'may you live in interesting times' - blessing or curse? discuss
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 07:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
djinanna
So I haven't been around much lately - posting-wise, flist-wise, comments-wise.... I haven't even been Twittering, so those bizarre archival Twitter reposts haven't been showing up here. I have no idea what the fannish hot topics are right now, or even what the hot new fandoms are.
Wait, that last one is not completely true. I have been reading tons of fic (99% either Rodney-based SGA and Xander-based BtVS), and so I've seen a bit of Merlin fervor and Trek-Reboot fever. And I've also noticed that I'm not alone in my adoration for Burn Notice and Leverage. (Though so far I've waited in vain for the Psych/Sentinel fusion where Shawn is a Sentinel and Gus is his Guide. *le sigh* Recs, anyone?)
But mostly, I'm pathetically out of touch with fandom and with my flist. Over the weekend, I actually had to go to the VividCon website to make sure I hadn't accidentally missed the con. Of course, I may still have to miss it intentionally, but I still have my fingers crossed that I'll be able get there for at least one day. Maybe. I hope.
What I have been doing - when not reading copious amounts of fic to keep from sucking my thumb and/or chewing on the ends of my hair - is wrestling with hospitals and the nursing home/rehab center and keeping the neighbors informed and falling further and further behind in doing dishes and laundry and, well, dealing with my mom's sudden and rather shocking decline. That, hindsight being 20-20, I now realize hasn't really been all that sudden at all. And there's still hope that she'll be able to get better, especially since her test results haven't shown any life-threatening illness type news.
But there's been major weight loss and decreased appetite and refusing to eat and 'failure to thrive' and mental confusion (that we're still not sure whether it's being caused by the malnourishment and dehydration, or by the beginnings of dementia and/or Alzheimer's, which mom's mother aka my grandmother had) and falls and paramedics and ambulance rights and emergency room visits followed by hospitalizations followed by nursing home/rehab facility stays ... and medical tests and tons of doctors and nurses and therapists and the inevitable Medicare billing screw-ups ... and home health care evaluations and a brief but terrifying mention of home hospice care ... and on and on and~
Her first fall was the scary one actually. She tripped in my hallway and the next thing I knew there was a puddle of blood under her head and lots of shared terror. At least I remembered that head wounds bleed like nothing you'd ever imagine - unless you're read a lot of h/c style fic, anyway, which I do and therefore was able to keep my head long enough to find that all that blood OMG!!!!! was coming from a less-than-two-inch cut in mom's forehead. But still, she couldn't stand up on her own and I couldn't help her. No broken bones, no concussion, but some spectacular bruising on her face, neck, and side that's still noticeable now, six weeks later.
She spent a week in hospital for that, then two weeks in rehab at the nursing home. Then she came home (too soon, but she insisted) and I somehow managed to sort of take care of her for about a week before she fell out of bed overnight (no blood or bruising this time) and was back in the hospital for another week. And now she's back in the nursing home/rehab for a longer stay that will hopefully get her back on her feet and semi-independent again - but still could end up with her moved over to their long-term care because (with my own limitations and disabilities) I wouldn't be able to take care of her properly at home if she isn't able to improve....
On the other hand, I have the best neighbors in the world! They've helped me clear out my storage room (aka the back bedroom) and move down the bed from mom's guest room so she could stay down here in my apartment when she was home from rehab for that frustratingly brief time. They've helped with laundry. They've carried groceries up to my apartment. They've offered support and assistance and have just been altogether terrific, even though I tend to be the invisible semi-agoraphobic hermit neighbor a lot of the time.
Of course, right now my kitchen looks a bit like a warehouse, with all the stuff from my storeroom piled on one side of the room (except for about a dozen boxes in the living room that didn't fit in the kitchen) and just enough room to maneuver between doors, fridge and work areas. I really haven't had time to even begin to tackle all that stuff yet, let alone the excess clutter in the rest of the house that's built up through my own multiple bouts of illness over the last decade. ::takes a moment to flail::
So that's why I've been awol from fandom and lj lately. And the situation probably won't improve too much in the next little while, though I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and my candles burning (figuratively when not literally) in the hope that things *will* start improving now, however gradually. ::knocks on wood, pressboard, formica::
All this and I still haven't brought any new cats into my life yet. Want kitty. NEED kitty. ::flails and pouts::
I have no idea when I'll post again. Hopefully soon but more likely it'll be a while again.
Wait, that last one is not completely true. I have been reading tons of fic (99% either Rodney-based SGA and Xander-based BtVS), and so I've seen a bit of Merlin fervor and Trek-Reboot fever. And I've also noticed that I'm not alone in my adoration for Burn Notice and Leverage. (Though so far I've waited in vain for the Psych/Sentinel fusion where Shawn is a Sentinel and Gus is his Guide. *le sigh* Recs, anyone?)
But mostly, I'm pathetically out of touch with fandom and with my flist. Over the weekend, I actually had to go to the VividCon website to make sure I hadn't accidentally missed the con. Of course, I may still have to miss it intentionally, but I still have my fingers crossed that I'll be able get there for at least one day. Maybe. I hope.
What I have been doing - when not reading copious amounts of fic to keep from sucking my thumb and/or chewing on the ends of my hair - is wrestling with hospitals and the nursing home/rehab center and keeping the neighbors informed and falling further and further behind in doing dishes and laundry and, well, dealing with my mom's sudden and rather shocking decline. That, hindsight being 20-20, I now realize hasn't really been all that sudden at all. And there's still hope that she'll be able to get better, especially since her test results haven't shown any life-threatening illness type news.
But there's been major weight loss and decreased appetite and refusing to eat and 'failure to thrive' and mental confusion (that we're still not sure whether it's being caused by the malnourishment and dehydration, or by the beginnings of dementia and/or Alzheimer's, which mom's mother aka my grandmother had) and falls and paramedics and ambulance rights and emergency room visits followed by hospitalizations followed by nursing home/rehab facility stays ... and medical tests and tons of doctors and nurses and therapists and the inevitable Medicare billing screw-ups ... and home health care evaluations and a brief but terrifying mention of home hospice care ... and on and on and~
Her first fall was the scary one actually. She tripped in my hallway and the next thing I knew there was a puddle of blood under her head and lots of shared terror. At least I remembered that head wounds bleed like nothing you'd ever imagine - unless you're read a lot of h/c style fic, anyway, which I do and therefore was able to keep my head long enough to find that all that blood OMG!!!!! was coming from a less-than-two-inch cut in mom's forehead. But still, she couldn't stand up on her own and I couldn't help her. No broken bones, no concussion, but some spectacular bruising on her face, neck, and side that's still noticeable now, six weeks later.
She spent a week in hospital for that, then two weeks in rehab at the nursing home. Then she came home (too soon, but she insisted) and I somehow managed to sort of take care of her for about a week before she fell out of bed overnight (no blood or bruising this time) and was back in the hospital for another week. And now she's back in the nursing home/rehab for a longer stay that will hopefully get her back on her feet and semi-independent again - but still could end up with her moved over to their long-term care because (with my own limitations and disabilities) I wouldn't be able to take care of her properly at home if she isn't able to improve....
On the other hand, I have the best neighbors in the world! They've helped me clear out my storage room (aka the back bedroom) and move down the bed from mom's guest room so she could stay down here in my apartment when she was home from rehab for that frustratingly brief time. They've helped with laundry. They've carried groceries up to my apartment. They've offered support and assistance and have just been altogether terrific, even though I tend to be the invisible semi-agoraphobic hermit neighbor a lot of the time.
Of course, right now my kitchen looks a bit like a warehouse, with all the stuff from my storeroom piled on one side of the room (except for about a dozen boxes in the living room that didn't fit in the kitchen) and just enough room to maneuver between doors, fridge and work areas. I really haven't had time to even begin to tackle all that stuff yet, let alone the excess clutter in the rest of the house that's built up through my own multiple bouts of illness over the last decade. ::takes a moment to flail::
So that's why I've been awol from fandom and lj lately. And the situation probably won't improve too much in the next little while, though I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and my candles burning (figuratively when not literally) in the hope that things *will* start improving now, however gradually. ::knocks on wood, pressboard, formica::
All this and I still haven't brought any new cats into my life yet. Want kitty. NEED kitty. ::flails and pouts::
I have no idea when I'll post again. Hopefully soon but more likely it'll be a while again.
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