hospice

October update

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

It’s been ages since we last talked. What can I say, life has been busy.

My new granddaughter, KK, is almost three months old already. She is a darling little girl. I can already tell she is going to have a strong personality. Mark my words on that one. I expected I would feel a lot of anxiety with a new little one to love. But I am not very anxious at all, about anything really. Maybe it’s the meds.

My biggest stressor right now is work. So I guess that’s not too bad as I could always find something better if it gets to be too much. Then on my day off during the week, I usually babysit for KK. Dan and Angel are adjusting well to being new parents. They have a lot on their plate, but they are handling everything magnificently. In the last couple weeks, they moved into my parents house. Dan has been remodeling and it looks like a whole new house. It needed it as it wasn’t updated since my parents build the house in the 1970’s. I joke around with them that if I ever move back into the house when I end up getting dementia I will be so confused.

It’s been almost 5 months now since my mom passed. Now my dad is on hospice for congestive heart failure. I doubt he will make it through the year. My feelings for him are so mixed. He wasn’t a good dad or even a good person. Him reaping what he sowed always seemed like a good concept in the past, but now it’s just miserably sad.

I’m not really sure what the holidays will bring this year. We would typically get together with my brothers, our families, and my mom. But now my mom is gone. My brother Matt had a little blip last month. He got aggressive with one of his caregivers and verbally attacked her. He has been docile for almost a decade. The last time he was aggressive was when my mom took him off his antipsychotic meds. Which leads me to wonder if his meds are starting to not work anymore. Angel doesn’t want to have KK around Matt and I am in agreement with her. I think it is wise. In my vast experience with psychotic family members, they are the best people to be around if they are medicated right but if not, watch out!

My immediate family is doing well. Arabella started a job as a bartender, but the village voted to not approve her bartender license because of her criminal record from when she was in psychosis. So she wasn’t able to keep that job, and instead went back to being a server recently getting a new job. All my kids seem to be in good places, and are getting along. What more could I ask for?

I am still working toward some bucket list items. In a couple of weeks, Paul and I will be travelling to New Mexico. That will be state 44 out of 50. I would also like to go to all continents and have 3 to go. This winter I am planning on finishing my book. I have more of my mom’s journals to go through. Plus tons of pictures that I need to organize and label. After my dad, I am the oldest living member on my dad’s side. Once that knowledge is gone, we can’t get it back. It’s going to sound silly, but one of the things I miss most about my mom is she was good at giving gifts. I will never get another gift from her again and once those gifts get old or wear out, there won’t be anything left.

Ah, and now I’m sad. Dang! It will be a good day though.

I hope to talk to you again soon.

May’s beginning

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

The month of April left us with the most rainfall ever recorded in our area. May is starting cool, cloudy, and blustery. A few snowflakes swirled around on the first day. I wonder what the new month will bring us.

My mom is continuing to decline. Both of my parents are slowly dying at the same time. It takes a lot out of me to visit them. I don’t enjoy our visits. I never expected my mom to hold on as long as she is. What is the purpose or meaning?

Angel just started her third trimester. It seems surreal that my daughter is having a baby. We will be having her baby shower next weekend.

Alex is gearing up for the summer season starting today with his band. His car broke down and this time I don’t think it’s going to be fixable. He really gets attached to his vehicles, almost like they are a living being.

Arabella broke up with her boyfriend. She is starting to look for bartender jobs.

Paul finished up tax season and is starting on his summer seasonal job. Thankfully he was able to help me with the financial records for my brother Matt’s annual review of guardianship. I would’ve been absolutely lost without his help as the paperwork was a mess after I took over for my mom. A week or so ago I received a report of an incident that occurred at Matt’s group home. Apparently a new caregiver (I had a weird feeling about him) was drinking on the job. The second shift employee found him passed out drunk with empty liquor bottles around him. How hard is it to find good employees?

Work has been difficult lately. Our supervisor left which is a good thing. To be fully staffed, we need 8 employees working the day shift. Two of the employees accepted open positions within the company elsewhere. My weekend partner ended up walking out last weekend, and I ended up working a 12 hour shift by myself with no breaks. We are so busy we should have at least two employees working at all times. Things are going to be really hard for the remaining 5 employees as we start summer off short staffed. So far it looks like I will be working two 12 hour shifts over the holiday weekend alone. We’ll see what happens.

Sometimes I just want to stop time for a few moments when life is at its best.

April’s crying

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

The snow is gone and the grass is green, almost in need of the first mowing.

The floodgates opened and April came in crying. For a whole week, we had torrential downpours. We lost power for an afternoon. Rain water seeped into cracks of our very foundation we never knew we had before. I had to throw away a few things, but compared to others it wasn’t a big deal. Several nights driving home from work, the lightening flashed like a strobe light. The rains flooded area streets and you couldn’t see it coming even as you were driving through it. Hail cracked at my windshield. The first hit like a stone throw. What is happening? Crunching golf balls under my tires. Do I drive across it like I’m driving through snow? This was new territory even for me. How do I navigate it?

My mother is dying. I think it will be soon. I am asked which funeral home. Does she want to be buried or cremated? Will I be calling one of her siblings to tell the rest or will I be calling all of them? Mother’s Day ads. Songs about mothers on the radio. Songs about the passage of time. I can’t cry on my way to work. Old pictures. I had better set some aside. What will she wear? She is just skin and bones. How can they repair?

How can you sum up a life in an hour or two? Then she will be gone forever. Just to leave me behind with only the memories we shared. Was I good enough? Will I have regrets? What was her? What was her diseased state of mind? Maybe if I had more compassion instead of irritation.

This is new territory. How will I navigate it?

End of January update

/ Outrunning my demons / 3 Comments

Hello! January just seemed to breeze by in the worst way. It’s been a harsh winter, a lot of snow and weeks of subzero wind chills. The feeling of unsatisfying coldness. The rough harsh winds that sting and burn.

It’s been a rough month all around. Nothing has changed on the home front. My mom is still on hospice and every time I visit I feel a part of her is shriveling away. My parents taking long winter naps under the cover of warm blankets, not sure if the chill in their bones is justifiable or not.

I am trying to get back to the gym again. It’s been a challenge with juggling all the responsibilities. It’s a challenge to do anything for myself, but I must try even if it is going to the gym. At the moment, I feel a certain melancholy. I’m thinking of quitting my job. Don’t get me wrong, I love working with suffering. It’s where I feel at home amongst the chaos. When you learn to embrace suffering, and not fear it, it is a magical place. Where else could I hold the hand of a stranger as her son is in the other room dying? I have the opportunity to be a comfort and that is very rewarding.

My workplace issued a new responsibility. Starting in the beginning of March, everyone is going to have to be on call one weekend every other month. It will be mandatory. They will pay $2 an hour to be on call and if someone calls in you are responsible for finding a replacement out of 4 other people, or that replacement is you. You have an hour to show up to work. I already work every other weekend. For me, that will mean I will work two weekends one month and then three weekends the following month. Working every other weekend already cuts into my life a lot. I usually try to cram everything in to the weekends I don’t work and am not willing to give up another weekend. Maybe if I don’t have anything going on, but as of now my open weekends are booked through the summer. I even helped my husband to schedule his work schedule around my schedule.

The new policy is in effect because there are multiple people who are always calling in. I’ve worked there for almost a year and haven’t called in once. I feel like the responsible people are the ones being hurt by this. It should be the supervisor’s job, but she really doesn’t want to work or do much of anything. I don’t want to leave, but if I have to I will. We just found out about this earlier this week and I am feeling stressed out about it. We’ll see what happens I guess.

The great, the bad, the ugliest

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

It seems like several years passed since I last wrote. I have so many things to tell you.

The day after I last wrote would start the first 6 out of 7 days I would be working for the week with Christmas Day off. Early Monday morning, right before my shift in the ER started, Arabella got into a car accident. She hit a patch of black ice and totaled her car. She called me crying and hard to understand. The rescue squad took her to the ER where I work. I left early for work so I could spend time with her before my shift. She ended up with a concussion and dislocated elbow. As I was finishing in a room, I could hear my daughter screaming a couple rooms down. It was rather traumatic hearing my own kid cry out in pain. Arabella is doing a lot better but still doesn’t have full motion of her arm.

The next unexpected event happened on Christmas Day. Everything was going well, we just had a big meal and opened gifts when Angel pulled one last gift for me to open. Inside was a onesie with an ultrasound picture. I was totally shocked and didn’t know what to say. I am going to be a grandma in July!! I was not expecting that. I am very excited for Dan and Angel!!

Then the following evening, my mom got admitted into the hospital with sepsis. Several days later my dad got admitted into the hospital too. They both had UTI’s, pneumonia, and the flu. My dad was in the hospital for a week and my mom a week and a half. The sickness totally ravaged what was left of my mom’s body. She has been released back to the assisted living home on hospice. She can no longer feed herself, walk, or sit up. We weren’t sure she would make it out of the hospital. Both of my parents were released on Monday. It’s been difficult watching my mom fade away. Neither parent has much time left on this earth.

It’s been a roller coaster ride of emotions here for all of us. Great sorrow alongside of great joy. The great, the bad, the ugliest.