|
unowho36
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Interests: Kids, People, Reading, History, Genealogy, Knitting (hope someday to actually finish something)
Expertise: Just about everything, just ask me.
Occupation: Retired
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
9/3/2004
|
|
| The Adventure Begins.. Well, things certainly get moving when you sign up for a Hospice program. Besides all the attention from the nurses, administrators, and my favorite social worker, my family has rallied around in a way I hadn’t expected. Everyone is busy, but they came anyway. My brother and his daughter drove all the way from Seattle down here--he says it’s about an 8 hour drive if he is at the wheel, and about 6 1/2 if she drives--took us all out to lunch, and then had to jump back in the car and drive all the way back to go to work the next day. Then my son and daughter-in-law and the granddoggies came from Missoula, when I hadn’t expected them to be able to leave their jobs til late in the fall. We had a great visit, despite the fact that DD had to leave for Chicago the same day, so we weren’t all in the same place at the same time. And I’m sorry to say there wasn’t much bonding between Beau the Cat and Missy and Mija, the pug twins. The dogs were willing, in fact, eager, to get acquainted, probably with all parts of him, but the cat wouldn’t leave the bedroom.
I got to wondering at what stage, if ever, a cat exhibits the enthusiasm that a pug just naturally seems to have for everything. Can’t think of one, can you?
I learned some interesting news about my family; for instance, Dear Brother, the fellow who had the stem cell transplant two years ago and isn’t fully recovered yet, is being sued for “assaulting” a fellow at his Lodge. He’s always been sort of a peacemaker and negotiator in combative situations, and you may have noticed, as I have, that the bigger the peacemaking guy is, the more likely he gets listened to, and people tend to calm down in his presence. I guess that didn’t work this time. I’ll let you know how things work out.
After the company all left yesterday, I was still pretty energized, but today I’m having trouble getting up the energy for a few household tasks. Even making coffee. However, a Hospice worker is coming over today to cut my nails. And pretty soon, I’m hoping for a visit from a Music Therapist. Doesn’t that sound like fun? I really am glad I signed up for all this before I got too sick to enjoy any of it! I hope the Music Therapist doesn’t have too sensitive an ear, because I’m looking forward to singing along with anything he or she (I think it’s he) is prepared to play.
Speaking of gender issues, I think my most shocking moment this last week was when I got a voice mail message saying, “This is your nurse, Brian.” When they said one nurse would be assigned to me, and that would be the nurse I’d have 24/7 if need be, I sort of naturally assumed it would be--well, someone who could indulge in a little girl talk with me, like the nurses I usually see at the lab and everywhere. It turns out that I am not as broadminded as I think of myself as being, genderwise. I could have asked for someone else, but I really don’t want to be the one who kept someone out of a job without at least giving them a try. So, Brian came over, along with his supervisor, and I tried out words like “constipation” and other sensitive concepts I usually don’t like to bore opposite-gender people with-- on him, and he didn’t flinch. He seemed professional, as well as friendly, so maybe this will work.
Frankly, it’s the professionalism part that I was suspicious of. And it all boils down to my experiences as an elementary teacher. I have known men who were good teachers when it came to the important parts of the job, dealing with the kids. But in other things, things that they didn’t consider part of their job description, and better left to inferior beings (guess who), some of them tended to slack up. For instance, if I was supposed to have playground duty for half the lunch period, and the other half was assigned to an estrogen-challenged person, guess who never showed up, and left me out there the whole hour, lunchless, till classes began. Little things like that.
Actually, there’s no reason I should equate such things with a nurse-patient relationship, is there. It’s so disillusioning to find we aren’t the lovely accepting and broad-minded person we thought we were.
Anyway, I need to drag my lazy self around and check out the places where my cat may have been expressing his feelings about entertaining his canine cousins and get them rinsed out before anyone comes over. For some reason, I don’t mind if company catches me in clutter or not having dusted for a month or so, but the thought of a smelly house bothers me a lot. Probably because it doesn’t bother me quite ENOUGH, when I’m just knocking about the place on my own, so I don’t notice it til visitors recoil at the door.
We are having absolutely gorgeous weather today. I hope you all are enjoying the same! I may not actually go out and do any work outside, but I’m seriously thinking of sitting on the porch and just gazing around at everybody else working in their yards, later on. I always enjoy watching other people work, but it’s been too windy to go out there til now, and they had to labor on, unsupervised. This must not continue.
I need to visit around, and at least answer some of the lovely messages you've been sending me lately, but it will be after I've dealt with the nail person. Maybe my typing will be better after that, we'll see!
Hope everyone is doing well. It IS May, after all. That has a lot going for it.
| | |
| Scared Straight! Yup, the contact with Hospice must have given my blood cells the message to shape up. This week, the counts looked so good that I don't have to have a transfusion of ANYTHING!
I think it might have something to do with naps, don't you?
| | |
| Funny how great minds run with a single thought--like Mr. Hat, I too was called for jury duty this last week, and had to plead age and infirmity and general cussedness to get out of it. I usually want to fulfill my civic duty, but lately I’ve been out of the mood, and since my oncologist had to write them a note last year saying I couldn’t perform, it didn’t seem to me they should have sent me another postcard this year, but they did.
Has anyone else noticed that in an age when EVERYTHING about us gets put onto a computer screen for the whole world to view, somehow, we still can’t get the word across about things about ourselves that we really want people to have at their fingertips, so we don’t have to keep saying the same things over and over again? Anyway, the trial I’d have been mixed up in would have been one where they predict it’s going to take two weeks just to select the jurors, and then the trial begins. The fellow who’s being tried wants to act as his own lawyer, so everybody’s going to have to hear more than they ever wanted to think about, about him, his innocence, and so forth. I don’t quite understand this part, because he’s already been convicted of the crimes--four murders and two child molestations--but somehow this is a whole trial, just for the sentencing. It will involve the possibility of the death penalty. Well, this has been a year when we who think we know something about the judicial and political systems we live with, have had some surprises, isn’t it.
If I’d felt better, I’d have done just exactly what Hat said was a frowned-upon ploy for prospective jurors. When they asked me about the death penalty, I’d have said it was too good for him. I suppose it would have been more dramatic just to leap across the pew and grab him by the throat, but understatement is more my style. Anyway, I’ll be following the trial with interest, and be grateful for every word and detail that does not appear on the evening news. I wish the little girl who survived didn’t ever have to think of or see that man again.
But--where the trial is concerned, I’ll be feeling guilt, too. As P.G. Wodehouse once wrote about Bertie Wooster, on finding that his former fiance Honoria Glossop had become engaged to someone else, he felt a strange mixture of emotions, something like being chased by a tiger, and seeing it stop and eat your best friend instead.
The doctor has advised me to sign up for the Hospice program, since none of the treatment I’m taking now seems to be building up any white cells or platelets or anything, so I’ll be doing that next week. A very nice lady has already come for a visit with me and my DDs. She put my mind at rest about two aspects of the Hospice program here. I ‘ll be allowed to drive while I’m on it, although I probably won’t be gadding around much anyway. And it’s still possible to have a moderate number of blood transfusions when they seem to be called for. I don’t know how this will work out, but at least there doesn’t seem to be any rule against the two things I wondered about.
I found the Hospice people very kind and caring when they helped with my husband’s illness, and these are the same people, so I’m expecting it will be as good an experience as possible. From time to time, if anything interesting comes up, I’ll report on it. I know not every Hospice program is the same. In Boise, there is no “place” called a Hospice, where one goes away from home to live. I was surprised to hear this, since I know a woman who works at one of those, but evidently it’s run by a different program. I’ll be in my own home. That’s all I know. With no immunity, anything can happen, and it might happen rather quickly. On the other hand, with my really disgustingly healthy and sturdy body, I could sit around here for years with nothing happening (If I accidentally say something like that in front of a medical person, they look panicky because they’re afraid I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s okay. I do. I just tend to exaggerate sometimes). It could wind up just like having babies--everyone waiting for me to produce something, and me reading a book. Well, probably not, but that picture intrudes itself on my mind. I hate to disappoint people, but oh well.
In the meantime, I'm getting to see a lot of family, and I love that. DS and DDIL are coming from Missoula next weekend. I hope it's quit snowing over there by the time they hit the road!
It's kind of nice here today. Sure was cold this morning, though. Hope you all are feeling Springy! | | |
| Strange Interlude Sometimes when you're in a house by yourself, your mind does strange things. Well, frankly, for some of us, that happens a lot, whatever the excuse. Anyway, I'm sitting here, playing Solitaire and letting my mind roam the universe, when I hear--a noise. Didn't I? Strange, kind of a--well, dragging? The wind's blowing outside, and the mobile home is groaning and settling and cricking and cracking, but that's all familiar. Something else --the coffeemaker? I turn it off. Play some more, but this time I'm alert. Could the fridge motor be trying to give up? It's almost like a panting sound this time.
Cat's on the chair, sound asleep. There's really no such thing as a watch cat, unfortunately. If a burglar burst in here, Beau would probably wake up in time to save himself, but I'd definitely be on my own.
Nobody here. I think of the old days, when my husband, though sick, and inclined to sleep through hurricanes and earthquakes, was still a solace. Even after I had to get rid of the gun he kept under the bed, I could trust him to take care of any burglars that came around. He'd have clubbed them with his oxygen tank, if nothing else. But now, I'm--hmm, was that a beep?
ET? In a Senior Citizen's mobile home park? Now, that would be a story, wouldn't it.
Sort of a tiny little mechanical plea for help--this is getting spooky.
------
Morning now. The tv is on. Somebody is running a saw next door. Yet again--a sound. Nearby, in the house. A strange little, sort of personal sound that tweaks at your nerves. Where could it be coming from?
---Okay, we've all been through this, but you'd have recognized it faster, I bet. The cell phone. Still in my purse from last Monday. Wanting recharging. Gasping out its last little electronic SOS.
With all those fancy ring tones, you'd think they could program a cell phone to say--or even sing--"Help! Come and get me! I'm dying!"
Or at least, have it cry out my favorite Last Words line--"I'm Melllllllting! Melllllllllllting! mmmmmeeelllllllllllllttttttiiiiing" Even I could figure out what that meant. | | |
| Xanga is doing its best to outgrow me, but I'm hanging in there. As long as I've got the perseverance to find the teeny little print that says something like "back to old private page", I'll be here. The day I accidentally click on something that's going to require sending anybody any money every month, or letting them take it out of my poor exhausted credit card, will be our last day together. That's okay. I'd miss you all, though.
Dear Sis came over yesterday and we watched a really improbable movie called "Second Hand Lions." It was a lot of fun, and of course having actors like Robert Duvall and Michael Caine added to the enjoyment. They say men are attracted by women's looks, while women are attracted by men's voices. If that's true, those two actors probably will have to fight off admirers as long as they can still talk, don't you think?
The cartoons at the end of the movie looked familiar, and sure enough, in the credits, we saw that they'd been drawn by Berkeley Breathed. We feel proprietary about Berkeley Breathed because he ALMOST came to our home town one day. He was scheduled to give a talk at the College of Idaho, where DSis worked, and we were really excited to see him. But over that weekend, he went skydiving or something--I think it was some kind of sport involving holding onto a kite and scooting over the water on a board, but I'm not sure--and broke his back. We'd heard that he didn't like to make public appearances, but I'm sure he didn't go that far just to avoid coming to our town. Anyway, another interesting person that we almost got to see.
We've had other near-brushes with famous people like that. I always used to tell people I "went to school with" a baseball player named Harmon Killebrew. Harmon lived in a town near us, and was enrolled at the College of Idaho (my alma mater) the same year I was. He had already gone to pro ball by the time school started, though, so the way I went to school with him was that for about three weeks, while the professors were getting their books ready for the new year, they called his name in every class and looked around. He wasn't there. He was off making more money than college professors in that day would see in years of teaching. And he deserved it. The kid was good.
Things are getting pretty active here in the mobile home court since somebody ran over the back fence. It's still lying there on the ground, with the padlock intact, but it no longer keeps anybody out. Two ladies in shorts, pretty obviously not senior citizens, just jogged by here a few minutes ago, and they seemed harmless enough. I'm assuming they didn't knock over anybody who was using a walker, but I'm not sure what they might have done to some of the old guys' pacemakers. But that's sort of a cliche isn't it.
I've been reading a book called THE BEST OF CATHERINE MARSHALL, and enjoying it more than I expected to. Another Bookmobile find. I usually don't read a lot of religious writers, but Catherine Marshall is more honest with herself than most people, and more analytical in how she lays out her thoughts. Plus, the chapters looked very short. So, I was attracted to the book, and I have enjoyed it. Her thoughts about having emphysema were very interesting, especially when she said that looking at the results of her blood tests was what made her sick. I could empathize with that! And when she said that her body was being attacked, and was fighting back, but from her point of view, what she was doing seemed more like sloth than anything else. An odd thought from somebody with only half the oxygen her body needed, but for some people, a work ethic is a work ethic.
It was one of those things that makes you say to yourself, "Dang! Why didn't I keep a journal over all these years! I'm sure there might have been something interesting in there somewhere!" But I didn't. Or, if I did, I threw it away. I could never see how it might be any help to anybody to know my dorky thoughts.
I do believe we should all leave a story, though. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, ggrandmother Arabella Fulton and grandma Debra Payne both wrote books about their lives. They did it for their children, but what their work has done for their descendants is to keep us aware of our extended families.
Personally, I don't have many stories that I haven't already bored my children and grandchildren with, but it's occurred to me that I could at least be writing down some of the family stories I grew up hearing, just for reference. Maybe someday one of them will find out the answers to some family mysteries such as who were the two "aunts" who crossed the Plains dressed as men? And who was the subject of my dad's story that one of his ancestors came to the West on foot. My brother would always ask , "Wow! Was that some kind of record?" And Dad would always answer, "No, he was trying to avoid getting one. There was a sheriff right behind him most of the way."
I've looked for a lot of years for those intrepid aunts and bad boy outlaws, and can't possibly imagine that any of the sober, stuffy relatives I knew as a child could have ever done things like that, or even known anybody who did.
It snowed Tuesday morning, and really surprised us. But today it looks like Spring is here. And tomorrow the temperature is supposed to get to the 70's.
As a teacher, I always used to wish the weather would stay cold or rainy at least til May. It's very hard to keep students' thoughts on school subjects when the whole outside is calling to them to come out and play. Teachers too.
I hope you're all enjoying whatever is going on outside your house these days! Has anybody planted anything yet? | | |
|
