BEING HERE AND NOT

 May 21

 

The noise difference between Janet being here and not is quite pronounced. Perhaps we can go down a level of cacophony or two when she gets her hearing aids. Save for the slight ringing in my ears and the occasional cat moving around, it is quite peaceful. Five of the six kitties are arrayed around me, something else that doesn’t happen the same way when Mom is in residence.

I wonder if I am the magnet.

I have a lot of ironing to do. Janet needs name labels ironed into her clothes while she is at the rehab place. Perhaps I just need to set up the ironing board. Generally, I iron many of Janet’s blouses (and some of my own) but I have moved to both of us wearing t-shirts more of the time. Finding clothes to fit Janet is not easy given her low weight countered by substantial breasts. Her shoulders are pretty narrow but she is not small. She has lost 20 pounds since her femur break in November.

The good although likely not permanent news is that Janet is doing quite well. Now that both of her UTIs are cleared up, she is alert, chipper, and far more in the world. Michael and Alicia were down from Oakland this weekend to have eyes on the situation (they were both nurses) and to look at the « exit » documents such as they are. Given my alarm and exhaustion, they were both encouraged as to her progress and likely ability to be at home again.

That’s a big « whew » notwithstanding that things will likely devolve again. I’ve been stopping by with ice cream not every day but at least every other day. Tomorrow, I jailbreak her to an appointment with her neurologist and then we are heading down to the Coffee Cup in Long Beach to have lunch with our dear family friends, Kaye and Charlaine who are driving up from the more southern climes of California to visit her. 

There’s a lot of thumping going on in the darkened dining room. Bebop has a chair that she likes to play in, although it is not easy to figure out just what she is doing. The chair is not entirely even so as she chases her tail and plays through the rungs, there is a good deal of mild crashing about.

The gentle spring blossoms are going to seed, so it is a slow moment for flowers. There are still some sweet peas but most of them are going to pod. The poppies are over, turning dark and grey. The cosmos seem tired, but they are fairly adept at re-seeding so they will likely be around. The sunflowers are about 14 feet tall. Who knew that sunflowers were so prone to powder mold. 

I had a container of mold spray which one screws on to the head of the hose. I had such a hard time getting it to work properly. I think I used most of one bottle in one direction. After some wrassling, I seemed to figure it out and get many plants sprayed. I think the sunflowers are going to need more and constant spraying;

Out of the « way too many » gladiolus bulbs, I have managed to get some into the ground. I had a ridiculous number of them because they were on sale. I cleaned up a bed and popped them in. Bulbs take their own kind of planting and I have yet to have much success with them, but I can’t quite give them up, as the blossoms are so beautiful. I need to spend less time in the garden and more time in the house getting things sorted, (ironed), and generally disposed of. I think I will be spending a fair amount of time posting and hoping to sell things. The stuff is all cool, but finding the proper consumers is not easy.

There was a plan afoot to have a garage/collectible sale next month, but I am not so sure that is going to happen. There is just so much to go through. However, it is essential that I reduced my possession footprint.

I will have about six months here after my mother passes. As I cannot afford to live anywhere in California where I have a pod of friends (not the Bay Area, not Santa Cruz, not here), the current plan is to decamp somewhere in the environs of the Hudson Valley where I will be relatively proximate to some of my friends, and will be able to get into Manhattan and Brooklyn fairly easily. I may well be alone in the immediate town I live in, but it should be relatively affordable.

Sigh.

So, time for Duolingo French and then, hopefully to sleep. Now all six cats are in my immediate vicinity.

ANOTHER ONE CHOCK FULL OF FUN

 14 May

Isn’t there something delightful about the word “jelly”? I am not even that much of a fan but it is so fun and tasty!

I am indulging in a bit of morning-bed-sitting which I have not been able to do since Janet came home. I do need to do my French lesson, mow the lawn, and head out to visit her. I couldn’t get myself together enough to go last night. 

Bummerly enough, the days of morning gloom are already here. The difference in a beautiful morning in the garden and today is quite nearly shocking. I like that in general, my neighborhood is empty at this time of day so that I don’t feel too bad about wandering in the garden in my pyjamas a bit. 

And the saga goes on. Yesterday had me pretty much felled after a conversation with the hospital that indicated that Janet’s medical benefits had run out and that either she had to come home for me to care for with minimal (like four hours tops a week) or go into a rest home that would begin depleting her, and I use this term loosely, assets. Which meant I would be looking at about six months to get out of here (a very daunting task) and figure out the rest of my life.

Imma just come out and say it: it’s hard to do anything when you are grieving. The idea of organizing, pitching, and selling all of my stuff is quite an ordeal in itself (although I am working on it). 

However, a facility re-ran her benefit history and it turns out that she is eligible for another 100 days. She had been back at home for sixty days which is the number at which the insurance resets. She went into the hospital again on the 61st day.

So, Reality Wolf, step back a step or two.

Off to lawn mow and French homework.

Moments have either a short bend or a long bend in the way they turn how things go, and this one had a long bend to it.

— Eliabeth Crook, The Madstone

15 May

I will not be describing either short or long story bends. 

Janet was checked into her new PT/rehab place. The decaying meat locker where she was previously housed looked nicer. And now that I think of it, the money they must have paid to be right next to the hospital should have tipped me off as to what they were up to. 

Her new place is not at all fancy, in fact, it almost looks a bit run down. But the care seems to be appreciably better. There are no screaming, slobbering patients about. Lots of them hang out in the lobby and take their afternoon naps there. The nurses remember my name and greet me. There always seems to be someone you can get ahold of. 

I need to hie myself to slumberland as tomorrow is another one chock full of fun, starting with another doctor's appointment for my mom early in the morning.

THUS, WE CONTINUE IN LIMBO

It is, of course, one of life’s persistent disappointments that a great moral crisis in my life is nothing but matter for gossip in yours.

Phyllis Rose, Parallel Lives

It's getting on past my bedtime but I do want to get back to more consistent writing. I also want to thank so many of you for your declarations of support. I was most touched and overwhelmed.

By the way, I meant nothing negative towards any of you in including that quote, it is just true.

A roller-coaster has nothing on my emotions these past few days. I am dizzy and beyond weary with all the ups and downs and ifs and ands and buts of the current situation. And am learning with great force how hard it is to be in the universe of insecurity and not knowing.

I did a bit of a reality check thinking about those poor people in Gaza getting the shit and life beat out of them by Bibi Netanyahu. And one wonders what the actual fuck. I try to lighten up and alight on a bit of hope.

One thing gardeners have is hope. Having a garden is a manifestation of hope and future. 

I dragged myself to my Pilates/yoga session with Sonia today, although all I really wanted to do was fall into a deep sleep. However, I know I would like to maintain the abdominal muscles and agility I have worked for, so, although I was crying so hard as to be dizzy, I showed up (late) for my session. Undoubtedly, it was helpful and grounding. But the waves of overwhelming reality interspersed with the waves of grief and sorrow (a bad set if there ever was one) continued. 

So I stopped at my favorite nursery for more plants that I might not see grow into adulthood and fruition. But that's where the hope comes in. And the desire for beauty. And instead of cleaning the house and continuing to sort and organize, I chose some gardening time. 

I had no idea how attached one could get to one's garden. Of course, there is much to be done, always, but it does amaze me that I have grown 10 foot sunflowers (just starting to bloom) as well as a ridiculous amount of sweet peas. I will need to take some of these to Janet tomorrow.

After much hazzerai, it was found that Janet's rehab/pt benefit had reset BY ONE DAY and she was able to go to another facility to see if we can get her walking with a walker again. The last decaying meat locker just focussed on depleting her benefits and then planned to warehouse her while sucking her assets. I have experienced this before when my niece Anita was warehoused, but somehow that episode did not click in.

So tomorrow, I will go check out the new facility and see if I can find out a prognosis for her recovery. She did have another UTI of some sort. Thus, we continue in limbo.

THE UP AND DOWN ALL OF IT, I HOPE (Part 1)

 Early morning or late at night? May 12, 2024

I realized a few moments ago that this would be Janet’s last Mother’s Day. That felt noteworthy to me. 

Then again, given my current waves of grief and sorrow, I think anything would set me off. Hard to really celebrate with her, given that she is hospitalized again. And pretty unlikely that she will ever live at her house again, even if there is occasion to visit from the skilled nursing facility where she will likely spend her last days.

I know, I know. There is a lot to catch up on. Notwithstanding the sweet pleas to take up my blog again, it has been most challenging to find the mental bandwidth or the time to do so. Until these last couple of days, I had scarcely streamed anything, save for watching Jeopardy. 

To summarize, although I reserve the right to flashback, in early November, Janet stepped out of a car and broke her hip. Yes, that quite a scene with her screaming (and I do mean screaming) in pain. She was being dropped off after Senior Center dominoes by her friends Eric and Diane. I was at the kitchen sink when I heard the car drive up. I wiped my hands and headed to the door to help her to the house as Diane was bringing in her purse and water bottle. I looked out the dining room front window as Diane was walking back the the car. In that less than 15 second interval, she stood up and then was on the ground.

Not one of the three of us, or four if you count Janet, really knows what happened. Where she stepped out of the car onto the driveway was not an even surface, and I suspect she took the wrong step and snapped her hip. Eric couldn’t help her as he has a bad back (turns out he had cancer), so it was up to me and Diane to get her up and wrestle her into my inadequate Honda Fit. I knew she wasn’t dying and I also knew how horrible it is to be jostled in a fucking ambulance, so I opted to drive her there myself. 

Knowing that it would be a long time in the ER, I ran back into the house to get some supplies to sustain me during the wait. Janet was relatively comfortable if she didn’t move. Once at ER, I went to check her in and ask for a gurney and a couple of EMTs to get her inside. Of course, they ignored me, sent one guy and a wheelchair out to the Honda to accommodate her. Uh, no. Screams filled the Whittier air. 

After a small team of EMTs got her onto the gurney they got her into a room relatively quickly, as I recall. I don’t think it took too long … only a couple of hours, before they admitted her. Her 96 year old femur was broken. She was operated on the next day and came through the surgery none the worse for the wear. I was more worried about the anesthesia than anything, but it did not significantly affect her.

Here’s where things go off the tracks for me. While she was still in the regular hospital, which was for about two weeks, she was up and walking with a walker. By the time she was transferred to the temporary care unit, she was walking, with a walker, probably 130 feet. In the temporary care unit (TCU), she didn’t make as much progress as the first week or two has portended, but, as I understand it, recovery is not a straightforward trajectory. After her insurance ran out for TCU, she was transferred to what I came to understand was a hell hole. A skilled nursing facility. Or as I came to think of it, the decaying meat locker. Without getting myself further upset at this hour, in the current situation, and after two gins-and-tonics, I found out firsthand how shamefully, how disgracefully, how tragically the “health care system” in this country truly is. 

What strikes me the most is how purposefully they obfuscate the process. I don’t know about all of you, but I didn’t know much about nursing homes. I didn’t know “the rules,” didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know how to help or ameliorate anything. For instance, no one discussed with or handed me some basic do’s and don’t’s about laundry. Consequently, my mother lost many items because they just wash everything unless you harass them, and things get lost if they don’t have name tags in them. I mean, my mom’s in a skilled nursing facility, is laundry the first thing I think of? A simple guide or introduction to settling in, a one page document, would have been a huge help.

Of course, when I spoke to the head of the nursing department, I was lied to and told that this was an oversight and they would get such a document or a documents to me. Later I was told by someone further down the food chain, that no such thing existed. No rules or procedures for checking someone out for doctor’s appointments. Forfend that they would be organized so. More screed on this later.

Even when Janet had seen her regular doctor who prescribed more pain medication, they ignored what I told them rather than following up in any way. Given that Janet is riven by arthritic pain, particularly in her shoulders, pain meds were critical to her ability to do physical therapy. So, when she was in too much pain for PT, they just let her lay around. Hello atrophy. 

Janet and I have a precarious financial situation which is likely no news to any of you. Should Janet be a “permanent resident”, all of her assets (such as they are) go to the money, blood, and soul sucking facility. That leaves me without a place to live as there is nothing I could afford nearby. 

Things looked extremely grim, based on the facility’s assessment that she could not be at home. Then I brought her home myself, just to see how she moved around. It was tough at first getting her in and out of the car, particularly into a wheelchair, but as the day moved on, she was more able to move around. She didn’t need as much help getting in and out of the car. When I took her back to the hell hole, I went in to get a wheelchair, and when I got back, she had gotten herself out of the car and was standing there waiting for me. If she can move around at all on her own, she can be home.

Okay, I’m stopping here. Hope to continue the saga in the not-too-distant future, but who the fuck knows.