Things are really bad at my folks' house. Really, really bad.
I know things had to get this bad for my mother to accept putting my father in a nursing home but it's still horrible.
I feel terrible I'm not there despite being glad to be here with Judi. I just feel so sad for everybody.
O.K., first tell me why I constantly yearn for sleep and can't get up in the morning and yet there I am in a big old quiet hotel room by myself and I can't sleep past 5 a.m.? Ah well. I hopped in my little van, took a couple of pictures before I left Nashville and headed for South Carolina. I made pretty good time and got here about 1:30. I hugged Judi--who looks great by the way---and said, "oh I should call Ernie to let him know I'm here." She said, "wellllll" and I said "oh fuck, what?"
Evidently last night my father was sitting in the living room and refused to get up and go to bed. My mother eventually went to bed. This morning.....still sitting there....still not moving. Finally my mother called my sainted husband. Ernie couldn't budge him either. They ended up calling the paramedics who took him to the emergency room. The boys stayed with my mother. My poor boys must think that everybody in the whole fucking world is sick. Anyway...turns out he has a urinary tract infection....just like his cat Barney by the way. Then...get this....he REFUSED to take a pill so they had to give him an IV. As Judi said, this is the point where Ernie should have broken down and just shot him.
I called Ernie a little while ago and he said they were just getting out of the car. Hopefully that means he will be free soon. My poor husband. He rented all the Indiana Jones movies for the boys (Indiana Jones Lego fever at our house) and they were supposed to have a quiet, lazy weekend with movies, lego and beer. Well for the boys just movies and lego but you get the point.
I've only been gone 26 hours....
Ohhhhh what a weekend. The problem with getting sick is that then you can’t call in sick when you just want to….. If I hadn’t been sick a week or two ago, today would be a wonderful day to take the proverbial mental health day. Oh well. Worked Friday evening and came home exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping well to say the least. So around 9:00 I took two, count ‘em two, otc sleeping pills because I was going to get some sleep if it killed me! A half hour later just as they were kicking in the phone rang. It was my mother. My father had left the house because he insisted she wasn’t his wife Polly. The wind was vicious that night but he took off with no jacket, bent over and holding his shillelagh in the darkness.
So much for sleeping. Ernie took off and went looking for him…and looking….and looking. Just as he was going to go to the police station to let them know he circled by their house and saw police cars outside. Evidently my father had knocked on someone’s door and said that he didn’t know where he was and he didn’t know his address. He did know his name however and the police came and brought him home.
Suffice to say I didn’t sleep well even when I knew he was home. The next day I worked all day at a work event. Blew off the dinner afterwards because my colleague kindly said she’d handle it (thanks Nancy) and came home and collapsed. Got up Sunday morning and took my father to church and I could barely keep my eyes open. In our new routine he tells me he wants to go grocery shopping with me but then when we get to the grocery store he wants to stay in the car. I refuse and drive him home and then head back to the grocery store. When I got home around 12:30 I just laid down on the couch and slept for a couple of hours while the boys played Lego on the floor in front of me.
Oh well….off to another day…..
1. In a slightly ironic twist I am posting one of my favorite Kevin Welch/Dead Reckoning/Kane Welch Kaplin videos. Oh yeah, the ironic part is that it is called I Feel Fine Today (thanks to Lucas for putting some of these Dead Reckong videos up on youtube!). This song always DOES make me feel fine however. It's a song that Ernie and I both turn to to lift us up and the video brings back the dare I say....halcyon early days of Dead Reckoning. I love those guys....
2. More realistically I feel so-so today and that's actually pretty damn good considering. Yesterday I decided to do something about myself and I made an appointment to see somebody at the UIUC Faculty Staff Assistance Center. I saw someone there a couple times when my old job was trying to suck my soul out and found it helpful. Yesterday somebody sent me a really kind email and it made me cry so much that I thought...you know, maybe I am just NOT o.k. I keep saying I'm o.k. but you know.....maybe not.... So I did that and then called a friend whom I hardly ever talk to but I have known for a million years and she's always there for me, particularly in a time of need. So I am having lunch with her tomorrow and I see a counselor today.
3. A bird in a cage...
That's how my Dad said he felt when Sarah, his homecare worker, asked him to please stay in the yard after hunting him down blocks away from home. He said he was going to church. Granted is was the middle of the day on Wednesday and he was going in wrong direction but he was going to church. We were surprised how far he got....I mean the man walks at the pace of a snail but you know how it is....slow and steady wins the race.
Now going back to irony...or things that are just damn funny.....my mother did seem to think the good thing about this incident is that he wasn't really wandering...he was going to church. That's right----see even though there was no mass at that time and he was going in the wrong direction he HAD a destination so he wasn't really wandering.... Do you see where I got my talent for denial???
4. More struggles with Owen yesterday and this morning. This is where I start second guessing myself...is it just regular old developmental stuff or is he feeling the stress of what's going on in the household and worrying about his father? The fucking hormones are kicking in with Ernie and we all know what hormones can do to us.... We'll get used to it.
5. Owen insisted on going to Ernie's doctor's appointment with him yesterday even though Ernie had arranged for him to go to a friend's house. I believe things were a tad bit ugly but Owen went and set out to charm the doctor's entire office. I think his father just stared at him in amazement and wanted to do something heinous to him. Both boys, when they know they have really gone to far, get really chatty, happy and charming afterwards. So Owen apologized, then he admired the color of the nurse's uniform, he chatted to the doctor and asked him questions, he explained to the woman making the next appointment that his Dad played ball with him the day before, etc., etc. And all this time remember he was wearing this outfit. I think it was one of those 'what doesn't kill me makes me stronger' days for Ernie. My sweet peas.
Woke up this morning feeling absolutely awful again. I called my mother and told her I was going to sleep some more and see if that helped and then I'd take Dad to a later mass. So the guys were angels and got their own breakfasts....Owen came in and checked on me periodically, gave me his bear for comfort and I slept. I woke up about 10:00 (yikes) because Owen was wailing....he'd cut his foot. As I put a bandaid on and kissed it I thought perhaps it was too late to manage mass this morning. Ha. The phone rings and it's my mother telling me that my father is walking out the door to go to church. He told her he could walk perfectly well, he'd walked there last week and that he knew where he was going---he's going to St. Pat's." Damn. I told her to get him back in and I'd be over to take him to 12:00 mass. In the meantime Owen tells me that his ear his hurting. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "it's probably an ear infection." Yup. I got some tylenol into him and told him we'd go to the doctor after church. So got the boys dressed, got myself somewhat together (I am so over make up) and we make it over to my parents house. My father was still sitting in the living room waiting for me where he'd been since 10:00. Evidently he at first wanted to wait on the porch but my mother convinced him to come inside. I said "let's go Dad" and he said, "where?" GRRRRR "to church Dad." "What church?" GRRRRR. We trotted off to church which I gotta say was ENDLESS today. He may have been just confused but I think he was pissed at me...no warm fuzzies today. Oh well. I do the best I can. I brought him back home and told the guys I was going to run and do Grandma and Grandpa's shopping. They decided they wanted to come so I said sure. Big. Mistake. As soon as we got there Owen started whining and crying about his ear. I decided to abort the mission and so threw just the necessities in the cart: milk, juice, hearing aid batteries and wine. I found myself saying to Owen "you'll feel better after you get to the doctor honey" in a louder than necessary voice....somehow hoping people wouldn't think my child was normally this whiny. Stupid I know but one of those things you find yourself doing. Deposited the emergency groceries and Leo back at my parents' house and took off for Convenient Care. Owen pegged it of course...it is indeed an ear infection. The doctor thought he might also have allergies. Great. Waited forever for the prescriptions then trundled back to Urbana to get Leo. Then we sped home because poor Owen was crying in pain and I needed to get home to that magic purple tylenol FAST. So now it's 4:30, the tylenol has kicked in and Owen is almost perky and I'm frigging exhausted even though I did sleep til 10:00 a.m. Fortunately I just got a Trader Joe's care package from my friends Gisele and Kathleen (Indiana) Jones so I just may open up one of those bottles of wine. Ahhhhh, the kindness of friends.....always there when you need it....
1. Long time, no post little blog and I was so sick this week that I didn't even MISS you. I am finally feeling better after a relatively dreadful week however. I ate a real dinner last night and woke up feeling somewhat normal this morning. Woo-hoooooo!
2. Ernie is off to a show in Iowa. I don't have high hopes for it but I'm hoping he has a good time. It's a fun show to do and hell....they serve margaritas during set up....
3. I am planning a very quiet weekend...well, at least as quiet as a weekend with the guys can be. Other than convincing them to have their semi-annual bath I'm hoping to ignore them as much as possible and just let them play with Lego and the neighborhood kids (supposed to be 60 degrees today!). I am going to work on taxes...which I must admit I kind of enjoy in a sick kind of way....and do nothing else today. Tomorrow of course I'll take Dad to church, etc., etc.
4. Judi is doing pretty well. As I said, her scans looked clean, she saw Dr. Kooby in Atlanta yesterday and everything looked fine and she even squeezed in time for a couple of blood transfusions which should help her weakness. Her friend Annie will be with her this week which will be a nice treat for her and I'll be down there in a couple of weeks. This was a pretty tough week for her even though overall it was good....
5. Leo received his present from Aunt Debbie and let's just say he was BESIDE himself with joy. Remember the Lionel milk car he wanted so bad? Well...
6. The other night I was laying in bed feeling very sick. Owen was at the foot of the bed cuddling with Bob the cat. I must have made a little sound because Owen asked me what was wrong. I told him I just felt very sick. He thought about it and then said, "well, that happens to me sometimes and what I do is I go into my mind. I think about different scenes that make me happy---they can be real or they can be made up. You should try that Mommy." I did try it and it did help. My sweet pea is a very special little guy.
7. The other evening I talked to my mother and she was on me about sending some things to my sisters that my aunt had sent to me to send to them instead of just sending to them and frankly I've got a lot going on and it's just not the top of my list for god's sake, o.k? I tried to say, "mom, please, I just don't need any more pressure right now" to no avail. So I snapped and was WAY cross with her and of course ended up with her apologizing all over the place and me in tears. I got off the phone and just cried because, hell, it seemed the thing to do. Every so often something just shoots my stress level to the breaking point. I felt bad for upsetting her so I called her back and apologized and said, "I'm so sorry, I'm just not feeling well and I'm really on edge." Her response?
I kid you not.....
she said, "what are you on edge about honey?"
Honest. That's what she said.
I didn't have the ability to say" well, the fact that you and dad should be in a nursing home, that I don't think you eat half the time when Dad can't function to get you a meal, that we're just waiting for other shoe to drop with you both, that my sister had stage four cancer, that my husband has stage 3 cancer that has returned, that my son hates kindergarten and....and....and...." so I just said, "uh" and she said, "oh, you mean Ernie? Well of course we're all concerned. He HAS to be o.k." and I just said, "uh, yeah" and we apologized again to each other and got off the phone.
I just looked at Ernie and said, "she wants to know why I'm on edge" in a dazed voice.
We laughed about. God, I love my husband.
8. I'm going to leave you with this song from one of my all time favorite bands however....Thin White Rope.
1. It's the LAST DAY OF JUDI'S RADIATION!!!!! Woooooo-Hooooooooo!
2. My father threw their homecare worker out of the house yesterday. I guess it was bad enough that she just left. There is no way to reason with him when he's gone like that. I said to my Mom, "you're just going to have to make the decision" and she gasped and said, "oh, not yet....you know sometimes he's fine." And I do know. People say to me "oh, he should be in a nursing home" but they don't see him when he IS still my Dad. Eh....you know.....
3. It's snowing!!! I know we probably won't get as much as forecast (they ALWAYS get my hopes up) but it's still exciting and beautiful.....
Remember the night I skipped the school function to stay home but it turns out I also missed Bon Jovi night on American Idol? Karma.
Yesterday was just one of those days. On my way to work I all of a sudden found myself hurtling toward east Urbana. Oops. I had overshot the road to work----which I turn down EVERY day----by a mile or two. Turned around and headed back to my place of work but it sort of set the tone for the day. Long day and by 4:00 I had a headache and just wanted to go home.
Phone call from my mother. sigh.
I trudged over there after work and it took awhile but I managed to get my father to give me his hearing aid so I could change the battery. It seems that he doesn't really recognize that he's not hearing but it makes him more confused and irritable. (Of course one of the hearing aids is broken so Ernie will take it in today, as well as stop and get my mother's glasses which she left at the hair salon yesterday, etc., etc....) Then he didn't seem to know how to put the hearing aid back in but I managed to figure it out. Then he was seemed better and even asked for a kiss and a hug before I left.
Got home late, tired and grumpy. Said 'the hell with it' to the family dinner and fed the boys. Figured then I could just collapse and cook something more interesting for us later. Karma. Should have just fixed the frigging family dinner and blueberry cobbler like I was supposed to. It was a night of bickering, whining and squabbling. If only it had been warm out I could have just shoved them out into the yard. I just wanted to escape. And then the dinner I made wasn't even very good.
The last two days Owen has been almost annoyingly cheerful about going to school. Not today. Managed to get him out of the house but gave in to no socks and not brushing his teeth. Sometimes.....
This will not go down as one of my favorite weeks.
Oh well...here's a Kevin Welch song that sums up some of what I'm feeling....
Called my mother yesterday afternoon to tell her that I had rescheduled her hair appointment. She answered the phone sounding shaky and upset and I thought 'oh crap why did I call?'. How's that for selflessness? Oh well. She said my Dad woke up cross and confused. Their homecare worker was there and she took the cat's litterbox outside to clean. It was already somewhat cracked (I was supposed to replace it this week) and in the bitter cold it broke even more. When she brought it back in the house and showed my parents my Dad got furious and wanted to call the police on her. On top of that his hearing aid batteries were shot but he wouldn't let either Sarah or my mother change them....and when he can't hear he gets worse. My mother asked me to come by after work. I called Ernie and was feeling rather down as I told him I would be late getting home.
Honestly, none of it seemed amusing until as I glumly said to Ernie, "well, Sarah broke the cat litter box and Dad tried to call the police on her" and my colleague sitting next to me started giggling. I said "shut up Nancy" and started giggling myself. Nancy has been through this with her mother and knows all too well the toll this takes so she is an incredible support to me....and sometimes you have to hear how it sounds to someone else to find the humor in it. I mean....it IS kind of funny....
Then I happened to come across this
Note to Oscars: No Alzheimer's jokes
Los Angeles TimesHOLLYWOOD — Actress Julie Christie seems to be on everyone's shortlist as a possible Oscar winner this year for her role as a woman with Alzheimer's disease in the film Away From Her.
But when she accepted the best-actress prize at last month's Screen Actors Guild Awards, Christie made a last-second quip on camera that some viewed as insensitivity about the disease.
After thanking the cast and crew, Christie drew laughs when she concluded: "And if I've forgotten anybody, well, it's just that I'm still in character."
With two movies — Away From Her and The Savages — dealing with Alzheimer's and dementia, respectively, up for Oscars on Sunday, Alzheimer's experts hope emcee Jon Stewart and the celebrity presenters and winners will avoid any humor about the disease.
"It is no laughing matter," said Peter Braun, chief executive of the California Southland chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.
"People don't laugh about cancer; people don't laugh about AIDS. We call on the academy to use this moment for good, as it has done for so many other social causes."
What the hell is wrong with these people? I laugh at Alzheimer's. I laugh at cancer. What else can you do? Laughing at a person...unkind. Laughing at horrible diseases....utterly necessary. I find nothing about her statement offensive. My god....you HAVE to laugh....
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I got to my parents' after work and he was calmer. I don't think he knew who I was but he still let me take his hearing aids out and change the batteries. He put them back in and he said, "oh that's much better. What did you do?" I said, "I changed the batteries" and he calmly replied, "oh, that makes sense" and went back to the newspaper. I poured my mom a glass of wine and kissed her. Kissed my dad even though I think he wondered why this strange woman was kissing him and I went home to my guys.
Last night was pancake night. We haven't had pancake night in ages. We used to but then we got in the habit of going to Carmon's for pancakes. Now that Carmon's is no more (well, in that iteration anyway....and the boys now refuse to go out to breakfast in some sort of tribute to the old Carmon's but that's another story) we just haven't had pancakes in eons. Ernie is the master pancake maker so he and the boys got started. They were so excited they were practically levitating. Owen is usually the cook but Leo was on a pancake high and made most of them. In his eagerness I'm not sure they all got cooked enough but we let them warm in the oven until the bacon was done so they came out o.k. Leo insisted on setting the table...he asked for a specific tablecloth but we got him some placemats that he deemed acceptable. The pancakes went on a platter and ONLY Leo was allowed to serve them. He happily leaped out of his chair whenever anyone requested one. AND he actually ingested a speck of bacon and a speck of strawberry. We had to leave the room again but Owen peaked and assured me he did ingest the specks. My sweet peas.
It gets harder and harder to take Dad to church. I further complicated things by oversleeping today...had to call and tell them I would take him to 10:30 mass instead of 9:00. I got there and my father was working on getting dressed. He smiled at me and said "what are you doing here?" Uh, taking you to church Dad..... When he was ready I said "O.K., let's go to church now" and he looked at me and said, "what church?" "St. Patrick's Dad, the same one we always go to.". When we walked in the church he paused and looked at me and said, "where do I go?" I showed him to the same pew we always sit in. He kept pulling his wallet out and I kept reassuring him that he'd already given me the money for collection. Finally however he said, "but what about all my other money?" I told him I didn't know and we'd ask Mom when we got back home. He thought for a moment and said, "who is Mom?" I told him it was Polly, his wife and then fortunately the music started.
I sat there feeling sad and wondering why I was doing this. But after mass we made our long, slow way toward the entrance and Dad shook the priest's hand and as we walked to the car he said, "thank you honey, for taking me to church." And you know what? When he said that he sounded just like my Dad. The boys were over at their place, Ernie was out doing the shopping and as I sat there with my folks, my father kept thanking me over and over. I kissed him goodbye and he hugged me and said "thanks for taking me to church sweetie.....I don't know what I'd do without you."
It brings me to tears when you see those flashes of him...when he has the light in his eye for a moment or two. Sometimes I don't what is hardest....when he's confused....or when he's not.
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