Lessons learned

Yesterday, Tuesday, Aug. 16, didn't have a very auspicious start, but then most mornings don't have a very auspicious start, do they? They don't at our house. Merriam-webster.com defines auspicious as:

showing or suggesting that future success is likely

At 3:41 a.m., to be precise, I gave Mother an inhaler treatment with her combivent - 2 quick puffs & off to sleep. I'd just barely got to bed 2 hours before. Mother was up the first time about 1 a.m. Don-Mike had beat me to bed, which is highly unusual. He's usually up later than I am. He was tired though. He told me on the way to bed that he turned off the door & shut the light. He was asleep by the time I got the computer & the rest of the lights turned off.

At 7 a.m. Mother was gasping for breath. I gave her a Xopenex treatment, but didn't finish it because she was tired. By the time Laurie came at 8:30, Mother was having a hard time breathing, she was gasping actually, & reached for her inhaler. I told her I didn't want to give it to her so soon after the Xopenex treatment. In hindsight, I should have just given it to her. She was having a panic attack. She told Laurie she didn't feel like having a shower. Laurie called the home health nurse, Sherri Ransom, & the ER to tell them we were coming in.

Sherri came to the house & Laurie & Sherri helped her out of the house. I didn't feel like Don-Mike & I did much, except kind of flutter around. Laurie had to tell me to get dressed though. I was so fixated on Mother, I forgot I wasn't dressed. It's a good thing I did get dressed, we were over there from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. A man had been bit by a rattlesnake & we kind of got pre-empted.

When we arrived in the ER, her oxygen saturation was 82. Almost as soon as they put her on their oxygen, her O2 levels shot to 92. After they gave her the breathing treatment using something besides Xopenex, her oxygen sats shot to 99. Dr. Jacob Curtis was the doctor on call. He ordered a chest x-ray just to be sure there was no fluid on her lungs. They didn't change any of her medications, but did change the regulator on her portable oxygen tank. She doesn't breathe deep enough to trigger the regulator & so she's not getting any oxygen.

And at home? We don't know. Someone from Cache Valley Oxygen is supposed to come by & check the concentrator. As soon as I leave, they will come by. I know it. I can sit here & wait all day, ALL. DAY. & no one will come by. As soon as I leave to run my errands, they'll be by.

So, what did we find? Little old ladies (LOLs) don't breathe very deep. I'm grateful I have my mother to help me learn these lessons. I guess I didn't do a very good job learning them as a mother of young children, now I get to have a second chance as a caregiver of an elderly parent.

One lesson is to get yourself dressed first. If you are going to run your mother to the emergency room, get some clothes on yourself first. Your mother doesn't have to get dressed, she can show up in her pajamas.

If I had learned this lesson as a mother of a young children, I wouldn't have to keep trying to learn it. One morning I was on my way to the day care with 2 small children. I had fed them, don't remember if I had dressed them, but little boys don't necessarily have to be dressed when they show up at day care. They can still be in their pajamas. We were on our way out the door. There was snow on the ground & I looked down & I was in my robe & slippers. Uhh! It would have been nice if I'd have had a home health aide ask me if I was going to get dressed before I made it clear out to the car.

So, the first thing a caregiver is supposed to do in the morning is get dressed - to your shoes. And not just any shoes, but appropriate shoes.

Annual shopping trip

If you read Facebook, this is a compilation of my posts over there. I have added details to them, LOL

Nick is really picky about his clothes. He has to have certain colors (black, gray & fluorescent orange) & a certain texture (soft, no seams). He has been this way his WHOLE life. So, today we were off to Logan to get shoes & pants for him. Wish he would have done it during the back to school sales. But I wasn't fast enough to catch him at a good time. 

Truth be told, I wasn't feeling very good during the back to school sales. I should've listened to Roxanne Froerer (Nurse Practitioners of Preston) when I had the bad gall bladder attack & had my gall bladder out sooner. But I digress.


Not too bad of a shopping trip considering. We got 3 pair of shorts for $3 each at Wal-Mart. Actually, we got 4 pair of shorts. One pair Nick didn't even consider. They are a brown plaid. I put them in the cart & explained that I was buying them because they were $3 & I could use the fabric, plus things like buttons, pockets, etc. I couldn't buy them separately for that price.

Ross didn't have anything he was interested in. We must have spent a total of 5 minutes in there. I am always so uncomfortable in there. I told Nick that, & he laughingly said maybe someone was killed in there. I said I didn't think so, we'd have heard about it. But maybe someone had been killed on the site. He knows how I feel about the Bear River Massacre Site. I have a hard time driving through that section. But, the feeling I get in Ross doesn't even compare to the sadness I feel driving through the massacre site. In Ross I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin. I get the same feeling in Target & Dillard's.

Next we went to Shoe Carnival. We walked right past Best Buy & he didn't go in! Wow! Miracles do happen. We got 2 pair of shoes & a WILD pkg of socks at Shoe Carnival. It was buy one pair of shoes, get one half price. I picked up some shoes for myself. The shoes I was looking at was on sale for $25, down from $69.99. They were the cheaper pair so I got an additional $12.50 off of that. I got a pair of shoes for $12.50!!! My kind of deal!! They didn't have tube socks, which is the only kind Nick will wear. His kindergarten teacher remembers him as the little boy that would play with his socks. Nick pointed out some wild fluorescent socks for me as a joke & I loved them, LOL. I couldn't decide between the bright yellow, orange & green or the green, pink & orange. Of course, the pink won. There is 6 pair of socks in one package. They were marked down from $4.99 to $4 a pkg. Then, we got to spin the wheel & got an additional $2 off of our entire purchase!! Oh, & Nick found exactly the kind of shoe he was looking for!!!

K-Mart was our bonanza today. We got a black t-shirt with a glow in the dark Ghostbusters emblem & 2 pair of black heavy sweats w/3 pockets. Kewl!! He won't try clothes on, so I said we'd buy both pair of pants, one was an XL & one was an XXL, & he could try them on at home. We would return whichever pair didn't fit him.

He came home & tried them on. The XXL pair of pants were too large, but that's good. It shows he is losing weight, course he never has had a butt. His pants always hang half mast like plumbers pants. The Ghostbusters shirt was only a 2X, & is a little tighter than he's used to wearing. He's been wearing a 3X!! It is long, but it covers his butt!

Here's another plus. He found work shirts, the kind that mechanics wear. They are a navy blue, but he said he wouldn't mind having a shirt like that to put on over his t-shirts so they wouldn't get so dirty. Then told me it was something to think about as a gift!!!

Tonight before he went to bed, Nick wanted to show his Ghostbusters shirt glowing in the dark. He & his dad could see it right away. My eyes don't adjust to the dark very well. I could finally see it in my peripheral vision, but the ghost was fading, sigh. I said my eyes have never recovered very good in the dark, maybe I was getting macular degeneration like Nana has. Nick told me I'd better start taking the same kind of vitamins I buy for Nana.

Another Monday

Thursday, I had a garden party!! A first for me. I can't believe how far out of my comfort zone I ventured that time. It was a Pampered Chef party. I invited almost 100 people, 90 to be exact. I had ONE show up from my guest list. Of course, I had 4 there that, even though I invited them, I expected to be there. You know, a given? You expect your close friends & family to show up to support you. It was a luncheon & a lot of people work, I know that, but .... anyway, if I'd had a lot of people I would have panicked. The "boys," Don-Mike, Nick & Zach, showed up at one time or another, except Eddie, who was in school. But as far as paying guests go, it was a bust.

We had a yummy potato soup complete with potato skins which are high in potassium. And I'll definitely make it again. In fact, I have it scheduled for a meal in September. I'm proud of myself, I beat Don on planning September's menus. Usually he has his meals scheduled & I just kind of stumble through the month, sigh.

Saturday, Mother & I finished the errands we started on Wednesday. I ran out of energy & didn't get them all finished. I will try again next week.

A friend from Facebook gave me this advice:

a friend with heart problems once told me.... " Go from your personal point A to point B and stop..." " some days the points may be miles apart and sometimes they may be touching each other ..."" and NEVER LOOK BACK..." What ever you were doing will always wait for you... if not.... to bad....'

Very good advice. She went on to say, "I love that advice.... ...even tho I rarely heed it...." She & I are a lot alike, though I think I may heed it better than she does. Her son says that she schedules her illnesses, LOL.

Nick doesn't always like it when I tell him I can't do something. He woke me up at 8 o'clock this morning & said he needed new shoes. His shoe lace had broken. He wanted to go to Logan & buy his shoes. He said he hadn't worked out the logistics yet. I said I had to work today. He got huffy & said I didn't need to bite his head off.

I thought about ALCO, here in Preston, I know they have shoes. I told him to go check them out today & let me know. Meanwhile, I asked him to let me look at his shoe. It wasn't as bad as I was afraid it was. I took the shoe lace out, rethreaded it loosely & handed it back to him.

Today Vicki Atkinson, job share partner, & I plotted out when is the best time to have my gall bladder out, Monday, Sept. 21. I guess I'll call Dr. Broadbent's office tomorrow & schedule it.