I did my Saturday Nana coverage duty. I filled the pill caddie for the week. Mostly. One med ran out so I technically filled the pill caddie for the next three days, and 99% of it for the rest of the week. The pharmacy should be calling for a pick up on the one remaining prescription later today. No problem.
Similar to last night, she was good until just about 9:00am and then, like a light switch flipped, she was bad. Probably not as bad as last night though. We will see. Hang in their, Mom.
It’s 1:30am. My mother is still asleep. She woke up enough to get under the covers, but that’s it. Fingers remain fully crossed. My alarm is set. My CPAP machine is plugged in and the tank is full of distilled water. I think I’m good to go to sleep.
Wish me luck.
I’m hearing the sweet, sweet sounds of snoring coming from my mother’s room. She’s asleep. I knew it was going to happen eventually, but now that it has… relief. My mother called my father at the hospital right when all of this shite was kicking off, a little before 9:00. We spoke a little. He had suggestions for things to do to try to help and I was already on them. We were definitely on the same page. He called back a few minutes ago. When I told him she was asleep he sounded as relieved as I felt. I hope he’s able to get some sleep now too.
Vegas is up 5-2 now. Five minutes left in the third. When this game ends, however it ends, it will leave Toronto and Montreal as the only first round series left. I can’t really root for both of those teams to lose, can I?
I’m really tired but I’m a little afraid to go to bed. I’m not sure what to do after this game ends (Vegas just scored into an empty net to make it 6-2. I have the sound off and this is literally the first non-Bruins game I’ve watched this season. Apparently whoever scored that empty net goal completed a hat trick. It’s raining hats in Vegas). I still have the last 15 minutes of today’s That Pedal Show to get through, but that will require headphones and that scares me a little. Maybe I’ll risk it.
Things are looking good right now but my fingers are still totally crossed.
My mother is still awake, but I think things are calming down. The crying and praying has stopped, I think. She is still standing up in the bedroom with the light and the TV on, but she seems to be managing. She actually just went out to the kitchen for a snack. That was a surprise.
I had been watching That Pedal Show on my laptop while the Red Sox were on the TV with the sound all the way down. They went into a rain delay just after the problems started. I have game seven of the Minnesota/Vegas first round series on the tube now. I’m afraid to finish the youtube show. I feel like the minute I put my AirPods back in something bad will happen. I don’t want to jinx anything,
Vegas is up 3-2 in the 2nd. I think I picked Vegas, didn’t I? Speaking of picks, The Bruins second round series against the Islanders starts tomorrow even though the Toronto vs Montreal first round series is still going. Our game one is tomorrow, their game six is tomorrow too. I won’t do a second round prediction post until after all of the matchups are finalized but I’ll be sure to post something about my picks for the 2nd round series that start before the 1st round is 100% over. You can probably bet that I will pick Boston to win their series. You’d win that bet.
Vegas just scored again. It’s 4-2 now.
My mother is lying down. The lights and the TV are still on but I can poke my head around the corner and see her. Fingers crossed she falls asleep. She’s earned it tonight. I should have seen this coming. It’s raining out and she doesn’t do well with whatever the air pressure does when it rains. The forecast is calling for rain all weekend. Shit.
Either a truck just bounced off a pothole (which is very possible on my parents’ street where the construction crews have left it looking like London during The Blitz [not really, that’s a huge exaggeration, but the road is a mess]) or I just heard some thunder. Oh yippee. That’s all we need.
Hang in there, Mom.
My mother and I were hanging out, chatting about her family when she was a kid. Everything was fine until BAM! Out of the blue her back pain spiked like crazy. She’s spend the last 35 minutes in terrible pain. She’s up to date on her meds, but we just need to hang in there until they kick in. There is nothing else I can do now. I feel completely helpless.
I’m 67 minutes away from a long weekend. Lots going on, and I am going to miss almost all of it.
I’m Nana sitting tonight so I will be at my mom’s house until dinner time tomorrow. That means I will miss out on Massachusetts declaring that the global pandemic over and opening up the entire state. Bad move? Likely.
Sunday I will be home for most of the day, which is good because it’s our wedding anniversary. 12 years. 12 wonderful, happy years. Sure 2020 and the first half of 2021 have licked balls, but marriage wise it’s still been incredible. The kids are at their dad’s this weekend, but we’re going to steal them for a while so they can help us celebrate. We’re not doing anything special, just being together. I’m willing to bet that at some point later in the year we will do something more substantial to celebrate. Covid has pretty much taken two anniversaries from us, so we need to do something significant to make up for it.
As for Sunday night and the holiday on Monday, I am Nana sitting again. But wait, Robert. Isn’t that a day early? Why yes, yes it is. Me covering Sunday night/Monday lets my brother go to my niece’s soccer games and it lets me do something on Tuesday. But Robert, Tuesday isn’t a day off, it’s a three day weekend not a four day weekend, isn’t it?
I booked a vacation day for Tuesday so that I can drive back up to Vermont to help my Step Daughter move into her first apartment. Pardon me, I’ve got something in my eye. No, I’m not crying, you’re crying.
I still need to pack up some stuff for tonight and tomorrow, including my MacBook. I want to mix a song or two or three tonight or tomorrow. I want to wrap up May’s Record Every Month entry. I also have an episode of That Pedal Show to watch. I don’t have a Star Wars The Bad Batch to watch because I picked that off before work this morning. I might try to watch some MST3K because I’ve been kinda in the mood for that lately. Mostly though I’ll just be missing Jen and the kids like crazy, because that’s what I mostly do while I’m at my parents. Le Sigh.
Leaving home to come and nana sit last night was much more difficult than in the past. I just didn’t want to go and leave my wife at home alone. I feel terrible.
Fortunately my sister is on the way to mom’s house now and when she gets here I can go home. Both kids are already at the house. We can count the days where both of them will be home with us on one hand and still have some fingers left over. I am so proud of both of them, and I want the world for them, but selfishly I want a little more time with the whole family at home. I’m not ready for that empty nest shit yet.
Nana sitting has gone well this time. The usual pain, but nothing so bad it required (doctor approved) supplemental pain meds. That’s a plus. She slept a lot today and I had a hard time getting her to sit up and take her 5:00pm meds. She eventually did it though, thank you mum.
Okay, I am going to pack up the MacBook now and get ready for the shift change. See you all at home soon.
Last night was okay. My brother told me that my mother had slept most of the day so I was a little nervous that she’d be up all night, struggling with back and leg pain. Nope. She went to bed not long after her 8pm meds and slept most of the way through the night. I was ready for sleep around 10, but ended up staying awake until 11. I woke up to go to the bathroom a bit before 5:00am and ended up sitting up for half an hour before trying to sleep again. All together I got about 6.5 hours of sleep, and that’s pretty good for a night on Mom and Dad’s two-seater.
I did manage to watch this week’s Handmaid’s Tale this morning before work. So the misery porn show switches gears and gives us a tear jerker that at the last minute morphs into something really dark and scary. In other words, a pretty friggin’ great episode. Again.
Okay, it’s 9:00am now and I am signed in to work. Let’s get this day rolling, shall we?
Every time I do this I tell myself to write it down somewhere and then I never do.
I got a delivery of supplies for my CPAP machine this week and today was the day I put the new parts on.
The only thing I didn’t replace was the water tank. That will happen next time.
There, I wrote it down.
Let’s set the scene. I am in the living room noodling around on my computer. My mother is in the bedroom reading through a stack of mail. The bedroom is across the main hall from me at a bit of an angle. From where I sit, I can see into the room but only a little bit.
I’m putzing around on GarageBand and my mother gets up and walks down the hall to the kitchen. The kitchen is on the other side of the house at the other end of the hall. I cannot see it from where I am sitting. I pop my headphones off of one ear and try to listen to what’s going on, but I don’t hear anything.
I couple of minutes later I get a pop up on my computer asking if I want to connect to my iPhones hotspot. Huh? Why do I need to connect to a hotspot if I’m already connected to the wifi? It could be because I am no longer connected to the wifi. I checked my phone and it’s not connected either. The wifi mnemonic isn’t showing up as an option on either device. Well shit, thinks me. I wasn’t involved in setting this up and I don’t know where anything is. I assume it’s downstairs, but no one goes downstairs. Well, we do go downstairs to do laundry, and if my niece or nephews are here during a school day they go down there for their remote classwork. There shouldn’t be anyone downstairs today though.
I get up, walk into the hallway, and find the cellar door is open. Well shit, thinks me. My mother must have gone downstairs. She knows her doctor has told her to stay off the stairs, but every now and then she tells her doctor to stuff it (figuratively speaking) and goes downstairs anyway. I followed her.
In the stack of mail she found one from Readers Digest that suggested she renew her subscription before it runs out three months from now*. The letter includes a URL for renewals. She was trying to get onto a computer, but the desk she was standing in front of doesn’t have a computer. It used to, and there is still a monitor and a power strip, but there isn’t a computer. She wasn’t sure what to do so she started pushing buttons. One of them shut off the router. She switched it back on and after a few minutes the wifi was back. Sigh of relief. I took out my phone, verified it was connected to the wifi, then tested access by going to Google and searching for “what the fuck”. It worked.
Problem solved. No harm done, other than my mother ignoring her doctor’s order. That left me with the question, how the hell did she get downstairs without me hearing it? The stairs are creaky and the door is squeaky. When I go down stairs I make all kinds of noise. She didn’t make the faintest sound. I sent a text to my brother and sister to let them know what happened. I asked if she had some sort of stealth mode that I haven’t seen yet. They both responded, yup.
Good to know. Good to know.
*My sister added the punchline to the Readers Digest situation. Turns out my mother has already mailed them a check to renew the subscription.
Inside the Red Head's Head 