They Left The Logsplitter Running!

When you get a retired step-dad and a stepson on his day off you never know what will happen in our neighborhood.
Last week I should have known something was afoot when Fran got the log splitter and the boat out of the storage unit. It was a nice day, but early for him to empty out the storage unit. Little did I know what he was planning.
Mike, my son, had the day off to use some of his vacation days and Fran was going to take advantage of that to have some company and some fun.
Fran told me that he was going to help Mike split some big logs that needed done. The logsplitter needed a gas change because it had been sitting all winter and probably a new spark plug. He came down here to his mom's and said that all was well and it was running just fine. He was going to have it all ready for Mike when he came home from work that day.
The next day they told me that they had their day planned and that they were going to have those logs all split and get the yard cleaned up.
When I got home from Marie's I heard the splitter running and was pleased that Spring had arrived at the Lizotte neighborhood and that work was being done.
That afternoon rather late, Fran came in the back door which is rare in itself carrying a beer and chuckling. Red flag!!
He said that he wasn't hungry and that a bowl of cereal would be just fine. What?? Fran seldom has cereal for supper if ever. There was more chuckling. My man was a bit inebriated.
I asked him if they got the wood all split and he answered with another chuckle and told me that they left the splitter running while they went next door to the neighbors and had a beer or two. The reason why? They wanted me to think that they were working. It worked. The whole thing is though, is that they can't pull that again because now I'm on to them!
What fun they had. I'm so glad that my son and my husband are good friends.
The next day Mike came in to visit and I told him that Fran had spilled the beans. Oh he laughed and laughed. He thought that they had gotten away with it. Fran spilled the beans!
Hopefully it will be a fun filled time for them this spring and summer. Love my guys!

Mom supervising her son and husband!

Before Multiple Sclerosis

Before M.S. literally grabbed me around my throat, the amount of medicine I bought at the grocery store was about one bottle of Excedrin a year. I had a high stress job the last part of my career and I would get some stress headaches and low back pain a lot. Thinking it was job and age related I thought little of it.
Throughout the years living with M.S. were years of  a variety of medicines. Some left me with side effects of various degrees. Some I thought were making me dizzy, only to find out the medicine was not making me dizzy, but the progression of the disease.
My medicine change this last few months has given me a new lease on life and of course, has enabled me to care for my husband's elderly mother.
My family and Fran's family were concerned about us caring for her because we are no spring chicks ourselves.
We plunged ahead knowing that at some point depending on the severity of her aging process, I may not be able to do the physical part of her personal cares.
The reason being not only my age, but her ability to follow directions and her physical ability to not be able to even if she did understand me.
Things got very difficult, then they got better, then they were at the point I told Fran about one more week then we were going to have to put her in a skilled care facility.
Then like the tough woman she is she rallied, because she started eating and drinking. Her personal cares were so much easier. She would chuckle and started talking aloud at times. She would even tell me a story now and then that she wanted me to add to her blog. She understood that her family as well as the public would be reading them. In 2009 she gave me permission to publish them.
Today was a day I thought I was going to have to "give up the ghost" as my mother used to say.
She stiff leg and stiff armed me and would not bend or turn this morning. She has done this many times, but I know how to deal with the sling for the lift, her clothing with no problem. Then it happened; pain. The pain was not excruciating, but it was a definite warning. I stopped and walked around a bit. It was better so Fran and I got her up for breakfast and all was well, but it wasn't.
This evening I was not able to feel me left leg. I knew that this called for a medicine I hadn't taken for years. I had renewed the scrip not long ago for a situation like today.
When I got home I told Fran I was going to take a muscle relaxer and I was going to lay down and let it do its work. He remembered the old days. I saw the look of concern, but I assured him that it would be fine. I also said, "Go to the deli and get me some fried chicken, please, but if I'm asleep when you get home just let me sleep."
I had not taken this medicine for a long time and I had forgotten its side effects. It relaxes all muscles just like it says including swallow muscles which M.S. had weakened already. I kept myself awake because thinking of the "old days" I would choke on my own saliva. Muscle relaxers peak at two hours. It did not peak for three hours. Then I slowly felt like myself. My pain was gone completely and I could swallow.
I reminded Fran of how I used to lay on the couch and watch the world go by. I can remember having Texas family visit for Marie's birthday. They were wonderful and took over the cooking and related duties I just couldn't do.
The reason I am writing this post is not for you to feel sorry for me or that we should put her in a facility. The reason is to explain just one little muscle strain could in fact, cause a real problem with folks becoming dependent on them.
I used to dance and drink and sing with the best of them. I used to have a drink too many on the weekends, but I was never happy with the feeling of not being in control too much liquor had on me. I think the same with medicine.
This is an awfully long story to get to my point. I am so afraid of the dependence that so many people have on opiates and the deaths that occur because of it. Could it in fact start with a simple muscle relaxant?
I think that this medicine is very important for the comfort of people like myself who after a three hour nap feel great again. But how can we keep not only our young people safe, but injured and older folks as well.
Well the other day I said that I sometimes like to stir the pot and talk about serious things. but mostly just folksy fun things that happen in my life.
Thanks for listening.

When Old Friends Visit Around My Kitchen Table

When you walk through the door at Lu's Place you will notice that I talk about most anything. You will hear stories about the really old days, you will hear stories about my activities now compared to the days thirty years ago.
You might even hear stories that make you laugh!
Today I thought about not writing a post because I had nothing to talk about. My husband always laughs when I say something like that. I wonder why.
Well I began to think about the early seventies. I was a young mom and wife of my middle twenties.
In the seventies my husband and I lived in a small community of about two thousand more or less.
My late husband grew up there and had great memories of being a youngster and living with his eleven brothers and sisters. Yes, he had a very large family.
In the seventies I was a stay at home mom with two children about two and four. It seemed like the ideal life. We had no money, we had a huge house and we had lots of friends and family that were such fun they were our friends too.
In those days, we got up early, fixed breakfast for our families, got our husbands off to work and then the rest of the day was ours.
The most fun part of those days for me was the coffee clutch.
The "coffee" gatherings were mostly in the afternoon. My kids were the youngest and not in school yet. So...my kids took a nap!
One day there were about four of us in my kitchen gossiping, laughing, talking about each other terrible like best friends do.
I always liked a centerpiece on my table. This particular day I had a bowl of fruit sitting in the middle of the table.
As one friend was peeling an orange she said, "I just really don't like oranges." Well the chatter stopped and we all just stared at her while she was peeling this orange, wondering what she was going to do with it.
We started looking at each other, smirking, and could hardly stand not laughing out loud. She just ignored us and ate that orange! Oh we teased her and teased her. Such fun we had. She is one of the characters of my life that I haven't seen for forty-five years that I would love to have just one more coffee clutch with.

Time Travel To The Past Not The Future

Me At 7 months 1944

Time travel is usually presented towards the future, not the past. Today while Marie and I were watching Little House On The Prairie they were celebrating Founders Day in Walnut Grove.

They had no cell phones, they had picnics on the ground most generally sitting on quilts that the ladies had made.

The kids had 3 legged races, spinning the wagon rim, and of course, the fastest runner race.

The women baked pies to see whose was the tastiest, the men actually had axe contests to see who could chop a large log about twelve inches around, in two pieces the fastest.

Marie enjoys watching these old shows even though she can't hear and her vision is poor. The whole time we were watching I thought about last week when our telephone and internet was out of service. I was a bear to live with.

In Laura Ingalls Wilder days they didn't miss what they had never had.

There was always a lesson to be learned in this series. Today's show, as you could expect was sportsmanship and the lack thereof, in some cases.

Nellie usually cheated, and Mr. Ingalls always showed respect for the older weaker folks.

I thought about my grandmother that stayed home from my mother and father's wedding because her precious chicks were going to hatch. I still to this day can't understand that, but meat was a precious commodity which was eaten in the winter time because of my grandmother's ability to preserve and can.

When I was a child the Laura Ingalls Wilder books were brand new and I read them so fast my mother was concerned that my comprehension could not be good enough to remember the stories. She was not realizing that at such a young age of ten I was living vicariously through Mrs. Wilder's books.

 We would go to the library on Saturdays and I would check out at least seven books to read until the next week. I was always through with them before the next Saturday.

My mother realized that my imagination would be my companion for my whole life. At this point of almost seventy-four years I am doing what my mother always wanted me to do; writing children's stories for the very young child. I still can think like a child and love seeing them laugh and learn.

I love visiting with you and hope that you follow my blogs and enjoy them as much as I enjoy writing them.

See you soon.

My sister, Rosie holding me and my grandmother, Lulu Banister

November 2017: The New Chapter

Well, in November the day before Thanksgiving, Marie was admitted to the Nursing Home here in Stockton.
She had not fractured her knee, but it was in a brace as well as her wrist. In other words, she was a mess!
She said it wasn't the first time she had been away from home for Thanksgiving, in fact it was the third time. Once before in the Nursing Home and once in the hospital many years before.
While Marie was rehabbing, Fran and I went to work on her home. She had formerly kicked people out of her house from bath aides to Meals On Wheels, to housekeepers. She informed Fran more than once she was not dead yet!!
So he took doors off for easier entrance, we bought new devices that were smaller and easier to maneuver, and we rented a hospital bed.
Fran painted, I had my housekeeper help me clean cupboards and scrub walls and dishes etc.
When Marie came home, it was not finished, but much better. At that time Fran and I decided for sure that I was the one to take care of her mother.
I want to point out that not only because of her advanced age, but also because she is deaf and blind in one eye and poor vision in the other she needed full time care during the day.
I had been in long term care positions from A-Z, but had never done the actual care, even though I did teach some CNA classes for their certification. You have to realize that was over 30 years ago. I am almost 74 now and taking care of a 102 year old disabled woman who has very definite opinions on what should and should not happen in her home.
Therapy was discontinued after three weeks due to her not being able to stand on her feet. Many falls occurred to the risk of not only Marie, but to Fran and myself as well.
Knowing some of the Medicare laws and not knowing the newer Medicare laws that had been changed in those 30 years I plowed through a bunch of red tape and secured no hospital bed because she had no diagnosis to tell the Red Tape People (Marie's words.) Just old age. I did however, get a Hoyer Lift which enabled her to go to the living room and eat her meals and sit in her chair and watch television.
Without the lift she would have been not only housebound, but also bed bound.
Along the way, she became non-verbal. She now whispers, moves her lips, or shouts at me when I make her angry! I know, I don't understand either, but that's the way it is.
At a point about three weeks ago she wanted no food or fluids. It looked to us as the beginning of the end. Then going without water hurt her and I explained it was going to get worse. She is now eating two acceptable meals a day and drinking about a litre of water and other fluids a day. Her meals are tiny and are not big enough to gain back the weight that she has lost.
I am able to now go to my home across the road at night because she does not need assist at night time.
So, what to do with my time, hmmm. I know I will open up my blogs again and start a new one. I am having so much fun "talking." I love to talk and Marie doesn't talk and my husband tends to zone in on his television and computer games and he does spend several hours here at Marie's house.
She had no internet!!! She does now and that makes everybody happy. Like the old saying goes, "When Mama ain't happy nobody is happy" The same holds true with when " Mama is happy most everybody else is happy."
I have lots of things to look forward to this year. I can't wait to tell you all about them.
See you tomorrow!

Gwen

I would like to take a minute to thank one of my new followers.
Her name is Gwen and she is a lovely lady.
 A while back I was on a mission to find where my grandfather was buried. I searched and I searched. She had the answer for me within hours. I am so grateful to her even though it wasn't the news I wanted, at least I found out where his final resting place is.
Gwen Doreen Kubberness seems always willing to help if she can.
 Thanks again, Gwen, my brother and I now know where he is, but your information left us with volumes of questions for our now deceased parents. It is what it is.

November 2017

The first part of November Fran and I visited about my improved health. It had been a long time since I had fallen. I wasn't using my cane anymore and I felt great. He and I were going out to eat and going shopping together. The big day was when I walked Walmart just using a shopping cart for a crutch.
I had not walked a Walmart store for years and years. I had always used a power chair, much to the chagrin of other shoppers, or Fran pushed me in a wheelchair with an attached basket.
We discussed two reasons for my improved health, one being the medicine change and the other I was in remission. Both options were wonderful. The remission option I had gone through before and remission gave me false hope that I would always feel good. Medicine change was the option I was hoping for.
One day I went to my mother-in-law's house and she told me that she wanted to go to the doctor. I, of course, asked her what was wrong. She said she had hurt her wrist maneuvering her wheelchair into her bedroom.  I called my husband and the doctor. The doctor had an opening that afternoon and Fran inspected her floor and spotted a dip in the floor which made pulling herself in her wheelchair difficult.
I took Marie into her bedroom to help her change her clothes and sat down on her bed beside her and she laid her head on my shoulder and said, "I can't do it anymore." Tears choked me, but in a matter of fact voice I told her that she had three options; she could move in with us again, she could go to the nursing home to live, or I could take care of her in her home. Of course, the last option was the best for her and for Fran and I.
I told Marie that I would take care of her like she was my own mama. She softly smiled and said, "I'm not fussy, but I would like you to cook for me." That day was the beginning of the rest of my life as I knew it at that point. Marie was 102 years old and little did she know it, but she was going to fall in about two weeks time and in fact, go to the nursing home for rehab for her wrenched knee.
 She was knitting me a pair of slippers for Christmas the day that she fell. She wanted to stay up late that evening and needed the light on behind her chair. She turned wrong and fell over her wheelchair and that was that. She pulled the pin on her life line locket, the ambulance came and she decided she wanted to go to the emergency room to make sure her knee was not fractured. Her knee was not fractured, but her 102 year old muscles and tendons didn't stretch like they used to and the doctor decided she needed physical therapy to help her achieve the goal of going home again. That was the day before Thanksgiving.
Tomorrow I will tell you what Marie, Fran and I accomplished in the next two weeks.

Wet hair on a cold winter's morning at Marie's house.