The Sun Rises and Sets

  Every morning the sun rises, every evening it sinks behind the horizon. Always faithful, always there. We depend on it. I suppose God never gets tired of the sameness of it. Faithfully every day.

  Every morning at 8am Angie and I go get mom out of bed. Every evening at 8:30pm we go again to put her back in. I guess we are part of mom's sunrise and sunset. Sometimes she seems happy to see us and sometimes she frowns.

  Yesterday the girls went over with me because we were going shopping at Aldi and the thrift store and they wanted to go along. Merry is always very engaging with Grandma. She talks to her, holds her hand and they make faces at each other. It's good kid therapy for Grandma. But I am often in a hurry and so I don't wait on Merry and just run off to get the job done. It was good to see them interact again.

  Last evening Mom was pretty much just dragging her bad leg and then we saw that her foot and lower part of her leg were really swollen again. I think we are going to have to keep that leg up again. Dad likes it down  because she's more upright and can eat better in her chair with out making as big of a mess and I think he forgets to put her leg up again after she is done eating. The nurse from Home Health care will be out soon again so we can discuss it with her too.


  I'm usually OK with the sameness of the routine of caring for Mom, but God has one advantage over me. He knows the end as well as the beginning. But come to think of it, I'm glad I can't see everything God can. I'm sure I couldn't handle all the information. I can't imagine what it would be like to know everything everyone in this world thinks and does.

Here is a clue from God himself about how he feels about all he knows.....

Psalm 7:10-12

 My defense is of God, which saves the upright in heart. God judges the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.

Psalm 34:15 
   Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the LORD  are  upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.  The face of the LORD  is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.  The righteous cry, and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.


But let's not forget.....

Romans 5:8

“But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Changes

Mom continues to improve but I wonder if she will ever get back to what she was before her blood clot.

  Her swelling is very nearly back to normal, but she still doesn't walk well. Sometimes we think she is doing great and the next day she's back to not so good again. She will be on her blood thinner for the rest of her life.

Dad has been hoping that she will improve enough so that Angie and I won't have to come as often, but I don't see that happening. I don't want him to strain himself. If he goes down, life will be much more complicated.

Tonight when Angie and I were there to put mom to bed I saw an Anacin box laying on the counter in the kitchen. So I asked Dad if he bought them for him or mom.  He said they were for him, he's having trouble with his hip. So I told him again not to strain himself trying to get mom up from her chair or bed anymore.

  We have made a difficult decision this week. Our family has driven an hour and 15 minutes for church for the past five years. With mom needing more care it makes it so much harder to get there. We have decided to attend Pop's church for now until mom is no longer here or no longer needs my help.

  We will miss our friends at church. Changes are not always easy. But I'm trying to learn to roll with the punches.

Five Days Later

  Mom is making progress. After 10 injections of blood thinner along with five days worth of oral blood thinner she is walking much better. We no longer have to feel like we're carrying her when we make the trek from bed to toilet to chair. We are getting braver and taking her a short distance from wheelchair to her recliner with only one of us assisting and she is handling it.

  She is not impressed with her injections. I can't say i blame her for that. Angie and I are both relieved that the Dr. cut it back to one a day and only until Thursday.

  The greatest blessing of all is that Home Healthcare is coming to the house to do her blood tests. Which means we won't have to wrangle her into the van anymore. It's next to impossible to get her to lift her bad leg into the van and on into the seat. We were having to get her in by sheer force of will and wit.

  I have been measuring her leg and it has finally gone down 1/4 of an inch. So naturally we assume her pain level is getting better as well.

 We were concerned that as her blood clot dissolved there would be pieces that break loose and travel up into her lungs. But the Dr. said she is out of the woods now. So a lot to be thankful for. She cannot really communicate her pain other than frown and grab her covers and pull them tightly up to her neck. So by her body language I would say she is feeling much better. She is smiling much more although she still hates the injections.

  Our dog got hit on the road last night. I took her to the vet today and found she has a broken pelvis. So now we have two patients. Grandma and the Dog. Neither of them talk, but body language still speaks.

 You should have seen the dog when her best friend cat came in this morning. Big smile and wagging the tail. She was the closest to excited that she has been since she got hurt. The cat's reaction? Typical cat. No sympathy whatsoever. Just walks in, doesn't say one kind word and helps herself to the food.

 

Today At The Doctor

  We took Mom to the Dr. on Wed and he said he thinks she has a blood clot. He ordered an ultrasound but our appointment was late enough that the technician was gone for the day already. So we needed to run in again yesterday.

I groaned inside.....it is no easy task to get Mom into the van. On Wed. we had Kristin to help. She is strong enough to bodily pick mom up. So with her help we actually got mom in the shower before we went to the Dr.

On Wed, I had a full schedule. We ran over at 9 am to get mom up and in her chair. When we left I remembered that we hadn't elevated her leg and so I told Angie I'm gonna call Pop and tell him to get that leg up. But my phone service was bad right then and by the time I got home my brain had flipped the page to the next job of the day and I forgot.

So when we got back to get her ready for her appointment, her leg was swollen as tight as a fiddle string and I felt terrible. The Dr. saw it at it's worst.

  We went back yesterday and it all went much better because we had remembered to elevate her leg that morning and it makes a huge difference.

Turns out the Dr. was right. She has a huge blood clot running from her knee all the way up through her thigh to the top. They sent us home with blood thinner that has to be given by injection twice a day and also warfarin given orally. You cannot begin to imagine how thankful I am for Angie's experience with giving injections. Even though she was kind of intimidated by the length of the needle she administered it smoothly and expertly I'm very thankful there's two of us.

                                                         Pop calls us his "good ole girls" 

It's not an easy job this care giving, sometimes the way gets long and rough. But there are rewards. A smile, a good laugh, and sometimes even a kiss.

  Last night we got mom up out of her chair onto her feet and we just stood there to let her get her bearings, we were telling her how great she was doing and she leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. That was priceless!

Mom's Leg Issue

   When we went to get mom out of her chair tonight she really protested and frowned. We discovered her knee was swollen and warm to the touch. Her leg appeared very swollen when compared to the other one.

We managed to transport her to bed with the help of the wheelchair.  We elevated her leg with pillows. Put on an icepack and gave her Tylenol for pain.

We have an appointment at the Dr. So hopefully this can be resolved without too many issues. Handling mom in and out of bed, and her chair and the toilet leaves me feeling like I'm starting a new workout program.

Another bend in the Road

                                             The view from my parent's house last evening

  Some of you might remember that I mentioned Mom having difficulty walking and that her one leg seemed like it wasn't working as well. On Wed. Dad called Darwin and said he needs an evaluation and help to know what to do because Mom wasn't walking good enough for him to be able to move her anymore.

  I was on the way home from being with Steve on his route for a couple days. I spent a little time with my family then ran over there to see how she was doing. By the time I got there Kristin and Dad had put her to bed, so there was nothing to do then but wait until morning to see how she did. Angie and I would go get her up then.

  So when we tried to get Mom up the next morning she protested in her non verbal way and I was thinking for sure we'd never get her out of there. But Angie knows more then me about personal care and she felt like we really needed to get her out. So we got her into a sitting position and from there got her on her feet with sheer muscle and will power. She stood there very uncertain, but between the three of us (Dad , Angie and me) we managed to get her to the bathroom and on the toilet.

  Angie and I cleaned her up and dressed her and got her to her chair. I combed her hair and made her as comfortable as possible. When we left she was sitting on her recliner, footrest up, throw on her lap, looking as sweet as a rose. When we came back in the evening she was still there, looking the same, not a hair out of place. I told my Dad she looked like she hadn't moved all day and he said she really didn't. She slept a lot.

  Today Dad is going to get a wheel chair and we are going to use that to move her since we feel like we are practically dragging her as it is now. And it is hard on our backs anyway. No sense putting our backs out.

  I like the picture of the sunset. It reminds me of my Mom's life. It looks dark here...but ahead there is a blaze of light. There is always hope beyond this life.

Roses For Mama

    I walked into my parents house last week to find Mom with her lap full of roses. She was sitting there with a satisfied look on her face. My Dad said she won't keep them in the vase. She takes them out and lays them in her lap. She had two red roses, two pink ones and a yellow one. I exclaimed over how beautiful they were and she smiled big. I told her I especially liked the yellow one and she grinned and pulled the yellow one out.

   Today Larita and Clifford stopped in to see the folks and so I ran over to see them. Mom looked happier than I have seen her for a long time. She always looks at me either sober or frowning, but then I have to realize whenever I show up I give her a shower, wash her hair or trim her nails. She might have reasons to frown at me.

  Darwin came down too then and she pointed at him and smiled. I have thought many times that she just doesn't know me anymore, but she seemed to be happy to see Darwin and Larita. So  maybe she isn't happy to see me because I make her do things she doesn't like. I trimmed her nails again yesterday and she practically sat on her right hand to keep me away from it. Even though I always assure her that I won't hurt her. And for the record I never have. Which is more than I can say for her since she bit me during a shower recently. Angie says that is normal for folks with dementia. Just keep your arm away from her teeth. Lol!

  Or it could be payback for all the times I didn't hold still as a kid in church........ or when SHE combed MY hair.

 She was in a good mood though the day she had her roses. I took her picture and she grinned and tried to hide behind a magazine.