Thoughts

  I owe you all an apology, especially my uncles who look forward to reading a new post and glean through my ramblings for a word of how their sister is doing. My heart has not been on my blog or on writing. I have been struggling with guilt and dissatisfaction ever since Mom went to the nursing home.

  I suppose it's a normal occurrence. It wasn't always easy going to Mom's house twice a day to get her up and put her to bed. But I miss it. There was that emotional connection. It is so impersonal now to go visit her in her hard, institutionalized room. I know she has good nurses. But they don't know mom like we do.

  Mom is a super, super good patient though. She is ever so content to just sit there hour after hour with not a hint of discomfort or boredom. I would be going crazy about now if I were her.

  On Friday the 21st, the nursing home had open house for their new facility. So the kids and I met Angie there and took a tour. The new home is gorgeous. Just inside the front door you see walls and ceiling covered in raw Barn board with a fireplace to bring warmth and a restful welcoming aura.

  The first thing you find beyond the fireplace is a self serve cafe where they will have coffee and vending machines. Mom's room is down a series of wide hallways. The first couple turns take you through soft green passageways and then you find yourself entering a gentle yellow way. Each hallway has it's own private family room where they have comfortable looking chairs and great views.

   Mom's room is not huge, in fact probably a bit smaller then what she has now. It overlooks the courtyard which can also be seen from her dining room on the opposite side. She will have her own private bathroom with a shower. The bathroom floor must have a slight slope because the shower consists of basically a shower head coming out of the wall, a drain in the floor and a curtain to pull shut when you want to use the shower. I immediately thought of the disastrous floods we would have at our house with a system like that. But it should work fine with one old lady.

  There are a total of five beautiful kitchens in the new facility. I wish I would have taken pictures but I guess that can happen later. In addition to the private family rooms they also have very large open living rooms with more comfortable looking couches and chairs and big windows. The whole place just gives you the feeling of comfort. I took one look at the private family room and thought what a beautiful place that would be to come to for some solitude to sit and write.

  So over all I'm feeling much better about mom being in there. Moving day is Nov 3rd. Angie will correct me if I have that wrong. My brain picks up some details fairly well, but dates and times have a way of eluding me. Numbers just slip away, swirl and go down the toilet in the bathroom of my mind.

  I comfort myself with the thought that my mom was never that way. She was always prompt and never forgot an appointment. Meals were always served on time. I am like my Dad, who could function well with just a calendar and you thought twice about asking him to pick something up on the way home from town because chances were high that he would come home empty handed. Don't ask Steve how I do with that.

  I am reading a book on Dementia now that says that if you don't have an ability to do something, like for instance if you are direction-ally challenged is not an indication that you have dementia. The problem is when you have loss of information, not something you never had in the first place.

Dad in the Hospital

    Around midnight on Sunday morning Dad called Darwin saying that he had several bad coughing spells and felt like he needed to go to the ER.

  He insisted that he would be fine driving himself. So he did and he was admitted with Pneumonia.

  We had sickness at our house and so only three of us were going to church that morning. Larita called when we were on our way that morning and wondered how he was doing. I had thought I would stop in sometime after church but she advised me to go to the hospital first. I was glad I did.

   Dad is very independent and never asks for anything really. I look at him as quite capable even at his age. But he was happy to see us and I became more aware that he needs us to be there for him.

   The Dr. came in while we were there and so he was going over dad's medical history. Dad was telling him about his Colon cancer he had 20 years ago. How he'd had radiation first to try to shrink his tumor before surgery. Then after surgery they said they got it all along with his bladder, prostate and some of his colon.

After surgery they advised him to do Chemotherapy and dad asked them why he should if they got all the cancer and they replied that there was always a possibility that it could come back.

Dad said he asked then if they could guarantee that the Chemo would cure him completely and they said no,they couldn't do that, so then he asked them what would happen if he didn't do the Chemotherapy and to that they responded, "You will die."

  Dad went on with his story saying that he decided if they couldn't stand behind the Chemotherapy he would opt not to take it.

The doctor listening to dad's story surprised me with his response,
     " The chemotherapy probably would have killed you.

I remember hearing my dad say many times that God is in control of life, if your time here isn't up you won't die until it is.

     Dad is back home again now. His first stop after they released him was the nursing home to see mom. She is totally unaware of his hospital stay. No emotion whatsoever.

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Happy on Sunday

   We had a fellowship meal at church on Sunday. We sat across the table from my dad. When he got up to leave he stopped and asked me if we were coming in to see mom. I told him we were and he grinned and said, " I'm gonna prep her. I'll tell her you're coming so she can be happy to see you."

  He must have got it across to her because she was smiling big when we got there. She kept smiling the whole time and held my hand. Angie and dad both said she wasn't happy yesterday though.

  I didn't make it back in again this week. On Tuesday we had chickens to butcher, yesterday I painted our bedroom. I intended to go today but didn't make it. So tomorrow I will go.

  Isaiah salvaged a broken down side table from one of dad's sheds and brought it home. I wish I had a before picture, but I don't. It needed a missing piece and one leg was leaning in. It had dark old varnish.

  He painted it black with chalked paint, (not chalkboard paint) we made our own chalk paint by adding Plaster of Paris. Then he Modge Poged a map on the top. Looks kinda cool!

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