So today…
Wednesday is the big Hospice day for Mom…
She gets a "shower girl" as she calls the Home Health aides, the "REAL NURSE", R.N. Comes in and takes her blood pressure does a good bit of poking and prodding on her and gives me a report on her condition, and sometimes somebody else drops in.
Yesterday, Tuesday I'd run out of Prozac and was feeling a bit mean and down and had to go to town, not a good combo, but I survived it.
Anyway, today I had just made up lunch for Mom, not eating still myself, just light snacking thru the day and maybe two or three meals a week, and put it on her dining room table when everybody started to arrive. I'd moved her computer into her bedroom for her and was deciding whether to make up a 50 foot cable for the high speed internet from the router or reactivate the kind of spotty wireless connection when I realized I'd never put a mop-board behind where her computer cart was.
First things first… unbury the trim saw, cut the clear (almost) 1x4 spruce I used for the floor trim elsewhere and get it sized in and then put a coat of sealer on it, while the Aide and RN are chatting with Mom.
All of Mom's home downstairs is covered with OSB or 'Oriented Strand Board' wall board.
Usually this stuff has big printed logos and red or blue strips on it. The lot that I bought to beef up the showdog palace we bought up here "just didn't" and so she decided "very quickly", that it was what she wanted left showing. Kind of like living in a warehouse. I insisted on drywall for the living room so she had someplace to get away from this stuff but kitchen, dining and a small sitting area are just OSB.
In my travels in and out to cut the trim I was working on I'd hear snatches of conversation in the dining room. "A little to the left, now up, now back a little bit"… from Mom which I thought the RN was checking the progress of the disease by poking at her body, but when I heard "THERE,… see it!?! It's a dogs' head! I knew it to be more of the household imaginings I have known for years..
At that point I stuck my head into the dining room and said "Everything OK???" to the RN.
She replied, hand on the wallboard where she had been shown the imaginary dog, "does she need any medications?"
I simply couldn't resist it..
"YOU are standing THERE doing THAT, and you want to know if she needs drugs?????"
The RN had to sit down, tears in her eyes from laughing.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 34
I used to occassionally get in trouble for laughing at hubby's mother .... but if you can't laugh it's time to give up, I think
we had imaginary ~stuff~ too.... and on one memorable occassion earlier on, a REAL extra dog .... ma was SURE it belonged and was frantic that I wanted to put it out (it was NOT our dog!)
My childen and I do that a lot, finding things/shapes in clouds, paint or stucco ceiling's etc...
yaya good times:)
Nice tribute to your Mom, Llyod. She is a sweetheart.
*oh, and Lloyd, I ran out of my Prosac last week and my whole family, and probably all of my now former friends (j/k) are praying I will get it back very SOON. LOL It is never pretty to have to deal with yourself much less anyone else without needed meds!!!!
I care for elderly parents, too. They don't live with us...yet. My husband's parents are alive, also. With four parents in their 80's, we know it's just a matter of time before one of them take up residence here. We have the chair lift on the stairs all ready for them.
Peace and blessings to you.
Your mom sounds like a wonderful person. I wish I could get my mother interested in having a computer.
I stayed with my sister as she wasted away with lung cancer,but I needed to be there not only for her but for myself as well. Thanks for your candor.
Berf.. not bad, (maybe not BAD enough... ) just "inconvenient"
Laughter is the best medicine they say! Good for MOm, she is still creative!