Tag: health

Two Things

There were two big things going on in the extended family today. One was centered around my parents house. That doesn’t seem to have gone as well as I had hoped, but it was still all right. It wasn’t a slam dunk BOOM everything works out, but it was another step in the right direction. I’m just too impatient now to be happy about it.

The other thing was centered around my house, though it had nothing to do with Lake Asshole, and that seems to have gone much better. It isn’t the perfect solution, but all the boxes are checked and everyone seems happy so I am happy.

Now back to impatiently waiting for my parents thing to resolve… waiting… and waiting… and getting closer and closer to the inevitable nervous breakdown.

Urgh.

Another Step

I am really nervous. Another step toward resolving my parents’ healthcare issues is about to happen. I am not going into details, but my brother and sister and mother and father are about to do something that I really, really need to go well.

No, that’s not a good enough description. Let me try again…

I really, really, really, really, really, really need things to go very, very, very, very, very, very well.

I’m sending out all of the positive red head vibes* I can. Come on, universe, don’t let me down. After a year and a half of Covid-19 on top of all the family health problems, you owe me, universe. You owe me.

Fingers crossed
Toes crossed
Eyes crossed

*Red head vibes are the best vibes. You have to be a red head to know this, but it is true. Red head vibes are powerful things. I have to be careful to use them sparingly, and to only ever use them as a force for good. I have used them a lot since Friday. When I say a lot I mean, a lot.

Baby Step

Looking toward the future, my father just sat my mother down and had a talk about some next steps. The response was positive. Not perfect, but good. Let’s call it progress of the baby steps variety. Another, slightly more impressive, step will happen tomorrow while I’m at work.

Raise a glass to forward momentum. May a wave of good news wash us away to a newer, better, safer place because I really need this to end. I can handle a lot, and I don’t think I am quite to the snapping point yet, but it’s getting close. Way to close for comfort.

Oh, gentle readers, could you do your humble narrator a solid and cross those fingers and keep ’em crossed? We need all the help we can get.

Blissfully Quiet Night

My father turned off the television a little after 10:00. He went to sleep pretty much right away. My mother turned off her television a little before 11:00 and seemed to be asleep a short time later. I had my CPAP machine setup and the lights were out around 11:30 but I didn’t get to sleep until just after midnight.

I woke up at 4:30 because my mother was up and walking around the kitchen. She was making breakfast. I got up to check on her and she was fine. She told me to go back to bed. I tried, but I couldn’t sleep. So four hours of sleep is it for me today.

It’s worth it if things keep up the way they did last night. Fingers crossed.

I’m not working today but I have set myself up at the dining room table as if I were. The home health worker is coming at 8:00, and I assume my mother is going to want to chaperone (I’m only kidding a little) so they will all be spending most of the day in the living room. There isn’t really enough room for four people in there these days, so I will bow out. I’ve got lots of music to work on, and lots of The Orville to watch. The Red Sox are on at 1:00. I’ll probably try to find a way to sneak myself into the room so I can watch the game with my father. Other than that, I hope I can be a fly on the wall today and just be here to help my mother with whatever.

After I closed my exercise ring last night I sort of made the conscious decision to go to bed without finishing the laundry so that I would have an excuse to go downstairs and sneak in some walking in place today. It’s 7:23am and 71 degrees outside. Inside I think it’s already around 80 and the humidity is at about 99.9%. I haven’t even started walking yet and I am already drenched in sweat. Hooray.

My mother is watching local cable right now. I think she might be asleep, but the TV is on. It is the Tewksbury Memorial High School Senior Awards presentation. I graduated from that school in 1989 and I don’t recognize any of the voices of the staff, but every time someone comes on to sing the praises of some TMHS athletics program I just want to vomit all over the house. They are still the arrogant pricks they were 30 years ago, and the team name is still the insulting racist bullshit too. Some things never change.

Okay, laundry and exercise, then pills and letting the health care pro inside. Talk to ya’ll later.

The Ravioli Incident

My mother made a bowl of ravioli for my father for dinner. He ate about half of it and then dropped the bowl. Ravioli everywhere. Some of it splashed onto his foot so we had to get him a change of socks. Mom grabbed him a pair while I cleaned up the mess. There was a moment there when I thought he was going to have a melt down. It was like all of the shit he’s been going through was about to overflow, but we talked him back from the edge.

Selfishly, the upside to the ravioli incident is that there is laundry that needs to be done tonight. He only has two pairs of grippy socks and one of them is covered with tomato sauce. That means I have to go back and forth to the laundry room in the cellar. The laundry room is really the only place in the house that I can do my walking in place “exercise” without feeling like I am going to collapse the entire house. That means there’s a good chance I am going to close all three AppleWatch Activity rings today. I’ve already got two of them closed. Nine more minutes of exercise and I finish them all.

I really want to go home. I really need this to end. I don’t want to have a nervous breakdown, even though for all I know it might be fun. I just don’t wanna.

The Weekend… Finally

It is Friday. I have logged out of work for the day. It’s finally the weekend. You’d think that would be good. It’s not. The stress is still through the roof. I have to come back here tomorrow evening. I don’t want to, but I have to.

My mother hung out in the living room with my father and the healthcare worker. No animosity like there was this morning. She was fine. Actually, she slept in the recliner quite a bit. My father slept in the hospital bed. Sometimes that leads to a difficult night, but not always. In fact, I think more often than not it’s not a big deal.

I really need all of this to be over. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but is it close or is it far away? It’s so hard to tell when you’re buried in the pitch dark.

A Literal Note to Self

We have had a home health professional in the house for three days now. When we first talked about bringing in help we discussed it with my parents. They were both on board. Given my mother’s memory issues, someone came up with the idea of having her write a letter to herself detailing how she felt about the situation at that time.

I had to use it today.

A literal note to herself.

It was rough. We were in one room and she was telling me how she wanted the woman out of the house and she didn’t like her and she liked the woman who was here yesterday and she wanted to know who allowed this to happen and can I call them and tell them not to come back. All through this, the woman who is helping us today, dare I say heroically helping us today, was in the next room hearing every word.

I had forgotten about the note to self but when I let my siblings know what was happening they reminded me. Mom wasn’t happy when she read it, but said she remembered writing the letter and she’s been okay ever since.

I made sure to tell the woman that she shouldn’t take anything my mother said personally, and that it was likely by the end of her shift my mother would be her best friend. That’s kinda how it goes. She was nothing but understanding and professional and I am so thankful for her attitude, not to mention her help.

Now though, my group at work is short handed this afternoon and I just had a task mailed to me. I’ll get on it.

Here’s hoping it will be a quiet afternoon in the house and at work. I need me some weekend.

Friday Morning

It’s Friday morning, everyone! You’ve almost made it to the weekend. Hang in there, it’s almost over.

Ready for your morning update to the saga of my personal pain?

Last night was okay. I don’t control the TV remote anymore so I stuck my AirPods Max with their transparency mode onto my noodle and surfed the web. I decided to watch The Orville. We had started it once before but only got a few episodes in. I’m going to give it another go. I also did some music and bitched about local news. Mom’s pain level was manageable. Dad was fine.

This morning though.

I woke up about 5:30. Dad was asleep but mom was up. She was in a lot of pain and she was very confused. She told me she was lost. She said she was in the new school and didn’t know her way around. She was opening doors and peering inside trying to figure out what was up. She asked me what each room was. She asked me if we were on the second floor. I kept telling her she was home and safe but it wasn’t getting through. Eventually she found her bedroom. She called it “a” bedroom, not “her” bedroom though. She sat on the bed for a little while and seemed to slowly come back to herself.

So that was fun, right?

Dad is still asleep, but mom is having breakfast. The complaining about pain and the feeling lost both seem to be gone. I’m pretty thankful for that.

I need to get my workspace ready for the work day, check on the doors, and try to sneak in the new episode of The Bad Batch. The home health folks aren’t coming until 9:00 so I had a little extra time to get ready. I had gotten into the habit of keeping all of my stuff on dad’s hospital bed in the living room but I can’t do that anymore. I think my CPAP machine and my laundry and stuff will go out to the car this morning so they won’t be in anyone’s way.

I have a really bad feeling about today. I shouldn’t but I do. I also had to switch some days around this month. My brother and sister and I all have stuff we need to do in our own lives outside of our parents’ lives so the calendar was monkeyed with. It works to my benefit later in the month, but in the immediate future I have some tough times. I will go home tonight around dinner time, but instead of having a day off before I come back, I come back tomorrow night at dinner. That’s still better than the 48 hour shift I have next week. That’s going to be a shit burger.

Okay. Let’s get this Friday rolling, shall we? Happy thoughts, everyone. Happy thoughts.

Song Number 16

Here’s another new song. This one is better than most if not all of the others. At least I think so right now. I’ll likely change my mind later.

Both of my parents are asleep. They both fell asleep with a TV on. Dad is in the living room. I need to sleep in the living room. I can’t find the remote. I think he might be laying on it. I can’t sleep with headphones on. Insert the sigh of frustration here. At least he got up and walked around on his own, including a trip to the bathroom. No assistance from me was needed at all. That is huge. Super huge. What a relief.

Granted, he fell asleep with the news on, and this network ran the same 30 minute news program at 9:00, 9:30, and 10:00. I think I am going to hear the same things maybe five times before the talk shows come on. Gross.

I’m Here

I’m here at my parents house again. Mom is here. Dad is here. I am here. Everything has been okay since dad came home on Tuesday, but I’m sitting here patiently waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or, I’m waiting for the hammer to fall. However you want to put it.

HBO Max has released The Suicide Squad today. Tonight, actually. I think they brought it live at 7:00pm. The reviews are good. The first movie was… eh. Nothing special. This one was made by the same guy who made Guardians of the Galaxy so maybe some of the magic will rub off?

18 minutes until meds distribution.

Jen and Harry are out college supply shopping. Jen is worried about Covid. We’re all worried about Covid, but she and Harry are both vaccinated. Frankly, all the non-vaccinated people can suck it. Take the friggin’ vaccine, you selfish pricks.

What was I talking about?

Oh well, I think I’ll go make sure all of the door alarms are set and get them their pills. Dad needs a snack with his.

Right then, I’ll talk to you later. There might be a new song to share. We’ll see where the night leads us.

I miss Jen and Harry and Bellana and Patches and I want to go home.