Got a break

Well I get a break, sort of.  My parents are just left a few minutes ago to spend the night at a local Indian casino hotel.  So while I don’t have to get up every so often to check in on them, I now get to worry that they will have a good time, that they will not have any accidents (like falling) and that they come home in one piece.

Yesterday I was planning on what my Sunday would be like.  I thought they would have gotten out of here sooner than they did and that was their plan anyway.  I had planned on getting some housework done and taking care of the plants and maybe even mowing the lawn, but today has not gone much like I had planned.  So its time to revise the plan and see what I can salvage of the original plan.

I try to do some of the housework like vacuuming and dusting when they are not home because both of those activities kick up dust in the air and that is not good for either of them.  It’s strange, these are the things I think about nowadays.  Cleaning products, dust, noise are all irritants in one way or another for them.

One of the reasons for heading off on their mini-vaca later than planned was that mom was having some issues.  I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that pain is becoming more of a problem for her.  She hardly slept last night and when I saw her about 5 am she was counting the minutes until she could take another dose of vicodin.  That is odd behavior for my mother with her high tolerance for pain.  I told her that if she needs it, just take it.  She is also becoming more verbal (grunts and winces) about the pain as she moves.  So the pain thing slowed her down a bit.  Another slowing factor was getting a shower.  Normally she showers in the front bathroom which is a tub so you have to step into it.  In another first for me, she indicated she was worried about trying to get in and out of the shower.  Dad and I both told her to use the back bathroom which does not have a tub, just a shower stall.  Plus it has a seat ledge in it.  She finally got the shower out of the way and got dressed.  It seemed like they were getting closer to being ready to leave when mom started feeling queasy and threw up just after taking the pill that was supposed to quiet her stomach.  She took another one of those pills and waited a while for the queasiness to pass.  Lastly, even though they were packing for an overnight, mom just couldn’t seem to focus on that task so it took her much longer than she would have liked to get the job done.  I told her that it would only take me a few minutes to drive to them if she forgot anything really important.

Eventually they were all set and headed off on what I hope will be a nice getaway for them.  Before they left I snapped this picture (sorry for their squinting, I just want to snap the picture quickly and get them on their way):

I am so glad mom can still find reasons to smile in all of this!

In my plans for the day, I was also thinking about what the heck I would write in the daily blog.  I didn’t think I would have enough material to write about them and thought it would be good to update people on how I am feeling, but more importantly what I am thinking about in terms of the future.  Since I have found plenty to talk about in this post, perhaps I will write another one today on the topic of my thoughts.  As you can tell by that poem I wrote yesterday, which kind of just appeared in my head, I think about a lot of things.

I have a feeling (and a bit of a fear) that the posts for a while will be more about my mother than they will be about dad as long as he can keep his health in check.  I will throw in dad updates when there is something to say.  There is two things on the dad front to discuss.  He is getting sick and tired of dealing with pills and pill bottles.  The other is I learned not to bother trying to get him to do something he doesn’t want to do.  I was going to put a spare oxygen bottle in the car, but he said he wasn’t going to need it.  Mom started to lay in on him about using it and he shut that discussion down.  I just let this one be.  Oh there is one other thing, as smart as my father is, he’s apparently not smart enough to tear off a strip of plastic wrap.  Hint dad:  there are teeth on the box to rip the plastic wrap against.  He has zero patience when it comes to things like that.

Well I think that sums up the day.  We shall see what fun stuff tomorrow brings!