calherewecome

Time for an update on Mary. She is doing pretty good for 94 years of age. Her memory though is failing badly. We try to get her out to events where people know her and will interact with her. So we get her to church on Sunday. She doesn’t seem to put up a fuss about going. We usually can get her to OES meeting. And, of course she gets her hair done on Fridays.

While Mary is under the hair dryer at the beauty salon, Paula and I get together for coffee and to do grocery shopping. Wonderful to get some time alone together.

So on Saturday, Mike and his family came over for dinner. Sunday was Mike’s birthday. We watch the kids so they can go out to a movie. So on Sunday morning, Mary sees the Happy Birthday balloon on our table and asks “Who’s birthday is it?”. We tell her “Mike’s”.

“Who is Mike?” she says. He is your grandson, we tell her. So we go out to lunch after church at the Pacific Diner. Then, on Sunday night, the question gets repeated, “Who’s Mike?”. Sigh. Then, she asks us what day is it? It’s Sunday. Don’t you remember going to church? Going to the Diner for lunch? Apparently not. More sighs. Got to get rid of the darn balloon.

It’s time for an update. Mary had a tough go of it a couple of weeks ago. She came down with an urinary tract infection on Monday 2/26. So Paula made an appt to see her primary care doc in Torrance. Her doc got a urine sample and wrote her a prescription for an antibiotic and sent her home. He had us give her ibuprofen for the pain. So Paula gets the Rx filled at the local CVS. She was feeling pretty miserable.

Two days go by and she’s still not getting much better. Paula takes her to urgent care and sees a different doctor. New doctor prescribes a new antibiotic and gives her an Rx for Tamaflu. He was thinking that maybe the flu was involved although she wasn’t running a fever.

She’s feeling much better today. She was feeling good enough to come to church with us. It didn’t hurt that our grandson Jonathan was singing in the kids’ choir. The picture above was taken this morning during brunch at the Pacific Diner in San Pedro. (One of our favorite places for brunch after church.)

In other news from San Pedro, I celebrated my 70th birthday on March 3. Paula and I got a sitter to watch Mary while we went out for dinner for just the two of us. It was so nice to get out without Mary. We went to a steak house called “The San Franciscan” in Torrance. I had a steak and shrimp, Paula had the prime rib. Very tasty.

We shared a piece of cheese cake for dessert. When Jonathan saw the picture of my “birthday” cake, he told us that wasn’t a proper birthday cake. Grownups, I try to teach them right. So we got a real chocolate devil’s food cake for last Friday when Jonathan was over for dinner. Much better he thought.

We’re finally getting some rain. It rained yesterday and today. Forecast for rain on and off for the next week or so. It’s been a light rain. No soaker like we had last time a couple of months ago that caused mud slides up in Santa Barbara. It’s finally beginning to feel like a typical San Pedro winter with temps in the 50’s and rain.

It’s time for another post about Mary. Every once in a while, the topic of nursing homes comes up between Paula and me, especially after we have had a frustrating few days at home. It all started at dinner on Monday. On the first and third Monday evenings we all go to our Eastern Star (OES) meetings in San Pedro.

On those nights, we usually have a pizza for dinner. So Mary asks us, “What’s this?” and “how do I eat it?” Once again, we patiently explain for the hundredth time what pizza is and how to eat it.

So she is sitting at the dining room table in her PJ’s. She had basically slept all day until 5:30 PM. We tried to get her to hurry up and finish so we could then get her to get dressed. “Why do I have to go?” she says. Because we don’t want to leave you alone.

So we eventually get her dressed and we get on our way to the lodge building. So, here’s the $64K question, do we give up on getting her out to meet with her friends? Or, do we look for a regular sitter for the evenings when we need (or want) to go out?

At this point, she usually doesn’t go to church or Senior Bible study. The only other events that she goes to are to get her hair done on Friday’s and the monthly luncheon at Assistance League in SP.

We are considering getting a sitter for the Mondays for OES meetings. Maybe for all Mondays, that way we can go to the movies (or something) when we are not going to OES meetings.

We’re not quite ready for a nursing home, but the time might be coming soon. Nursing homes cost big bucks. We can afford a lot of sitters before we get anywhere close to what nursing homes cost.

Here’s another issue we are facing. It seems that she is eating less and less. She rarely finishes the portions that we put on her plate. And we always put less on her plate than for Paula and me. We seem to think that maybe she is unconsciously starving her self. There is nothing that we are planning to do about it except encourage her to eat. We try to have meals that she likes and are easy for her to eat.

And one more thing, a couple of years ago the three of us went to an event put on by an elder lawyer by the name of Susan Geffen. She has run seminars that present various elder agencies and service companies to talk about their offerings. She is the author of a book called “Take That Nursing Home and Shove It“. It’s worth reading.

TTFN

Joe