Grab a chair and a couple of root beers...

Well, first off, I'd like to show you a lucky shot that I got at the Impertinent Daughter's game today. One of our forwards jumped to intercept the ball, and I just happened to click the shutter at just the right moment.




They lost, 5-2, and I have to say, it is the first game I've been to in the five years since the Impertinent One started playing where someone got a red card called on them. A boy from the other team was trash-talking and got frustrated by the lack of response from our kids, so, he decided to up the stakes a bit, and punched one of our guys in the face. Not a smart move, and it not only got him thrown out of the game, it got him thrown out of the complex.

In other news, my dad is improving. I called last night, after giving myself sufficient time to calm down, and got no answer, so I thought, "Okay, Mom must have called 911." I almost called her cell phone, then remembered that she said the battery was dead and it hadn't been recharged yet, so, I called the Practical Sister, knowing that Mom would have called her first. No answer. I called her cell, and got voice mail, which told me her phone was turned off. So I called the Blonde Sister, and same thing. Still, I didn't panic, because I figured, "Okay, Mom called 911, they're at the hospital, and knowing both my sisters, they're in the treatment room with Mom, so their cell phones are turned off." So... I stopped worrying. Because at that point, it was completely out of my hands, and worrying (which I can do on a monumental scale) would only make my hair fall out faster. So, I went to bed with the cell phone and the land line next to the bed.

Gave it some time this morning, then called Mom, and found out, no... they hadn't gone to the emergency room last night. And the phones went out for about 3 hours last night. At which point I almost completely freaked out, but she quickly reminded me that the Dangs, neighbors who live two houses down, all had functioning cell phones, and had already told her if she needed anything, to come down, no matter what time of day or night. This did not make me feel better, imagining my unsteady, slightly dizzy mother traipsing down a dark street (they have no street lights yet) to knock on the neighbor's door.

So I said, "But, what about Dad? Is he still in pain? What's going on?"

She made this aggravated sort of noise and said, quite plainly and with great exasperation, "Your father is an idiot!!"

Well, yeah, I kind of knew that, but... what brought this on?

"The doctors told him and told him, over and over again, when you eat, you cannot lie down! You have to sit up to eat, and for 30 minutes afterwards, even with this feeding tube!" She nearly snarled. "So, all that pain he was having last night?"

"Yes?"

"It was because he insisted on going straight to bed after I'd fed him, and he wouldn't let me give him the full amount the doctor wanted him to eat. And then it came back up, and he was hurting, and just didn't want to mess with it anymore. And he was in so much pain last night..."

"Wait a minute... he threw up? Why didn't you tell me this last night?"

"Well, I didn't want to worry you."

o_O!!

"He's much better this morning!" she said sheepishly.

And he is. Want to know why?

The home health care nurse came by this morning and apparently read Dad the riot act where eating and using the feeding tube is concerned. She stood over him after giving him his nutrition through the feeding tube to make sure that he sat up for the entire thirty minutes, glaring at him the whole time.

I'm still laughing as I picture it.

Thing is, he felt so much better afterwards that he didn't go immediately to bed, so while the nurse went around doing all the things that she is supposed to do, checking on meds, checking my mother, etc, he sat up and watched a little TV, did a crossword, and then ate a little more before she left. It might be that one of the reasons his stomach was hurting so much was because it was empty!

Then Mom told me the electric company called and informed her that it could be weeks before they get their power turned back on. They're working on the larger areas without power first, and are having to go house by house. As you can imagine, this did not make me happy. But when I asked her what she was going to do, fully prepared to argue again that she needed to pack herself and Dad up to go stay with the Blonde Sister, she said, "Well, the Practical Sister pretty much got fed up when she heard that, so she went out and bought a large generator for us, and she and D's husband, T, are going to bring it over and hook it up."

"That's great," I said, "But who is going to make sure it keeps running? Who's going to add more gas when it runs out? Because Mom, neither you nor Dad are in any kind of shape to do that, you know that."

She said, "Yes, I do know that. Your Daddy can barely stand on his own sometimes, so no, he won't be messing with it. The Practical Sister is going to come stay with us until the power is back on."

This made me blink, because she had said repeatedly that she couldn't leave D alone. Well, either D is chasing her out, or my sister is in serious need of a break. I'm suspecting answer B.

So, my dad is better, the visiting nurse was supposed to come back this evening, so I'll probably call in a little while to check and see if she did any more glaring (more power to her! My dad NEEDS to be glared at, believe me!). And to see if they've got the generator hooked up yet (they were supposed to do it this afternoon).

I'm just glad he's getting better, though I still would have felt much better if they had called EMS, even if it was just to check him over (which they have done before). Still, all's well that ends well, I guess. I just wish it didn't come with personal heart failure on my part! It's not my kids giving me grey hair... it's my PARENTS!

*flump*

Whew, well, now that I've got a bit of emotional distance, I can give you an example of the problems my semi-hysterical sister threw in my lap. And to give her a bit of credit, she is so stressed and strained right now that I think she is close to snapping.

1. My dad is losing weight at an alarming rate. He's losing weight, because he's spending 10 to 12 hours at a time sleeping, with maybe one or two hours in between the sleep sessions. His speech is slurred, and he's having trouble getting around, and at times is very cranky. And the other morning, when my mom finally got him to wake up, he sat up, took her hand, and said, "Don't worry, My Taw, I asked, and we're 8th in line to get married."

He hasn't called my mother his "Taw" since 1947.

Mom freaked and thought he had had a stroke, because he didn't seem to know where or when he was.

After some very pointed questioning, I reasoned that it wasn't a stroke, it was the massive doses of hydrocodone he was getting. A whopping 1 to 2 TABLESPOONS as needed!!! AND Phenergin!!

Of COURSE his speech was slurred, he was having trouble getting around, having very vivid dreams, and was SLEEPING all the time!! Cut the dosage back to 1 to 2 TEASPOONS and it's amazing how much better he's doing!!!

He's supposed to go in tomorrow to have a feeding tube installed (makes him sound like a car getting options, doesn't it?), since he's still having so much trouble swallowing and eating.

2) Mom and Dad still don't have electricity at their house, though the people across the street do. I suspect that the transformers that route the power to my folks' side of the street have been trashed by the storm. When Alicia hit us in 1983, a tornado spawned by the storm drove a tree through four of the transformers and totally trashed the entire series, so they had to be completely replaced and re-routed. It took four weeks. The Practical Sister is frantic that our parents do not need to be in a house without electricity, and she is quite right. Dad is on a liquid diet, and they need to be able to use a blender, and the refrigerator. Mom is actually doing it all by hand right now.

Since the Blonde Sister is the only one who has electricity at this time, and my dad simply cannot handle the three and a half hour drive here to my house, my proposal is that after his surgery at M. D. Anderson tomorrow, the Blonde Sister should retrieve them from the hospital and bring them back to her house.

"But... that will piss Daddy off!" she protested.

Which I have no patience with at all. "Then he'll just have to be pissed off," I said, because, you know this is really starting to piss ME off. "Good grief, the man is 85 fucking years old, he's weaker than a three day old kitten and the worst he can do is just throw a hissy fit! What do you think he's going to do, yank off his belt and whip you with it? I don't think so!! Suck it up and get over it! If he yells at you, just let your eyes glaze over, nod in the appropriate places, tune him out, and just keep doing what you're doing. Because he does not need to be in an un-air-conditioned house after having had surgery, end of story!!"

*insert eye-roll here*

GEEZ!!

3) The Practical Sister's daughter, D, is 36, and bi-polar. And she is not even close to stable right now. She's taking lithium at the current time, and it is tearing her apart. First of all, it's destroying her teeth so she's in constant pain from that. She's already had 10 root canals, trying to save them. And yesterday, she had 6 more root canals done, to try to save more of them.

The lithium is also wreaking havoc on her gastro-intestinal tract, nauseating her, causing pain, bleeding, etc. And now, she's throwing up nearly constantly, which is also wrecking her teeth.

Her doctor says she's sorry, but this is the only medication D can tolerate, since she's also diabetic. I find this doctor's definition of "Tolerate" to be rather... loose. Because it doesn't look like she's tolerating it all that well, in my opinion.

In the meantime, the therapist she is seeing has told my sister, "oh, by the way, you can't leave D, because she's always better and more stable when you're around, so no going off for one or two hours for a bit of relief, and oh, yes, no conflict, because it's bad for D and makes her worse, oh, and don't argue with her or yell at her, either, because that will make her worse, and don't expect her to be any sort of parent to her kids, because that's too stressful for her, too, so you should take that over for her, oh, and did I mention, speaking of her kids, I told her husband he should divorce her and take the kids with him, because that's better for everyone concerned... well, except for you because you have to stay with her ALL THE TIME..."

The Practical Sister is so stressed and strained at having to deal with taking care of her daughter, her grandchildren and our parents, that she's about to break. And she won't break by going crazy. She'll break by having a heart attack or a stroke. And I don't think anyone except for my mother and myself has even come close to considering that.

My solution to that last part was a long talk with my mother yesterday. They have a home health care worker who comes in once a week. I got Mom to admit that she cannot keep doing things the way she's been doing them. She can't take care of Dad all by herself. She's exhausted. So, I convinced her to talk to both the home health care worker, and Dad's oncologist about hospice care. And help in contacting eldercare services in Houston for housekeeping assistance. And I'm going to keep working on her to get her to accept getting Meals on Wheels. She doesn't want to give up control of fixing their meals, but I asked her if there was any reason she couldn't liquify the food Meals on Wheels brings, and she couldn't really find anything to object to in that.

THO and I have also talked about taking Mom and Dad in to live with us temporarily, at least until power is restored at their home. These are solutions I can work on. I can't do anything about my niece, except listen when my sister needs to vent, and wish I could go to Houston to beat the crap out of both D's doctor and therapist, both of whom seem to have gotten their degrees from LooneyToons University and Medical School.

I just want to thank you all for your support over the last couple of days. Sometimes, the things the Universe seems to want to dump in my lap are a bit overwhelming, but it's been just that much easier, knowing there are people out there thinking of me and sending me hugs and other comfort. In this case, the thought does count, and I feel them all, every single one.

Love,

Auntie

Dear Real Life,

Please to stop rearing up your ugly little head and adding more drama to my life. I have all the drama I can handle right now, and really, I just don't think I can handle any more.

Really.

If anyone wants me, I will be hiding in my closet, with a paper bag over my head while reciting, "It's going to get better, it's going to get better, it's going to get better," until I either lose my voice, pass out from oxygen deprivation, or dissolve into tears. Whichever comes first.

No love, and much hysteria,

Auntie