My Mom is probably in her last few days or weeks—1-3 weeks?—to live so I have been extremely busy with all sorts of legal preparations, Last Will & Testament, medical power of attorney “Do Not Resuscitate” preparations, and then as you might imagine… a ton more tasks, preparations to move again soon, etc., etc., et al. It might not settle back to normal for some time now. 🤷♂️
Mom/Esther circa 2007?Mom & I – Kerrville Ren Festival – Jan 2023
Until the next update… whenever that might be.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always – Celebrate All Human Organic Experiences – Do Not Take for Granted the Human Element of Life!
My free-time for WordPress blogging and commenting, on all of my sites, is going to become very short, sometimes infrequent or rare. My soon-to-be 84-year old mother will be going into a full-time Memory Care Assisted Living facility this month or early December. Her Stage 7 Dementia is now into Early Alzheimer’s.
Two other reasons have caused this over the last 4-5 months. First, Mom has fallen twice in the last 3-months. She is unable to get up from the floor or ground on her own if no one is nearby or within earshot. Fortunately, I was home when these last two falls occurred. One of them was around 2:30am when I got out of bed to use the restroom. She happened to hear me and yelled for my help. She had no idea how long she had been on the floor or how she fell/tripped.
The second reason she must go into Assisted Living is because alone by myself, 12-16 hours per day with her, the last 28-months (with no day off every single one of those 12-16 hrs days), has almost killed me. I can no longer manage everything for her life, especially with no respites at all for that long. Mentally, emotionally, and physically… I am fried, spent.
Mom at Mackinac Island, MI, June 2021 (L), and Mom & I at Kerrville Renaissance Festival, Jan. 2023
As a result of these 850+ days and nights of non-stop caretaking, I have developed chronic health problems. My own health has taken a serious nosedive the last 12-14 months primarily due to a worsening of my sacroiliitis, agitated and inflamed daily due to the fact that Mom’s Senior Community apartment is designed for elderly wheelchair residents, i.e. everything, and I mean everything in the bathrooms, sinks, kitchen appliances, pantry, bathtubs, closets, etc, are intentionally installed/built down low, where I must constantly bend over/down or get on one knee or sit on a footstool. Two plus years of doing this daily has three-times dropped me to the floor in the fetal position in excruciating pain.
It can wait no longer. I now have no choice but to greatly improve or recover my own health.
Therefore, my sister and I will be moving Mom into River Point of Kerrville within the next 2-4 weeks. This also means me moving out, perhaps back to Dallas, TX. This is up in the air for the moment. But one thing is certain: I can no longer live in a small country rural town with so many ultra-religious, super-Conservative rednecks and a never-ending sea of LOUD (diesel) monster pickup-trucks that don’t fit inside ANY parking-space in any parking lot! And I won’t go into the intellectual levels or prowess (or lack) of most people in this four-county area. I badly need more brain-stimulations on higher levels, period.
Hence, please excuse my increased absence here, on WordPress and your blogs. Hopefully, when life settles back down and returns (for me at least) to “normal,” after I know exactly where I will be living and working (again), then I shall be back in force. 🙂
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it' - Terry Pratchett
The Professor's Convatorium 