In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, September 7, 2026 11:50
VIEWED: 338648
PAGE 76 of 834
Back from mah jong and it is trying to rain. But on the flipside I won this morning. Had 1 hand that had 8 doubles in it with a point worth of over 23,000. So, I finished up the morning with over 26,000 points. Got $10 too. 
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Oh, that's right. I flipped it around in my head. How's the downstairs bathroom? Does it have a useable shower?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm sure you've thought of this, but on the practical side, at some point your g'ma is going to need to be downstairs and near a bathroom.
SIX: She's on the first floor and the bathroom is right next to her bedroom.
Shower chair and shower wand. Hospice should eventually provide a shower chair but those handheld shower wands are perfect for giving a sit-down shower. If there's a tub/ shower downstairs, hospice should provide a transfer chair as well. They should be providing all of the supplies you'll need.
Quote:That's what I did when mom was in hospital for a week (That was one of those times when she recovered went home.) There was an "office" that was literally filled floor to ceiling with miscellaneous boes of papers. Insurance Eplanation of benefits from when my dad was alive he had died years ago) bank statments from accounts that had been closed decades before. Old stock certificates from a company that had been bought out decades ago. Recent bills. Advertizing. Wills. My sis was taking excellent and loving care of mom, but not much on paperwork. I went and bought a filing cabinet and sorted it all out for her, along with the few boes of unopened mail in the livingroom, and disposed of the irrelevent stuff. I'd lie to think it relieved some of her stress.
SIX: Oh... And I talked to my Aunt and I'm going to be moving all of her stuff downstairs in a room right off the kitchen that we cleared out last year. She brought her mattress down and she's been sleeping in the living room on it since Friday night.
I'll probably be staying over one or two nights per week so my Dad doesn't have to stay all day 5 days a week while my aunt is working. It doesn't sound like my uncle has any plans of taking any days off of work, and my other aunt (his wife) is probably going to be wearing a mask for the rest of her life and probably won't be any help since she was barely at the hospital at all in the last two weeks.
Since I'm sure I'd be really bored staying there that often at one time in a house that has tech limited to things that were made in the 1980s and without internet, I can also spend some of that time cleaning things up and clearing some stuff out that my aunt and I haven't already gotten to.
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I am so sorry to hear that SIX. That is hard work for all the family and hospice is the best for 24/7 care.
*Hugs* to you and your family.
I'm not sure how hospice works there, but here they had a nurse come and do an evaluation every few weeks to begin with, and an aide come in to assist with showers once in a while. I was disappointed at first with how little they were doing at the beginning, but they really cranked up the support as MIL declined, even delivering pain meds to the door.
I'm not sure how your g'ma is doing, but you may be in for something more like a marathon. It only turns into a sprint at the end. So don't plan on intense 24/7 care right away. Meals, helping to the bathroom, checking in every few hours, some entertainment... You will probably have time to do lots of other things for now.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, that's right. I flipped it around in my head. How's the downstairs bathroom? Does it have a useable shower?
Shower chair and shower wand. Hospice should eventually provide a shower chair but those handheld shower wands are perfect for giving a sit-down shower. If there's a tub/ shower downstairs, hospice should provide a transfer chair as well. They should be providing all of the supplies you'll need.
As of now, no... There is no usable shower (although the tub would work). This is the thing I was going to do with my friend's dad, but everybody was slowpoking around about it and now it's too late. I told my aunt to get my uncle over there this weekend to replace the hot and cold faucets and at least the shower wand will work without spraying water halfway across the room when its on, but the walls are covered in plastic tarps because they've rotted away from years of neglect. I can fix the walls, but I'm not going to be responsible for breaking any plumbing when my uncle knows a lot more about it than I do.
There's still going to be the issue now of getting her over that high cast iron tub for showering. Nobody wants to put in a walk-in base anymore, so I've already told my friend's dad that it's off.
Quote:Quote:That's what I did when mom was in hospital for a week (That was one of those times when she recovered went home.) There was an "office" that was literally filled floor to ceiling with miscellaneous boes of papers. Insurance Eplanation of benefits from when my dad was alive he had died years ago) bank statments from accounts that had been closed decades before. Old stock certificates from a company that had been bought out decades ago. Recent bills. Advertizing. Wills. My sis was taking excellent and loving care of mom, but not much on paperwork. I went and bought a filing cabinet and sorted it all out for her, along with the few boes of unopened mail in the livingroom, and disposed of the irrelevent stuff. I'd lie to think it relieved some of her stress.
SIX: Oh... And I talked to my Aunt and I'm going to be moving all of her stuff downstairs in a room right off the kitchen that we cleared out last year. She brought her mattress down and she's been sleeping in the living room on it since Friday night.
I'll probably be staying over one or two nights per week so my Dad doesn't have to stay all day 5 days a week while my aunt is working. It doesn't sound like my uncle has any plans of taking any days off of work, and my other aunt (his wife) is probably going to be wearing a mask for the rest of her life and probably won't be any help since she was barely at the hospital at all in the last two weeks.
Since I'm sure I'd be really bored staying there that often at one time in a house that has tech limited to things that were made in the 1980s and without internet, I can also spend some of that time cleaning things up and clearing some stuff out that my aunt and I haven't already gotten to.
We already cleared most of that junk out last year when I cleaned out the basement and the 2nd floor. We were going to do the 1st floor but winter came, and I wasn't too keen about removing stuff that she'd be likely to see was missing, especially given her short-term memory issues. Papers that looked like they may have importance I put in plastic totes for her children to go through. I'm not going through any of that myself.
Quote:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I am so sorry to hear that SIX. That is hard work for all the family and hospice is the best for 24/7 care.
*Hugs* to you and your family.
I'm not sure how hospice works there, but here they had a nurse come and do an evaluation every few weeks to begin with, and an aide come in to assist with showers once in a while. I was disappointed at first with how little they were doing at the beginning, but they really cranked up the supportNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I was able to talk to Grams for about 3 minutes tonight when I called back. She says she's weak, but she's not in pain. Her breathing sounded good, but she is on the oxygen machine.
She still doesn't have an appetite. Her appetite was great during her first visit to the hospital after draining the fluid and several days into her return trip home, but by the time I had gotten there before she went back she was hardly eating anything. They also weren't allowing her much food or drink in the hospital with the testing and the procedure itself, and so far it sounds like she hasn't eaten much yet since she got home this afternoon.
I'm hoping that tomorrow is an improvement. My dad will let me know when I return from tomorrow's obligations, and let me know if he feels I should come in this weekend or if it can wait until after my dentist appointment on Monday morning, since I still have things that I need to do this weekend otherwise.
She still remembered the movies I got for her at least, and she sounds excited to watch them with me. I think that alone is already an improvement from when my Dad left this afternoon after she got home since he told me that he's thinking that it is possible that they'll never play a game of Upwords together again with how her mind was when she got home.
Finger's crossed that tomorrow is a better day!
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
SIX, I could be 100% wrong, but it doesn't make sense to me that your g'mas cancer would advance so rapidly right after surgery and cause such rapid deterioration. Surgery is HARD on older people. They don't recover from the trauma or anesthesia like younger people do. And, yanno, she has some news to digest. It's hard to face impending end. It would knock anyone for a loop.
Anyway I think physically she just needs recovery time. A week or so. That may represent a fairly large chunk of her remaining time, but it takes what it takes. You can't rush it.
The one thing I really regret from my grandma's and parents" deaths was not getting to know them as people, especially how they grew up and what their lives were like. I moved too far away and missed the chance to get to know them one adult to another. Does your g'ma like to reminisce? That might help her recover.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, I could be 100% wrong, but it doesn't make sense to me that your g'mas cancer would advance so rapidly right after surgery and cause such rapid deterioration. Surgery is HARD on older people. They don't recover from the trauma or anesthesia like younger people do. And, yanno, she has some news to digest. It's hard to face impending end. It would knock anyone for a loop.
Anyway I think physically she just needs recovery time. A week or so. That may represent a fairly large chunk of her remaining time, but it takes what it takes. You can't rush it.
So anesthesia can keep you down for a while too then? Yeah. I guess I didn't consider that one. I forgot about how hard nitrous hit me when I had my wisdom teeth dug out of my gums before they derailed the orthodontic work and back before I ever had a drink or smoke in my life compared to the 2nd time I'd been on it when it had very little effect on me. I'm sure she was knocked out with something, but if my Dad doesn't know, grams won't be able to tell me.
My dad said she looked 10 years older after the procedure, but when I asked him about that yesterday after he told me all of the bad news he said she looked a lot better than the last time he saw her in the hospital.
I'm hoping for good news today. I should know more late this afternoon.
Quote:
The one thing I really regret from my grandma's and parents" deaths was not getting to know them as people, especially how they grew up and what their lives were like. I moved too far away and missed the chance to get to know them one adult to another. Does your g'ma like to reminisce? That might help her recover.
I actually know quite a bit about my grandma and my Dad these days. I missed that opportunity with all my other grandparents, but since my sobriety I've talked a lot to both of them.
I sometimes joke with my old man that the back half of Cat Steven's Cats in the Cradle never played out between us.
I wish my grandma had a journal or something. I still haven't read what was in my Uncle's two notebooks that he left me 15 years ago, but I have them and I will someday.
I'll tell you one thing though... I'm not going to let her watch FOX News all day when I'm over there.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Out for my walk in a bit. Couple of things to do.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I've heard back from the lady that I emailed my manuscript too and she will have to snail mail it back to me as she doesn't drive into the city any more. Also since I don't drive and I doubt I would be able to get a ride out there this is the best way for now. She's found some things I missed and I will have her notes and be able to read them. She said she is liking it, which is nice to hear.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I hope to read it some day, too!
Originally posted by Brenda:
I've heard back from the lady that I emailed my manuscript too and she will have to snail mail it back to me as she doesn't drive into the city any more. Also since I don't drive and I doubt I would be able to get a ride out there this is the best way for now. She's found some things I missed and I will have her notes and be able to read them. She said she is liking it, which is nice to hear.
Oh BTW, congrats on the mah jong win.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:OMG yes. My dad was hallucinating for a week afterwards. He kind of knew where he was, but he hallucinated that hospital was on the verge of bankruptcy and the basement was full of telephone answerers trying to fend off calls from concerned relatives and creditors. He was so concerned about being left alone in a dark hospital that IRL he was going to get in a wheelchair and sign himself out AMA and get a taxi to go home.
SIX: So anesthesia can keep you down for a while too then?
A friend of my MIL's went temporarily paranoid ... this was a few days AFTER she was discharged and being taken care of by MIL at home... she threatened MIL with a knife. Delayed anesthesia reaction.
A colleague's dad repeatedly hallucinated eating oatmeal... AFTER he was sent home.
Hubby's "3-day" hospital stay turned into a 6-day stay because of disorientation from anesthesia and pain meds. This doesn't happen to everyone, but it happens enough, and it can occur unexpectedy after a time lag of days or even a week. If it happens to your g'ma don't get thrown. Of course, call hospice but it could quite likely just be a reaction to anesthesia.
And there was a time my dad had gall bladder surgery ... this was the days before scopic surgery when they did a whipple incision ... I went to visit him in the hospital and I literally didn't even recognize him at first. It was like he had aged 20 years in one week, he looked so gray and frail and small. But as he got better he was back to his former self.
Quote:Good for you!
I'll tell you one thing though... I'm not going to let her watch FOX News all day when I'm over there.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME