Hi, friends!
I’ve missed you, and now I’m back.
Yesterday and today I have been streaming “Storm Rising” on Disney +, about these dudes who are “extreme meteorologists.” I guess storm chaser is a pejorative term? Or they’re more professionals than those amateurs?
Who knows, but I digress.
These dudes are morons. Not because they’re doing extremely risky things getting up close in tornadic and hurricane systems. But because they can’t plan worth shit and then get pissy pants. Like they just follow storm cells on whatever road they can find and then have a meltdown in Texas when they get to a private property gated road because they’ve arrived at an oilfield. Or they have some wind measuring tool that they want to attach to tall palm trees (since they think palm trees survive better than other things), but they’re down in the Louisiana and Alabama gulf coast trying to get this shit deployed like while the hurricane is rolling in, but they can’t find the right trees. No shit, Sherlock. The tall palm trees aren’t native to those areas and they are planted for tourist appeal or if a homeowner likes them, but when you’re driving around along the coastline in rural areas, you’re not going to see them everywhere. Do a little research first, morons.
Anyways, I hope your weekend went well. Anything fun to talk about?
I had a nap today. It was wonderful.
Chores done, I was able to listen to music and read the Times.
In the totally dumb but totally awesome category, I just saw my nephew and he was wearing these:
https://sneakernews.com/2021/03/24/reebok-kamikaze-ii-candyland-gz8825-release-date/
He said a bunch of his friends all got together and bought them and wore them together. I only wish I had a photo of them. He said one friend was only something like 5′ 5″ tall but had size 14 feet. The guts it must take to wear them.
I am very utility-concerned when it comes to footwear, so just the mere existence of that website confuses me.
That said, I hope all involved enjoyed themselves and all that.
I’ve got my own weird little niche interests that no one else understands
It’s worth noting that “reality television” is an oxymoron and it doesn’t exist. All of these things are scripted and edited to “heighten the drama,” which is code for “appeal to monkeys who don’t understand that tall palm trees aren’t native to Louisiana and Alabama.”
In other words, you’re too smart to watch that.
I was genuinely annoyed that they also seemed to have no concern for the safety of their camera person. Like I’ve seen home renovation shows when something goes wrong and the “stars” stop to ask if the person is okay. And that’s not while standing around in storm surge trying to hang out while the eye wall approaches.
One thing that I’m TOTALLY loving right now, is “order online, pick up in store.”
It’s been an absolute lifesaver, because I was able to put in a LOT of orders for things, then just run out to the stores & pick everything up, rather than wasting lots of time running from store to store and worrying while I shopped.
I’m up at Dad’s place, because he’s had some MAJOR cognitive slipping in the last couple months (I only knew about it, because one of my Aunties (his baby sister, who’s also my godmother), called me last Tuesday.
I spent the rest of last week, until yesterday, getting things straightened out,** making sure his bills were paid up, and tracking down things like his car loan (couldn’t get info before I left Mpls), and insurance (found out THAT policy had lapsed “for nonpayment” mid-October, and was able to get it back up😉).
I was able to get a couple co-workers to trade/cover my shift at the grocery store yesterday, and loaded up a BUNCH of stuff in my car, plus Lily, to stay here at Dad’s apartment until *at least* Monday… now Tuesday.
When I got here, I’ve DEFINITELY understood what my auntie was talking about… if I don’t cook the meal and serve it up, Dad is eating like a bird…
This is a man who’s somewhere between 6′ and 6’2″-ish, and who used to weigh WELL over 300#… he’d dropped to his “high school weight” of 220, a few years ago… but when I got here, he’s SO much skinnier than I’ve *ever* known him to be.
It’s not *all* “normal aging” weight loss, he apparently hasn’t been eating steadily for… probably since pretty early this summer.
We have an appointment at his regular MD’s tomorrow at 2, to do some assessments & see if there may be underlying illness…
But it’s a bit of *a lot* to process. It’s to an extent, something I expected, *at some point,* just not quite now, or so suddenly.
I got him to eat a nice big bowl of a version of this;
https://liemessa.fi/2019/02/uunifetapasta/
Mine tonight used what we had on hand here & with what I brought up of spices I’d gotten for him from Penzey’s, and the ones I ran over to get this past Thursday, in the hour & a half between both jobs, and grape tomatoes, rather than cherry tomatoes. I also used crumbled feta, because I had a giant (Costco-sized) container of it that I’d gotten a few weeks ago at the Discount grocery store.
He juuuust finished off a big bowl of it, and ate the better part of one demi-baguette, too😉😁🤗
It’s the most I’ve gotten him to eat, since I got up here–he ate just a bit of the rotisserie chicken i got last night (with some cheesy potatoes and Swiss Cake Rolls for dessert).
I DID figure out that he *does* have the van paid off in full, as of August. So we’re good there.
And my ** up above, is for my fellow Deadsplinter-ers (Deadsplinterites? what DO we refer to ourselves as?🤣), with children in high school or older– one important bit of advice, if I may?
Put your (trustworthy!) kids on your banking and other accounts (or as an authorized person), so that IF something were to happen, they can make sure that the bills can be paid & kept current easily!!!
Mom & Dad put me on their accounts back when I was headed off to college, after Dad & his siblings needed to wait until probate was over, after Grandpa’s death, and DEAR LORD, was that an absolute lifesaver & sanity-saver, this week when I was down in the cities & couldn’t get up here yet. (And it also meant that I can just hang out with Dad after getting up here, and listen to the old stories he’s talking about–MOST of which, I haven’t ever heard before😉💖)
If this is dementia or alzheimers, there are SO gonna be parts that suuuuuuck…
But there are gonna be some really good parts, too.💖
@emmerdoesnotrepresentme I appreciate reading about your care-giving journey.
As I have mentioned here before, we spent 15 years providing all meals, grocery and drug store trips, driving to myriad weekly doctor appointments, arranging housekeeping, etc., etc. to enable my parents to live independently. Then did hospice care in our home for my father (copd and heart disease) for four years.
You are making all the right moves – handling his changing needs with efficiency, grace and kindness. I am so impressed with the skill with which you are making things happen (I surely had more stumbles than you have had). Hugs to you!
Thanks @Elliecoo! But the ONLY reason I’m getting through this with *any* semblance of speed or relative ease, is because of the HELL that was getting my mom care 8-ish years ago!😉
That whole thing was just… hell, really, but i learned a ton from the process, and also lucked into an amazing County Financial Worker (CFW) who was an absolute godsend, and got me through to the other side, with mom.
I’m sure I’ve told the folks here parts of her story, but basically Mom had a major health “incident” that blew up all in one day. She was pulled over by police, because folks had reported her as a drunk driver–it was the end of October in 2013, juuuust before the first Open Enrollment period for Obamacare/the ACA.
Turns out mom wasn’t drunk. She had a blood sugar of 744, and had a blister on her toe that was now gangrene…
She got rushed to St. Cloud hospital, I was called to get up there from Minneapolis where I worked/the Exurb where I lived (that was the day I saw 13+ red-tailed hawks on my commute home), and mom had her toe amputated that night at around 10:30 pm.
In MN, when you apply for Medicare/Medicaid, the state will back-pay any medical expenses, up to 90 days pre-approval to the program…
By Feb 13th of 2014 (literally 2weeks until they wouldn’t pay), I was STILL trying to figure out exactly where her application had gone, and why we didn’t know if she had approval or not.
Every time I tried to call the county office, I ether got stuck on hold for an hour+, got my call dropped out of the queue & was hung up on, or was told “she’s in the queue, we’ll call you when someone takes her case.”
That Friday afternoon, when I finally got through to a real person, I literally burst into tears when she said something along the lines of, “Oh, this case has been closed by the person who looked at it.”
I explained through my tears & sniffles, the hoops I’d been jumping through with NO contact person and being told a different thing EVERY one of the rare times I’d managed to catch a live person, when the woman I was speaking with said, “OOOOH, this case is interesting! (Because it had been closed improperly, AND multiple things had apparently been done wrong/gone sideways)… and then she asked me that amazing question, “Do you mind if *I* take this one?”
Of COURSE I said, “YES, PLEASE!!!!”
And *that* was how I “met” the woman who became my literal lifeline, in navigating the state benefits system.
She SAVED my ass SO MANY TIMES–i don’t even know anymore, how many times i called her in tears, and she ALWAYS had at least one possible solution for me to start with–oftem *multiple* options.
From the time when I got a call at 2:45 pm, on the Friday before Memorial Day, three or so days after we’d moved Mom into her new Assisted-Living apartment, about a week after *my* distal pancreatectomy (I still had ALL the staples from my surgery & had juuust been given permission to drive again!)… The 2:45 Friday afternoon call was from the building manager, saying that apparently there had been a mix-up when mom was moving out of the rehab facility & into the new Assisted living community, and it was the *other* lady with the same first name as mom–not mom–who had the waivers to pay for an apartment & meal plan…
I was told, “Because of the holiday, I can give you an extra day, but if your mom doesn’t have waivers to prove she has coverage, you’ll have to move her out next Tuesday.”
I called the CFW in tears–asking her what had happened, and what I should do… She pulled up mom’s file, and YEP, mom *didn’t* have approved waivers like we thought she did, so the CFW told me she was gonna start busting HER ass to get them for us, AND she told *me* the next steps I needed to take.
She emailed me a list of EVERY nursing home & assisted living facility in the region, I was to call every one, ask if they had openings, and then take mom for tours that weekend. Meanwhile the CFW was gonna work to get mom those waivers, and *if* worse came to worse, she couldn’t get the waivers by Tuesday, AND we couldn’t find another place, the CFW told me, “Take your mom right back up to the Surgical Hospital’s ER. DO NOT take her to your house!!! Take her to *that* ER, and you tell the medical staff that YOU are not equipped, nor are you ABLE to provide care at the level at which your mother currently needs! Once your mom hits the ER, she goes *immediately* to the top of my list, as far as “folks to approve for waivers” because the ER is the *most expensive* place we pay for, and I can basically get approval for almost ANY waiver she needs at that point, because everything is cheaper than an ER!”
We hung up, I started calling, and SHE got working from her end.
Most places had no availability, OR the person I needed to speak to was already gone for the weekend (because it was now after 3 pm!), so we were only able to tour one facility, that Saturday.
Luckily, first thing Tuesday morning, I got a call from mom’s building manager, saying that *somehow* mom was now approved, snd we didn’t need to move her out.
The CFW had moved mountains & made it happen!😉💖
She’s the one who gave me the suggestion to have mom’s building condemned & given up for the back taxes she owed on it (5K in arrears!), and there were a multitude of OTHER incidents big & small, that the CFW guided us safely through too.
At one point, sometime later in year 1, maybe year 2 of the saga, we had hit yet another snafu with regard to a payment that *should* have come through, but which AGAIN got sidetracked, and the person in the billing office at mom’s facility made a comment about how Mom’s case was literally the WILDEST case they had EVER seen, as far as roadblocks, snafus, and other things–and that they admired my calm over “this latest thing”… and that was when I mentioned that *this* particular incident was an absolute cakewalk compared to what had come before & the things mom’s CFW had helped us deal with–and that billing office woman’s jaw dropped. She was amazed we were still (relatively😉) sane, because she’s thought the stuff she KNEW about & was dealing with was harder than anything she’d ever seen before!🤣🤣🤣
That was the moment that confirmed for me, how incredibly lucky we were, that that CFW had chosen to take on Mom’s case💖💞💫
I NEVER would have made it through that hell intact, had it not been for her.
She was a literal savior of my sanity, and an absolute rock that I could hold on to, when EVERYTHING else in my world was chaos & mayhem…
I’ve been MEANING to tell her that for years, but kept forgetting to call & tell her, since mom moved off her caseload after turning 65…
But last Thursday morning, before I got in at work, I tried her old number…
Turns out, she’s STILL a CFW in that county.😉💖💞
I told her that mom is stable, and has been for the last couple years, that her health is good, and that she’s probably in the best spot both physically & mental-health wise she’s been at, since the incident 8 years ago that *started* the whole thing.
And then I told the CFW exactly how much she’d made MY life better & relieved stresses & burdens, as I’d navigated the system. That EVERYTHING was SO hard, confusing, & seemed designed to make gaining assistance a struggle–and that if it weren’t for HER & her (FABULOUS!!!) advice every time I hit a cliff-face, that I’d ever never gotten mom through safely to the other side.
I told her that HER ADVICE was what had gotten us through it all, AND I explained that *because she’d helped ME* to get through, I’d also mlbeen able to then pass that advice along to others who were in similar situations, and get THEM to the help they needed.
And I also explained that my studies have gone WAY past that initial pre-K worker degree she’d known i was working on, and that her advice will keep helping the families of the kiddos I work with, as they deal with the state benefits system & gaining Healthcare for their kids😉😁😃💖
It was SO nice, to be able to thank her, for the literally PRICELESS aid she rendered–and it was awesome to let her KNOW how much of a difference she made in our lives💞💗💝💫💫💫
(And she was glad for the call, too, and said I’d made her day😉💖)
I still don’t know how welucked onto her & managed to become part of her caseload, but I’ll NEVER forget that first phone call, because it was literally life-changing💝
And I told her, too, that the ONLY reason I wasn’t panicking with the road I’m looking at with Dad, is because SHE taught me how to navigate this path before.
Her excellent advice, and her “Sherpa-ing” me through the hell of these processes *last time* helped me to KNOW how to start it off *this time.* How to get the balls rolling, Who i needed to start my calls with, and some of the boxes I needed to check off, before I met with the folks who can help DAD to get what *he* needs.
And it’s ALL because she was on my side, and in Mom’s corner for us💖
T
Wow, that is a lot of work, @EmmerdoesNOTrepresentme, and you are doing such a great job.
Thanks, Memeweaver!💖
You are so welcome, @EmmerdoesNOTrepresentme. I hope you are able to get other family members or friends to help you, because shouldering all of that alone is super-tough on the care-giver!
i got attacked by a leafy twister yesterday
it was awesome! leafs everywhere
kinda like this
but with less cow…and more leafs
and most importantly..no rain
Cow flies by and only the driver (maybe?) is wearing a seatbelt.
yeah but its fine…all 3 of them have plot armor