There's this one BNL song that has just some of the best lyrics ever, and it's just so perfect and so classic BNL because this song in particular (yes, I'll link it in a few moments) has this cool, laid-back jazzy piano feel that actually suits Steven Page's voice undeniably well, and then he nonchalantly croons one of my favorite lines in a song, ever:
You think you're so smart, but I've seen you naked; I'll probably see you naked again.
If that's not your style, how about this one?
So you want to play mind games? Well that's fine, go ahead, la-la-la, I can't hear you!
Perhaps now you might see why I didn't really like BNL until I started paying attention to the lyrics. Perhaps you didn't care in the first place why I like BNL. Either way, that's my beginning topic for today and I'm sticking to it, courtesy of Blame It On Me by the Barenaked Ladies.
And so, life goes on. One of the biggest changes in my life since I last wrote in here is that I've cut my hours back at my day job so that I can spend more time with my parents. More specifically (so far) with my Mom, "just" helping her get things done. I hesitate to label myself her caregiver because she is fully able to take care of her own physical needs; it's more like a combination emotional caregiver and chauffeur personal assistant.
I struggled with this decision for a good, long while. I wish I would've thought of it when my Dad was still at home, but whatever. Not sure that would've changed anything. What I struggled with the most is that my Mom and I haven't historically gotten along the best. And I hate using the word "gotten" if that tells you anything. Especially not when I was a teenager, but even in my adulthood. I don't want to pick it all apart here, because nobody's perfect, right? My Mom and I, despite being flesh and blood, seem to have two very different outlooks and perspectives on life. Which, the older I get, makes more sense because we've lived very different lives. Personality-wise, I take after my Dad.
So I worried that I'd be setting myself up for disaster. What if all we did was fight? There have been times on this journey with my Dad when we've butted heads. I don't want that to happen, but it was also becoming obvious that my Mom needed some additional support. I knew what I needed to do, and that included putting all my fears and worries aside and just stepping up to the damn plate and doing it. Because that's what we do, right? Forget about the "what ifs", it's the big picture that matters.
I was going to wait until after the VDC weekend (yes, the one back in March) to suggest this to her. I was going to use that weekend to pray about it and ask God to let me know once and for all if it was the direction in which He wanted me to go. Prior to that, I was spending a night a week or so at my parents' house after work, in the name of helping my Mom but not really having much time to do a whole lot because I'd spend the whole day at work and then get to their house and usually have time to eat and then watch some TV and let my Mom vent for a while before I went to bed because I'd have to get up and go to work the next morning again. The thought was there but the time really wasn't. But one night, I was talking with my hubby about it (and I have to add -- he is the greatest hubby ever. He has been in full support of this since day one. He mentioned it as an option long before I even brought it up as a possibility. He's the best!) and I said I was thinking it was time to maybe do it, and he was like, OK, then do it. Talk to your work about it and do it. Bam, just like that, no hesitation whatsoever.
I guess that was the sign I was waiting for because that night, when I called my Mom, I asked her if she would find it useful if I took a day off of work every week to spend with her, helping her run errands and do chores around the house and take care of other things and visit my Dad and such, and before I even finished the question she was like, YES, PLEASE!!
That was back in March, and last week was the first week of my new schedule. So I'm taking one day "off" per week and for now, the plan is to spend either the night before or that night at my parents' house. For scheduling reasons at work, it will be a different day every week, which was kind of a bummer at first but actually might work out better for my Mom as far as scheduling appointments and such. So, last week my day "off" (which isn't really a day off, ha ha) was Monday. I was worried that we'd just end up sitting around watching TV all day, but we actually did get out of the house and run a few errands, and started cleaning out the pantry, and made a longer-term To-Do list. And most importantly, I felt more connected to her the more time I spent with her. I was hoping that would happen. That if I could be there when I wasn't tired, or pressed for time, that I could show more grace and be more present and helpful instead of . . . well, not.
I know it's early, but I'm hopeful that this is going to work out. I don't like being away from my hubby, spending the night in the city, and I really don't like sleeping in my parents' bedroom. (My Mom sleeps in her recliner in the living room. She hasn't slept in their bedroom for a long time. I think that started when my Dad couldn't walk up the stairs anymore, and now I think it continues because she misses him and doesn't want to sleep in the bedroom without him. I also don't like sleeping in their bedroom because it reminds me of my Dad and how he's not there. But there isn't anywhere else for me to sleep except on the couch or in my Dad's recliner in the living room with my Mom, and I wouldn't get much sleep there because she has the TV on "for noise" most of the night. But I digress.) But adulthood is full of doing things we don't like to do, right?!?
So that's how THAT is going. My Dad is doing alright, I guess. We had a care conference a couple of weeks ago. I've been part of care conferences as a nurse, way back when I worked in the hospital. Not very often, I think maybe only once or twice when the discharge planner wasn't available. Anyway, I was able to meet the hospice nurse and social worker. The whole care conference took about 10 minutes and could have been an email, lol. Nah, it was all good. My Dad still qualifies for hospice care because he is still losing weight, even though he is eating well. His pain/discomfort seems to be well-controlled, he hasn't needed his PRN morphine for a long time, he sleeps a lot, and he needs to stay on supplemental oxygen. He continues to slowly decline, although not as rapidly as he was when he was first put on hospice last November.
He still knows who *I* am ;)
It is still so difficult, though. Watching this all happen. Watching him "decline" (I hate that word now, too) before our eyes. I wish I knew what he's thinking. I wish he could tell me if he wants to keep going on like this or not. I wouldn't think he would. He has no quality of life. He can't do anything for himself, he needs someone to do literally everything for him at this point. He doesn't seem to enjoy anything. Every time he doesn't feel well, I wonder if this is It. A week or so ago when I went to see him, he was complaining that he felt like he was going to throw up, and he was a little pale and diaphoretic and clammy. At first I was like, I get like that when I'm nauseated, too. But then as I thought more about it, I was like, what if it's a heart thing? But he's on hospice, so, what is there to do, really? It resolved while I was there so I guess it wasn't a heart thing. This week my Mom was complaining that he's been crabby, and today in the hospice nurse's notes I read that he's had some GI issues all weekend. So now I'm like, what if this is Something? You just never know.
None of us ever know, though. Anything could happen at any time.
Alright, on that happy thought, I'm gonna go refill my water jug and then get back to work. These darn phone calls won't make themselves. TTYL!
...that if you have a person on hospice care in a skilled nursing facility, and if that person one morning is more difficult than usual to wake up, and has oxygen saturations in the 70's even when they're on 4LPM of supplemental oxygen, and that person is also having shortness of breath and decreased breath sounds in one of their lungs, the staff at the skilled nursing facility basically call you (and by "you" I mean the person's emergency contact person) and say, essentially -- Hey, you should get in here ASAFP. Capice? 
