nwhiker | Entries tagged with family

Wednesday because why not and I'm just too tired.

1. Spent the weekend in Bend at my sister's so I could hang out with my mom for a bit. It was good. I took the light rail to the airport from UW, it took about 45 minutes. On the way back there was a "planned" service disruption that Sound Transit did not plan for and it took about 2.5 hours to do the same trip. It would probably have been 30 minutes less if I'd stayed put, but since they declined to provide any information, I tried to puzzle out a plan myself and apparently didn't do too well.

2. Since I flew down, I didn't have my scale all weekend. Came back to a 2 lb loss and down to a new decade. I'm stunned. I haven't been in the 130s since the Bush administration. The first Bush administration. I figured that was just a blip because of the dehydration after a few days in the desert, but I was still down today so fingers crossed at least some of it persists.

3. There was something I wanted to write about but now I can't remember. I'm wiped. I spent the day fighting with Access and ChatGPT. Bleh. ETA. Next morning. I remembered when I went to bed and wanted to put hand cream on. Last year, Neutrogena discontinued their wonderful Norwegian Hand Cream. 😭 Since I usually had at least three or four tubes, I just sequentially finished all of those and waited for the inevitable bringing it back. But I should have known. Those fuckers completely changed the formula. Instead of a nice, thick, emollient cream, it's now a thin, watery lotion that is completely gross. I put some on as soon as I got it and had to use hand sanitizer on Bend-cracked hands to Get. It. Off., it was so slimy I didn't want to touch the steering wheel. Double and triple 😭. Why, people? Why change a formula that has been around since forever and that works? I'd never use this crap on my face, and I used the old stuff around and even on my lips like ChapStick. It was all purpose, didn't separate, I usually had some in the car, in my travel bag, in my hiking pack etc. I'm sure this stuff is cheaper to produce but a great product was ruined for a few cents profit, to be replaced with mediocre hand lotion. I need to find something else to replace it. Sigh.

JoAnn retained her sense of humour through all this.

A few horrible 😂 examples from today:

"I'm scared to death" said in a tone that left no doubt she was making a hideous joke.

"It's been fun. Let's do it again soon!"

I got a laugh from her and everyone after my sister asked if she had any last words for my mom and JoAnn seemed a bit lost. I think I said something like "Beat you to it!" and she laughed.

Linnea, who was flat out extraordinary today, had everyone smiling. She said her goodbyes and I love yous and gave her hugs, and then walked out calling in a totally insouciant tone "See you later!". She collapsed and cried later, after I got back to the Airbnb, but that departure was so full of lightness, I think it helped everyone. She's like that.

JoAnn Perry 21 March 1943 - 2 March 2023

It wasn't long enough, but what a life she lived. She went out on her own terms, after a life lived that way. She was surrounded by all the people who loved her the most (except my mom. We made the heartbreaking decision to not have her here.) My children, niece, and nephew were there until just before the nurses came, and they gave her love and hugs.

JoAnn was a professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia. She had a PhD in nursing. She specialized in geriatrics and in a bitter twist of irony, her thesis was on caregiving in dementia. She's lived in Vancouver for over 50 years, and I still remember the day she left New York, from my grandparents' driveway, in her I swear I remember it being an almost white pale purple Alfa Romeo. She made a new life there, in Canada, the country her parents had left, and made friends that have remained close since then.

She travelled. She listened to opera and went to see the Ring Cycle -the whole damn thing- in various opera houses around the world. She used to drive to Seattle with a small group of friends to attend the opera down there. They'd drive down, have dinner, watch the opera and drive back to Vancouver. That must have been both fun and exhausting!

She wore a pretty pink soft Cashmere sweater today, and I had my hand on her until the end. I was wearing a necklace that Linnea gave me a Christmas and as the light hit, it made little round dots of rainbows on JoAnn's sweater and her chair. It made me happy.

I had to tell her earlier that today was the day. She'd forgotten. That was gut wrenching. But. She seemed hesitant at first but then confirmed that this was what she needed and wanted to do. Dementia is a cruel disease. In some ways, I feel like she thumbed her nose at it. Yes, it took away her easy ability to make a decision on what to order for dinner. It took a sense of her day-to-day timing. It didn't get to take her memories. It did not get to take her dignity or her self-determination. It did not get to rob her of the faces and the names of her loved ones or of the relationships she shared with them/us. It LOST. She won.

We lost her, but she never lost herself.

There were snax (smoked salmon and prawns) and the prosecco flowed liberally. I wish I drank I could have used something to take the edge off.

I was able to tell her what a wonderful aunt and great-aunt she'd been. And most importantly, I was able to tell her what a wonderful sister she'd been to my mom, how her love and support had kept my mom whole during some of the rough times in Tunisia. I told her that the relationship she had with my mom and my aunt Judy was a model of the sibling relationship that I try to have with my sibs, and that I hope my kids will share.

At the end, when I hugged her, she told me that she loved me and that I was very special to her, and I felt so loved.

The nurse who did the final injections had been a student of JoAnn's and had gone into geriatrics because of her. It feels like a full circle there. The first medication injected had her fall asleep gently. I had my hand on her arm, my sister was at her other side, we were all close. And I told her how much I loved her, how much we all loved her, that she'd been a great aunt, friend, sister, mentor, and that she'd made a positive impact on the world in many ways. She fell asleep, like so many afternoons, as if she was having a little toes-up in her bright green recliner. After, we all hugged and cried. I kissed her forehead.

My last link to childhood.

1. Cleaned out the fridge today. 🤮 I loathe that job. It needed to be done for a while, but I'd been avoiding the task. Since dh was back east this weekend I just went ahead and did it. Perry helped me by doing the annoying deed of drying the plastic stuff and putting it back in. I can never get the drawers to click in properly so over the years, I've given up trying and pass the task on to others.

2. I was supposed to go up to Vancouver to see my aunt today but... she caught norovirus and I chickened out. She should be out of isolation tomorrow, if all goes well. I figured I could keep myself safe with a mask and being very very careful for a short visit, but with a three hour or so drive (plus border wait times) the visits tend to be longer and I just didn't want to risk it. I feel terrible. Next weekend I'm in Bend -to visit my mom- and then I'll be up in Vancouver again the weekend after. I'm glad dh and I went last weekend. We had such a good visit.

3. I cannot even begin to describe the horror and dread I feel about what is happening in this country. It's almost incomprehensible how fast we're sliding down a slope that we may never be able to climb back up. At the very least, we've lost standing in the world as a partner and China and Russia must be very pleased with the situation. Elon Musk has bought himself a country, just like he bought Tesla and SpaceX, and it only cost him 200 million and whatever he paid for Twitter.

Dh and I had a good visit with my aunt today. Truly one more reminiscent of days gone by than I ever thought possible. She was good today, clear, and while still obviously dealing with dementia, there was none of the terribly sad vulnerability of some other visits.

We just sat around and chatted. Nothing really earth shattering or profound, just tidbits of life, updates on family, and just being together. Like we'd done many times over the years, though usually at her place rather than in assisted living. But there was so much of "back then" feeling in today's visit!

I'm going to miss her so much.

It's hard. So many of my thoughts go to her during the days and weeks. Maybe it'll get better once she's died, and I can deal with that grief, now it just feels like... a slow walk deeper and deeper into murky cold water, until eventually I'll be drowning in it. I dunno. It's hard to know when someone is going to die.

It's also so very different from how I feel about my mom. Using the same analogy about walking deeper into water is how I've felt about her dementia, about how little by little so much of her was lost. Not everything, but the grief of losing her feels drawn out, I feel like we've all be losing bits of her for the past 5 or 6 years at least, probably even longer. With JoAnn, it's going to be like losing so much more of her, she's still so much more there than my mother.

I don't know. It's all very hard to deal with. And it sucks. Dementia sucks.

Next week, I'll be driving back up, alone this time. My sister and BIL are flying up, they'll spend a few days there. We'll be meeting, along with her caregiving friends up there, with the nurse who will carry out the medical assistance part of the dying. The nurse, Linda, was a student of JoAnn's way back when, and indeed went into geriatrics because of her.

There is something particularly bitter about JoAnn succumbing to dementia when much of her professional life was geared towards caregiving. Her PhD thesis was about women caring for their husbands with dementia. Ugh.

Losing JoAnn will be life losing the last bit of my childhood. Well, not exactly. Let me see if I can articulate this better. There are people in most of our lives who were part of the adults who kept up safe and allowed us to be children. Protected us, in many ways. People you trusted. People who had your back. After we moved to Tunisia and during our first few miserable years there, I lost trust in my parents. I knew I could not totally count on them to keep me safe. JoAnn never lost my trust.

I have so much to write about. The new admin. My job. And most importantly, the visit to my aunt and so much stuff around her planned death.

So much stuff and I don't seem to be able to start.

Ah well. Maybe tonight.

I was able to score an extra day off today because I went in last Saturday because we had two gigantic (9 and 8) mouse litters on Friday and there was no way I could deal with all of those in one day. Since leaving them to Monday would mean they would be useless and thus killed for nothing, I swapped days. Yay for my boss agreeing.

So.

Brother and family, sister and her spouse are all here. We're going up to visit my aunt in Vancouver tomorrow.

Dh was supposed to take off from work today. Note the supposed. We were planning a chill day at home mostly because my siblings and I had paperwork to attend to (long story), and then we were all going to go to Uwajimaya. But dh first said "meeting I have to attend" and missed breakfast with us. Came to spend maybe 30 minutes, and then "something I have to finish up". That was 11am. He started with TEALS at 7:15 so has pretty much worked a full day.

The others all went out shopping, I skipped since no room in the car and going out thus made no sense. But I'm really tired of these home-vacation days that aren't. He's really good at this point about not working on weekends unless he's on call, but days he takes off during the week to get stuff done or just hang out? If we are not out of the house, he ends up working.

I dunno. It just makes me feel like shit, and I'm not quite sure I can pinpoint why.

This might be more than three things! It's been a while since I've written, and it's been hectic. Mostly good, but hectic. Or maybe I'll keep my work rants for another thread.

1. Christmas. My sister and BIL came up from Bend, bravely bringing my mom. Tuesday, I cooked Christmas Eve dinner, it was delicious and oh, hey, hectic and exhausting, since I was also cooking things for brunch in Vancouver the following day. It came together more or less ok. It's much easier to make these big holiday meals now that dh has taken over all the meat cooking on the smoker, lol. Prime rib this time. We also made two briskets and two double-smoked hams to be frozen for Anne-Chloe and Linnea. Christmas Day, we drove up to Vancouver and had a good visit with my aunt. It was good to see her, she honestly is looking a lot better this fall than she did last summer. Surprisingly, she kept on talking about how she needed to start a walking program again and seemed to be talking much longer term than March, which is when she has her Date set for. Sigh. The people who see her on regular basis tell us she's very excited about MAID and so very positive about it, but I still get worried when she makes long-term plans that are not compatible with two more months of living. The only desperately sad part of the visit is when we had to leave -my mom was done- JoAnn seemed to think she was coming with us. We helped her through it, and made sure the front desk knew she was restless, but it made both me and my sister cry. Also, a shout-out to Linnea, who came with us. She is SO freaking good with my mom and JoAnn. Also positive, talking to them like they are her homies, and they absolutely love it and both light up at any conversation with her. That kid is a gem. Anyhow, got home at about 6, and did our presents. Everyone got stuff they liked and wanted! Linnea got me a 1950s bead necklace that I'd been coveting and Perry and AC got me a Le Creuset bread baking bell or whatever it's called. Not in the color I'd wanted, but I'm SO excited! Since Christmas Eve was hectic and my SIL, MIL, and nephew were there, we didn't do presents then, so we still have to see Anne-Chloe to give her hers.

2. My dumb-ass bitch of a SIL managed to throw a wrench into Christmas Eve preparations, making everything more stressful than it should have been. She decided that her son needed to make a "box" for his girlfriend, and asked dh if he could help. Dh, being an idiot at times, said sure, thinking we'd been talking a small box, and he carefully told her sister about where to get a kit that would help. At 1pm on Christmas Eve my MIL and nephew show up with.... three 12inx1inx8ft pieces of lumber. So dh has to spend the after when he was supposed to be helping prep things essentially making a 4x4 box for his nephew's girlfriend. No, I don't get it either. And that also meant that my MIL, who is negative and annoying, was here all afternoon, getting in the way in the kitchen and wanting to bitch about her neighbors to anyone who would listen. This added a lot of stress, and I'm still angry. I should have known there were going to be problems when dh told his sister that sure, Robert could come a bit early, and he'd help. Tbc, I'm not angry with dh, but with my stupid bitch of a SIL who routinely disposes of other people's time.

3. This is perhaps the truest two sentences on climate action ever written:

Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling. Greta Thunberg

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone is enjoying the day with happy family and/or friends and good food!

I wanted to cancel dinner because all of the prep I did two weekends ago had to be thrown away. But... Perry rescued the gravy base, which is the most time-consuming part to make and given that, I felt guilty not going ahead with things. So we bought two more turkeys and produce, and I made more stuffing base and sauteed more mushrooms for the from-scratch green bean casserole (Linnea's bf likes it) and shopped again and again to replace stuff as needed. I never did get around to making more roasted yams, though.

Right now, it's the calm before the storm. As usual dh was late putting the turkeys on so his mother and sister (and the guests his sister invited) will be over too early and MIL and SIL will be complaining. I'm pretty irked about that. I'd be ready on time, though now I'll push back a bit so the mashed potatoes my MIL will be obsessing over will not sit for too long.

I do still have to shower though.

And the pretty top that I was planning on wearing is waaay too big. I don't know when it got too big. I mean, I was able to wear it just 15 lbs ago. I have no idea what I'll wear... probably just leggings and a t-shirt. Linnea at least looks cute!

Ah well. About to start assembling a few things and peeling the potatoes!

I need to start writing again. Desperately.

But my thoughts are all over the place in a chaotic panicky mess.

If anyone is interested in a better social media platform, bluesky is totally a better place than twitter, LOL. I've had an account for a while, read but did not post there since then, but started transitioning there sometime last month, when twitter got too toxic.

Work is shitty. New postdoc and I'm the one who is supposedly training him. This sucks and again, not what I want to do in a job. Add in that my PI has all of a sudden decided that there must be something wrong with my cell culture technique and is observing and critiquing me as I work with cells. Comments like "you have some theoretical knowledge of cell culture, but not much practice". Dude, I may not have been doing it for twenty years, but a) you haven't done anything in over 5, by your own admission and b) I've been passaging, freezing, thawing, and otherwise dealing with cells for 6 months now, with no contamination and plenty of live healthy cells to show for it. The one experiment that is not working is something else. Not sure what, but I'm 99% sure, as was the previous postdoc -we worked out the protocol and the parameters together and did the experiments in tandem- that is has zip to do with the cells or my sterile technique. I was very close to walking out yesterday. Plus, my dude. You have bigger hands than me. There are manipulations I cannot do without putting down a cap. "Practice," he says, but practice not going to make my hands bigger. Other annoying thing. He gave me a bit of an independent piece of research to do, YAY. He keeps on asking me where I'm at with it. That's nice. The holdup? Purchasing. I'm waiting on the stuff I need to start the experiment, and it took purchasing three days to get a PO to the company. They're fast when it's a simple please order me this product, but when it's paying for a service, it always takes longer and there we are.

I've been avoiding the internet and doing more reading. I like that.

Weight loss is going fine. I'm up a bit these past few days, which is frustrating, but overall, I'm thrilled. While BMI isn't something I trust as, well, indicative of anything, I'm at this point within spitting distance of "normalweight", a status I never thought I'd even approach. We'll see if I get there. These meds are a fucking miracle. Dh's work plan is high deductible, so I'll be paying a lot for them next year until we meet that deductible, but I can afford it and it's totally fucking worth it. Life changing. Not perception changing, though. I still see myself as a fat person but I'm starting to think that other people no longer do. Body dysmorphia is real.

Planning the holidays. Tonight, I'll start the first Tday shopping, and this weekend I'll start to prep the base for the gallon for so of gravy that I make every year... ok, maybe not a gallon, but a lot. I usually end up with plenty for the turkey, and I freeze the rest to use in chicken stews etc over the rest of the year. I'll also get apples to pre-cook for a pie, I'm going to try to make an apple pie this year. I'm terrible with pies. It looks like Christmas is going to be here. My sister will come up and probably bring my mom. We'll celebrate on Christmas Eve and then on Christmas day, get up early, pack brunch, and go to Vancouver to spend the day with my aunt. It'll be her last Christmas. Not thinking about that right now but focusing on the logistics of "a lot to do, lots of food to prep for two holidays, while working, and a house to get in order for guests".

We went to Bend last weekend for four days; I took Friday off. My aunt flew down with a friend of hers, and we had a good time. She's slipping quickly, but still there. My mom is doing SO much better in memory care. I mean, the issues are the same but she's happier, and even not seeing her daily, the slippage in cognitive function in the time between visits isn't at all jarring, in contrast to my aunt, whose is. Sigh. Anyhow. Dementia fucking sucks beyond words.

Funny idea. Dh has done a "twice smoked ham" in the smoker a few times, and his briskets are now legendary in the family, LOL. I am planning fancy roast beef (Perry and I are mulling beef Wellington) for Christmas Eve. I'll need a separate port gravy, so I suggested dh smoke a brisket so I can use the non-smoked tbc trimmings for gravy/demi-glace. Then I came on the brilliant idea of packing and freezing ham and brisket for Anne-Chloe and Linnea as part of their holiday haul. LOL. I think they -especially Linnea- will be thrilled.

I like that alliteration.

1. Mice. Call me the Grim Reaper. I've going to have to euthanize 12 -at least, possibly as many as 15- cages of mice (three singletons, 12 pairs). All of them -except one cage- are past their breeding age, and we need pups. 😭 And let me tell you. In the era of JD Vance making it clear that post-menopausal women have no societal use beyond taking care of grandkids, euthanizing a bunch of too-old-to-breed mice is kinda adding to the horror of this. I need to find a new job. One without mice or anything else than bacteria, plants, or nematodes. I need to keep this one for a while longer so. The upside is that I have a small bit of research project to do. But mice.

2. The glory and the no-so-glory, LOL. Start with the latter. I bought a pair of leggings from amazon. Size XL, which should have been on the edge of big according to numbers. Too small. I returned and ordered... a pair of XXL, which just fit, they'll work, though after wearing them for an hour, they're weird and I wish I hadn't taken off the tags. I've been consistently wearing Ls in bottoms for a while now, so the XXL both vexed me and made me laugh at myself. In other weight loss news... My weight in kg finally starts with a 6. This is a major major fucking milestone for me, and a number I never ever EVER thought I'd see again. These medications are fucking miraculous.

3. Christmas is turning into a CF. My aunt -who will be availing herself of MAID in March, so this is her last Christmas- was going to come but then decided no, she'd come down to Bend so she can see my mom over November 11th. My brother, who wants to see my aunt and my mom, decided that he didn't want to fly over the holidays either and is planning on coming down early December. Christmas falls on a Wed which means to go to Bend, I'd need to take at least 2 days, and with only having 10 days a year of vacay, using two on a pre-planned trip last April etc, I'm pretty tight on vacation if I want to be able to take off more than a few days next summer. All this is complicated by the fact that my sister has said that if we don't come down for Christmas, she's leaving my mom and taking off for a beach somewhere with her spouse. I just don't know what to do. I drew my line which is my mom spending Christmas alone, so I might just have to have her up here while my sister travels, which is of course complicated by getting her here etc. Ideally everyone would such it up and actually spend the holidays here with me. We could do a Christmas Eve dinner, have brunch and drive up to Canada to spend a few hours with my aunt. But nobody is budging. I don't know what to do. My siblings are usually more flexible than this. Also, corollary about the vacation to the beach blackmail thing. I spent the last year I had free taking care of my mom. I took no vacations for a year (my sister took three or four that year). I had wanted my mom to go to memory care right away because this was clearly not a good solution, but sister insisted that she could come live with her as soon as the remodel was done. Fast forward the remodel is done, my mom is in memory care, which was now and would have been then, the right decision for her, she's doing great. Sister is still taking vacations to far off places and I'm stuck, again having spent the year I had planned on spending doing a lot of travel unable to go anywhere. So grr. Usually I'm on the same page as my siblings but two are retired and two have a lot more vacay than I do.

Alas, today it was time for my niece and nephew to head back to Baton Rouge. We all had a blast having them here and would have loved to keep them longer. It's been an exhausting, if fun month.

And to cap it off... My nephew rilly rilly wanted to see the aurora. He knew it was unlikely. We went out two nights earlier in the month when activity was predicted, even if we didn't have much hope, but no dice.

Numbers looked good yesterday. Alas, there were lots and lots of clouds, and we were all falling asleep as we monitored the situation.

Then I noticed that there was going to be a band of no clouds, at the same time the Kp index was looking good.

We headed out.

And got to see the aurora! Kiddo was SO freaking excited, I'm feeling very smug about how the PNW treated him, lol. There were clouds, so the show didn't last long, but my god, it was visible naked eye.

Dh has better photos, but here's a few of my hand-held with the cell ones.

I have to write up our wonderful quick trip up to around Mt Baker. Camped one night, some great hiking, some gorgeous views, even if the weather wasn't completely cooperative. Tomorrow.

-- Niece and nephew are coming Saturday. SeaTac was hacked a few weeks ago and the visitor pass program isn't up and running. How am I supposed to pick them up? Well, says the airport, talk to the airline. Hello? The airline? The people who've make check-in 100% automatic and don't have live human beings anywhere any longer? Ugh. I'll figure it out, but my visitor pass plan is a no-go and that sucks.

-- That debate. OMG. Harris wiped the floor with him. Ultimately it means nothing, only the votes in a handful of states matter, which really really REALLY sucks, but it was still nice to see. Biden's last chess game was his most masterful, sacrificing himself to set up his replacement. Because most of the (white men) people calling for him to step down? Wanted Newsome or Whitmer (because it's always 'a woman is fine, just not that woman' with them), certainly not Harris. We'll see. Fingers crossed.

-- After the debate, I commented that I needed to make a donation (I did), and dh said, "Yeah, we need to pay for the 90 minutes of pure entertainment."

-- I had to euthanize a mouse today. I'm upset that I didn't notice she was in distress when I checked cages this morning, she was towards the back and while the mice usually come to the front of the cage to check me out, they don't always so I didn't think much of it. Anyhow, that was no fun at all. She was very sick, and I think was in the process of dying even before I turned on the CO2. I hate hate hate doing this. HATE. I whine to dh over text and his response was "Twisp says he'll subcontract for a nominal fee." Ha. As if. One more reason to start looking for another job, though realistically I should stay at this one at least a year if I want to have a prayer in hell of finding anything else.

-- I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by life right now.

-- Trader Joe's no longer sells any fat free milk. Neither does Costco. Safeway doesn't have any left by the afternoon, same with Target. Whole milk is always plentiful on the shelf. WTF, retailers?

1. OMG, this week. We're going down to Bend, it had just been too long since I'd seen my mom, and then things started piling on. I have no idea how we're going to cram it all in. I normally have an only Zoom for a weight class from 6:15-6:45 Tue and Thu and it looks like I'm not going to be able to cram it in on Thu at least. 🙄 The good part of the trip is that it looks like my niece and nephew are going to be coming to visit in September, they'll be camping at Crater Lake with us, and this will give my sister and I the opportunity to plan and coordinate things for their visit!

2. I've been waiting for book two of a series for a few months, I loved book 1. Then two other books I'd been waiting for came up so I borrowed them and of course today I get the email that the book I wanted was ready. Grrr. There is only so fast I can read, considering how little time I have to read at this point. Sad face. Since I'm on the topic of books. With a warning that book 2 will not be out until freaking November of 2025, I really liked The Silverblood Promise by James Logan.

3. We had thunderstorms last night. We weren't in the thick of it for the area, but a few lightning strikes were very close. Perry, David, and I sat out on the deck under the covered area and watched. It got pretty chill, but it was nice. I love thunderstorms and we don't really get them often.

Blah. Had great plans for today: a walk, getting tennis shoes, deadheading roses.

What I will be doing? In not too long, hauling my sorry ass down to Urgent Care for what I suspect is cellulitis following a freaking mosquito bite I got hiking last weekend.

My friend Bambi would use this as more proof that exercise will get you ever time.

We went to Vancouver yesterday and while waiting at the border, I noticed that one of my numerous mosquito bites had swollen and was "weeping" a bit. Not much to do. We had a good visit with my aunt (she was more with it than when my sister visited, I think) and headed down to B'ham to pick up Linnea and her stuff. Linnea tripped while carrying a box and fell and we thought we'd need to head to the ER with her, but her pain got better.

The swelling on my arm, OTOH, did not, but as of last night it was not emergent enough to justify the ER and of course Urgent Care isn't open past 5 on the weekend. And then they wonder why people end up in the ER. Anyhow. This morning, it's at least Urgent Care emergent. I'm going to the UC that is attached to an ER, though not the one that is attached to an ER and the hospital where the wait times are typically longer, in case they decide it's more urgent than I think it.

So I'll head there as soon as they open, or right before. Grrr. So many plans.

ETA. Oh great. This does not bode well, if the Universe is trying to tell me something: my Icelandic app, where I'm currently working on the beginner level "At the doctor's" unit gave me as my first new phrase today: Ég bíð which means "I wait". 🤣

OTOH, if it isn't serious, I'll be in Redmond near the River Trail so I can head straight for a walk. I suspect I'll be on antibiotics. Feh.

ETA. It didn't take long to get a diagnosis (duh, cellulitis) but it took forever to get the Rx filled. Two heavy duty abx, ugh. Took the first of one of them, my stomach already hurts.

1. My sister visited my aunt, and says that yeah, our impressions are correct: she's slipping a lot faster than my mom did. I have to get up to visit her or figure out a better way to call, she's hard to reach on the phone and evenings really don't work. I'm incredibly sad.

2. This week is dragging. I'm doing BORING stuff at work that has to be done, and as a result, I keep on thinking we're further on in the week than we actually are. I mean, I'd have sworn it was Thursday today, only not.

3. I am so tired of this heat. It's been above 80 (mostly high 80s) for weeks not and it's nasty. When is Fall again?

I know I've mentioned that my aunt, my mom's younger sister, was also diagnosed with dementia. She's progressing quite different from my mom, faster in some ways, slower in others.

This has been very difficult for all of us. As we've been living the slow process of losing our mother, I know my siblings and I relied on JoAnn being there as a bit of an emotional touchstone. So when she was diagnosed it was perhaps harder than when we figured it out for my mom, who'd been slipping for a while, so the realization was different.

I've always been close to both my mom's sisters. Losing Judy, the same year my dad died, was horrific. JoAnn, in particular, is one of the people who kept me alive during those horrid teen years. She kept me, as best she could, in books, and those books were my lifeline.

She moved to assisted living in February and as we feared, hates it. And she feels -and a few of her friends agree- that she's been losing functionality faster and faster, and very differently than my mom, with her language and ability to express herself going quickly..

JoAnn had decided she wasn't going to stick around for the horrid decline of dementia and had already planned and set up her date with MAID, Canada's euthanasia program. We certainly weren't happy with it, but also acknowledge that it's perhaps the last decision she can make for herself, and I cannot blame anyone who doesn't want to go through the utter deterioration of death with dementia.

March 2025 was her plan.

But now, she wants to move it up to "real soon". I'm devastated. Next year was bad enough, but there was still time, holidays, more visits etc so look forward to. No longer. They're talking to her MAID contact next week I guess to see about moving the data to sometime in the next "few months".

The grief of losing my mother has been ongoing, gradual. This is different and feels acute. My aunt is still enough there that the loss is going to be very different.

1. No second chance on the aurora, alas. Linnea missed it, as did my sister. Sigh.

2. Perry graduates in about a month. Realizing that we have lots of stuff to do before then and not a lot of weekends to do it in, since he's in Vancouver WA next weekend for Regionals (coaching) and probably in Florida (also coaching) a few weeks after that.

3. It's been an emotionally rough day. I don't care about Mother's Day for me but... my mother and my aunt, the two people I did care about it for, aren't truly here any longer. It hits me more on some days than on others, and with my aunt's condo in Vancouver now sold -the offer was accepted yesterday- it feels so final that she, and my mother, are in the last places they'll live. UGH.

1. I made a Tang pie for dessert last night, along with a chocolate cream pie. There were supposed to be more people for dinner but everyone begged off (one of the everyones was my sister-in-law, no loss there). Anyhow, since I knew Linnea doesn't like citrus based desserts, I made both. Everyone hate the Tang pie, except me. Don't they know that Tang is astronaut orange juice? Bah! 😂 Anyhow, I'll probably freeze it in tiny portions. As far as I'm concerned, it tasted like a tart creamsicle.

2. Memory care sitch with my mom isn't great. I've called her, she just sounds terribly sad and lonely. There is just no other solution. If laws in this country were better, we might have other options, but with the cost of memory care, our only finally possible one is to let a facility that takes Medicaid get every single cent she has until she's eligible for Medicaid and they have to keep her. If we were to have her at my sister's with the support she'd need, she'd have to go to a different type of facility, and the ones we visited were absolutely dreadful. So. But yeah. I hate this.

3. Let me just say this. I am not body shaming, or really, I'm not trying to body shame. I mean, I've had "some people should never wear spandex" said while looking at me right after I finished a 204 mile bike ride (by a father to his tween son, btw, neither of whom were riders), so I'm pretty clear that people who want or need to wear spandex should go ahead and do it. But! Men should not EVER and I mean EVER wear spandex bottoms in any color other than black or navy. Because oooh boy, the Italian (light blue) and Wisconsin (red) bottoms left little to the imagination. And really, no, please. 😂

Sister dropped Mom off at the Memory Care place on Monday. Not going to well. She's safe and cared for but we had to tell them take away her phone, because she kept on calling and demanding to be picked up. Hopefully she will adjust so we can give it back! The good thing is that she figured out how to use it, unlike her cell, which she never really did (even pre-dementia she was very iffy with it.)

So.

BIL is out of surgery, it went well, fingers crossed that margins are clear and lymph nodes as well.

Dh is on call this week and it's been pretty much non-stop for 12+ hours a day. Sucks.

And in excellent news, I got my hands on some Zepbound. It's a back-to-the-starter-dose thing, but eh, I'll take anything. Weight is creeping back on and the hunger was something else. I'll start again tomorrow. I hope it works as well as last time!

Jasper Fforde has finally released the sequel to _Shades of Grey_ which was excellent. I'm looking forward to reading it! It's called _Red Side Story_ and I hope it's available soon! I'll probably have to re-read _Shades of Grey_, it's been... oh, at least a dozen years, if not more.

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Stumbling Through Adulthood

With Insomnia

Entries tagged with family

Three things for Wednesday

Sense of humour

My aunt JoAnn died

Three things for Sunday

Good visit

So much to write about

So much for vacation.

Three things for Sunday

TDay

A mishmash of things

Three things for Thursday

Feeling slightly smug

Random bits

Three things for Sunday

Well, this is not good.

Three things for a miserable week.

This is just so fucking hard.

Three things for Sunday

Three things for Sunday

Ooof. It's being a week.

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May 2025

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