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Saturday i woke very early. Venus was bright as i let the critters out for the dawn rumpus. Since i was awake, i slipped out to go visit my Dad (who rises incredibly early) as he and i both had agendas to meet while seated at the computer. He fixed me an egg sandwich and, after discussion, coached me on how to order it from his short order chef days. Apparently, i want my fried eggs "Over hard."
We spent hours talking about how to manage their Apple devices and storage, with me hitting on some specific things, like making a secret apple ID that can be used to set up FaceTime with auto-answer on their old iPhones to use as monitors. (Aunt is sending walkie talkies that have the usability issue, identified by my aunt, that mom will need to push a button to make it work. I had sent the iPhone auto-answer plan in the email i sent yesterday. Whatever.) Set up the Google calendar my sister and i had been sharing for care on their apple calendar. And so on.
I was pretty drained when i got home, but helped Christine unpack our Yule gift to ourselves: a great big tool cabinet for the garage. Consolidation of tools ahead! This is the year of the garage, we tell ourselves.
Sunday, Christine crashed a little at the thought of me leaving early again. So instead of getting to my parents at 8:30 it was 9:30. I think i will need to keep Sunday mornings for us and then for me to go to Meeting. My sister and i decluttered, removed leaves from tables, moved the twin bed downstairs and made it up, while my Dad built the "wedges" that don't meet code as a ramp, but will improve the safety of getting the wheelchair up and down the two different 5" rises. After that i tackled some technology challenges, leaving my mother's machine painfully downloading the latest version of the Apple OS and taking her iPad 2 home to upgrade to the version of iOS last supported on that device. Fortunately the version is sufficient to support the $75 language therapy application. It took all afternoon ( painful iPad stuff )
Monday, training in the morning with the hectic sense of care in the hospital with constant interruptions. Work in the afternoon, with an "ARGH!" when i poked an issue with the internal support desk about ( boring tech issue )
Yesterday Mom came home. Christine offered significant logistics support, taking me to the hospital, taking the commode chair and some supplies from the hospital to my folks'. In the evening she brought over a table i had ordered (and had delivered to our home without thinking) plus Chipotle bowls for us all. My mother marveled at the flavors and beauty of the lettuce, beans and tomatoes -- evidence of what a month of hospital food can do when you have the least dietary constraint. (She needs foods that won't cause choking.)
Between Christine's morning & evening help, the biggest challenges is the assistance with Mom's transfers: hospital wheelchair to new wheelchair to car to new wheel chair to toilet to new wheelchair. Mom's strong, but still very confused about why she needs help and what the steps are that we ask her to do. She also doesn't understand, it seems, why she must use the commode chair and not the regular commode. And then the hissy-fit she had over how we had rearranged the master bedroom! My parents' arguments are bad enough, but with the comprehension challenges there's an additional level of communication challenges. I finally understood enough about mom mpother's concerns that i could mediate and explain the problems and proposed coping until the weekend. My sister has some solutions we can try then. The biggest concern on my mother's side i think is that it doesn't look good and Dad has to get into their bed on my mother's side of the bed. Dad keeps wanting mom's bed and commode to be in the living area which my sister and i keep stopping.
Today, i am trying to work and have done a decent job. Right now a colleague is defending his use of the word "angsty" so i get to finish reviewing my past few days.
We spent hours talking about how to manage their Apple devices and storage, with me hitting on some specific things, like making a secret apple ID that can be used to set up FaceTime with auto-answer on their old iPhones to use as monitors. (Aunt is sending walkie talkies that have the usability issue, identified by my aunt, that mom will need to push a button to make it work. I had sent the iPhone auto-answer plan in the email i sent yesterday. Whatever.) Set up the Google calendar my sister and i had been sharing for care on their apple calendar. And so on.
I was pretty drained when i got home, but helped Christine unpack our Yule gift to ourselves: a great big tool cabinet for the garage. Consolidation of tools ahead! This is the year of the garage, we tell ourselves.
Sunday, Christine crashed a little at the thought of me leaving early again. So instead of getting to my parents at 8:30 it was 9:30. I think i will need to keep Sunday mornings for us and then for me to go to Meeting. My sister and i decluttered, removed leaves from tables, moved the twin bed downstairs and made it up, while my Dad built the "wedges" that don't meet code as a ramp, but will improve the safety of getting the wheelchair up and down the two different 5" rises. After that i tackled some technology challenges, leaving my mother's machine painfully downloading the latest version of the Apple OS and taking her iPad 2 home to upgrade to the version of iOS last supported on that device. Fortunately the version is sufficient to support the $75 language therapy application. It took all afternoon ( painful iPad stuff )
Monday, training in the morning with the hectic sense of care in the hospital with constant interruptions. Work in the afternoon, with an "ARGH!" when i poked an issue with the internal support desk about ( boring tech issue )
Yesterday Mom came home. Christine offered significant logistics support, taking me to the hospital, taking the commode chair and some supplies from the hospital to my folks'. In the evening she brought over a table i had ordered (and had delivered to our home without thinking) plus Chipotle bowls for us all. My mother marveled at the flavors and beauty of the lettuce, beans and tomatoes -- evidence of what a month of hospital food can do when you have the least dietary constraint. (She needs foods that won't cause choking.)
Between Christine's morning & evening help, the biggest challenges is the assistance with Mom's transfers: hospital wheelchair to new wheelchair to car to new wheel chair to toilet to new wheelchair. Mom's strong, but still very confused about why she needs help and what the steps are that we ask her to do. She also doesn't understand, it seems, why she must use the commode chair and not the regular commode. And then the hissy-fit she had over how we had rearranged the master bedroom! My parents' arguments are bad enough, but with the comprehension challenges there's an additional level of communication challenges. I finally understood enough about mom mpother's concerns that i could mediate and explain the problems and proposed coping until the weekend. My sister has some solutions we can try then. The biggest concern on my mother's side i think is that it doesn't look good and Dad has to get into their bed on my mother's side of the bed. Dad keeps wanting mom's bed and commode to be in the living area which my sister and i keep stopping.
Today, i am trying to work and have done a decent job. Right now a colleague is defending his use of the word "angsty" so i get to finish reviewing my past few days.
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