We're headed to the airport this morning – the wife is catching a flight to go visit her mom in Indiana. Kate (her mom) is in her 90s, and about three weeks ago took a tumble in her bedroom that broke five ribs, punctured a lung, and lacerated her liver. Tomorrow Kate goes home, and for the first few weeks her daughters (one of whom lives in the area) will be taking care of her. They'll also be observing...we want to be sure that Kate is actually up to living on her own (she's starting to have doubts herself).
It's gotta be tough to be in Kate's situation. She's been living on her own in her Indiana farmhouse for most of 40 years since her husband died. All her friends and most of her relatives are in the immediate area. She used to work in a nursing home, so she knows better than most what the conditions are like there. She refuses to go live with either daughter, knowing what an imposition it would be (whatever the daughters say about it). She relishes her independence.
But now her body and her mind are starting to betray her. This latest incident would be funny if it weren't so scary – she took that fall while making her bed in the morning. Her feet got tangled up in the blankets and she fell against her nightstand. So Kate's faced with some very tough choices here, and so are her daughters...
Meanwhile, I'll be spending my evenings and weekends taking care of the menagerie – currently that's four dogs, seven cats, a few hundred hummingbirds, and a few dozen quail. In our kitchen, the meds for our dogs currently under treatement are lined up with written directions – it's complicated, with a total of 9 different medicines given at intervals ranging from 12 to 48 hours. Some of the pills have to be wrapped in cream cheese to entice the dogs to eat them; others they think of as treats. One of the bigger challenges is making sure that the right dog gets the medicine – sometimes the intended target will spit out the pill (after sucking all the cream cheese off it!), and another dog will scarf it up. Sigh...
