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.
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.
You let us know that Justice did prevail and that the monsters lost.
I am wondering if, after the outcome of the action, they are leaving you be in peace?
That is to say, are they no longer troublesome, and are you able to avoid them in your current life?
Understand your reticence to discuss them a whole lot, but would love reassurance that your life remains much more peaceful?
I guess it’s hit or miss. I have spent tons of time outdoors. I have to say that I wasn’t really good about wearing sunscreen.
So, I shouldn’t be surprised that my dermatologist found a spot. I went to have moles looked at and she decided to do a full body check and she found a spot on the back of my calf. Not a spot where I would easily notice it.
Sun damage is so common.
I am going to start using sunscreen and wearing a hat.
My Mom, who spent a lot of time in the FL sun before the years of sunscreen (and who is 100% Mediterranean) also has skin cancers on her face and legs (Mohs).
When I was a kid I spent time in FL pre-sunscreen and later in my teen years did the oil-slathering/baking (and I'm only 50% Mediterranean) and so far have had 1 skin cancer removed from my shoulder -- and trust me: no one has had more epic sunburns than me (purple, blistered).
My husband (a sailor and someone who spent a lot of time in the sun mostly without sunscreen) is mostly Scandinavian (and had some epic sunburns) has had multiple skin cancers removed from his face (Mohs) including a cream-based chemo peel.
His mom, my MIL, is also mostly Scandinavian and baked herself in the sun with oil in the 60s and 70s until she was brown like a berry but has yet to show up with any skin cancers. No rhyme or reason. Go figure.
When I told my dermatologist how stupid we were to lay out in the sun while slathered in baby oil, she said that her generation was just as stupid for going into tanning beds.
I suppose every generation makes their own mistakes.
🙂🙂🙂🙂
Are you a light sleeper?
Oh my gosh, I am dead to the world when I am sound asleep. One time I even slept through a hurricane! LOL 😆 I woke up and asked my husband, ‘When is the storm going to hit?’ He laughed and said that I slept through it!
I used to worry about sleeping through my children crying. Fortunately, that never happened. I think moms have an innate ability when it comes to our babies.
The soup sounds delicious! I like a bit of heat too.
Hahaha. I am thinking about the old Doris Day movie, Pillow Talk. She was so cute!
I like pretty pillows too. My neighbor makes beautiful needlepoint pillows.
Cabbage, pork and black eyed peas are supposed to represent good luck and health. It’s a huge thing in the south. Everyone eats it on New Year’s Day.
So happy to hear that you and R are doing well.
Years ago I watched people in physical therapy after knee surgery. They all said that knee surgery was tough to recover from. I was doing physical therapy for my arm which I think is a lot easier than knee issues.
Looking back, 2023 as a year of accomplishing things that had been "in the fire" for a while. Finally I moved and put the house up for sale, finally R sold his house and had his knee surgery. It feels good. Hoping for a peaceful 2024, reaping the benefits of the changes.
Need - I'm with you on the cabbage. Love it!!! I have a large head of cabbage from the farm and have been planning to make a recipe I found interesting - "Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup." I think I'll jazz it up with a little heat too - make it "Hot, Sweet and Sour".
No traditions except taking it easy. As a family we rarely went out for New Years but preferred to stay home and play Trivial Pursuit. No hangovers here.
My new year's resolution - not to talk to pillows any more lol. I only did it once!
I have some pillows made from material with paintings of cats by Gustav Klimt and one of them really resembles Rocky and is life size. The light was low in the living room when I wandered in with my cup of coffee and saw "Rocky" on the floor under the coffee table so I started to talk to her then I realized it wasn't her but one of the pillows!!! Oh well. Better clean my glasses!
It’s traditional here to celebrate New Year’s Day with eating cabbage, black eyed peas and pork.
My hubby doesn’t eat cabbage or black eyed peas so I always have to eat it alone.
What are your New Year’s traditions in your area?
Happy New Year to ALL of us 🎆
But Happy New Year to everyone!
"One, two, three, four, five, seex".
I am reading now a book free on Amazon Kindle Unlimited (Beginner Balance Exercises for Seniors by Zac Shaw) so am adding a few to my usual.
I first noticed years ago (am 81) that when I closed my eyes in shower to wash my face my balance went wonky. At the same time noticed that, though I weight 145, most I ever did, I feel like a feather in the winds on a moving bus.
Started some balance exercises then and am amazed how they have helped.
What I find fascinating in Shaw's book is the research on how the bones, tendons, muscles, neurons and synapses and even the cell docking stations for transmission ALL start to deteriorate at age 30 on. THIRTY! Who knew. My grandson is 5 years out from "starting to go rotten".
This includes even hormonal systems. I must say it is appalling to read and makes you know we were an animal designed to be born, grow up, reproduce a few kids and die before 35. Which is exactly what we used to do. It sure did avoid a whole lot of deterioration.
Anyway, Geaton always warns us we must try to stay mentally acute enough to keep up with tech as much as we can. So I will warn that we need to work on balance. You will wobble a whole lot at the beginning, but as you wobble along your brain is actually learning, adapting, exercising itself.
I well remember all my old patients who would have "BEDREST" ordered by their docs. They knew long before doctors learned that the prescribed bedrest has lethal side effects. They would just say "Oh, no, I can't stay in bed. If I do I will never get up again".
Truly, with the brain and the body, it is use it or we will lose it.
Can we make it go on forever? Nope. That's for dang sure. But we can keep it as well-oiled as we are able while it has to go on.
Happy New year to all!