January 25 through 29

[chochiyo_sama]

Thursday, January 27

It was a very difficult night last night.  First, I was so cold that my teeth were chattering.  Then, I thought my furnace had broken down, but no.  It was fine.  It was obviously some kind of reaction to the Covid Booster or the flu shot or the combination thereof.  I cranked up the heat and piled three heavy blankets on my bed, and still my teeth chattered, even when my body no longer felt cold. 

Then, the most annoying thing—I had to run to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so to pee.  It was as if I had a massive dose of diuretics.  I don’t know how I could possibly have had that much fluid in my body!  And my mouth, nostrils, and throat were dry as dust.  I kept sipping water, but nothing helped.  Finally, I greased up my nostrils with Vicks Vapor Rub and opened a bottle of Diet Coke. The carbonation seemed to help.  The never-ending rushes to the bathroom slowed, and I managed to get a little bit of sleep.  Not much. 

At some point, I wasn’t freezing cold anymore.  Instead, I got all hot and sweaty.  The blankets were sticking to me, and I felt nasty and stinky and gross.  At about 8:30 am, I gave up.  I was having annoying, rambling, irrational dreams that made no sense at all.  It was very frustrating.  The last time I went to the bathroom, I just stripped off my pajamas and got in the shower.  I felt so much better after scrubbing my whole body and washing my hair.  I felt weak and shaky before, but much better afterwards.

The rest of the day, I dealt with a little bit of diarrhea, a little bit of soreness from the flu shot arm, and a general malaise and weariness all day.  I spent most of the day dozing in the recliner.  I had the other half of my Italian sub from Subway for lunch as well as a couple of chocolate chip cookies.  It didn’t taste or set good, so I ended up throwing about half of it away.  At least I got a little something in my belly.  I was hungry later in the day, but absolutely nothing sounded good.  Finally, I made a packet of instant oatmeal which I spruced up with some cut up pecans, a handful of raisins, and some brown sugar and ½ and ½.  Remarkably, that tasted delicious.  Oatmeal always does seem to hit the spot.  Especially when I’m not feeling great.

After that, I felt so much better.  I decided I would not order any groceries this week as all I really needed/wanted was a half-gallon of milk and a bunch of celery.  I figured I could live without that stuff for a week.  I have plenty of other things to eat and drink.  I worked on the DW journal a bit and went to bed a bit earlier than normal. 

 

Friday, January 28

I suspect I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow, and I slept straight through the night.  Not one single nocturnal toilet visit all night.  I woke up around 6 am, emptied my bladder, then went back to sleep again.  I slept till nearly NOON.  I am pretty sure I could have slept another 2-3 hours too, but I figured I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if I did.

I felt almost back to normal today.  I even got some work accomplished.  I used my electric broom to sweep my bedroom, scrubbed down the cat mat where I serve Peaches her soft food morning and evening, tidied up some clutter.  I sorted and washed my laundry, bagged up my bedroom, bathroom, and living room garbage and dragged it out to the breeze way.  Then I hauled my kitchen garbage out to the breezeway, cleaned my litter boxes, and took all of that garbage outside to the bin.  Now the garbage bin AND the recycling bin are both full to the brim. 

My regularly scheduled Chewy.com order was on the steps as was the Target.com order I had placed for my mother.  I dragged those things into the house.  Neither was too heavy, so it wasn’t too hard.  Since I was already out in the breezeway, I watered my snake and spider plants.  I wanted to pot my philodendron, but I just ran out of steam.  It won’t take much to plant it another day.

I had a quiet day after that and made myself some French toast for supper. 

 

Saturday, January 29

I did not sleep as well as I did last night, but it was still a good night’s rest.  I did some more electric sweeping in the living room, hallway, and bathroom.  I need to scrub all the floors in the house, but I did not get it done today.  In fact, other than catching up on these last three entries, I didn’t get ANYTHING done today.  I did “butcher” one of my big hot house tomatoes and sliced it up for tomato on toast open faced sandwiches.  And for supper, I had one of my Schwan’s TV dinner meals.  It was meatloaf with mashed potatoes.  The mashed potatoes were very heavily flavored with garlic.  TOO heavily flavored with garlic in my opinion.  But I do not like heavy flavors. I have a delicate palate.  Haha.

I called my brother this evening and ended up talking for an hour.  I asked him if he would come over tomorrow and take my garbage and recycling bins to the curb for me.  I also asked if he would run Mom’s Target order over to her.  He said he would do that as soon as Cora left with her friends tomorrow morning.  They have a snow dance coming up and she and her friends are going shopping for dresses.  He said Cora had had a rough day today. They had their one-act play contest.  They were very proud of their play which was about the ghosts of Confederate soldiers haunting a frozen lake, but their play was dinged for being “historically inaccurate.”  WTF?  It was a ghost story.  OF COURSE it isn’t going to be “Historically inaccurate.”  Moron judges.  Anyhow, their play was tied for last place with a really terrible play.  They were all depressed.  On the positive side, all the comments about the acting and performance were complimentary.  The judges also criticized the set because one scene was a classroom and they had set it up in sort of a triangle so that the teacher and the students would all be visible to the audience.  Their comment was that “during that period in history, classrooms would NOT be set up like that.”  Well, DUH.  If the set was put up realistically, the audience would only see the backs of the “students’” heads or the backside of the teacher. 

It sounded to me like the judges lacked qualifications to judge anything.

While I was talking to Jack, Lily tried to call me.  I texted her that I was talking to Jack and would call her back as soon as we hung up.  Within seconds, I had a desperate text from her saying, among other things, “You won’t believe what has happened!” and “I can’t watch TV and only have one light.”  I could tell she was in a major crisis, so I told Jack I had to go and find out what was going on with her.  I was really worried that the idiots in Texas had a power grid failure again, but when I called her, Lily told me that it was just her without power.

Her friend Karen had come over to watch a movie, so when the electricity started to act up, she called her husband who came over to see what was going on.  He said the electrical problem seemed to be at the pole and he thought he could fix it.  So he mucked about with it, but he couldn’t get it straightened out as she was having brown outs.  Ultimately, her lights went out completely while I was talking to her.  Near her trailer is a little shed where she has another refrigerator and her washer and dryer.  The electricity was still on there.  Her phone was down to 30% charge, so I told her she should not waste it, just in case the place caught fire or something.

She has lights on a timer that automatically turns off at 11 pm.  So, I encouraged her to go plug in her phone while there were still lights out there so she didn’t have to stagger around in the pitch dark.  She fretted that she had to take all her food from the fridge in the trailer out to the shed and put it in that fridge.  I told her most of the food would be fine for a few hours as long as she keeps the door shut.  Maybe take the ice cream out there. 

She said she would go to church in the morning with Karen and Dick, then Dick would attempt to fix the electricity when they got back from church.  I asked why she didn’t call the park’s owner or the maintenance man.  Surely they have one.  She said the owner doesn’t do anything and doesn’t care if things don’t work.  Apparently there is no maintenance man either.  I question why you would pay rent for a lot if they will not maintain it.  Or why you would want to keep staying in a trailer park were utilities are not reliable and neither is the proprietor.

She did say things were not going well there, and she wants to go home.  No lights.  No heat.  Incompetent medical care. I don’t remember if I talked about how she had bladder/kidney infection before she headed to Texas.  Her Minnesota doctor gave her a prescription, but it did not kill the infection and she has been suffering a lot from it. Also, her hand has been swelled and unbearably painful.  Apparently no Texas doctors will take medicare patients, so if you are on medicare and need a doctor, you have to go to some shit hole walk-in clinic where they neither know you or care about you.  And you cannot make an appointment.  You show up and hope you don’t have to sit there for hours at a time, waiting to be seen.

Anyhow, she went to one, waited for two hours to see a doctor, then was given a prescription for antibiotics.  When she went to the pharmacy to fill the prescription, they went over her medications with her and were horrified to discover she has been on warfarin for several years.  They strongly urged her to talk to her doctor as the antibiotic he had prescribed did not work well with warfarin, a blood thinner.  Apparently the antibiotic in connection with warfarin makes your blood so thin that a simple bump can create an extreme bleeding event that could kill you.  She protested that she HAD to get rid of this infection because she was in such misery with it. 

So the pharmacy people told her they would sell it to her, but she would have to sign a document stating that she had been warned about the dangers of that combination and that she would not hold them responsible if something tragic happened to her.

Then she went back to the trailer and called Rachelle, her granddaughter whose husband is a pharmacist. He told her she absolutely SHOULD NOT take that stuff and should get back to the doctor and explain to him about the warfarin/antibiotic threat.  So, she did.  The doctor prescribed her another antibiotic after being rude and grumpy with her about it.  She called Ryan again, and he said, “Well, that antibiotic is no better than the first one!  What kind of doctors do they have there anyhow?”

Incompetent ones would be my guess.  So, Lily paid for two prescriptions, neither of which she could take, and still had to call in again for ANOTHER antibiotic which the doctor told her he could not guarantee would take away the infection.  Oh—and after all this shit, FINALLY the doctor decided to culture the bacteria to see exactly what it was so he could prescribe an antibiotic that would kill it.

WTF? 

I have absolutely NO CONFIDENCE in the current state of the medical world.

Oh, and for her hand?  He gave her a wrist brace and Voltarin.  Voltarin is a cream that you rub on like Ben Gay.  I had a prescription for it for my knees after they refused to prescribe any type of pain med that actually, you know, took away the pain.  Even though I regularly made a 30 pill prescription last for over a year.  The Voltarin was useless.  I think I would have had similar pain relief if I squeezed some fresh shit out of a chicken’s arse and rubbed that on my knee.

Morons.

Anyhow, we hung up.  She took her phone and a bunch of stuff from her fridge to the shed.  Some time later, she called me to tell me her phone was up to 100% and she was freezing in her bed under a stack of blankets.  Her cat was howling in the background, so I imagine she was freezing her little butt off too. 

I am so frustrated with dealing with her constant crises when she calls me—not because I don’t want to help her but because she has a million reasons why none of my suggestions will work and she just KNOWS that it won’t work even though she will not check it out.  Texas is a shit hole.  She needs to get out of there and come home where I can actually help her and she has friends and family and doctors who actually give a shit about her.

I almost wish the damned trailer would blow up—so long as neither she or the cat are hurt.

And, in other news, today is my sister Kim's birthday.  She turned 65 today.  I texted her a happy birthday and a picture of her celebrity crush, Keanu Reeves.  It's too bad that her spawn destroyed our relationship.  And too bad that she chose to pamper and spoil them into worthless, no-ambition, no-goal, no-value pricks.  Alas.  What a waste. 

Comments

[the_godiva]

I took my Mom to the hairdresser on Jan 6 and little did I know Alma's last day was Friday, Jan 7. She texted me on Monday Jan 10 to let me know. While she said she would be willing to come back NOT if my nephew is there. So I know what happened. That greedy, manipulative, lying asshole just couldn't leave well enough alone. The minute he found out Alma was getting $575 a week, he wanted that money. Back in December he was trying to sell us on him quitting his job, moving in and getting paid her money to take care of them. Oh, and he's going to enroll in an online bachelor's degree program and finish his degree and then start his own business and be an entrepreneur. I supposed like he was going to be a welder and then an electrician. Well we all told him no except my Dad. I said it was a bad idea and laid it all out but of course, the little professor knows better. His Mother told him no, MY Mother told him no. Both agreed with me that he needed to go on full time until he finished his degree. But Noooooo. He poisoned my Dad against Alma and she was fired on Dec. 23. Only my Mom found out and lit into him that Alma was her caregiver and she was in charge of hiring and firing and he was to butt out.

Well, that lasted all of two weeks because my shit for brains nephew kept hounding my Dad and he kept hounding my Mom until she gave in and allowed Alma to be fired.

The house was running smoothly. It was organized and managed and no one was getting burned out. But the Freeloader couldn't leave it alone and he fucked up everything. And once Alma was fired, there was NO ONE THERE.

I went on Jan 27 to take Dolly to the groomer and they were by themselves. When we got back they were still by themselves. I got inside and my Mother bursts into tears. I ask why and she says she can't remember anything any more. I never got a straight answer from my Mom but apparently they have been left on their own since Alma was fired. My sister goes on Saturday and the nephew shows up at soe time but he is still working and he certainly isn't staying there taking care of them. So FUCK HIM.

He totally fucked up what was working so well and then left them.

My Dad hadn't eaten all day. There were cold cuts and chip bags all over the kitchen table. There was laundry in the garage. My Mother dragged it down and put a half load in. I put that in the dryer and started the other half. Then when that was done I folded the dry and put the next load in the dryer.

I told her she needed someone and she no, they can take care of themselves. I said what if you fall and she told me they've already fallen. My Dad picks her up and he gets himself up. WTF! My sister and her son know all of this and they still are allowing them to be alone for almost three weeks? Seriously? Well, I guess they finally got the will and trust signed. To their advantage. It's likely why my sister didn't want me around for New Year's; kept urging me to go home.

I put the last load in the dryer and then I went out to get them burgers from The Habit because they had nothing to eat for dinner and my Mom didn't know what she was going to make. When I got back I told her she needed someone and she said no, all she needs is a cook. Well, they need more than that if they are falling down. Alma checked to make sure they were taking their pills and checked my Mom's blood pressure. She knew the household and things were running smoothly.

I took the last load out and put it in the laundry basket and left it at the foot of the stairs. I told my Mom to leave it there until Saturday and my sister could take it upstairs.

A while after I got home I got a call from guess who? That liar was thanking me for buying them dinner so he didn't have to drive down. He claimed he had been calling all day. Bullshit. That phone never rang while I was there. I had no plans to stay so no one would have told him I was going to take care of them. But then, he is a proven LIAR. He was just covering his ass and he panicked when somehow he found out I had been there and discovered that they had no one taking care of them for three weeks. Then he feeds me some bullshit about him and my sister finding a new caregiver. I told him they had a caregiver. And we have the same bullshit. "Grandpa didn't like her." Yeah, because that greedy, lying failure poisoned my Dad against her and then wouldn't leave it alone despite being told over and over to butt out.

So, why haven't they found anyone? Three weeks. They KNEW Jan 7 was Alma's last day and they still haven't done anything to replace her? Why isn't that lay son-of-a-bitch taking time off work to be there? Why didn't he just quit his half time janitor crap job like he said he would? He totally fucked up everything and then he calls to lie to me to cover his ass.

Piss on him.