Day 146: on squaring up

Today both Himself's and the Queen Mother's monthly payments arrived, so we were able to pay some bills! We got the most important ones squared away (for a hot minute), and I was able to take a few steps to lighten the financial load which always swings around at the start of the month. I need to make a couple more phone calls tomorrow, but I'm breathing a lot easier tonight than I have been for the past few days.

We got as many errands done as we could today because Himself is going to be "occupied" tomorrow with his appointments, and I'm going to be driving him home. While we were out, we picked up a few items to help him with his Clear Liquid Diet requirement today: lemon-lime Jello (he can't eat any of the red gelatins prior to his appointments), chicken broth, and some lemon-flavored Crystal Light to add to the prep he has to drink in order to clean out his innards. It's euphemistically called GoLytely because it has electrolytes in it. Himself has suggested more than once that it should be renamed "Go (very) Hard." He uses a slightly different word in the middle to describe it. ;)

To his credit, he has finished drinking half of the prep per the directions the VAMC gave to him, and let's just say he's letting the noxious concoction do its work. (I haven't had the pleasure of getting a colonoscopy yet, but in about three years or so, we will be trading places, I'm sure.)

I'm not sure how much I will be writing in tomorrow's entry, because we're going to have to get up super early and it might be a bit before everything settles down. I'm going to try really hard to get a nap in when we get home in the afternoon! Between now and then, here's hoping that they don't find any more "suspicious" polyps. So far, so good...and we intend for it to STAY that way!

Day 145: on adjusting

I did one of the two things I had planned on doing today: the laundry. I chose to wash my hair today as well, since it had been a little over a week since I was last able to. I didn't make it to the support group because we had to do a bit of essential grocery shopping to get a few things we either had just run out of, or were just about to run out of. That we were successful in, and I still have a bit of money left over in the bank. I also used a freebie to get a Venti black tea lemonade from Starbucks, which I will finish off tomorrow.

Since I switched off my devices on Sunday, I have been more mindful of how much time I'm spending on Social Media, which in my case, means Instagram. I'm all but off of Facebook at the moment; the only thing I am "saving" it for is the Livestream that the Southern Caregiver Resource Center presents with its monthly classes. If I can't get to their main office, something that I haven't been able to do for the past several months, I can still tune in to the presentation. Now if there was a Livestreamed support group available, that would probably make my life a lot easier.

Back to Instagram: I have started making changes there as well, not just in which accounts I'm following, but also in when I put it down and pick up a book instead. I am still wanting to fill time, but not in a way that will get me super upset. Though the accounts I follow online are mainly positive, it is still part of the Internet, and all it takes is one insensitive comment to get the snowball going. Then I (am learning to) step away before I wind up saying something I would later regret. Between these last tumultuous few years and my inherent Scorpio rising tendencies, my patience with fools has been wittled very far down, and it's only because I know better that I'm able to do better, or at least, not do worse.

Tomorrow, in theory, is Himself's prep day before his next "coming and going" appointment (an endoscopy combined with a flexible sigmoidoscopy) to check on his innards. However, we have just learned that a friend is visiting the ER right now, so plans might have to change. We shall know more tomorrow; in the meantime, a prayer or two on our friend's behalf would be appreciated.

Day 144: on staying close to home

I had a bit of an early start to the morning, helping Himself wake up at 7am to get down to San Diego in a timely manner. I stayed home and took something of a breather, after the emotional chaos I wound up feeling yesterday. 

I succeeded in cleaning up in the kitchen after helping the Queen Mother with her "weekly" shower. My job is to turn the water on, set the towels down where she can reach them, and put the soap into the shower itself. Lately I'm also making sure the shower door actually shuts (and opens after she is done), as its starting to stick a bit, and she has trouble working the door when it's not behaving smoothly. She has a lot of trouble with opening sliding doors these days, whether it's out to the patio or out of the shower. After she dries off, I put lotion on her back and legs. Today I also cut her hair a bit shorter and evened out all of the long scraggly pieces that were sticking out a bit further than the rest of her hair.

Whatever tension we might have felt in the past seemed to ease today, partly because Himself was out of the house and out from underfoot - three people living in a 986 square foot home can really get underfoot if we're not careful - and partly because I've been a bit more active in decluttering and cleaning up in the house. It's amazing what can happen when Depression isn't weighing me down and narrowing my vision!

As I've been reading Passages in Caregiving, I've had a pair of realizations. First, I understand now why Himself is always talking about his plans of what he's going to do, or what he wants to do, when he gets his settlement money (whichever comes first): this is his way to cope with his cancer diagnosis and helps give him a reason to keep waking up in the morning, and put one foot in front of the other. Today I had another realization: the less I isolate from the Queen Mother, and the more I interact with her without being angry and resentful, the happier she is and the less likely she is to become depressed herself.

In mom's case, I walk away from intense conversations before I explode in my anger; if I use the tools that are in my toolbox, I can defuse that anger and remember that she is NOT the same woman that she was at the start of this decade. More and more, I am seeing her Dementia instead of seeing who she actually is, and I need to keep this in mind. In Himself's case, I all but stopped dreaming and planning too far ahead into the future because I was concerned about helping him make it through the tests, then the surgeries, and finally the chemotherapy. When I had forgotten how to dream, I became scared of his dreams, because I was afraid he would make some of those dreams a reality and leave me behind! That was a clear case of Stinking Thinking, and now I am remembering how to dream and plan for OUR future together again.

The diswasher is washing, the cats are snoozing, and I am finishing up this blog. I am intending both to do laundry and also to attend one of my caregiver support groups. We shall see what happens.

Day 143: on plugging back in

It did me a world of good to Unplug yesterday and return to reading to fill the time!

Besides reading several sections of the newspaper yesterday, I also returned to a book I started a few months ago, Passages in Caregiving by Gail Sheehy. A great pity I didn't know about this book when I was starting this Odyssey, as it would have helped to allay some of my early concerns. I have it now, though, and I am picking up valuable tidbits of insight and wisdom as I read. :)

I plugged back in this morning and found that my money had arrived, so grocery shopping we went. There were a couple of surprises today, one quirky and cute, the other not so much. First, when I moved my bags a bit closer to the groceries on the conveyer belt as we were checking out, we found a small grasshopper hitching a ride! Was it there all along or did it stow away in one of our bags? That I don't know, but it wound up hopping onto me as I tried to coax it into a roll of paper towels, so I borrowed the roll and went outside to deposit the little bug into the bushes outside of the store. I did return the paper towels to the cashier afterwards.

On the way home, things got a little scary - some dude jumped out of the passenger door of a black car in front of us. With a baseball bat in hand, he proceeded to bang savagely on the rear bumper of the burgundy pickup trunk in front of us. I have no idea why. When the pickup truck pulled off into a dirt lot a little further down the road, a woman got out of the truck and started looking behind us, as though she was looking for the black car. We didn't see the car behind us, but that was enough for Himself to call 911 and report the whole incident as we continued on our way home.

It wasn't until I was waiting for my dinner to heat up that I realized I was more shaken up than I had given myself credit for; how often do you see some random act of road rage unfold before you in traffic? I'm more than happy to stay home tonight, thank you, and I'm wondering if perhaps I shouldn't start practicing a bit of protective shielding again. :-O

I'm not sure if I'm going to get much constructive done tonight. Tomorrow feels like a better day to pick up where I've left off, methinks. Tonight I shall pray that people start working through their Shadow material, instead of allowing the material to work them over! 

Day142: on unplugging

I am going to shut off my faithful tablet as soon as I publish this post. Today will be a device-free day. More to be revealed tomorrow. :)

Day 141: on turbulence

Definitely a mixed emotional bag today. I took care of my monthly conference call, then settled into breakfast proper. I went back to the Morning Pages as I continued my process of detangling my thoughts. I checked in briefly with my East Coast bestie, who has been going through as much physically as I have emotionally over these past few years, and also seems to be on the steady road of improvement.

I started reorganizing at the foot of the bed, as I had intended to do. I also swept some floors (in the kitchen and mom's bathroom) while Himself followed up with mopping. The floors look much nicer now. I should have felt good, and I did - but every time I felt I was getting ahead, I would feel like I was falling behind and failing miserably in the next moment. The Tired is definitely catching up with me. 

We managed to get a little grocery shopping in today, but I wasn't able to get everything I needed. That and the fact that the Queen Mother doesn't like the frozen chicken strips I got for her the other day, and would prefer the fresh strips from Trader Joe's instead - except we didn't have quite enough money to get the fresh chicken today, and will have to wait until Monday. 

I try to remember it's partly her dementia, and partly being set in her ways. I still wind up taking her opinions way too personally, and if I allow myself, can jump down that rabbit hole of Not Good Enough really quickly. Today I allowed myself some comfort food and finished off my reorganizing efforts. Then I could allow myself to feel better. 

Himself and I are still debating about everything we're going to do tomorrow. I think I'm going to take a decluttering break until Monday, then figure out where I going to start picking up next.

Day 140: on wading through the Heavies

I didn't get a good night's sleep last night, and woke up out of sorts. I knew the best place to take my turbulent thoughts was to my Morning Pages, and I made the full three page entry today, objectively dissecting my thought processes and seeing exactly what was going on in my Stinking Thinking.

90% of that which drags me down, whatever form it takes, stems from the feeling of being Super Tired all of the time. I know I'm not Physically Tired; it's more Mentally and especially Emotionally Tired. My biggest fantasy right now is to take an entire week away from Caregiving and all of the Heaviness that surrounds it. Room service wouldn't be necessary, and a spa day or two would be nice! As you can tell, this would involve some money for this fantasy to become reality.

In the meantime, I put the decluttering and reorganizing aside for today, and stepped out into the clear and cold day to accompany Himself to his Cognitive Behavior Therapy appointment to see if it could help him with his pain. I go along with him to remember what he might forget, at least in theory. Getting back home took forever, as there were several accidents on the 78 going east, and we had to detour onto surface streets, and their traffic lights. Le Sigh...

We did get home, and we did eat, and I did rouse myself up to venture back out into the clear and colder night to attend Erev Shabbat services at our synagogue. Even though I don't actively pray with the congregation, I do enjoy mingling with other reasonably functional adults, and we are greeted warmly every time we show up. Socializing is one of my lifelines that I'm making an effort to attend to this year. I came home feeling better than I did when I left, which is always a good thing.

Perhaps I shall shelve all ideas of doing constructive work this weekend and focus on Recharging my Batteries. Hopefully I'll sleep better tonight. Regardless, I am still climbing that mountain.