THIS AND THAT

Yesterday as we were coming from the dining room table and going to get Grandma’s jammies on, she stopped, looked out the front windows and said, “When are the kids coming home? It’ll be so nice when they get here. It makes the house so alive.”

Now, that was a moment of lucidity and clarity that we don’t see very often. So many times she just doesn’t connect with what’s happening in our world, only in hers. I think we’re all on the edge of our seats, so happy and excited, waiting for the kids to come home.

Grandpa talks about the kids almost every day and laughs over something Belle did or remarks on some of their toys that are in the living room. He’s waiting for their arrival too.

Yesterday Papa and I stopped on the way home to pick up four half-gallons of milk to get ready for those little sweethearts. We can’t wait to see their sippy cups being used again and find them (both sippy cups and kids) all over the house. It makes life worth living! :O}

Around 5:00 yesterday afternoon, I went to see if Grandma was ready to get up from the potty, and she said, “Are there people waiting to come in?” I said that there had been a long line waiting, but they were gone now and that I thought they had used the potty by the laundry room. For some reason, she keeps thinking there’s a line outside the potty door every time she uses it. It’s easier to agree with her than it is to try to reason with her. It just frustrates everyone, so I agree with just about everything.

I also asked Grandma about Uncle Axel, and she said he was her dad’s brother, not Mam’s brother, so I had it wrong earlier. She said her dad was teaching Uncle Axel how to use the edger (it’s a woodworking machine in the lumber mill), and Uncle Axel’s sleeve got caught in the machine, pulled his arm in, and cut off his arm about in the middle of his forearm. That’s how he lost his hand and part of his arm. I asked her if he ever married, and she said he told her that no one wanted to marry a one-armed man, so he never asked anyone to marry him. It’s so sad because he was such a sweet, gentle person. And Grandma said he was soooooo handsome. I remember him as being nice looking too, but mostly I remember him as being gentle and shy and sweet.

Grandma has days when she’s stronger than other days. I came home last week and found her by the front door with her walker. She had gotten herself up from the couch and wandered around the first floor for a while and was standing by the front door, not sure where to go next. Grandpa was sleeping, so he didn’t know she was wandering.

The one thing we’ve been so grateful for since Grandma’s mind has been going away is that she’s been too weak to wander around on her own. She usually needs help getting up and never walks anywhere without someone’s hand on her back because she tends to fall over backwards or go sideways. But this was something new and scary, since she could fall down the stairs or possibly open a door and fall outside, or worse yet, heaven help us, she could turn on the stove and start a fire.

I asked her where she was going, and she started to walk toward the wall saying, “I don’t know. I was just going around and around.” I stopped her before she ran into the wall, took her to the potty, and got her back to the couch without grandpa waking up. I told Papa about it, and he was able to find the baby gate in the basement; so we put it up in front of the basement stairs. At least she won’t fall down the stairs even though she may fall someplace else in the house. She just can’t be trusted alone . . . ever.

Kaiser has let us know that Medicare won’t cover home care after December 31, 2010. That means the people who come to bathe and dress mom and clean the house won’t be covered by Medicare, and Grandpa will have to cover the entire bill instead of 25% of the bill – that’s around $1850/month if he has to pay it all. We can’t afford that much money, so we’ll have to see what’s going to happen. I haven’t told Grandpa yet because there’s nothing we can do about it, and he would only continue to worry. Papa and I think it’s better that he only start to worry toward the end of December, so we’ll tell him then. Who knows what could happen between now and then, and there’s no reason for him to worry while Papa and I are doing such a good job worrying about it on our own. Especially with Papa’s job loss, the worry about how to pay for Grandma’s care will fit in nicely with the worry about a new job for Papa. (Huh?)

Now we're just waiting for the kids to arrive today. We have errands to run just after work, then home to sit in front of the window to wait for the kids . . . and all will again be right with the world.