I’ve actually stuck with something for 18 years. Who woulda thunk it. I wonder how many other folks from my new hire group are still around. Our careers are old enough to vote. So weird.

Guilt

We were originally thinking of keeping me isolated until tomorrow night. I was going to take another Covid-19 test, both rapid and PCR, and when the rapid came back negative I would be in the clear. Today, after a little consultation with the CDC, we decided to stretch that to Friday. I cancelled my test appointment and rescheduled for Friday morning. It’s just another day and a half, and while we all agree it is likely a massive overreaction, it just feels a little safer and a little smarter. I just wish it didn’t feel like such a crushing blow. Come on, Robert. It’s only about 36 hours more.

On top of all of the other shit though, it just adds to all the guilt. I should be able to do more for my parents. I should be able to do more for Jen. I should be able to do more to keep everyone safe while still helping with everything that needs help. Shit, man. I shouldn’t really feel this guilty, but I do. It’s weighing me down and making me tired all the time.

I feel like I need a good, solid win. Followed by a good, solid, long (permanent?) vacation to someplace where it never gets too cold and snow is a fairy tale told to kids to scare them into being good… or something like that.

Ah, hell. I think I’m just tired. I’m sure I’ll feel better in the morning. I did get my 30 minutes of exercise in today, so hopefully that will lead to a really good night’s sleep.

Wish me luck.

Clueless

I don’t know what to write about today. It’s Labor day, so have a good one.

Clean up in the cellar has been taken care of for now. All of Harry’s left over laundry is done, though I still need to put his sheets back onto his bed. There is a mountain of laundry in Bellana’s room that I’ll probably start today. I set up a new music nook for quarantine in the cellar last night and am hoping I’ll get a chance to use it today. Maybe.

No cookouts for me today. Just isolation and stress and work and guilt and the usual. It’s hard to explain what is going through my head at this point. I am sad about how my mother is handling the change (did I ever post what the change was? I’ll get to it), I am guilty because I am not there to help, I am pissed off because I have to isolate for Covid (even though I’m positive this whole thing is an overreaction, even if the overreaction is still the smart move) and I don’t get to hug my wife, and I am filled with relief that my parents are finally in a place where they can get the help and care that they need rather than have my idiot ass pretending like I know what I am doing.

I don’t know.

Here’s the Covid music nook:

Hopefully I won’t have to use it long and can go back to the bedroom. I haven’t received a call from the urgent care place telling me I have a positive result so that’s good. I have an appointment for another test on Wednesday. If that comes back negative then it’s back to reality for me. I know it will because I was barely exposed and people who had much closer exposure are all testing negative. Whatever, isolating is the right thing to do, I just want it to be over.

I want isolation to be over, I want Covid to be over. I want my parents’ difficulties to be over. I want being guilty to be over. I want to be able to get a good night’s sleep again. I want to be able to work without having to think about all of this other stuff. I want my wife to not have to worry about me. I want my kids to not have to worry about anything except their educations. I want my band to get back together.

Call me selfish, but I just want normal back.

Shit. I had nothing to write about when I started and then I turned it into another downer. Sorry about that. Next time I post I’ll try to include some jokes or something.

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.

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?