I haven't blogged in a long time because I was pretty well still emotionally paralyzed. No, it was that I had no time. Or maybe that it was too tiring to sit down and write in the morning and there was no time in the evening -or possibly the other way around. Perhaps it was the necessity of having rational thoughts to share - on the other hand that hasn't stopped me ...  On the other hand my recent discovery of the margarita sampler at Outback may have inspired me.
 On the (95 year old, mine) mom front my excuses seem to be the same as they were 40 years ago {she knows what buttons to push -mine have always been clearly labeled) or 40 weeks ago (pneumonia and a stint in rehab*). The facility is up near my sister since that's where she was when she got sick. All things considered (and it is a long list) she is doing amazingly well, at least when they keep the oxygen going and the pain meds current - then she even has a sense of humor. It's dark but it's there. My poor sister, one more week and grandma would have been back with me!
 On the being a terrible mom  (as opposed to daughter) front I finally got the eldest son to his orthopedist (only the one at the nearest Children's hospital deals with the CP but one must cross major bureaucratic hurdles to get a 28 year old in).  Seems his knee caps have been pulled right up above the actual joint -it looks creepy in the x-ray. Now we get to pursue newer and better orthotics.
 The youngest missed 4 days of school to find out he does NOT have pertussis. Since I figured a diagnosis couldn't make his cough any worse I was mildly dis- appointed since this would have made a great anecdote for the undergraduate epi class. Oh well, you can't win them all. I will keep my eye out for another I make work it in still.
* "rehab" really has a whole different meaning at her age! On the other hand when we said she had to go she did say "no. no. no."

Officially Untitled (But the picture explains)

 3 months since I last tried to put life in written word. My written words have been PowerPoints and emails - do they count?  But they were mostly to explain statistics, or jargon or why a grade really couldn't be rounded up 3 points to an A.  The last month my mom was with us was really the hardest time we've ever had with her. Everyone at the end of their ropes. And now she is gone... to her other daughter's. She turned 95 just a few weeks after the changing of the guard and this guard didn't even call. In fact now she is almost back with us again. Only 2 weeks left of a three month break and I am looking forward to her being back -in her own house with my daughter in charge for the next 5 weeks. So that gets me close to not hyperventilating when I think of the whole 24/7 caretaking thing again. One step at a time.
 As far as how Grandma is doing: well she got pneumonia a few weeks after leaving here and then spent another month in hospital/rehab in Maryland. We visited a little while she was in the hospital - when she was scared she'd never see us agin. That's the youngest running his fingers through her hair because he noticed her doing it and told me later he realized that was something he could do for her. If anyone should wonder about the impact on my kids of taking care of grandma here's the answer....  She is recovered enough now to back to where she was in the window of time between recovering from the broken pelvis and the pneumonia (with accompanying anemia, but that is truly another story). SHe didn't get any younger though. Neither did we.

All my ducks on a row

 So this is absolutely the best picture of the ducks near my mom's house I will ever take. I turned and clicked in their general direction as they landed on the river and then I said , "Well that won't turn out."  I kept taking pictures and I never even looked at this dirst shot until I put them on the computer. There is a lesson ther but it is way too abovious.
  It was beautiful weather and since my college girl had her rental we had her stay at the river a few extra days so Grandma could have more time in her own home. The cats were happy about it anyway. We left them with leftovers. Chinese fried rice. An hour after we got home I had to tell the granddaughter to call 911 after she gave the phone to Grandma who could barely talk and wasn't sure where anyone was but the itching was bad. The EMT guys called me and after some discussion of all her vitals being good etc decided they probably wouldn't take her in -they gave her more Benadryl. Next thing my girl is asking me what to take to the ER (which the paramedics had described to her as a "quick visit") -apparently in the 5 minutes after talking to me Grandma started to get worse. They made it back home by 3am. Pretty sure it was the Chinese fried rice. Somehow I'd never pictured old people developing strange allergies. Hives seems like a young person thing don't you think? Then it rained the next day when they drove back here.
  So my mom didn't get much of a treat at home. We didn't get much of a rest what with the phone calls and long distance crises and let's not even think about what kind of spring break this is for a college student. Oh and it's a rental because last week the other guy at the intersection in the sleety rain failed to yield but his insurance company has been pretty decent. The car was totaled but they will let her keep the rental over the entire spring break - and then we can try to get her another car with what a 1997 Saturn is worth!
  So the ducks are in a row but they aren't actually exactly mine.

One tough old cat

Well, I'm down to entries every 2 months -and this one only because I needed something to do while waiting for the cat to die. The other day my mother heard me tell someone it was time (for the cat) since all he does now is lie in the corner, get up to hobble a few feet, pee on the carpet and go back to lie in the corner. This naturally led to comparisons. I told her we were not going there. But I lied.

 When I took the cat to the vet 2 weeks ago he (the vet) assured me he (the cat) was not suffering (yet) and he (the vet) could support a decision to end it all then or take him (the cat) home. The prognosis was only for another 48 hours to 2 weeks. Then he (the vet again) tried to talk to me about his belief in "quality of life" for "people and animals." I looked him in the eye and said we were not going there.
  Three weeks ago (not that I'm counting) my mom was able to leave the rehab facility she had gone into for her broken pelvis 5 weeks earlier and come back to our house. Thankfully this meant no more constant guilt over not visiting enough, no more trying to time those visits to see the right person at the right time to get the right story -since her stories were not always right. Between her aging brain, pain meds and who knows what else the short term memory is definitely going. She often doesn't remember why she was at the rehab facilty - in fact one day she asked if it was because she'd peed on the floor here. So you can see the cat connection. 
 Meanwhile there's the 7 year old and the first born with the multiple handicaps further complicating the whole thing . By complicating I mean helping. Really. The former entertains Grandma and the latter helps out when I work (for money that is, in case you think I'm not working the rest of the time). The other 2 offspring mostly call in to check on the cat.
Also there's the husband who actually shoulders all of the coffee making and pill distributing and also the weight of the world when all I want him to do is rub my feet. This leads to yelling sometimes but for no apparent purpose on either side.
  On the other hand they do all need care and feeding too and if you haven't noticed I am only barely hanging on. Let's not forget I took on additional teaching responsibilities being a) flattered to be asked and b) greedy. Also quite possibly c) insane. Can you see this brain explaining discrete distributions? Not really. That will start this week and meanwhile I can't remember why I'm in this rehab facility either. (That was a joke, I am at home. Watching the cat breath.)

...of Christmas Past

Every year we have a Christmas carol sing along party. Here's a snap from 2 years ago. You can see Grandma holding on, and you can see that my better half is a truly talented musician because not only is he accomodating the would be band member but he does so while being used as a jungle gym. Obviously that was not how he'd planned to play.
 Nothing about this year's carol party (tonight) was as I'd planned when I planned it last month. Grandma isn't home, the gymnast now wants to be a piano soloist and I had a house full of people I didn't expect and most everyone I'd expected was missing. There were some loud boys, and small children and jelly filled cookies were carried where they don't belong (punctuation optional).
 But this is a Christmas story so you will not be surprised to hear that I went from dissappointed to resigned toleration (with a just little sainted martyrdom thrown in) to being the recipient (not the giver) of the first real Christmas cheer I'd felt this year bathed in those sweet young voices singing about that nativity. Then they went and sang more to my mother in her rehab room bringing her to thankful tears. You will not be surprised to hear this because at this time of year you can just see the happy ending coming -if it's the Hallmark channel, or a blog at least. But I didn't see it coming and it made me feel kinda giddy. And one of the girls, a younger one, suggested we all pray together and we did and by that time I was definitely 20 something again. Just as silly, just as hopeful, just as ready to go on and on about how good God is and all that.   One of the girls who sang to the end thanked me for opening my home to them and focusing on the "real" Christmas -and I forgot to tell them I hadn't. OK, definitely the best caroling party EH-VER.


Blog from the end of the world

A week ago I woke to hear my husband say my mom had fallen in the ealry morning and the middle son had carried her back to bed. That would be the one with the newly repaired ACL. So I maturely went shopping all day looking for something festive to go with my new red shoes.  We did check in by phone via the eldest son on Grandma but forgot to ask when told she was fine if she could move. She kept telling him she was fine but ... So stuff, calls, ERs, etc. xrays. End of story (world, whatever) she had broken her pelvis on one side and her sacrum and none of it is treatable and lots more stuff and here she was the next day with her straw in the side of the cup invention so she didn't have to tilt it and raise her arm too high. Since I had shopped and then ERed all day I had only heard Christmas songs on the radio and she starts too ramble about terrible shootings and children and I knew, we knew, she was losing it. Lying there in pain all day she had confused some tv movie and the mall shooting and was muddled from the pain and fatigue. I pretty much told her so. And then she said "I'll bet you a nickel," and I wasn't so sure. She never bets unless she's right.

   Still the medical types asked her who the president was at every opportunity, and, as seen in the picture, even on morphine she was clever. At least until no one checked her oxygen sats -or just didn't follow up on the low ones Sunday and the percoset made her loopy and she went from telling us what was going on in the world to no memory of where she was or why these terrible "harpies" (her vocabulary has yet to fail her) were torturing her. Then I got the flu. This is all so minor. But my clever, funny, loving mother angry and fearful and lost and confused, whispering the pain is "a ten, ten" might as well be the end of the world. Just a little world I know, and only mine, and near the end in any case. Just spinning a bit out of control. Or maybe it's the flu... 

 

 So now things are a bit more stable and she is less loopy and I am more and the world didn't end today (yet). 

Uniquely not Special (or special but not unique?)

I took this picture just 2 days ago. I'm very proud of it but then I realized it looks like every other butterfly picture you can Google.

Grandma is having alot of bad days (see previous blog, or don't) and then she tries hard to say nice things to cover it up. So she tells me how very wonderful the be-crutched grandson is, and how she's sorry she insisted he fetch us even though he assured her he would stay with her during a heart-racing episode (a.fib.). I assured her he understood and then she adds, "Well he went to get you -but you know how fast he is." Ha ha. It is always difficult politics when one vulnerable group is being insensitive to another vulnerable group. Make it my mother and my son and I am feeling that none of my vulnerabilities  have been spared.
 Apparently there were some spared (past tense). Yesterday provided further evidence that the University I work for is moving further away from using adjuncts. What had seemed, a few years ago, like an indefinite gig, has become spotty and may now be moving to ... spotless? I'm still teaching an undergraduate class in the spring. It hasn't been ruled out that I could still be the choice of last resort in the fall and might be used again next spring. The former would require a perfect storm of unavailabilities and the latter that I keep a rather fussy course director happy and confident in his mentoring skills and the undergrads entertained enough to give the class high marks. I could now launch into a tirade against educational systems and standards. I really could but clearly that would not be unique or special.
 But here's the thing. If they do stop hiring me at this unnamed institute of higher learning I don't have any equivalent teaching/job opportunities. And when I say "equivalent" I mean ones that will sound as impressive. If I mention I teach and am asked what grade? people are at least mildly impressed I teach at a college level (only if pressed did I reluctantly admit graduate school) and if  asked   is it at the local community college?,  then I say (looking humble) I'm at . Yes, that's me. Dr Somebody at Impressive School, teacher of future Dr. Somebodies (or at least somebodies with extra letters behind names), definitely not tired-mom-of-weird-bearded-guy-on-crutches or (really it's and) harassed-daughter-of-toothless-old-woman-with-colostomy. My supportive husband suggests this last would be a good country song but really I'm thinking -not so much.