Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Mowers, Weather and Can't Talk Well Anymore

Not surprisingly, I awoke groggy and with a headache this morning. With Dad so restless last night, it was nearly 3:00 a.m. before I allowed myself to go to sleep. He's up and fine like nothing went on last night. He's sitting out in the den with his coat and hat on watching TV. It's 68° F here today. I love it. He's freezing.

We had another round of lawn mower argument. Of all things, he received a piece of junk mail with a car key in it. It had a black plastic top. Of course, that meant it was a lawn mower key.  Since I'm hiding the mower key from him, this junk car key was manna from heaven. I tried to tell him it was a car key. That got nowhere. I tried to tell him he might break the key place in the mower. That got nowhere. I tried to pick it up and walk out of the room with it. That got a scream of "Don't you dare throw that away!!!!" Ooookay.

I put it back down on the desk. In a bit he finally went outside to pick up sticks. I promptly threw the key away.  He didn't stay out long. The lawn is so wet, one can barely move through it without getting soggy shoes. On the one hand, our present weather is becoming a major PITA; on the other hand, it's conveniently waylaying any thoughts of being able to mow.

Speaking of the weather, there's a leak in Dad's bedroom ceiling. I'd put a pan under the leak and was keeping an eye on it. For what it's worth, there's no money to pay to fix the roof; he's already been scammed for over a thousand dollars for it.  Anyway, I'd noticed the water in pot was getting a brown tint.  I thought it was discoloration from the wood in the ceiling. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Tonight I decided to empty that pot. OMG, the stench of urine was almost overwhelming. Now I can't say whether Dad is actually peeing in that pot or whether he's using it as a close convenient place to empty his hospital urinal.

The reason behind it doesn't matter one whit. The reality is rather sad and most definitely rank! Can't take the pot away until this rash of nasty weather abates. Now there's one more portable toilet to clean.

Mom didn't get up until very late today. However, she was in a fine mood when she did. She's been so well the last couple of weeks. Her shakes have been far and few between; her problems with the toilet have eased off (knock on wood.) It's easy to write about the irritants and sometimes I  skip writing about how easy Mom is to care for for the most part. As I write she's watching Piers Morgan interviewing Jane Seymour about the upcoming royal wedding.  Not my particular cup of tea of news, but she's thoroughly enjoying it, and it's not TCM!

On a different note, Dad's conversational skills continue to decline. I could explain that he can't come up with the correct words, etc., but that conveys very little in reality.  Examples convey much more.

An example is that yesterday for the first time since I've been doing this, he asked for something else to take his medicine. I can't take medicine with soda. All this time he has, and it's amazed me. Yesterday he asked for some different water besides the water in the can to take his medicine. So the soda can contains water, and he wanted different water. Whether or not he actually meant "water" is up for grabs. You might interpret it to mean actual water, or might interpret it to mean something other than a carbonated drink.  Who knows?

With tracking the storms again tonight, I expect tomorrow to be another foggy sloggy day. I have to get groceries tomorrow though. We're totally out of junk food. OMG. They will starve if that happens. It's 12:30 a.m., and the lightning is starting up again. Radar has another line of storms moving through.  I'm going to be pretty weary by the time Thursday roles around if all our storms keep hitting in the middle of the night.

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