AGING PARENTS

Yikes. Sending absolute best. My dad had prostate surgery years back -- thankfully nowhere near as fraught a situation as your dad has but it still was a bit uneasy to go through. This, this is a whole other level I can't pretend to have faced.

Thank you, Ned. My parents are only 21 years older than me, have always seemed young, and were both in generally good health for their age. This has been an adjustment.

All the best to you and your folks PKBR, and to their respective care teams. I hope the next few weeks are easier all around.

My mom had to move directly to memory care in a different facility from where she had been living with very little notice. Fortunately my brother and sister were able to handle everything and it went fairly smoothly. It's evident now Mom is much further along in memory loss than any of us realized. She remembers nothing of her living situations from the past 6 years, isn't recognizing her collection of DVDs or figure out her TV, can't remember that she has been socializing with people every day. Speech and physical therapy are starting soon.

Step-mom is not wanting to consider not living in her house, is sure it's just a little memory glitch that caused her two broken wrists, is rampant on Facebook with random out of character sentimental memes and jigsaw puzzle apps. But cheerful and okay with not driving.

Mum doing pretty well with her L-dopa treatment, super happy with the specialist she is seeing for her Parkinsons

Thanks, Jaq. Best to you and your family dealing with your mom and step-mom's issues.

Wishing all ilxors strength and wisdom for the years ahead.

My sentiments exactly

things settling down on this front. oh, shit still hits the fan, but we're learning not to treat each instance like a big scary disaster.

i was not home last night, and dad tripped (his cane collided with something) and hit his head, and went to the ER. he's ok.

Medicaid application is underway, we've submitted everything they need, but the wait list is fairly long. we have an interview at the Center for Aging so we can get a waiver form in a few weeks.

Good luck, Neanderthal. I'm almost two weeks into being at my parents and probably two weeks more to go and I'm going a little nutty. You are not just a good poster, but a good son.

Dad came home this afternoon after 10 days in the hospital. He had never been overnight in a hospital. He hugged me and broke down sobbing when he walked in the house!

<3

somehow the main thing my mom knows about my life is that i need to renew my driver's license (not a pressing matter, as i don't own a car or otherwise drive)

in the last three months she has emailed me easily 20 times -- once three times in a single evening -- about how i need to get a 'REAL ID' as opposed to a regular license. twice she's mailed me physical clippings out of the newspaper about it. every time we speak on the phone it comes up at least twice, at which point i mention that she's brought it up now dozens of times. 'really?'

i guess it's better than hounding me about getting a job, but it's fucking unsettling

(also she is unknowingly sending all her emails out on her iPhone, through an icloud account she is unaware that she has and never checks, and wonders why people don't respond, but that's another story)

i'm going there next week and can probably fix a few things, but not everything

Good luck, mookie. Just try to enjoy the time you have to the extent that is an option.

well, the larger issue is that i'm a shitty child/person and simply don't want to deal with it

Obv I don't know the details, but not wanting to deal is a pretty normal reaction and doesn't make you a shitty person.

Just tell her you got the new license and it is a real id?

my mother got bit by my brother's girlfriend's dogs today on her arm. her luck has just been terrible.

in addition to feeling bad for her run of luck, the recurring fear I've had of mom being knocked out of commission due to an injury or something and leaving me the sole caretaker of BOTH of them ran through my head and freaked me out. granted, it's obviously not going to happen due to dog bites, but I'm realizing how precarious a sitch is with my brother basically only helping when I ask him.

can you ask more regularly to make it more part of his routine to help? Might be more work short term but helpful longer term?

I'm gonna have to honestly. But he's working 72 hours next week :/

and I hurt my back yesterday. both my mother and I try to spare each other work with nobody wanting to cede lol. but my back is in much better shape than her hands after a dog bite. (she's ok - no stitches, antibiotics, rest)

will be in a permanent state of heightened anxiety until we ever get approved for Medicaid and get waivers for home health services.

ironically, not because things keep happening, but because things have been quiet lately and there've been a few fall "close calls".

mom told me she's depressed. didn't have the heart to tell her that I am too, as she'd feel responsible (but of course that's ridiculous). both of us keep trying to take care of the other's emotional wellbeing.

Hang in there Neanderthal.

After 2 months of no incidents, he fell. Mom didn't let me know she was back with him from daycare so I wasn't outside to help. Going to ER

It's been only a year of this and I have little left. The psychological impact of this has me just ready to abandon any optimism I had left. Zero end in sight.

Just wanted to share this story, and it kinda fits here since Mom is 72, though she's totally independent and requires nothin' from nobody.

So the other day I'm on the phone with her and she says "By the way, tomorrow is [AUNT]'s birthday" and we continue with our conversation.

Here's the thing: [AUNT] is a TWIN.

Mom is ICE COLD when she wants to be.

Hahaha amazing.

Your mother's twin or another sibling?

Another sibling. Mom was the second born, the twins came after her, then two more sisters she's also not talking to.

I liked it better as Mom being passive-aggressive about her own birthday.

love it

PBKR's interpretation was what I thought at first.

Seemed more Mom-like.

The 'real' is colder though

Ahhhh... Nothing says summer break like spending the day picking up dried up cat vomit in my mother's squalid apartment.

Sitting here watching Gunsmoke w/ my aged p’s because their helper had heart palpitations/panic attack (because of Henri?) and left to go to her doctor in the city and the rest of my generation just was exposed to COVID.

Just think; it could be the Waltons.

Gunsmoke rules

I think they show The Waltons on this channel too! Thought I saw a profile of Grandpa Walton on the website.

Yes, never really watched whist growing up but Gunsmoke is in fact pretty good.

The Virginian is better, and so are The Big Valley and The High Chaparral, sorry to be a dick

No worries.

Feel like we should have a thread called itt we ask Josefa about old tv shows and NYC restaurants

oh man the waltons was on in the clinic when i got my second vaxx and it was brutal. i'd never seen it before!

That would actually make me feel special. I would take the responsibility seriously.

Btw what with the pandemic and everything it feels like every NYC restaurant is an old NYC restaurant now. The system crashed in March 2020 and we’re trying to reset it still.

It was Gunsmoke reruns and The Waltons all over our TV in the late 70s.

we got METV years ago before we stopped dping cable & i watched at least 5 seasons worth of gunsmoke

surprsingly, the last season color eps, which seemed super weird, are some of the best!

I only acknowledge the radio version.

There's an early-ish color Gunsmoke where the Doc has to quarantine a sick rich dude & his entourage on a train and anyone living the past two years knows how that turns out.

Miss Kitty refuses to take the smallpox vaccine?

OMG LOL ROFFLE ETC ETC ETC

Sorry, I actually meant that, but the allcaps probably made it seem sarcastic. The intranetz, how do they work?

Festus won't wear a face mask.

But seriously, the rich guy doesn't want to quarantine and tries to bargain his way out because he's got business in another town that just has to be settled, but soon he's too sick to do anything. One of his bodyguards tries to escape but gets killed by some townies who-lacking Doc's compassion-don't want no sick people in Dodge. They form a rebellion, knock out Marshall Dillion, and set the train on fire, getting a number of themselves killed in the process. Doc, the rich guy, and his pregnant trophy wife manage to escape.

The ep is called "Death Train" and it's from season 13 in '67.

chilling

…and today we’re back to earlier in the day viewing, Little House on the Prairie.

Well, at least you will have The Price is Right to look forward to tomorrow.