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Sunny, I had to smile when you mentioned your underwear getting tight! I've lost about 25 pounds since my diabetes medications have been adjusted. And the first place I noticed it was in my underwear! The seat bagged. Now the only place on my entire body where I didn't need to lose weight was my butt. (Once when my grandma was helping me fit a pattern for some slacks she sad, "Girl, what do you sit on? You ain't got any keister at all!") So I got new underwear. The second place I noticed the weight loss was in my bras -- another place I didn't exactly need to be smaller. Sigh. Now I am noticing that my slacks bag the way my underwear did -- just in the seat.

Anyway, I celebrate the loss of weight because I think it contributes to my improved management of my diabetes.
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On the negative side, Mom seems to have regressed a bit yesterday and was demonstrating aphasia at dinner time and had no appetite. But, on a celebratory note, she stood up on her own just before bedtime!! She has been content with being rolled around in the wheelchair and being transferred from chair to chair to bed to toilet by means of being picked up into a standing position. She has contributed to the effort by using her legs some of the time but not all.

She was sitting on the toilet claiming to "not be done yet" so I ran out of the room for a minute to use the facilities in the other part of the house. When I came back, she was standing in front of the toilet. I am not ready for her to stand unsupervised but glad that she found the strength and willingness to do it.
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Is there a Celebration tonight?
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BarbBrooklyn will be celebrating soon I think :)
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Can hardly wait! Are you nervous Barb?
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Celebrating for someone else tonight, we are having cookies, white chocolate macadamia nut.
Congrats!!
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A friend, self-sufficient all these years, has decided to stop driving at 81.
Arthritis in her neck makes it painful to turn her head, as required for driving. She is a good driver, but somehow I am proud of her example.

Thinking that is the way to age gracefully, with dignity intact.
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The ballad of the missing hearing aids..my mom moved from AL to Skilled Nursing last June. Mom had called me to tell me she was going to SN for PT and people were gathering some belongings. In hindsight I should have went over, but they had everything under control. My mom ended up staying in SN and hearing aids couldn't be found. Yesterday, Sunday, I went to see her and she had her nightstand drawer opened. She has about four denture containers and has costume jewelry in them (the activities ladies give it out) and she opened one more container, took out tissues, and there were her hearing aids! Changed the batteries and she can hear..it was a happy day for all!
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Tax paperwork is now safely in the hands of our tax preparer. I was up until 2 AM last night getting all of Mom's paperwork in order. Discovered a $28,000 error on one of her 10-99s. Hopefully it will be corrected in a timely manner. I was up for work at 6 AM so am running off of four hours of sleep. Going to bed now. Everything else must wait until tomorrow. It is so nice to have that task off my back.
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Oh, taxes....
Today felt better after taking care of the social security appointment.
Taxes are a little further down on the list, then jury duty.
Busy busy springtime.
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I'm celebrating. Not caregiver related, but hey...a celebration is a celebration, right?

I was excited recently, because a person my professional circle approached me about collaborating on a major project I mentioned to her. The project is a training course I will be creating and selling, and should be quite lucrative if all works out the way I'm hoping. I'm confident that it will do well. Anyway, this person approached me, and I was excited, because she has a massive network of clients and others in the industry, where we could market this product and do very well with it. Even signing up 100 people would be very good income to start out with. So we started working out the timeline and framework, and I sent her a contract to review. Then she went silent on me for about a week, putting me off whenever I contacted her to see what the status was on things. Then after about 2 weeks, she informs me she has discussed this project with her "peers" and now, instead of being a partnership - a 50/50 split - it's going to be "her" product, with her name on it, and that I will only be one of many "experts" in various fields she is bringing on board, and the split will now be 25/75 - with 75% for her. The reasoning behind it was that she was going to paying out of pocket for an expensive software to run the program (which isn't necessary, I know how these programs work, I've run several for my clients). I let her know I was *not* at all happy with this turn of events, but she wouldn't budge. I told her I was breaking away and doing the project on my own, which was my original intent anyway - I never asked her for help, collaboration or anything at all - *she* approached *me* and asked if we could collaborate, and then took the idea and ran with it, and made it her own. That's fine - there are many courses like this out there, and she can run her own - I don't care - but what I do care about is how she did it. I feel it was underhanded and shady.

So why am I celebrating? Because I don't feel bad about this at all. Yes, I was pretty ticked off at first when she did it, but I feel extremely good about my product and what I can do with it, and I'd much rather have all the profit for myself anyway, rather than splitting it with someone else.

When I think about launching this product, I get excited at the prospect of what it can hold for the future, and I feel very, very confident that it's going to work. I can't remember the last time I felt this good, down deep, about something. It's that gut feeling you get when you know something is going to work out.
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Not care giver related either other than mother has been fine during all the hoo-ha of the fire and evacuation of the city. The house repairs are nearly complete after 8+ months of a basement flood, and restoration, another flood and more restoration and a third flood and then finally the repairs started and are nearly complete. It feels good and is reason to celebrate!!!
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How exciting, Susan, happy for you!

Golden, you have gotten a bit of a "break" due to your elderly mother being relatively content and well cared for, no new issues, during this hectic time you've had. I hope everything starts to wrap up and you can see the light at the end of it all.
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Celebrating life.
The life that God gave us, and numbered our days.
Celebrating my family member's life.
He is a good man, still living after all these years.
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My mom was sitting in the common area with other NH members last Friday when I arrived. We stayed there the entire visit and I walked her back to her room about an hour later as I was leaving. That is the FIRST time she has stayed with others and talked in the past several months. I did get a call that she had fallen Saturday again but, only her elbow was scratched up and nothing broken this time.
I'll see her again Friday and Saturday my family and friends will be here for our annual backyard cookout/crawfish boil. So, I am celebrating some relaxation time.
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Mom smiled !
i thought for sure she couldnt any more
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Little celebration today....

Starting to make progress on the MERP mess so I can get this house settled, one way or the other. I feel that they're probably going to go for deferral, which means I can keep the house until I die, or sell it and give the money to the state and have to start over from scratch. Not happy about that, but not much I can do. I just want to get it done and over with so I can move on with my life, whichever direction it takes.

Found out I don't have to pay $400 for an appraisal, which is a huge relief. I can get a CMA done by a real estate agent for free, and the MERP office will accept it. Yay!
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I am celebrating everything falling into place for a good day tomorrow. DS (14) is getting paid to watch Mom tomorrow. DH will be home in case there is something DS can't handle and her regular caregiver will be down the street in case there is something that neither of them can handle.

Flights loads are ridiculously low so lots of empty seats on the plane there and back for this standby girl.

It is all in place for me to go to EPCOT for the day for the Flower and Garden Festival.

I have already picked my snack choices from the 15 food booths. I am ready!!!
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M2M, how exciting!! We expect a full report when you get back, chickie!
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I got away for the day and no-one died!!!

Everything fell into place for me to take a quick trip to the Epcot Flower and Garden Show this past Sat. The flight loads were ridiculously low (I fly stand by so this was crucial) My son (14) needed money and said he would watch Mom for the day. I asked him several times if he was sure he could handle her and he said yes.

I set off to the airport at 5:30 AM (an hour drive), arrived at the park at Noon. Ate my way around World Showcase. Almost decided to leave my family for a Raspberry Macaroon near France. Fell in love with a Lamb Chop. Met my niece and her husband for drinks. Found out she is pregnant - couldn't be more excited for them. Made it home by 1:30AM. I walked 11 miles, according to fitbit.

On the negative, Mom was a hot mess in the morning and Dh had to help DS get her up. He said she was speaking Greek only and was not able to do anything for herself. DS was afraid to take her to the bathroom because he feared that she would fall. Suspecting a UTI flareup, I told them to call 911 and ship her off to the hospital and I would pick her up when I got back. I decided not to cut my one day trip short and have no guilt about it.

They ended up calling one of her daytime caregivers who happened to be close by. She came over and helped and all was well without an ambulance ride.

Mom was much improved yesterday so I am now suspecting low blood sugar rather than UTI.
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M2M, so glad you were able to get away for a very nice time, sorry about your mom's condition. Do you think much of the idea of giving her a small amount of cranberry juice (the real stuff, the bitter stuff) to ward off UTIs? I did that with great success with my dad. He went from having them every 3-6 months to none since the "cranberry juice regimen."  

Anyway, so glad you got to get away for such a fun day! Very nice!
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M2M, I'm SO glad you got away and had a wonderful time, despite Mom's attempt to derail things! (We know she didn't mean to, obviously, but these things always happen at the worst possible times, don't they!) You were so smart to realize that someone else could handle it and continue your trip.
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AloBoBali, Mom takes a cranberry pill every day plus whatever cranberry juice we can get in her. I was going to send in a sample for testing but she is back to normal (her new normal, at least) so I am thinking it was low blood sugar.
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Small celebration today, hopefully leading to a larger one.

DD got a letter in the mail yesterday from the local housing commission, indicating she was nearing the top of the wait list. Must be the last cull they did of the wait list was larger than normal, with people having already found other housing or just not responding to their letter, so she was bumped up several spots. Last month, she was in the high 30s on the list, so we fully expected it would be several months before she even heard from them. This letter was a welcome surprise. She's let them know she's definitely still looking for housing, so hopefully after the middle of the month, she'll know more about a time frame. Not looking forward to the move, because I know that's going to fall on me, possibly with some help from brother and nephews, but will be so happy to have them in their own place so I can get back to a somewhat normal life.
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Hm. Another possibly celebratory moment today. Am I allowed two in one day? LOL

The "problem child" client I recently eliminated resurfaced in my email inbox today, asking if I would come back to work with her, promising she'd sign my contract and pay in advance every month. I have some thinking to do. I could definitely use the extra income right now, with the house needing a roof and some required travel coming up this summer....but this client used to stress me out *so much*. I'll have to do some deep thinking about this one, but it's a good opportunity. I can do her work with my eyes closed, almost, so there's no learning curve involved. Hmmmm.....
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Congratulations Susan!
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Thanks, Send! I'm doing some deep thinking here about this...leaning towards doing it, simply because I really need the extra income right now, and it would help a lot, but the thought of working with her again stresses me out a bit. But, to be honest, most of the stress was due to her late or non-payment of invoices - I had to stop work until she paid, almost every single month. It was ridiculous. If I do this, she's going to have to stick to the retainer agreement and pre-pay every month, or this won't work.
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Income is a good thing. Advanced pre-paid income is even better! imo.
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Celebrating that caregivers have this forum to come and figure things out. It is so much harder, and so confusing when elder age and decline happens to your own family. Myself, I just wanted to help others, and received help and caring too!
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Today the weather is glorious, at least it's glorious for April! ( temp high 60's F) Despite worries that it was "too cold" I managed to get mom out the door and took her for a cruise to the the local park and back, bundled up in a heavy jacket and swaddled in a blanket. She said it was a nice change. Hurrah!
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