Countrymouse Posted November 2018
On My Mind
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Replacing the much lamented 'On My Mind' profile option, this thread is for musings, jottings, whimsies, preoccupations and the rest of the thesaurus for anyone to jot down anything they please.
I can't remember what the maximum character count was before, can anyone else? But anyway it wasn't very many so let's keep to that.
Thank you for posting the link on the brain tumor.
I have a just turned 70 yr old nephew in law, The picture of health, Biking fanatic who was diagnosed a year ago with a glioblastoma.
He has done amazingly well although he has had side effects from treatment. Three clear MRIs with no sign of another tumor and then in Nov. something shows up. They are aggressively treating with a new to him drug and more radiation.
I lost a first cousin to one a few years back. In her 60s. My DH lost his DFriend to one at 65.
So this IS exciting news to me.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-67870595
Thanks. I have tons of wonderful memories of my energizer cousin. My next visit to the cemetery I am going to bring flowers for her grave.
I can’t imagine living until 101. She didn’t look her age. She was a tiny little woman, dressed very stylishly, about weighed about 100 lbs, wore a size 4 dress and size 4 extra narrow shoes!
She spent a fortune on her shoes because they were hard to find. She had to special order them.
My husband’s great grandmother lived to be just shy of 102. Another tiny woman who had 12 kids and a couple of miscarriages.
She named all of her kids after her favorite characters in the books she read. I asked my husband when in the world did she have time to read with 12 kids? LOL 😆
I’m sorry about you losing your energizer bunny aunt .
Anyway, my cousin who recently turned 101 died, She was in good health and enjoyed life.
She didn’t need a walker or cane. We referred to her as the energizer bunny. She lived in an independent living apartment and still drove her car.
My cousin attended her reunions up until she was 100 years old!
Hahaha 😆. So, who is left by that time? You know that the nuns who taught her were dead! Classmates too!
If I remember correctly the school started inviting her to attend reunions as the ‘oldest living alumni.’
She had an incredible memory, was just like my mother and aunt, always an honor student. She was a very interesting lady who was ahead of her time in many ways. I will miss talking to her.
She knew all of the family scoop! She never failed to make me laugh with her wicked sense of humor.
Sorry about Mom.♥️
I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad to hear from you.
I am so sorry you lost your dear Mom.
But I am THRILLED beyond words that you are working in Assisted Living. Truly I am. They so need people who give a darn and I know you DO.
You will never know how long I asked folks who became friends if they have heard from you, if they know you are at least OK.
I hope you will stay around. I have missed you something awful.
For some reason we never got around to sharing some of our old photos with our youngest daughter.
It’s amazing how many things we forget. I should have labeled my photo collection better. My daughter wants to digitize our collection and is asking questions. I am having trouble remembering certain details.
We think that we will never forget things but we forget lots of things, such as dates and people’s ages and so on.
Anyway, it’s interesting to see how people and places have changed throughout the years.
It’s funny to see how fashion has changed and how our tiny our waistlines were then!
Well, I am going to pop some popcorn and look at more photos. It’s been years and years since we have looked at these photos! Where did the time go?
It’s great to see you and hear your update.
So sorry for the loss of your mom. You’re right about it being hard to lose our mothers. I miss mine too.
Mom died at age 95 in an end of life hospice care home. I am eternally grateful to the hospice staff. They provided her with excellent care.
Last November I lost my older brother. We had a celebration of life for him. Our families get smaller as we age.
Congratulations on your new job! It sounds wonderful. I’m sure it is tough at times to see people struggling with various issues on a daily basis. I bet you hear a lot of beautiful stories as well.
As for poor decision making. My in laws are guilty of that. My FIL is a retired doctor and had stroke symptoms. Instead of phoning 911 he crawled to bed. In the morning they called but by then the damage was done. He's paralyzed on one side now.
MIL did one of those colon screening tests and there were markers for cancer there. She ignored it and ended up with colon cancer 8 yrs. later.
So, Blickbob you raise a good point. A lot of our health problems could be avoided given some good sense.
So sorry for your loss.
I love my job so much but there's a resident who has me exhausted, fed up and extremely sad for her. The best part of me job that much of my day is spent helping the residents and/or their family members. Helping people is what I love. So I work at the front desk and this facility I work at.... we operate with the bare minimum staff and everything goes through the front desk. We screen all calls, none of the directors or departments have a direct line so all calls go to the front desk. If maintenance, housekeeping, a caregiver or a med tech is needed, you either call the front desk or go there in person. We take meal orders, we enter work orders for maintenance, we sort the mail, we are basically grand central station. We coordinate it all and make sure things get done. I share that so that you all understand how much we do at the front desk and why it's so draining trying to help with this poor woman! She comes to the front desk twice a day always in a state of confusion, she cannot handle her own affairs and it's becoming draining on all of us as we spend so much time explaining things and telling her she needs to contact her POA. I can't understand how she was assessed and deemed fit for assisted living. Her POA is a friend and she just dumped her here! I'm sure the POA reached her breaking point and that's why she put her in assisted living too but it's frustrating because I can't do anything but talk to this resident and now she's getting agitated! I inquired about memory care today when the nurse was here and she said she's trying to get her POA on board but the POA wants her tested for a UTI to make sure the one she had cleared up. Understandable but she's been this way since before she had the UTI! Her first week here she put her furniture in the hallway and said it wasn't hers! She doesn't even recognize her own clothes anymore and keeps telling me the bag of laundry in her apartment isn't hers and was there when she moved in! Today she came to the break room during my uninterrupted lunch and yelled at me because now she's getting agitated with my answers :(
And one of my favorite residents just moved to memory care! It was time and it was in her best interest but I miss her sitting at the front desk with me every afternoon "people watching" and making me laugh. She really didn't know where she was and even though we were facing the dining room, she didn't know it. That's how bad the dementia got. Our last 2 days at the front desk together she kept asking if I had been to Alaska the day before. I plan to go visit her on Monday during my lunch break.
I had no idea how much this job would tug at my heart strings! But this forum gave me so much knowledge and understanding that I'm truly kicking butt here! I love it but damn it's sad sometimes. I truly care for all the residents and it sucks when I can't help them.
She was put in hospice a month ago, but got to come back home for the final days of her life while still under hospice care.
Her husband said about a week before she passed that the hospice people noted she wasn't eating enough to sustain life and he told my mom milk and milkshakes were all she was consuming. She would not eat anything.
Before she passed, while talking about her during a discussion about the HS friend of my mom's who died last month, mom noted my aunt was guilty of poor decision making regarding her health. She felt my aunt should've seen an endocrinologist rather than her personal doctor and also said "you can't make someone eat."
And I was thinking to myself "and you can't make someone exercise either," referencing my mom refusing to be more active.
Along with the "stubbornness killed her" line, I'll tell people mom was guilty of "poor decision making" should she pass sooner than expected.
Any who, please pray for our family.
Sorry about your neighbor .
It makes no sense . She was still enjoying her life / gardens . Yet we have others who are miserable and asking to die and they wait and suffer .
I remember thinking that 63 was old when I was a kid. Now that I am 68 I have changed my tune!
Before she came home from the hospital her husband had a wheel chair ramp built because she needed to use a wheelchair (this for a woman who before the cancer and covid was outside all year long working on her gardens for hours and hours every single day). She had just started walking with a cane and was recovering when this happened.
Now the wheel chair ramp (which even had little green runway lights on it in case they needed to use it at night) sits unneeded and a reminder of her husbands love and hope that he would get to spend another 2 or more decades with his beloved wife.
She was only 63 years old (ironic there was a time when I thought 63 was very, very old). I really liked my neighbor a lot and am going to miss her. When I worked from home I would look out my window from my office and see her riding her electric cart filled with her gardening supplies or other things she needed for her work that day. She setup an awesome Christmas light display every year. This year there was only a lighted wreath and the green lights on the wheel chair ramp. There will not be a Christmas display next year.
It seems like since 2020 I haven't been able to escape the death of loved ones. I thought 2024 would be better but it seems that there is nothing but death for this year too.