Kitchen Mishaps

 Kitchen Mishaps September 15, 2012

I try to do my yard work and pool maintenance very early in the morning before Mom gets out of bed. It’s also when it is cool enough in the summer. One morning I came in to find Mom had gotten up and dresses and was making coffee with my tea kettle. No problem except there was no water and on high heat it was about to melt into the burner. Another time she decided the chocolate chip cookies would taste better warmed up in the toaster. Melted chocolate a second away from a fire! So you can see how this situation requires constant vigilance. Even in the best of days she often makes herself a cup of coffee and toast, then goes back and starts all over again making another cup of coffee and toast… Today it was a bowl of cereal, ate it put it in the sink, then went back and made another insisting she had not had breakfast yet. Then she was too full to eat the second bowl.

Doctor Visit September 14, 2012

Doctor Visit September 14, 2012

It was a long day. First a McMuffin and coffee at 6am. We started giving Mom a shower and shampoo at 6:30am. Took my nephew Roger to school 7:40am. Got gas in the car. Then we needed air in the tires at Discount Tires. Delivered mail to post office, drove through ATM.

Then to Sun City Cigna for Mom’s doctor appointment. Her weight is steady at 130. That is important and I check it most everyday as it is the first sign of congestive heart failure issues. After discussion and review of the Urgent Care lab results doc decided to add another med to relax her in the afternoon. I will get the name off the bottle when I pick up tomorrow. It should calm her down we hope. And we are adding an acid reflux med to calm the stomach too. The new BP med is doing the job. And we are slowly weaning her off the Digoxin for irregular heart beats. That seems pretty good right now. So it will be another watch closely time for drug reactions. I have been charting everything daily so we continue the routine.

After we went to Sprouts for groceries and when I got home Larry had pulled the pool pump which had died. So I ran it to the pool repair shop. Later it was fixed and I picked it up and Larry reinstalled. Working again! Fed Ex delivered a surprise Larry ordered off TV. A nuWave convection, infrared oven. We watched the video and I am anxious to give it a try.

Mom fell asleep on the sofa at 4pm and I got her to bed at 7pm. I just hope she sleeps through the night. It’s like having a baby getting me up most nights. I have an alarm that beeps loudly in my room when she moves out of her room. I have to get up and see what she is doing. I wait at the top of the stairs listening to see if it is just a bathroom trip. Most nights that is all. But some nights she thinks she needs to come upstairs to bed. I think she had a room upstairs as a young child. The only bathroom was downstairs. Back then they had chamber pots in the upstairs bedrooms. Several times before the alarms she ended up in Larry’s room waking him up in the middle of the night. He is good about taking her back down to her room. But now with the alarm I get up and handle it. 

Notary Witnesses Get Paperwork Done

Notary Witnesses Get Paperwork Done September 12, 2012

When we were at the Urgent Care last week the nurse reinforced the importance of getting my paperwork in line to care for Mom. I didn’t have a Power of Attorney in hand and if she hadn’t been cooperative it could have been an issue that would require a judge to handle.

So today I got online and completed all of the legal stuff including Power of Attorney, (me then Gina as back up) Will (split between daughter as Dad had before) and Living Will (no life support and a DNR on file) for both her and me (of course Julie is my heir and executor and no DNR for me yet!). I got Larry and Fred to go with us to her bank and had it all witnessed and notarized. So all of the paperwork is done now and I will leave a copy with her doctor tomorrow to put on file in her medical records. Our copies are in the desk and safe.

We took the guys out for lunch at the Golden Corral and Mom ate like I have never seen her eat before! She must have been really hungry or liked their food! She went to bed early and slept well.