Tag: health

Late Lunch

I’m down to the last few minutes of what became a late lunch. Exciting, huh?

Word from my parents house is that my father is doing fantastic. He’s getting up and down on his own and going for walks through the house just to get some practice in. At the risk of TMI… solo trips to the bathroom, god bless america! There’s a homecare worker at the house, and there will be every day, for at least part of the day, for the next couple of weeks. Word is my mother keeps asking her what time she’s leaving. Oh boy.

In the immortal words of The Facts of Life theme, you take the good – you take the bad. Know what I mean, jelly bean?

My brother, sister, and I got on the phone together and worked out the help schedule for the next few weeks. I am free on the days Bellana is coming home, and on the day Harry moves in to school. The price is a double shift next week. Two days in a row. I’ll be there from about 7:00pm on the 11th through 7:00pm on the 13th. It’s worth it to not miss time later in the month, but I am already shaking in fear a little bit.

On that note, back to work for me.

Exercise Fail

My plan to close all three rings on my AppleWatch Activity App died a quick and sudden (and more or less expected) death on day three. There just wasn’t time or space or mental stability enough to do any exercise at my parents house yesterday, and I doubt there ever will be. I could have done it all when I got home, but we can chalk that fail up to just the lack of mental stability. I just couldn’t handle anything beyond eating dinner and venting my misery to my beloved wife who was kind and supportive and wonderful to me all night.

I’m in the office today. The four times I came here in July all saw small spikes in the exercise ring. Apparently my walks to the kitchenette or the bathroom are enough to get my heart rate up high enough to trigger the app. Okay. I might be able to use that. So I won’t have a perfect month, or week, for August. Maybe I can still do something.

I’ll keep you updated because clearly you are all hanging on every exercise related word this particular lard ass spews out through his keyboard, right? Right.

Dad’s Home

My father is home. He is so much better than he was the last time he came home. A few minutes ago he just decided to get up and go for a walk. I couldn’t believe it. He doesn’t need help standing, but we need to be there. He needs a little help keeping steady, and the floor in the living room is kinda slippery so we want to be there in case he loses his footing.

But damn… so much better than the last time.

I’m still in a state of complete and total freak out, but I have personal experience to tell me that my freak out is less than rational. My eyes have seen the glory, if you dig. That pleases me.

I’m freaking Out

Dad is being discharged at 3:00. The home health aid is coming at 2:30. I am freaking out. Totally freaking out.

Shit has been going on all day at work. None of it is freak-out-worthy, but all of it is freaking me out. I tried to go to lunch at 1:00 but I had 45 minutes solid where I got call after call after call and couldn’t stop.

I am totally fucking freaking out.

Good Morning

Last night at the parental abode was okay. She was asleep before 9:00pm and didn’t wake up until a little before 5:00am. I didn’t go to sleep until crazy late. It’s just so damn hard to let my guard down. I woke up when she got out of bed but I was able to fall asleep for another hour or so. I failed to hit the five hour mark in total, but what I got was probably okay.

Normally when I get up for the day I switch the alarm on the front door to chime mode so I can open the door during the work day without setting off the end of the world level cacophony. Now that I know she’s bolted twice this week I don’t think I can do that. I have to remember to switch the alarm off when I open the door for the regular 9-10am delivery. If I forget… that’s going to suck.

I did manage to close my three activity rings yesterday. That’s good. Two days down, infinity to go. It’s going to be tough to do it today. The only place I can do it without feeling like the house is going to collapse is the cellar, and I can’t really sneak off to the cellar while working/nana sitting.

My father is coming home today. I’m scared shitless. I can’t even believe how scared shitless I am. Why am I not happy? He’s coming home, I should be happy.

Overnight Shift

It’s pretty quiet tonight. Possibly because the memory issues shit hit the fan before I got here. A few weeks ago she tried to leave the house and ended up walking down route 38 for a while before turning back. Magically she made it back to the house without getting lost.

As a result we installed alarms on the doors. When they go off they ring at something like 110 decibels. You can probably hear them from space*. Apparently, twice in the last two days, including just before I got here tonight, she has left the house and set off the alarm and didn’t even notice. Yesterday she went outside to get the newspaper. She told my sister she had no intention of ever leaving on her own. Today she went outside to see if the car keys were in the car because she wanted to drive home**. Note, the car keys are not in the car, they are locked up in a case inside the house and she doesn’t have the combination.

After that she came back inside and went to bed. I woke her up for her 8:00pm meds and she stayed up for half an hour or so and then went back to bed. She’s been sound asleep ever since. Fingers crossed she continues to have a quiet night. My father is coming home tomorrow. His insurance has shut him off, but the rehab place says he’s ready anyway. My brother and sister have both seen him and say he’s infinitely better than he was when he came home last time. I believe them but I am still terrified. I guess I have to see it with my own eyes.

The potential for a shitty day tomorrow is high. The potential for a good day is also high but I am in full on glass-half-empty mode and I may never recover from it.

Shit.

*I understand that sound does not travel through a vacuum. Come on, man, it was just an expression. I got an A in Physics in college, thank you very much.

**She says she needs to go home, but she is home. This house has been her home for 52 years. My sister was told by a memory care professional that for some reason the idea of “home” is a common theme for memory patients. Oh goodie. Shit.

Fans

It’s not particularly hot out today, nor does it seem to be particularly humid. For some reason though, I am covered with sweat, head to toe. I feel like I just jumped into the shower.

It started when I took the laundry down cellar before work started. Over the last four weeks or so, “laundry” has been code for finding an excuse to go down cellar and check on the flood. I actually do laundry on these trips but it really is not the primary reason for going down stairs.

I vacuumed up Lake Asshole, dumped out the wet vac, and dumped out the dehumidifier. I also did a load of laundry. An hour later I went back down to flip the laundry to the dryer, but also vacuumed up the latest puddles. An hour after that I went down again to bring up the load of laundry and did the same vacuuming update. At lunch I carried a huge desk from Bellana’s room to the cellar, and then vacuumed up the much smaller puddles and emptied the dehumidifier again.

I am drenched with sweat. I have the wall mounted AC in the bedroom cranking, and a second fan on the floor blowing right on me and still I am drenched. The upside of all of this is the exercise.

Yesterday when I mowed the entire lawn (ouch), I closed the exercise ring in my AppleWatch Activity App. Bonus! By the time the day was done I had closed all three rings for the first time in ages. That was a good feeling. Even better, my SleepWatch app numbers from last night were out of this world. Everything except the total amount of sleep time (six hours and 50 minutes) was as good as it gets.

It made me think… is it time to start closing those rings again? Yesterday was the first of the month… could I get back on the wagon with a perfect month? I don’t know. It’s tough to close the exercise ring when I am at my parents, and even harder when I am at the office. It might be a challenge.

With all the lifting and going up and down the stairs over and over today, I’m already about half way to my 30 minute exercise ring today. The 10 minutes of walking I did before work didn’t hurt. heheh

We’ll see how it goes.

It’s Monday

It’s Monday, and Monday sucks.

I mowed the entire lawn yesterday, front and back. My body will likely never forgive me. I just vacuumed up the lake in the cellar. It wasn’t as bad as it was last week, and there was a whole extra day worth of build up so I think there is improvement. I had to empty the wet vac and carrying that out of the bulkhead is painful. Carrying the dehumidifier tank is painful too, but not nearly as much.

Suffice to say, I’m a hurtin’ red head today.

It’s a nana sitting night tonight, and tomorrow’s nana sitting work day will also be a papa sitting day too as we’re expecting him to come home. The last time he came home we were all so happy, right up until the moment when we realized how much nursing care he still needed and from there it was awful. Not to imply that we weren’t happy he was home, just to say that none of us are trained health care workers and it was incredibly difficult. I am seriously hoping it’s better this time. Fingers crossed.

I wanted to do car music this morning but had too many other things to do. I have one song ready to mix and I’ll probably do it at my mother’s house tonight. It’s a 12-bar blues and it’s not good. Not good at all. It’s a song though and it counts.

Okay, going to work now. Mondays suck.