Tag: nana sitting

Stressful Task

I wish I could express how stressful filling the pill caddie is for me. It’s a terrifying experience. Especially when I drop one of the main prescription pain pills. I found it. No worries. Still… fuck me.

Sad Sigh

My parents celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary this week. We made as big a deal as we could, given the circumstances. My sister brought my mother to the rehab hospital to visit my father and they were both over the moon happy.

My parents were on the phone with each other a few minutes ago. I overheard her ask him how long have they been married. She sounded surprised when he answered. Then she asked how much older she is than him.

Then she asked me if he was my father for the second time today and the third time since I got here last night.

I can’t take much more of this.

Wednesday Morning

Happy Wednesday everyone. I’m not sure why, but I woke up pretty convinced it was Friday. I even checked YouTube to see if there was a new episode of That Pedal Show. That is not what I would call a positive omen for the remainder of the week.

I posted already that mom was asleep before 9:00pm last night and that one of the mouse traps was tripped without catching anything. I was asleep by 11:30 and hoping that I might be able to snag a six hour night. Not quite.

I woke up about 1:45am. I’m not sure what it was that woke me up, but my mother was awake too. She got up to turn off the light in the kitchen (the same one that she leaves on most nights) and when she saw that I was awake she asked for a pain pill. I was pretty nervous that the boom was about to be lowered right onto us but she did go back to bed right away. She didn’t go to sleep. She sat up in the dark for a while, then turned on the light, then after a short time turned it off again. I sat up waiting for some sign that she was asleep. It didn’t really come. I was still up at 2:45 and made the judgement call that things had been quiet for long enough that I could sleep.

I woke up once more, about an hour and a half later, but fell right back to sleep. The alarm woke me up at 6:00. I’ve been taking overnight nana sitting shifts since… April? I think? That was the first time I have needed the alarm. Every other time I’ve woken up at some grotesquely early hour and just stayed up. While it’s true that the alarm on my iPad scared the ever loving shit out of me when it went off, it was nice to have needed it. I still only ended up with about 5.5 hours of sleep. I was really hoping to hit six. Six hours is a bit of a magic number. 6.5 is noticeably better, and 7+ is the goal, but six is nice.

Anyway. It’s almost time for work. The doors have been switched from alarm to chime, the 8:00am pills have been taken (though she’s complaining about pain already… come on morning pain med, kick in!), the mousetrap has been reset (though I think the trigger was bent a little when it snapped closed last night and it seems to be hanging on by a thread right now. Is that good? Does that mean it will take less pressure from Mickey to close again? Or is it bad because Mickey won’t be in a good position when it goes off and he’ll get away again?), and the universe has been updated with the goings on at Chez Parental.

Time for work. Have a good one, everyone. I’ll check in later. I’m sure you can’t wait.

Bedtime

My mother was asleep by 9:00 tonight. Thank goodness. There was no pain outbreak. Now we just have to hope she sleeps through the night.

One of the mouse traps was tripped about an hour ago. Nothing in it. There is still at least one Mickey among us. Great. I paid for a single but I guess I have a roommate.

I’m going to sleep. Fingers crossed I can get 6-7 hours of good sleep. Yippee.

Patiently Waiting

Here I sit, patiently waiting…

Patiently waiting for the severe thunderstorm to wipe us off the map.

Patiently waiting for my mother’s pain issues to come out and play for the night. She has already shown the initial signs.

Patiently waiting for Covid to go away so that we can go on vacation. Jen and I had a precious few minutes together after work and before I had to leave and we spent it watching a Disney World youtube channel. I wanna travel again.

Patiently waiting to go home, but I’ve got about 22 hours or so before that happens.

Okay, it’s time for the 8:00 o’clock pills. I’ll check in again later. Happy trails.

Don’t Wanna

I don’t want to go to my parents house tonight. I don’t wanna go I don’t wanna go I don’t wanna go.

*sigh*

My brother was there last night and he had a rough time. Not for the usual reasons though. There was a power line down just a little way down the road from the house. I heard it actually caused a fire. Power was out for hours. That means no air conditioner. No fan. No wifi. Hell, in other words. Mom’s pain went bad right after the power outage started too, just to make things worse.

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don’t let things go that bad for me tonight.

I got six hours of sleep last night, which is okay, but there was a full hour of being awake stuck into the middle of it all. That means I’m tired today. I’m feeling all the stress. Even the stress that I normally manage to keep at bay. It’s all hitting me right now and I haven’t even left the house yet. Shit.

I don’t have any 50/90 music ready to be worked on tonight. I can’t play guitar there, and everything that has guitar and needs vocals already has the vocal parts written. If I’m to get any work done it’s going to have to be new bass lines. Oh well.

I’m tired and I’m stressed and I just want to go to bed for 18 hours or so.

Lunch Break

I’m in the office today. I need to come in four times this month and today makes three. I have Thursday penciled in as the fourth visit.

Last time I came in everything on my desk had been moved around. I assume it was the cleaning staff. This time everything was where I left it. That’s nice to see. I told myself that I had to get a mouse pad before I came back and then completely forgot. The desk is arranged in such a way that there is a seam right where my mouse wants to be. It’s annoying. A mouse pad will fix it… if I can just not forget to grab a mouse pad. I ordered one on Amazon today. Read the first paragraph and then try to guess what day it’s scheduled for delivery… go on… guess. (Thursday)

I had no traffic this morning. Well, almost no traffic. There was a slow down at the junction between routes 93 and 128. Other than that, and one lady who was tailgating me at 70 miles per hour (asshole), the commute was easy as can be. Here’s hoping the same thing happens on the way home. Fingers crossed.

I didn’t forget my lunch today! Will wonders never cease? I did buy a bag of Peanut M&M’s from the vending machine though. Not my finest hour.

Last week my sister was unable to cover shifts at my parents house, so my brother and I just alternated days. There was a whole week where I slept at my house one day and at theirs the next. Today is the first day since that started that I won’t appear at the house in Tewksbury at all. I love my parents. I really do. I’m also very happy to have a day where I am not there. It’s such a stress relief. I’ll be there tomorrow night and all day Wednesday though, so let’s not get all kumbaya and shit.

This morning, before work, I looked at posts on this page made on July 26ths in past years. Last year there was a post talking about my progress in the 50/90 challenge. I had six songs finished and 17 songs in the pipeline. I am crushing that pace right now. Today I have 13 songs finished and 23 in the pipeline. Winning. I wonder how far along I was in 2014 (the other year I completed the full 50 songs)? Who cares.

This weekend is a Harry weekend. This is a good thing. That is a happy thing.

Okay, back to work.

More Memory Fun

On top of the stress of dealing with trying to navigate my mother through her constant aches and pains, which run the spectrum between “it’s annoying” and “oh my god I can’t stand it anymore please god help me”, there are fun little nuggets like this.

Me: Are you okay mum?
Her: Why do you call me mum?
Me: Because you’re my mother.
Her: No I’m not.
Me: Yes you are.
Her: Did I give birth to you?
Me: Yes, 50 years ago.
Her: I don’t remember that. I guess it’s true because you’re named after your father. (she walks into the living room) Are there any pictures of you in here?
Me: Yes. (points to a picture on the living room wall)
Her: Oh yeah, there you are.

Isn’t that fun? Aren’t you jealous? And by jealous I mean aren’t you happy that this isn’t happening to you? And when I say this isn’t happening to you I mean it from both her and my perspectives.

Memory

This morning my mother asked me how I was doing. I said I was really tired. She asked why. I said because I stayed up to make sure you got to sleep and you didn’t fall asleep until 2:00am. I barely got four hours of sleep.

She had no memory of it. She went to bed at 2:00 and got up and made breakfast at about 5:00. She had no idea. She’s already fallen asleep twice since then.

I don’t know how my father did this for the last 10 years. It’s frustrating and infuriating and she has no idea she’s doing it and how can you get mad over something that’s essentially unconscious? Ugh.

Still Awake

1:41am and she’s just getting into bed now.

I told her it was 1:30 and past her bed time. She said 8:00 is her bed time.

Yup. 5.5 hours ago.

She said I should turn off the TV and go to bed. Ya think? That’s when she realized she couldn’t find her TV remote and we spent 10 minutes looking for it.

I really need to scream, but if I do she’ll never go to sleep.