Apartment Simplification – Supplemental
One of the care staff helped me find space for an additional almost 300 Depends, and a case of Poise, which is a ‘pantyliner’ for the Depends. It preserves the Depends, adds odor control, a layer of protection to keep skin from getting irritated, plus additional absorbency. After we were done the staff member took […]
Loss
Yesterday’s apartment purge was the right thing to do for mom in terms of her ability to navigate her space. Less is less confusing: My new mantra, as I remove magazines that are more than three months old, and clothes that are in tatters, or now too small. I still have this tremendous sense of […]
Apartment Simplification
Cheryle and I worked together on Wednesday for an hour in mom’s apartment, accomplishing an amazing amount of triage. It was like a concentrated house clean out, except working on mom’s houses took 2.5 years. I confess to feeling a little PTSD as we went through everything. The blessing is that I only had to […]
Under Where?
As I’ve shared, frequent updates from mom’s community have been incoming over the last couple of months. The last 10-days have been no exception. Cheryle, one of the nurses, wrote in response to my query about why mom’s underwear hadn’t been replaced with Depends briefs. She didn’t actually answer the question (a fast way to […]
Toe Nail Fail
Well, not exactly a fail, but the rhyme is irresistible. I got to mom’s community and practically bumped into the HSD. I gave him the paperwork for the visiting podiatrist. He asked how the pedicure went. I explained I’d just arrived and was headed to mom’s apartment next. He shared that mom’s toe nails were […]
And in Other House News…
Late last month Jerry, our local Fire Marshal, emailed to tell me there were ongoing complaints re the mainland house. My visceral response is not printable, even on my own blog. I assured Jerry that my tenant was not building cabinets at the house, nor applying finish on said cabinets. My tenant, copied on Jerry’s […]
Control Freak
In the absence of any control over my mom’s, seemingly, precipitous decline, I spent hours this weekend gutting our atrium. It’s a space the previous owner slapped on the side of the house, in part to house the furnace that heats the big addition he also built. The notion of changing the space came about […]
Incontinence II
The HSD asked me to bring a case of Depends for mom, and explained that care staff were trying to gain mom’s consensus about wearing the briefs. If they caught her as she was getting up, they had luck. If not, getting her to switch into them was not easy. I suggested removing her underwear […]
Showers & Toe Nails
Mom has reluctantly allowed care staff to help her with two showers now. I am thankful for staff’s gentle persistence with this. While I don’t think mom knows any longer that she’s not showering independently, there’s a dignity aspect about it that would be important to her if she did know, and that’s important to […]
Culvert Update
The Amazing Neighbor called me this morning after taking a look at my very own flood. There is very good news. A spring has sprung up through the east driveway and has eroded two to three inches of one side of the ruts (from use) in the drive. This is happening about 100′ from the […]
Dementia Dance - Travels with Mom 