Dental Second Opinion
A week ago I left voice mail for mom’s Island dentist, Susan. She called back Wednesday night. On top of being insightful in regards to her long term patient, my mama, dementia, and the point on the matrix where excessive care is unwarranted, she is a delight to chat with. We talked for over 2 […]
Dental Plans
I spoke with mom’s dentist on Tuesday afternoon. The short of it is: Her periodontitis involves her soft tissue only. Her jaw looks good. The hygienist could only measure the pockets around 6 of mom’s teeth due to discomfort. The game plan is to root plane her upper right quadrant in late August, under anesthetic. […]
Scope Creep 1.2
Our friend and exterior general contractor stopped by to diagnose the roof/deck mess. While he doesn’t have x-ray eyes, he thinks the damage is likely at the leading edge of the roof. He’s going to have his guy peel the roofing material back (exploratory surgery), see what’s going on, remove and replace the icky bits, […]
Scope Creep
Not only am I currently managing projects at both of my mom’s properties, but ours as well, because why not add to the fun… We are in the middle of painting our large and rambling contemporary home. The only exterior paint the structure has seen since our purchasing it (over 18 years ago) are areas […]
Pencils
My mom, to this day, can draw. While packing up both houses, and moving one house to another, while she was living independently, I came across two large pencil collections. Mom used red and blue pencils to edit manuscripts back in the day. She would use pencils until they were less than 2 inches long. […]
Outings
In asking the Activities Director when the next long outing is taking place, I’ve come to learn that mom is becoming irritated during outings, and last week had to return early from an outing she had a hand in developing because she became too angry to stay. The residents attended a career fair. They were […]
Additional Observations From Today
It had been my intention to take mom somewhere other than sushi next time we went out to lunch, but that’s what was within her walking distance from the dental office, aside from pizza and sandwich shops, which I can’t indulge in. The same perfect waiter who seated us last time we ate there, guided […]
Dentist 5
On my way to pick mom up for her dental appointment (cleaning, finally) my husband texted to tell me mom left him voicemail at 10:20 wondering where I was. Last night I told her I’d pick her up at 10:40. At 10:41 I knocked on her door. She answered saying, “My dental appointment started 10 […]
What It Takes to Get One Thing Done…
Mom retired from a prestigious university a number of states away from here with excellent benefits, and a pension. Because she lives in a different state than the one she retired in, her dental insurance company sends claim checks to her rather than the dentist. NO, this doesn’t make sense to me either… The dentist […]
Changes
I called one of the Care Managers at mom’s AL community today to check in on an assessment I received the other day. She is being charged ‘care points’ for the cat suddenly. Last I knew, she was cleaning the self-cleaning liter box each morning before staff came to empty her garbage. Crystal shared two […]
Dementia Dance - Travels with Mom 