I don't know why I forget about this blog! This is where the non-art drivel should go. I'm listening to the Three Tenors Christmas on PBS. What voices! I almost believe that the Christmas is just around the corner.
My daughter, Corey and her guys were in Australia for Thanksgiving. Brad's cousin was married in Brisbane on the 17th. Corey looks so natural holding the koala bear; took me a moment to realize what she was holding.
More health stuff to deal with for the next two weeks. I have an irregular heart beat, I don't think that it's serious, but the cardiologist thought it would be a good idea if I have a stress test. I'm rather panicky about the whole thing! I have a hard enough time walking on pavement so I can't even imagine how I'll be able to manage a treadmill. The orthopedic doctor agreed that I do have arthritis in my knees and hips; I've been referred to a physical therapist for two sessions. The orthopedic doctor has no idea what the lump is on my arch so I had an MRI last Thursday for what he called a soft tissue mass. And so it goes . . .
Mom had a rough day. Couldn't figure out anything and couldn't explain what she needed me to help her with. She lost the TV remote that ended up under the blanket on her bed. I lose my remote in bed all of the time which she was happy to hear about. The heater controls are also the AC ones but seeing how she never figured out the AC the heater has her completely baffled. I must have gown out to the casita every hour to go through how to turn it on. I thought I had her settled in for the night when the door bell rang. She was standing there shaking her head, "The house is against me and out of whack." I have no idea what she meant, but I think that she felt that her room has conspired against her. This afternoon she took frozen bread out of the freezer for sandwiches and somehow decided that if she put it into the bread keeper it would thaw. Interesting idea.
*****************************************
This post was originally on ExpressionStudio,
Nov. 22
This morning I woke up to mom screaming, "Gail, you're flooding the entire front yard, you'd better do something. Water is going under the house and everything is flooding."I should have known that mom didn't have a handle on what actually was going on. (How could I be flooding the front yard? I was innocently sleeping.) Once I assessed the disaster it was pretty bad and I had no idea what to do about it. Water was gushing out of a broken pipe, down the side of the house at the edge of the garage making a deep groove in the dirt and lawn pouring over the sidewalk and into the street. From the looks of the damage I'd guess that it had been flooding for quite some time. I have no idea where the shut-off valve is for the drip system so I called customer service and discovered that today is Thanksgiving! I had forgotten what day it is while I was wading around in mud and water. Fortunately, there is an emergency number and of course I reached a pager! The upshot is that after 15 more minutes of watching the loss of water pour down the street and the crevice become something akin to the Grand Canyon, not really, but I was beginning to wonder just how deep and wide the crevice was going to become I received a phone call. "The turn-off valve is under the green round cover near the sidewalk."Instant relief! It seems that a wet spot I'd noticed a few days ago was the beginning of a leak and the pipe to the front yard drip system decided to break today. Why not? I'm guessing that it will be fixed by the HOA in the next few days. This is just an example of what the last few weeks have been like.
One thing after another along with numerous medical appointments to attend to that are spilling over into next week. No end in sight.On Tuesday I was able to start on a project for Christmas that I hoped I could continue to work on yesterday. But hope died when mom came hobbling into the house from the casita using dad's cane. I said, "This doesn't look promising." Seems that mom's left hip had suddenly started giving her problems during night. Had she fallen? She couldn't remember. And so it went until I put her back to bed with Advil and a heating pad. (Today both hips are painful and she can barely walk. Now what?!) Wednesday is dialysis treatment day for my daughter, Stacy, so I needed to get ready to sit for three hours. Mom has been able to sit at the dialysis clinic three-days-a-week for the last 7 years and I've been wondering how much longer she would be able to do it. Is this the beginning of the end? And will I be able to leave mom at home alone for 4 hours? Help costs $20 an hour with a minimum of 4 hours, something I simply can't afford!Thirty minutes before it was time to leave mom had forgotten that she was staying home and valiantly started to get dressed. Her memory has nearly stopped recording information, so much so that she couldn't remember that we had decided she needed to stay home!We went shopping last Thursday because she needed new pants. She's gained a lot of weight; one of her meds seems to be the culprit along with her lack of any kind of exercise outside of walking from the casita, a few feet, to the house and out to the car and into the dialysis clinic! I can't convince her she needs to walk around the block with me. The excuses are endless! Yesterday, when she started to get ready to go to the clinic she was shocked to find new pants in her closet. She didn't remember the shopping trip which included lunch and buying two books at the bookstore. She had a near panic attack in the bookstore when she lost sight of me and, "There are too many books here. I have to get out of here now." She threw the books and her wallet on the counter looking like a wild woman. The greatest guy I've ever encountered at a cash register said, "Well dear lets figure this out." It was if he knew mom was panicky. He was older and I got the feeling he'd had experience with elderly people. I'm grateful for his understanding and help because I was beginning to feel panicky myself. At best shopping with FM isn't easy for me.
The weather is finally starting to dip into the 70's! Frost is expected this weekend! What? We just had blistering heat and now frost. What a strange terrain this desert valley is. I doubt I'll ever get used to it. But the vastness between the mountain ranges is calming to me. The first week of November we left the valley twice in 48 hours for an ambulatory EEG for Stacy. The medical center is is Loma Linda a 3 hour round trip that involves driving on the crazy semi-truck clogged interstate through a pass that separates the desert from the big cities! On the other side of the pass I instantly become claustrophobic and want to scream. Everything seems frenetic to me; I have to remember to breathe.At the medical center wires were glued onto Stacy's scalp that were plugged into a recording device that I learned how to use along with a video machine. At least two seizures were recorded during the 48 hours of the test.
The appointment with the neurologist when we find out the results isn't until Dec. 27th!This week is the start of the return of the "snow birds" to the desert and I've sure noticed the increase of traffic and longer lines in the stores. Last year I was oblivious to a lot of what was going on around me being that I was trying to find my way after an exhausting move of two households into one. Perhaps though I didn't notice the influx of people because I came from a fairly crowded tourist area but after spending the summer here when so many people leave to escape the intense heat it's more obvious to me this year. About 3 new shopping centers have been built during the year, but at least there wide open spaces between them. There aren't too many high-rise buildings in the desert and there are lots of country roads I can take to get to the shopping areas. All-in-all it's quieter and calmer here than it would have been living closer to my daughter, Corey, in the LA area. I'm thankful for that
Do I have enough potted plants? The plant at the edge on the left is a tomato tree. Not really, but I've never had such a large tomato plant before. And yes, there are about a dozen green tomatoes on it. It's too hot during the summer to grow tomatoes and now I'm wondering how this plant is going to survive; the nights are getting down into the 40's. A woman at the nursery said she grows tomatoes on her patio during the winter months. This is only a small portion of the potted plants. The door leads into my bedroom.
