MOM MOVED TO A NEW RESIDENCE - AND WE HAD PROBLEMS TAKING HER OUT TO THE DOCTOR

 I am guessing that I have mentioned before that I have an older mom – 93 now. She has been living in a very nice assisted living residence which is run by a non-profit organization of our faith. I mention the last part of that sentence as due to same it has been a very comfortable atmosphere for her – the rabbi's wife comes in late Fridays to light the Sabbath candles, the rabbi comes by for holiday services – they have a synagogue for same, the seats are fold up chairs so the space can be used as multipurpose room – including setting up tables and chairs for a New Year's party. Each floor has on the wall 2 Sedar plates (ceremonial plates used for Passover) framed and hanging on the wall – a comforting thing to see and helps one remember at which floor to get off the elevator. Familiar traditional foods for holidays and in general are served. While the residence is non-sectarian (I had a friend who was Roman Catholic who lived there for some time before she passed away and when I would talk to her – she would talk about how nice it was (and feeling uncomfortable due to her religion to go inside she would sit outside the synagogue to hear and see the services), it is very comforting to older Jewish people to have this atmosphere of their life as it had been around them.

Unfortunately it is also rather expensive and mom (being 93) has come to the point where she no longer can afford to live there, as well as reaching the point where she needs more care. The organization also has a rehabilitation and nursing home building on the site (and are currently building apartment buildings for those who are not in the need of either type of facility, but are looking to live with some help available to them). The nursing home does not have any vacancies – but the non-profit just took over another nursing home at a different location and it did have vacancies – so last Friday my sister and her family moved mom to this nursing home.

Two months ago I had made an appointment for mom to go yesterday (Tuesday) to a doctor (the one husband and I cannot stand their disorganization). I may have mentioned that husband and I are the “mom shleppers” we take mom to her doctor appointments (except during most of the pandemic as we are limited in going out due to same, but we had to start doing so again to help out my sister). Over the past two months mom has gone for tests at this doctor's office but now she was finally going to see the doctor himself. I checked with my sister when she told me that mom was being moved as to mom continuing to see her doctors and my sister told me that it was not a problem – “you just go and pick her up – same as before”. Well, yesterday we found out – not so much.

My sister told me over the weekend that we had to be “certified” to take mom out in our car. She has spoken with mom's caseworker and it would not a be a problem – she would do it when we came to pick up mom. (Implies that she knows we are taking mom out and when?)

I called the nursing home on Monday (first business day after mom moved in) to talk to mom's caseworker – voicemail that she would call back the next day, left a message. I called again and spoke with the front desk and was put through – another caseworker, then nursing director, then nursing supervisor – all went to voicemail with same message. Then I was put through to the physical therapy department (as they would do the certification) and spoke with a woman there – who said that they, not the caseworker do the certifications. I was concerned as we had been told it was a 15 minute process – and we would be on a very tight schedule. Mom is now living a half an hour further away from us – and from this doctor, along with allowing for getting mom into the car we were leaving at 2:30 for her 4pm appointment – we added another half hour for certification instead of 15 minutes – just in case.

Sounds organized – right?

Quite literally as we pulled off our driveway into the street my cell phone rang. It was the caseworker telling me that I could not take mom out as no arrangements had been made in advance to take her out and who was this doctor anyway – they know nothing about him – arrangements have to made 72 hours (3 days) in advance! I explained to her that this appointment had been 2 months ago, “yesterday” (Monday) was the first business day since mom had moved there, etc. I gave her the doctor's name and where he was located for her to talk to and we continued on our trip.

We were using GPS to find the location of the nursing home. Our timing was about to right to get there – but husband got confused about the GPS directions when we got off the main road (despite my figuring out where it would be located and explaining same in advance – so we had to make 2 U-turns (went wrong way, then passed turn on way back) and he hates to make U-turns. The location is on the service road of the main road – limited access highway – on the Island. As we drove we passed a senior residence from another company – just before it the GPS told us to stay right and then turn right – the road ahead of us split to the right and to the left was the entry back onto the highway in the direction we had come from, so we stayed right – boy, oh boy was that an error! It took us another 15 minutes to get back to the expressway service road. Go figure, below the sign for the other senior residence was a sign for mom's. There at last!

When we went in the entrance and I said mom's name the woman at the desk said “Oh, yes!”. She knew why we were there and who to call. Someone showed up in a couple minutes with mom (the caseworker I found out) and two people showed up to certify us to take mom out. (This did impress me a lot.)

I was given papers to sign and papers to keep and a large envelope to give to the doctor's staff for info from them about mom's visit. The certifying us to take her in car was just watching us help her get in the car – and mostly they did so. And we were off!

The doctor's visit was annoying as always – and I will skip the details other one of the two us had to leave when the doctor came (room too small, my fanny we have been both together with her in that room before) and I left husband as he better understands what doctors are saying (from years running a medical facility he speaks “doctor”).

We then brought mom back to her new home. It was rush hour and we were traveling in the direction that most of the rush hour travels so it took awhile. When we arrived back at her nursing home we wheeled her in – very impressed with them again – my error, I left mom's “pass” out in the car and ran out and got it for them. I explained that mom had not had dinner as when I made the appointment and she was at the old location her dinner was 6:15 and I had timed it out for her to be home for same, now that her dinner is 5 pm, I will try to make future appointments to take same into account. In normal times we would have taken her out for dinner (would solve our dinner problem also), but due to Covid we did not want to do so. No problem, they would make sure she had something to eat.

We then started our trek home in rush hour.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – Always find out in advance about what needs to be done when going somewhere for the first time. Per the paperwork from the certification they need to know 72 hours in advance if mom will be going out to okay it with her doctor and they have to know at least that far in advance about any medical appointments.

I made the mistake of relying on my sister and not calling when she first said that mom would be moving here to find out about taking mom out and so on.

An aside – I did finish the paperwork for the real estate tax exemption over this past weekend and we drove today to the County building and I delivered it to the County Assessor's office and received a receipt for it. This office is normally jammed out the door, especially this time of year. There was one person in there talking to an employee, when they left, I was next and when I was leaving one other person walked in. When I commented on this to the employee who helped me he said “You should have been here an hour ago – the line was huge.” I guess going places late in the day has an advantage.

THIS DOCTOR'S OFFICE IS NEVER ORGANIZED

 Sorry to post late again.  Yesterday was a short day as we had to get ready to take my 93 yo mom to a doctor today.  

Before the pandemic my husband and I had been “the schleppers”.  Since both of my sisters and their husbands work full time and we are mostly retired and both self-employed, we can better spend time, normally, to take mom to assorted doctors and similar.

During the pandemic it has been tried as hard as possible for mom not to leave her assisted living residence to decrease her contacts with people and her chances of getting Covid.  (Her residence has done what we think is an excellent job of keeping the residents safe and well from the pandemic.)

Since my husband and I are also “seniors” and both have medical conditions which further make us high risk for Covid, my middle sister, who handles most of things involving my mom, had to take over as schlepper also for some medical emergencies which arose.  

But schlepping mom in addition to sister's needing to deal with her husband's medical conditions and her own, meant that she used up all of her allowed time off from work.  So we had to step up and take mom today to one of her doctors.  

We don't mind taking mom – my husband says he even enjoys it somewhat as it is something different for us to do – but we REALLY don't like take her to one doctor's office.  Doctor is a good doctor – that my brother-in-law is alive is proof of that as brother-in-law has heart trouble and very nice - but his office is in a building which houses doctors who are part of a network.  It is dealing with the network that drives husband and me crazy.  

Our first dealings with this doctor and this setup was a nightmare – in organization and it this continues to be true.  We took mom there after she had been in the hospital and had to go for followup (he had not seen her in the hospital).  The followup was the day after she had been to the hospital and my sister had made the arrangements.  We arrived for her appointment and the appointment had been made with a different doctor.  After a telephone conversation with my sister – it was to be Dr. Q or no one.  With my sister, my husband and I all complaining the office staff setup an appointment with Dr. Q for mom – some hours later in the day.  We had lunch.  We ended up spending the time between in Barnes and Nobles – husband walked around looking at what he wanted to and I pushed mom in her wheelchair aisle by aisle through the store.  When we saw the doctor basically he said nothing needed to be done – and mom should be retested at a (fixed) future date.  

When I try to make appointments for mom they cannot be made with the doctors' office, but need to be made though the hospital system's setup – for a doctor appointment in New York State I have to telephone to Florida!

No appointment up to now has gone well and all involved sitting in the waiting room for this group of doctors for hours.  Nothing is done at the appointments – each time they take mom's information again and try to weigh her (she can barely stand – how can she stand on a scale and not hold on – I have learned to get the wellness office at her residence give me in writing her last weight taken there, as well as copy of her meds).

Mom had a problem two weeks ago and was taken to a local hospital as an outpatient – and was referred back to her doctor.  Since, my sister could not take her – it was up to us.  I told mom about the appointment during our weekly telephone call last week and again by telephone, reminded her the yesterday.   We over allowed time to get to her and get her to the doctor as we never know what the traffic will be driving out there (about 45 minutes away from us) or how long it will take us to get her ready and out to our car.  

Everything went fine picking her up and getting her into the car (not an easy thing to do).  Drive to the doctor went fine – but all this is the easy part.  When we arrived at the building his office is in (again, a building offices of doctors all associated with this hospital group – a one story building) there was havoc in the parking lot.  The lot was completely filled and they were parking one's car for one so they could move it as needed.  This has happened before, but never saw so busy as today.  Husband dropped mom, in her wheelchair, and me off at the door to doctor's office – we had figured on this problem and he had planned to stay in the car if he could not park, though he likes to come in with us as he worked in a medical related field and talks “doctor”, as well as it is good to have two people listening (mom's hearing is not good).

When I mom and I entered the waiting room of doctor's office I was shocked at how empty it was.  I had to sign her in on a tablet (theirs) based system – I remembered to bring my soft tip stylus to use on the tablet as I don't show up on it when I use my finger, let alone I did not want to touch a touch pad that other people have touching.  One problem is always asks for one to put their hand on it for sign in – not sure why and while my hand does not, of course, work for this – neither did mom's when she tried it our first trip there.  I made sure to wipe my hand down well with hand sanitizer after wards – is this the best idea, for everyone to touching their hands to these pads during the pandemic?  Husband came in rather quickly – he had been lucky a car pulled out and he pulled in.  

We were shocked when we were actually called into to see the nurse practitioner a bit early.  I had taken an appointment with her as the doctor did not have any open appointments until December.  Hmm, maybe things were not as bad as they had been?  

Nurse who took us in started taking doing a test on mom.  She talked with us about why we were there and then left room.  Yeah, there had to be a problem.  The nurse practitioner we had the appointment with was not associated with mom's doctor and did not work in the same medical field as we were there for!  As I was getting ready to scream and yell – “not easy to take mom out, not good for her to be out at all...” they said that they were making arrangements for a correct person to see her.  So we did get to deal with the exam today.  Told that what she came there about – she was okay, changed a medication to help with the problem – BUT – she has an entirely different problem!!!

So we now have 3 more appointments for mom – two for testing (3 tests – 2 given together) and one to see the doctor – himself.  

Not the most organize place to go and I am not sure if they had not made the mistake they would have done the EKG at all – and her medical tests at her residence's doctor have not shown any of the problems they say exist!

On the other hand – it was good to see her.  

Tomorrow it is suppose to rain, first day it does not, we have to put our car back together as it normally is and I have to move things I keep in the front for mom to sit in the front passenger seat as that is hard enough for her to get into, the back seat would be impossible.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes things go well, sometimes we have to deal with stupidity and there is nothing we can do about it.  As husband once said to me when I was upset when he was in medical office with similar problems - “stop getting them upset – they are going to be giving me shots!!”

WORKED ON CLEARING UP OUR STUDIO SOME MORE

 Sorry for the delay in posting.  We managed to get appointments for our first Covid vaccinations during this past week and it diverted my time and attention.  (We are both in our late 60s.)

Last post I was talking about working on clearing out our studio.  I worked on the area behind my work table.  (Husband and I each have 5 foot long table and the tables touch along the length – this gives us a 5 foot by 5 foot table if we use both together for larger projects.)  Items which were normally on top of my table as well as items that had recently been put on my table – craft projects from when I was young that I had brought from my family home when it was being – all had to be moved off of the table when I needed it for the food storage.  The items were not sorted through and ended up on the floor in front of the table as well as on my chair and on top of the items on the small side table to my main table.  (They make an L together.)  It has not been easy to get to the far end of the table where items such as spare plastic bags – sandwich size, gallon size, and similar as well as some of the less other less often needed items are stacked.  I should also explain that under my work table is the storage for a lot of the inventory we made and take to craft shows when we do same so that space is not available for storage for anything new.  

I started going through the mess behind my table.  I found items to be donated – forgot about them in the year since.  I found items I made while still living at home and put them in the bags that were holding other similar items.  I have to figure out what to do them.  One piece, which I had embroidered as a gift for my parents' fortieth anniversary and has come back to me, is framed and I had husband hang on the wall behind my chair in the studio – it had been on the floor in the dining room and I had been afraid that one of us would trip and put a foot through it.  I have to decide what to do the other pieces.  Most of the others are not framed and were never finished into anything.  These days I often finish pieces by basically making a small quilt of the piece so it can be stored easily in a drawer, as well as easily taken to an embroidery demonstration when I do same.  

I can now walk all the way to my small side table – the next mess to deal with as things have been tossed in it's general direction (and not always making the distance) since the area was blocked.  I had taken a plastic holder which has open storage of thread spools on it to get a spool and when I put it back – I missed the spot and the spools fell on the table and the floor.  I can now get my chair out and go around and clear up the floor around it and deal with what is on the small table.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When it is YOUR turn – do go and get vaccinated for Covid.  We all need to do our part to reopen the world.  I know several people who have died from it – including a young woman – a teacher – in her twenties.  

My sisters and I have not been able to see our 91 (92 end of the month) year old mother since last March.  Last year my sister went to see mom for her birthday and found the doors to her assisted living residence locked.  There was a cart outside with a note that no one was allowed in and if one had anything for a resident to leave it on the cart with their name and apartment number and it would be given to them.  So mom's cake and gift and left.  My sisters have seen mom – from the outside of a fence with mom seated on a chair inside the fence a distance away.  I have not seen mom as we are not going out except for necessities in over a year.  

We need to get vaccinated so that families can be together again – mom's time left with us is limited and we do want to see her  - in person – again.  We also need to get vaccinated so young people just starting out in life have a life ahead of them and so that children do not think how we must live for now is normal.  

FACING SILLY FEARS AND GETTING THINGS DONE

 Over the decades I have developed an aversion to the telephone phone.   We tend to get very few phone calls other than spam calls or calls from companies we deal with who annoy us about something.  I mean very few phone calls – less than 10 or maybe even 5, a month.  If the phone rings we freeze in place until we hear on the answering machine who is calling.  One problem is that I have learned if something is going on with my mom my sister will send a text unless it is a serious urgent matter – then she calls so that adds to the problem.  I also do not like making phone calls – needed ones or personal ones.  

I currently have a number of calls which have to be made.  I started earlier this week on Tuesday with a call I should have made in late September.  I telephoned our doctor's office and made an appointment for us to have flu shots.  Yes, we know one can go to a chain pharmacy and have the shots, but husband is needlephobic and the last time he had a shot (over 40 years ago) he passed out.  So he was worried about both the lack of privacy when getting a shot at a chain pharmacy and also if he passed out they might call an ambulance and he did not want that.  So the doctor's office it was.  Neither of us has had a flu shot before.  As always, he over read up about the shots making him more concerned. We are very concerned about going out in general, let alone a doctor's office due to Covid-19, but that was the very reason we decided to get the flu vaccine.  We went today.  We were told to wait in our car and telephone when we were there.  We presumed that we would wait in the car and then go into the doctor's office which would be empty of other patients – or perhaps one going in or out.  We were surprised that when we were called to come in there were about 15 people spaced out around the waiting room (it also serves a second doctor).  Luckily the shots went well.

I also have to call – since last month – the post office where our box is located.  I need to check with the very nice fellow I have been speaking with there about if our missing our bank statements were returned to the banks due to printed notations on them – related to letting the sender know if the address changed.  I also want to talk to him as we have now had 3 items returned to the senders – two items mailed to our businesses by our state tax department and one from a credit card company and figure out why these items were returned (and what else might also have been returned).  In addition we had actually gone to the post office late one Sunday night to see if the missing mail was in the box.  It was not, but 4 pieces of mail which should have been forwarded were.  I keep putting off this call, but I really have to get it done with.  

My embroidery chapter will be renewing its meeting room next month – though the rooms are closed and we do not know when they will reopen.  The chapter president who, unlike husband and me – has been going out – when to look at meeting room in a different park which she heard was larger.  Our room has been getting a bit tight and with the idea of maybe needing to social distance on our return (hopefully some time next year) to physical meetings, she had gone to look for other rooms from the same park system and found one.  She is not a resident of the area served by these parks and I am.  She and the woman in charge of the meeting rooms have been conversing by email and including me.  I suddenly realized that the form has to be notarized which means a trip, in person, to the bank - uh oh!  So I emailed the woman from the parks department and asked if there was going to be any allowance on the notarization this year, pointing out that they have my notarized signature from several past years and I was still residing in the same house.  (I am swearing that I am resident of the township.)  She sent an email back asking to talk to me on the phone.  I told her I would call tomorrow.  My stomach is turning over with dread, not over what she will say, but making the actual call.  (My neighbor works in real estate, if I do need the notarization, I will ask if she is notary, if not, I will have to deal with going to the bank for same.)

I have other papers on my desk that I need to make phone calls for, but forget what they are.

Plus Sunday nights I try to call my mom while I am cooking dinner.  I generally cook a frozen dinner on Sunday nights and do not need to do anything while it cooking.  Mom tends to call me at dinner time – generally just as I am about to start cooking on a night that I have to be active to cook the dinner and it is a problem.  So, I have taken to calling her either on Friday nights (I make a similar type of dinner then) or Sunday nights.  Mom either does not hear the phone, does not have enough time to get to the phone before it stops ringing. It rings 4 times and then either the voice mail from the assisted living residence or the answering machine put in by family for her answers.  I have taken to calling her several times in a time in a row to let it keep ringing longer, but even then she often does not answer.  I know she is okay because if she was not, my sister would have been contacted and she would called me.  

Now, I have been very good at calling banks to check that deposits (both mailed by me and automatic) have been received and also checking how much and when payments are due on credit cards and other bills as I currently mailing out payments sooner than normal and do not always have the bill in hand when I need to pay it – or since incoming mail is problematic these days since the corona virus stay at home started and we had to have the mail forwarded from our box to our house, to check that I am correct that nothing is due on the bill.  It seems to be the actual talking to someone that upsets me.  (I learned in the first months of stay at home to call about balances due and such late night as fewer people are calling then.  In early April one bill I kept calling about and the calls were not even  accepted to wait, I was able to reach the company (for a live person) at 12:15 am. )

I especially do not like make telephone calls when my husband is in the room.  He will tell me what to say and correct me (when I am not wrong) if he hears me making calls, so I have to make them when he is elsewhere in the house – which is not often these months.)

So I have been barely getting work done this week – too  busy putting off making the telephone calls.  Hence why this post is out a day late.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Everyone has something they REALLY hate to do.  We all know that we have to do them and get them done with or the problem will be even bigger.  What do you hate to do?

CHANGES IN PLANS OCCUR AND ONE HAS TO DEAL WITH THEM

I had plans for tonight's post – but things come up and I almost forgot what I had planned to write about. 

We were suppose to take mom back to her cancer surgeon today for a second follow up visit.  I have spent part of the last two weeks getting the wellness center at mom's assisted living residence to do the blood tests requested by this and also by mom's oncologist and send the results to them.  My sister who sees mom a lot more than we do as mom lives near her, had to go in and talk to the staff to get the results sent.  I checked with this doctor and the blood work results were finally there – great, we could take her there today.  Oh heck, I had not realized that today was Ash Wednesday when I made the appointment.  Why does that matter?  Well husband is Catholic and cannot eat meat today – so for lunch he had to have Wendys fish instead of his usual lunch.  So?  Well, often eating fried foods makes his stomach ill and we were concerned about eating lunch, then having to drive out, pick up mom, take her to the doctor, take her back to her residence and then drive home if his stomach was bad.  But he figured he would be okay, but was not happy about taking mom to the doctor today.

Yesterday, the day before the appointment, I was called by the doctor's office - though they thought they were calling mom as we gave them my phone number instead – why? - you will see in a later  paragraph.  They wanted to move her appointment an hour earlier.  Big problem.  It takes, from the time we arrive at mom's residence, an hour and a half to get her to an appointment 15-30 minutes from there.  We have to go up to up to her room, take the big wheels off her wheel chair (or it is terribly heavy and does not fit in the back of our car and she cannot deal with getting in out van). Stop at the wellness office for a list of her meds for the doctor (easier than trying to remember).  Get her through the building to the front (only) entrance.  (Mom's apartment is literally the furthest in the building – top floor, end of the hall.) We then have to sign her out of the building – and we have to sign in as we run through the lobby coming in and then again when we leave.  We have found it easier to take mom to our parked car than try to get her in or out of the car in front of the building – curbs and sidewalk cuts are problems.  So we have to push her – uphill – to the parking area – either together or me as too hard for husband to do.  Then we have to get her into the car and stow her wheelchair.  Then the drive.  Then on the other end we have to park – where there is room for mom to get out into her wheelchair (we have to get her a handicapped permit so we can park in those spaces with her) and then get her into the building.  This last can be very easy to do – or hard – one building was on a hill with the building at the bottom of the hill and we had trouble finding the doctor's office – out and down hill, then back up hill – with both of us pushing.  Most of the doctors offices require one to sign in 15 minutes or 30 minutes before the appointment time or they cancel it.  Mom's lunch is at 11:45 am. Her dinner at 4:45 pm. If I make the appointment for 2:30  - it allows us to each lunch, drive out there, pick her at 1 pm and get her to the doctor – after she has eaten lunch.  Other than the “doctor with the office from h*ell”  she will be back at her residence, with the big wheels back on her wheelchair and settled in, in time for her dinner.  So 1:30 pm was a big problem.  We compromised on 2 pm.  

So now mom was going to have a problem with her lunch, husband was going to have a problem with his lunch – so I had a problem in general.  Then I had a thought.  I telephoned the doctor's office back and asked about moving the appointment to a different day.  Doctor would have plenty of time to her surgery and not rush us, husband did not have to worry about his stomach after lunch, and mom would not miss lunch.  First date offered was next Wednesday – my embroidery meeting and my only day out – no way.  We settled on a date in mid March.  Doctor's office happy.  Husband happy.  I had to call mom and let her know of the change.  I had been texting my sister as I went along in case she spoke to mom before I did, she could let mom know.  Mom is hard to reach, at least for me, by telephone.  By the time that generally I can call her in the afternoon – she is at dinner.  I figured that the best time to call was around 7:30 pm as that is when she calls me.  First time I left a message – but knew she would never get it.  I called another 4 times as time passed.  I went down to cook dinner.  Mom called,  “Did you call me?”  I explained.  “No, I never hear that there are messages.”  Huh, hear that there is a message, she has to look at the machine – and has being doing so for over 40 years.  Okay, go on there from there.  She remembered we suppose to go the next day and I explained about the change.  Fine with her.  We discussed it four times.  I also told her that if my sister called and said it was to be earlier tomorrow – that was old news and changed.  We did not get a call from her today asking where we were so apparently all went well with the change.  Mom is 90 and a year ago I would not question that she understood and would remember the appointment and the change,  but a year can make a big difference.

Next wonderfulness was our basement freezer.  We have a small freezer that we bought probably 30 years ago or more (it has out lived at least 2 refrigerators, probably 3).  We used to grow vegetables in our back yard in summer and would freeze the excess in this freezer.  Have not done so in at least a decade and it was being used for backup frozen vegetables and meat since, until about 3 years ago when we somehow switched to buy the food for dinner that day.  So it has mostly sat in the basement with some commercial frozen vegetables in it and a few other items.  Last year we used it when our refrigerator died and we had some items in its freezer.  It had about 4-5 inches of ice on the top coils.  Husband will not let me put frozen items at the back of the freezer in the new refrigerator – he read an article that the back needs lots of space for air to circulate – so I have (somehow) a smaller freezer in this refrigerator than our old and I cannot use about 1/6-1/4 of the space in it.  I figured I would melt the ice in the basement freezer so it could go back to being used – and since there was nothing in it as we used the last item stored in it about a month ago – this was the time to do it. 

I knew it would take a long time and would be messy. I had a plan.  I needed to remember to do this when we come home fairly early from running errands.  Today was the day.  We were home early and I would be making many trips to the basement at night to do laundry and could combine the trips down for both purposes.  When we came home I went to the basement and shut off the freezer.  I put in two large, deep baking pans – one on the right of one shelf and one on the left of the other shelf to catch the dripping water as I knew the bottom drip pan would not hold anywhere near enough and would be a mess to empty.  I grabbed lots of old used for junk purposes towels and spread them in front of the freezer.  I propped the door open, set an alarm for an hour and went upstairs to work.  An hour later – nothing had started – reset the alarm and back upstairs.  An hour later – still no melting, reset again and started to cook dinner.  After dinner while watching TV in the kitchen the alarm went off again. I went back down – goody!!  Two small puddles (dots) of water in one of the baking pans – it was working.  I went back to the kitchen – husband asked what I was doing.  I told him.  He had to inspect the situation.  He decided that what I was doing would never work.  He was going to use his heat gun.  Luckily he decided that was too hot.  We sat there for a couple of hours as he melted the ice with his hairdryer.  Dumping the baking pans and a couple of times the bottom drip pan into a bucket.  (I have done this before – just with a lot less ice – and knew that I would not be able to carry the baking pans or the drip pan to the sink without spilling.  Finally the last big piece of ice was loose and fell free.  After dumping the last of the water and ice into the basement sink he went upstairs and I dried the inside of the freezer. It is sitting with the door ajar to dry out before being plugged back in. 

Sooo, my post on doing your income taxes will be delayed until at least next week. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Plans are plans  - until they go awry.  Whether the appointment has to be changed for someone else's convenience or needs or what you plan to do in the house needs to be done differently than you think it will  - and takes more of your time as a result, or have you plans to write something and other items come up which need to be written about first  - they go awry. 

One has to deal with the changes and see what can be done.  If nothing else – the appointment change and the change in how we had to defrost the freezer gave me something to write about and you get out of hearing about income taxes for at least a week!

WHY MY POST WAS SO SHORT LAST WEEK - MOM AND ANOTHER DOCTOR

Sorry for last week. We ended up having to take mom to an oncologist on Wednesday – the day before Thanksgiving and the day that I normally would write my post and post it – and I had to cook for Thanksgiving that night.

I realize that taking mom to a doctor is more time consuming than you might think. Remember – mom is 90. We have to allow an hour and a half to get her out to the car, up, drive her to whichever doctor we are going to (all with 30 minutes of her assisted living residence, most within 20 minutes), and get her into the doctor's office.

Why does it take this long? Well, when we get to her residence we park in the lot. We walk to the building and walk in – have to stop and sign in. Mom's apartment is – literally – the furthest one in the place. She is on the top (third) floor and is in the last room on the furthest hall – if we are running late picking her up and have to run - getting to her apartment is a good cardio workout. We go the elevator, go to the third floor and start walking (unless as mentioned we have to run).

Mom will be sitting in her wheelchair waiting for us. She uses a walker around the building, but when go out it is quicker and easier to take her in wheelchair. But – first she has to stand up with the walker so that we can take the two large wheels off the chair. In case you did not know this – the large wheels on the sides of wheelchairs can be removed (on hers we push in the axle and then pull the wheel off) and there are 4 smaller wheels. The big wheels are there so the person in the wheelchair can reach the wheels and push them to get around. (Mom will “walk” the wheelchair – sitting, but walking her feet to make it go when she uses it alone.) If we leave the big wheels on it is too heavy for us to lift into the back of our car and does not fold as flat. Big wheels off the chair she sits down in it again – we check that she has her room key, her medical insurance card and her driver's license (to be changed this coming year to a non-driver's ID). Even when one has been to a doctor before they need the insurance cards and her ID again. (One doctor is in the local hospital and we all need to show ID to enter and have to allow time for same as there might be a line – we each get an ID tag good for a day with the photo and info from our licenses on them.). When she is back in her wheelchair we head out her door to the hall.

There is what is called a wellness office in the building which, luckily for us, is on the same floor as mom. It is set up like a small clinic – receptionist, nurse's office, 2 examining rooms, and a medication room. In this last there are file cabinets with loose leaf books with pages with plastic bubbles on them with the medications for a month for each resident – each time during the day that the resident needs to take a medication there is a separate page. One thing that impressed me is that there is a photo of the resident in front of her/his pill pages so they can be sure that the correct person gets the correct medications. If mom has not been at a doctor that month I call ahead and ask for them to give me a copy of her medications – easiest way to given them to the doctor. The first time the nurse added mom's height and weight and since she cannot stand without holding on to someone or something and one doctor's office insisted that they had to take her weight, I now ask for her height and weight to be listed. Sometimes it is waiting for us when I call ahead, often it is not – so we often need time to pickup the info pages or wait for it to be done. If mom will be away from the residence when she is to take a pill, they will give ME the pills (they cannot give them to her per them as the resident might forget them or take them at the wrong time). Lately I already have the meds from last time and she will not miss medications so we can avoid this stop.

We then go back downstairs in the elevator and head back to the front desk. If mom will miss a meal we have to stop and we are not able to take her out to eat that meal, when we stop at the front desk to sign her out – and sign that we are leaving - we order a tray for her to be delivered to her room – this can take awhile for her to decide. We go out to the car and help her get in the front passenger seat. Ahead of time we clear out the hatch area at the back of the car for her wheelchair – it takes both of us to load and unload it. I ride in the back seat. That is at least a half an hour gone.

We then start driving to whichever doctor we are going to. At this point we are taking her to 4 different doctors – on different days - and still need to set up appointments for her for hearing aids (so we don't have repeat everything the doctor says by yelling it to her) and for spot on her face that has to be removed. She also wants to go and “get the shots” in her knees so that they don't hurt or least not as much.

Depending on the doctor (well his/her location) parking may be easy or hard. Generally it is not too bad – except there is one doctor whose office is “heck” and seems to be the worst organized place we have ever been and sometimes husband has to drop us off and then go look for a parking space.

The doctor we went to last Wednesday is in a temporary office and the building is on a hill – with most of the parking in the rear – uphill. Husband dropped us off at the back (main) door and went to park so we would not have to deal with the hill. We went in on the second floor as a result. There was a very small hallway area – basically a large room and we went through all of it and could not find an elevator. Husband said to me “I told you always check that the office is wheelchair accessible. “ we decided that since the front of the building on the right side had a big sign for the group that the doctor is part of, maybe we had to go there. So we went back out and around the building – downhill trying not to let the wheelchair and mom get away from us. The front of the building had stairs! Husband went in and asked and they told him to use the rear door – where we had been = there was an elevator and they could not understand how we could have missed it (none of us saw it). We each took a handle to wheelchair and huffed and puffed our way back up the hill. We went in the building second door on the left was the elevator! (I would swear it was not there before). You know the expression - “if it was a snake it would have bitten us?”). Rest of the visit went well and we took mom out to lunch at Wendys – she insists on paying for us.

We allow the extra half hour for things like this – not being able to find the elevator or problems parking or whatever. Some doctors say that if one is there 15 minutes or in one case, half an hour, before your appointment it will be canceled – why the heck don't they just make your appointment for the earlier time, especially as they don't tell you this until you are at the office.

We also have to allow time to get to mom. It is a half an hour minimum to drive out there – if there is traffic, especially rush hour – morning or afternoon, or an accident we need to allow extra time. The time we were going to the doctor who is half hour from her, there was an accident on the road after we picked her up and were on our way – the extra half hour saved us from being late. Of course if it is early (for us) we have to get up and get dressed and sometimes eat lunch before we go.

After the appointment the entire process is done in reverse - including signing mom back into her residence – sometimes ordering a tray for her then, taking her back to her room and putting the wheels back on her wheelchair. We may also have stop in the Wellness office with instructions from the doctor or to let the nurse know to expect same to come. Sometimes we will walk around a bit if we have time before her dinner.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When you do something over and over – even with slight variations – take note of how long each part takes and use that information for doing whatever it is again in the future. But – always allow a bit of wiggle room as one never knows when there will be a accident on the road to the doctor or they actually want you there earlier than you are suppose to be there.

CLEARING OUT THE FAMILY HOME.

I have several large plastic bags with stuff that we took from my family home.

I am not calling it mom's house as my sisters and I do as it is really the family home. My family moved there when I was 5. My (now) middle sister was 6 months old and “baby” sister was 7 years in the future. While I remember the apartment that my parents and I – and middle sister briefly – lived in before the house, my sisters have no memories of any other home growing up. It was a huge house to me coming from the 3 room apartment we lived in before. When middle sister was born I was moved from sleeping on the opposite side of my parents bedroom from where they slept (I often wonder how they managed to create my sister with me sleeping in their bedroom) to a cot in the living room. Since the only TV (a large 1950s console set) was in the living room I got to watch such late night shows as “the Late Show” (old movies) and the early versions of “the Tonight Show – back when Johnny Carson was just a page at NBC, California with my parents – or they could not watch them. I have been thinking a lot about those early days of our family lately – both as my mother is 90 and with the clearing out of our house for the sale of it. I have not taken a lot of family stuff as I am in my mid 60s and have no children to inherit any of the family house – it will eventually reside with my niece or nephew any way.

Since we had the bed bugs here in our home I am always concerned about getting them again. We have a device called a Packtite. It is the size of a very large softsided suitcase with a rack and a heater in it. It is intended to place suitcases in after one has been on a trip to heat the suitcases and what is in them to kill any bed bugs that might have come home with one. Because I am a crazy person, we have it set up with a laundry basket – that we drilled in holes in the bottom of to allow for air flow – in it and we heat any soft items – paper, fabric and the like that we bring into the house – that we are concerned might have bed bugs in them. So the items from my family home - mostly papers and needlework of mine from when I was much younger – all has to be heated.

I am doing so in small batches and have finished two large bags so far. I am going through these items I took when there or my sister set aside for me. (She said she had a box for me – I expected an office files sized box- there were two of them plus other stuff in the box she left.) It is a trip down memory lane and a record of what I considered important enough to keep at one or another point in time. I have found work appointment books from my early days in accounting (could have used one of them when I was positive that I knew a building in a scene on “Blue Bloods” and went crazy to find it and then figure out how I knew it – it was where a client had his factory – the work appointment books also have clients contact info). School grades – I did as badly as I remember. Lots of occasion cards – birthdays, engagement – ours and friends, anniversaries, Valentines (old boyfriends same went straight to the paper shredder), and so on. I have been weeding through – baby age birthday cards, one copy of wedding related paper items, cards from certain people – parents, sisters, husband, a few very good friends, a special aunt &uncle, my grandparents were kept – others were shredded. I found some remembrances of things such as graduation or awards programs – kept, articles I had published in the college newspaper – kept, personal diaries – kept.

Of course I am keeping my needlework – finished or not. I did leave behind two latch hooked throw rugs that were finished except for the edging as I figured they might sell and make a couple of buck for mom, plus husband said to me as I looked at them “Where would we put them?”. I did decide after leaving them if when we went back they were still there I would take them – but we did not get back while they were still in sight.

So I am trying to figure out what to add to the mess of stuff here in husband and my home, without going overboard. I was a bit “lucky”. My toys would have been the hardest to deal with and decide who “lived” and who “died” but the house was hit by Hurricane Sandy and the basement where most of the toys were flooded and they had to be tossed out then by the crew that came in and worked on the basement. Not only were they not there for me to deal with, I had already “mourned their loss”.

There were 5 items in particular that I was looking for. My Girl Scout sash -with my few badges and my annual star pins on it. I had put together a loose leaf book with hand copied lyrics to old folk songs. My dad had given me one of his army shirts from when he was in same during World War II during the late 1960s/early 1970s when wearing army shirts was popular. There is a stapled binding, thin, soft-covered book about our family in “the old country”. Lastly, when I was in high school I embroidered a table cloth. When I got married we could not find it, I figured if any of it ever would turn up – it would be as the house was emptied. I have the army shirt and the loose leaf book of song lyrics. The other items did not show up.

There has been a tag sale by a company that my sister found and much of the contents of the house are gone. We have to go in and clean and fix it up a bit before we sell it. The next day neighbor already is telling us about someone she knows who is interested in the house.

Just in case anyone is interested – mom has had her pacemaker (or its battery – story of what is to be done was different to my sister and me) replaced, so we won't have to figure out how to plug into a wall outlet if it dies. :-) She has also had (within the same week) surgery to remove a lesion that was causing her anemia. As of tonight she is back in her apartment at her assisted living facility – pretty good for a 90 year old woman I think.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - If you were getting ready of your family home – or your own home – what would you be looking for as you would want to make sure that you kept them?

MOM AND MY FAMILY HOME

We are currently dealing with mom and two cardiologists. For those of you who joined since or have forgotten, mom is 90. Shortly after her 90^th birthday she started having problems (http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/05/sometimes-fate-is-having-fun-with-one.html) and can no longer live at home alone. She went through short term physical rehab at a very nice local facility and since then has moved into their assisted living facility. While they do a great job of helping her and taking care of her – mostly she gets around by herself - they have been doing physical therapy and she can walk with a walker better than she has done in years - and she is back in her full mind again from just the fact of having people around her and things to keep her mind active.

Back in August it was found that she blood clots in her legs and she was given medication. She was also referred to my brother-on-law's cardiologist who is also a vein doctor for followup scan about a week after the clots were discovered. I posted the story of that nightmare - wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/08/29 Her leg was not scanned. We ended up going back not the 3 weeks later that this doctor wanted, but instead on October 7 as it took until then to get an appointment. The scan was not done then either as the appointment was made by a third party appointment service for someone who does not do scans – understand we drove out to where mom is, got her into the car, took her to the doctor's office and had her medical history taken – and nothing else – TWICE (and of course her medical insurance was billed for 2 office visits). When we left the second time we made an appointment for the scan – for this coming Saturday (remember this is about 2 months after we were told that she needed to have her legs scanned right away and then a week later when her leg was not scanned - we were told it needed to be done in 3 weeks). Despite everything we had been told, the doctor does not do the scan, so after it is done we will first have to return on November for the doctor to interpret the scan.

Next problem – mom has a pacemaker. It was put in 10 years ago. The battery in it is tested every few months and the last test was at the start of October and we were told that the battery had less than 2 months left on it. Soooo, the replacement of the pacemaker was moved into priority. This came up shortly before the second time mom did not have the leg scan and we asked that cardiologist's office (per the doctor – they only do heart “plumbing” and we need someone who does heart “electricity” for this) for a cardiologist who would do this procedure as mom's doctor for same is an hour away where our family home is. We were upset that this doctor would have the same sort of circus for an office as the other, but it is quite the opposite. Mom was seen by this doctor (M) a week after she had been in the other doctor (B)'s office. Yes, she needs to have her pacemaker replaced. I was telephoned the next morning with two appointments – a week later (yesterday) for presurgery exam at hospital and next week she will have the procedure. 2½ weeks and this will be done – the other doctor 21/2 months and still nothing has been done!

In the middle of running with mom (plus all the car problems) I realized that I had to renew one of husband's medications and called the pharmacy. The doctor refused to renew it without an exam. We really cannot fit in a doctor visit for us right now – mom's pacemaker does take precedence, so I telephoned and explained and made appointments for us the first week in November. Ummm, I missed that we are going for blood work in the morning of the day mom is scheduled to have her scans read – and it is election day! Well, we work it out somehow. Doctor renewed prescription for 10 days – when we were not due in for 3 weeks – but we had enough left to work it out.

Then it occurred to me that the scan of her legs would be done between the presurgery testing and the surgery – telephoned the doctor doing the surgery to make sure that this would not be a problem – we did not want to give up the appointment that would, hopefully, finally resolve her leg scans, but the pacemaker is more of an emergency. It is not a problem.

My sister will get mom to the hospital for the pacemaker surgery as it is 9 am. We figured out that between allowing for rush hour traffic (as we do not live near where mom is) and then the hour and a half we need to pick her up, get her in the car, drive her the 20 minute trip (and again – it is rush hour, so need more time) and then get her into the hospital – at 8:30 – would mean that we would have to leave home at 5:30 am. My sister lives near mom and the hospital.

Okay, so 4 doctor appointments for mom, 2 doctor appointments for each of us, I have to go to a client tomorrow, my birthday falls in the middle of all this which is all within a month – and at some point we will be called to go pick up our RV out of state. We also had reenactment event, board meeting, and general meeting – which husband as VP had to run and we had signed up to do a presentation for the meeting – over the past weekend. And on the day between our blood work appointments and our doctor appointments I have my embroidery guild meeting.

That's a lot of stuff – well, we can go for weeks with nothing to do, so it is a lot of stuff for us to do. But that it is not all. We - mostly my sisters - have been working on getting stuff out of the family home so it can be sold. http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2019/08/clearing-out-my-old-closet-at-family.html A tag sale company is will hold a sale in the house this coming weekend. My sister had set aside of box of stuff she came across of my stuff. Since the sale starts Friday and I have to work tomorrow – we had to go today and get the stuff. I had hoped it was one or more of the items I told her I wanted – a tablecloth I embroidered in high school which has disappeared and a small book about our family in the old country. I expected a small, office size file box. There was a huge box waiting for me. Some was not mine and I left them for the sale, some we tossed out, most of it I don't really want, but much of it had my name or other info on it and I took it home to shred it. I also now have an embroidery that I made for one of my parents special anniversaries for them.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

I was about to write the thought of the week I was going to write about with all this going on I have kept up – I am doing the laundry, the vehicles are taken of…

Then I remembered – we checked the oil in the car today (it has a problem, there is a class action suit, and we hope it will recalled and fixed) and it was down ½ quart – and we forgot to add oil. Normally it would not matter and I make note to add the oil tomorrow, but tomorrow I am driving to almost Manhattan for work and will be driving in stop and go traffic, at least one way. So I texted husband upstairs (yes, I am that lazy) and he came down and we added the oil – in the dark.

Then I remembered – that it had been raining Sunday when we arrived home from the reenactment event and we had not unpacked the van – we had brought 2 folding reproduction stools, only one of our box benches, a flat table top, the legs to the table and a twin sized blanket (it was cold I used it to keep warm until the sun warmed up the air a bit – and then when it rained, it kept me dry.) Husband will be driving the van tomorrow as I will have the car – so we had to unpack the van.

What more can I say for the thought of the week than – it is life, it goes on, one has to do what one can do, when one can do it.

GOOD GOD ANOTHER WEEK GONE ALREADY!

So, we took mom to the doctor again.  I called and made an appointment.  When asked what the appointment was for I told them Dr B told us mom had to have another scan of her leg and we needed for the scan to be done.  Dr B again not available for a month and I accepted an appointment with a nurse practitioner “W”.  I asked if Dr B would read the test and was told that W would do so.  Well, it has to be done so, okay.  The morning of the appointment I called the “wellness office” at the facility that mom is living at to see if what info they would need from or have for the doctor and got their direct line/fax number.  The woman was surprised that we were taking mom for the scan – they can do at it the facility.  I explained that we did not know that. 

Picked up mom to go to the doctor.  Drove there – we allowed an hour to pick her up and have a 15 minute drive.  I was prepared with a touch screen stylus this time so I could check mom in (I don't show up well on tablets or cell phones) – still had to do it all twice.  The place was quiet and not a madhouse as it had been last time and I started thinking that maybe we just picked up a bad impression based on the one visit.  We were called about 15 minutes after mom's appointment time – I consider that normal and much better than the hours late last time.  W (a nurse practitioner) came in.  She had mom's file on the computer in front of her – she asked the same questions as last time – back to the start of mom's life.  She tried to weigh mom – ummm, woman in wheelchair who can barely stand with walker – and she wanted mom to stand on scale which had nothing to hold onto.  Did not work.  Then she asked why we were there!!!  Huh, this was set up on the phone call and the purpose of our driving 45 minutes to get mom and bring her there…  I explained again about the scan.  “There is no request for a scan on her record.”  I told the entire story a second time.  “No, no scan requested and I don't do scans only X does and she is only in on Wednesdays and sometimes Saturday.”  My BP was rapidly rising.  Apparently Dr B had not many notes on our appointment – then again he had take a call and left us to leave on our own so maybe he never got back to same.  She entered into the computer that mom needs a scan and told us to make an appointment at the desk before we left.  Well, that was an improvement, last time no one told us to do that and made a mess of trying to make an appointment for her.  I stopped at the desk.  We explained and also explained that we needed a different type of cardiologist (yes, cardiologist for her legs) as her pacemaker was checked at her facility and needs to be replaced within 2 months.  They made an appointment for us with a different doctor whose office is at a local hospital.  (And with the craziness in this office I have called the office to make sure that they do the procedure needed and to confirm the appointment.)  We also made an appointment for mom to come back and have her legs scanned and then a separate appointment to have the doctor go over the test with us.  My sister and I agree that mom's scan should be done at the facility she lives at and sister will discuss with mom and set it up as Dr B is BIL's doctor and mom has decided that he is god and she has to have test with him.  At the end of the visit we got a print out with what had been done (nothing, but it does not say that), a list of her meds – that we gave them – and the upcoming appointments.  After we walked out I realized that we had not received any papers like this last time – probably because the doctor never did the paperwork so no scan, and no request for us to make an appointment.  Oh and the appointment with Dr B that would be a month wait when I called for same  - 2 weeks.  When I asked why the appointment was made with Wendy if she could not do the needed test and why same was not scheduled I was told that when one calls one gets a central booking office in Florida (about 8 or 9 states away from here) and they have no idea what they doing – great setup!  We are not sure if this setup is a Medicare scam or just the worst organized doctor's office we have seen.  Another day wasted.

We are to go tomorrow (Thursday) to take the RV to our dealer two states away about the battery problem – but more about this later.

Yesterday we had our car at the mechanic for an oil change and husband mentioned a funny feel when he brakes.  Car needs transmission work.  Husband was suppose to drive the car while I drive our RV so that after we dropped the RV off we could get home.  Now it cannot be driven that far.  Panic set in trying to figure out what to do.  Then I remembered – we have the van also.  The van has not been driven out of state at least since we have the RV if not before.  I asked the mechanics and they say that should be fine to drive the van that far. 

Today is the last day of the Jewish New Years holiday and the most significant/solemn holiday of the Jewish calendar.  We need the car Monday to take mom to the other doctor – she could not climb into the van.  What to do?  We had planned on husband calling today (as I am not suppose to be doing everyday things today) and making an appointment for the transmission work.   Our heads have been swimming and we have been going crazy for a week.  If we don't have the car Monday either someone else has to take mom or we have to change the appointment.  While we tried decide about making the appointment for the transmission work – husband had an idea that relaxed it all a bit.  We would call Friday for the transmission appointment on Friday, take mom to her doctor on Monday and then have the appointment after same so all would get done – hopefully. 

So this week – Monday was doctor for mom, Tuesday car was at mechanic, Wednesday was my holiday, and Thursday we are going out of state to drop off the RV.  Another week gone. 

When I got home after religious services tonight set up everything up in the van and the RV for the trip.  Two sets of directions (I REALLY don't need same, but he insisted), spare shoes – it is suppose to rain tomorrow and we hope we get ahead of the rain and miss it, but in case,  spare eyeglasses for me, walkie talkies (hopefully we will stay close enough together to talk back and forth – when we bought the RV and drove it home separately we were able to do so), emergency snacks for husband in case his blood sugar drops low, and so on and emergency stuff for him - like the snacks – have to be where he can grab them easily while driving.

Friday I will get to do everything I have not done all week (I hope). 

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

It is the start of a new year.  It may not be a new year for you, but as I have mentioned in the past, every day is the start of a new year.  Please feel free to use this ancient start of year to start working on your organizing and decluttering – even cleaning. 

The craziness we have been going through started last year shortly after the Jewish New Year with husband's shoulder and arm going into terrible pain, luckily not the heart attack we feared – for what happened then -  http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/10/i-was-finally-catching-up-bit-and.html

We are hoping for a good new year and a change in how life is going for us.  I hope others have a good year ahead.

THE CRAZINESS CONTINUES ON

Another week already? For those of you who have been/will be in Dorian's path - I hope that you and yours come through safely.  To say that it is a horrible storm is to greatly understate the situation.

Things are still hinky here - I called the insurance company for our reenactment unit again to try to resolve the problem of the paperwork not being right.  What the employee and I did manage to figure out is that it is not a paperwork problem - the changes to the policy do not seem to be right when we discussed them.  She was to check with their underwriters and the files to see what happened and then call me back.  I waited a week and then called her again - last Friday.  The agency was closed for a four day Labor Day weekend.  I called her again today, Wednesday.  She was not in - working from home (I got the impression she was not well).  She called back while we were out - which is why I said I would call back instead of her calling me, and left a message to talk to someone else at the agency - I will call them tomorrow.  I have been trying to resolve this since June - policy renewed in late May.  At this point we only have 3 events left before the insurance will renew again next year. I have now requested a printout of our payments to our medical insurance company in 2018 three times - hope this time they send the correct papers and not a summary of what we owed - what we owed and what we paid could be totally different amounts (although not in this case) and the county will not accept what we owed - they want a list from the insurance company of what we actually paid.  That and one other set of papers is the last of what we need to file for our senior real estate tax exemption.  Then I can assemble the "tome" of papers that have to go to them for this exemption.  We learned our lesson last year.  This year we will not mail the paperwork to them (and we had mailed it by certified mail and had a record of when they received it).  We will drive to the real estate tax assessor's office and I will walk it in and get a receipt from them that they have everything.  Husband will sit in the car as parking is just about non-existent.  Newspaper article recently said that our new County Executive is going to make this department actually answer their phones and help people.  When one calls the message on their end is basically - "We don't have time to take calls."  and sometimes also "And we don't have any parking for you to come here."  Public servants.

I have managed to do a bit of house cleaning this past week - I admit it, I am sooo off schedule as I just have not had a chance to get to anything.

I have been tasked by my sister to find sources to sell items from our family home - a library of books, a collection of records (LPs, 45s and CDs), china and glass - useful and decorative, dad had a number of clients who were artists and they have pieces from some of the clients and other pieces that purchased - only a maybe ten to twenty, but some of them may be valuable.  We need to get as much as we can for items which can be sold as we need it to keep mom in the assisted living program she is in and likes.  Time is also of the essence as mom has a reverse mortgage on her house and every month more interes accrues. The sooner we get rid of the stuff in the house the sooner we can sell it - the less money that goes to interest and the more that goes to mom. I emailed a client that I have still have whose husband is one of the artists and asked if either of them knows of a gallery or auction house to contact.  I know the husband's work still sells from time to time and figured that they must still know who to contact.  Problem, of course, is that we need to not just find someone to buy (or take on consignment) the stuff we need to get rid of, but need someone honest who will not buy stuff for considerably less than it is worth.  I just found a site that was recommended by a seniors organization for pricing items.  I will have to look at it.  Quite frankly it was this part of clearing out the house that intimidated me.  My sister had talked as if she had an idea of who to call about all this and I had felt better about it, now I am overwhelmed again - and quite honestly, my sister is handling most of everything. Anyone with ideas about getting rid of all this stuff without getting "taken" - please let me know, it will be gratefully appreciated.

I had the first meeting of my embroidery chapter today.  I was not sure that I would that I would get to the meeting as husband is desperate to go away for a few days - both for sanity and because we have spent a lot on the RV to keep it in good shape, we do not use it, and it needs to be used - especially driven - to keep in it in good condition.  Due to rain storms today where we were to go, we dropped the plans - bad for husband as he is upset, but good for me as I had my first non-work day without him since June.  I did come home after running a couple of quick errands after the meeting and did not take the entire afternoon for myself as I normally do, as husband is sure that the Dorian will turn and hit Long Island and we will lose our electricity, so I did not want to leave him moping and in a panic all day by himself.  We are learning a new stitch that I had wanted to learn and it was such a pleasant time at the meeting.  I really need to find another group to join also - I have tried to get husband to join a group without me, but he is not interested and finds an excuse not to join any group that is related to his interests when I find them.

I normally write my post using a word processing program that I like and then copy it to the site.  Tonight for some reason it would not work - it opens, but does not work, so I used good, old Notepad to write - any spelling errors or oddities in appearance of the post are due to that.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Well, one has to go on and do what one can.  Having my embroidery chapter keeps me sane - what keeps you sane when it is all piling up?

EVERYONE ELSE'S DISORGANIZATION PREVENTS ME FROM BEING ORGANIZED

Wednesday already? 

I have been a whirlwind of not getting things done. Amazing - really - entire days have disappeared since last Wednesday with nothing to little accomplished.  I am starting this post about 3 hours later than normal - Once a month I have to write and send out the newsletter for my embroidery chapter - and I barely started it before dinner and had to write it after dinner - through my “reading the newspaper” time, my “doing the laundry” time and my “writing my post” time.  (The last two items are normally done at the same time.

Worst of the week was our lost Friday.  I think I have mentioned my mom has not been doing well - she is 90 and now in an assisted living facility.  Since I was not able help to much at going through the family home and husband and I do not work full time (more like hardly at all) I was asked by sister to deal with taking mom to several doctors - she gave me a list of them.  Last week mom was unwell and ended up at the hospital overnight.  She had a blood clot in her leg.  After she was back “home” (in the assisted living) my sister wrote that mom had an appointment to go to the cardiologist on (now - last) Friday at 10 am with a certain doctor - Dr B.  We had been planning - again - to take a trip to Pennsylvania, but were not sure due to weather if we would go - decided Thursday not to and I texted my sister that I could take mom.  Mom called me before I could call her to make the arrangements to pick her up.  The appointment was at 10 am - none of the three of us - mom, husband, me - are normally up and out that early.  Thursday night there was a huge storm in the general two county area.  (Mom and sister are in the next county.)  The storm was so bad that the front was blown off of a warehouse on the county line. 

Husband and I woke up at 8 am to take mom (this is about 4-5 hours earlier than usual as wake up late and go to bed late (it is 2 am as I write this and husband has not come down yet for snack before bed and we will get to bed between 3 and 4 am).  I had estimated a lot of extra time for rush hour traffic, getting mom into her wheelchair - then our car - and then dealing with her wheelchair for our first time.  As we drove to mom there were lots of slow downs as huge trees had fallen along the parkway and the crews were working on them.  We got to mom just at the time we needed to be there - so my extra time was a good thing.  I went up and got mom, we got her into the car and figured out the chair fairly quickly (I had thought to look up online the night before how to take it apart to fit in the car) and we were off.  The doctor’s office was fairly close to mom’s place. 

I expected a doctor’s office as I am used to - an outer office with staff, then several exam rooms in the back.  If it was in an multiple office building I expected to see doors along the halls with the names of doctors on them.  The place had open offices along the hall - no doctor’s names - just the specialty that was in that space.  We came to the end of the hall we had been sent down and had not seen a sign for cardiology.  I asked an employee and we walked into a nearby office area.  I asked someone about signing in (at our doctors one signs a sheet with name & time) there was acomputer tablets - oh boy!  It asked if I was the person or signing in for them - I selected the latter - it wanted me to put my hand on the screen - I did, several times.  It gave up and asked for mom’s name and date of birth - rejected that.  I went to someone at the desk and explained - I should not have been sent there - mom was not registered.  I was handed another computer tablet to fill in info on.  Mom was confused by this (although she does use a computer since she worked with one at her job).  I started trying to fill in the form - I have trouble using my Android phone as I do not always show up on touch screens (if I knew we would be using one I would have brought a toucher thingee to use).  Husband had to take over and fill in info.  I gave the woman mom’s two insurance cards while we did all this.  Mom had to sign the tablet - multiple times - she was very frustrated doing so.  Then there was a problem with one of her insurance cards - there was an extra digit in the account number (I have to wonder if it is because she has had it soooo long).  The woman called it in and found out how to enter the number.  We were told to sit down and wait.

We were called much quicker than I thought we would be.  We followed an employee into a room.  She was checking and taking information - we were there to see Dr. Z per her - I told her that we were suppose to see Dr. B (my BIL’s doctor).  No, Dr. B is at the hospital doing procedures mornings - he only has afternoon appointments.  I started texting my sister.  All three of us thought mom was there to have her pacemaker checked  - employee said mom was there to have her leg tested related to her blood clot, and they don’t do pacemaker testing - that is done at the hospital.  (Her old doctor did same in his office.)  I called my sister - yes, she was there for her leg (did not say to her - but if she was not there related to heart -why say she is going to the cardiologist?)  and yes, she was suppose to see Dr B - sister had a card from the hospital which made the appointment with the doctor’s name and time.    Our choice was to see Dr Z instead, come back another day or they had an open appointment for Dr B at 2 pm - we could come back.  We chose the last.  As we walked out it was corrected to a 2:30 appointment

We now had close over 3 hours to spend.  We got in the car and started to drive and figure out where to go - lunch would be part of it, but not long enough.  We came to a Barnes and Nobles and parked and went in - I figured we could always sit and look at magazines.  We managed to easily spend over 2 hours there.  Then we went to a Wendys we knew for lunch.  Then back to the doctor’s office.

I had asked if we had to check in again and had been told to speak to the woman who had helped us.  Again we were told to take and seat and we would be called.  At 3:30 we still had not been called and I went back to the woman - I told her that it was an hour past the appointment and mom had to be back for dinner at 4:30 or she would miss same.  She apologized and said it would be “soon”.  Mom went in just after 4 pm - us with her.  Nurse took vitals and asked for info - her assisted living should have sent info with her, including a list of her meds (next time I will check with the office which handles this, in advance) - we gave the list of meds as we could.  We then went to another room where they had the machine that doctor needed to do the test.  We waited.  The doctor came in - he was extremely nice and took time to explain everything to mom and us very simply and without large medical terms unless he explained them.  (Husband and I had already the report on the counter from mom’s hospital visit.)  He said that she did not need the test yet - she should come back in 3 weeks.  He gave us a list of things to be done in the interim for mom’s facility - I had one of the employees make a copy for us.  We left.  So basically we had spent, just since picking up mom 8 hours - and nothing had been done.  We were concerned about mom not having dinner, but she said they would bring her a tray and when we got to her room, we had to insist that she throw out the tray left for her for lunch as it had been sitting out. 

On the way home we stopped at the bank as we had planned to do in the mid afternoon on our way home and the at the post office to pick up mail at our box - ditto.  Friday gone and wasted.

Then we found out that our kitchen telephone/answering machine was dead.  It is on the wall across from the basement door.  We bought a new one - per the online info it should have fit - the door passes close to the wall across from it - but apparently they had not included the handset in the measurements.  So we have now bought and returned 4 telephones - the others were too cheaply made and at least one of them hardwired so the wire could not be removed for wall use.

In the meantime I am trying to get a copy of the changes to my reenactment unit’s insurance that we did - back in April. The woman I have worked with for years at the agency retired and I figured the new one was stupid and did not understand what I wanted.  Then another thought hit me - perhaps the changes were not properly made - seems like that it the story - and she is checking what went on.

I have a client who files his income taxes on extension as he is away when it is due.  I just picked up the info from him a week or so ago.  He sent me an email that he needed to talk to me.  There is a situation with his income for 2019 and I need to call one of his financial advisors - so that is another call I have to deal with.

We need to have a printout of what we paid for medical insurance last year for a senior tax exemption.  We have 3 medical polices between the two of us.  One company has now sent us the wrong info - not a listing of what we paid - twice now, and I have to call them AGAIN! 



So when the heck am I suppose to get anything done?!!!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Sometimes the stupidity of ours takes up more time than thinks one can deal with.  One just has to deal with it and do one’s best.  When others are not organized - they take our from our ability to be organized.

NOW WE NEED TO PUT EVERYTHING BACK TO WHERE IT BELONGS

In preparing for the old refrigerator to leave and the new one to come in - the first time - we had to make room for the crew to bring the fridges through the house.  Being lazy - plus going away in the middle - we left the house as it was after the first new fridge - until the second one was here and installed.

I am not so much talking about moving clutter as moving furniture and household items in common usage.  We have a small house. The new fridges had to come in the front door go to the left into the living room, close the front door, then double back in the opposite direction into the dining room through a doorway.  We took the floor mats out of the front hall - put in living room.  We have a standing chest for our good silver/tableware  - it blocks the doorway into the dining room.  It had to be moved - which we did, moving it further into the dining room.  A wooden box with husband’s reenacting gun stuff that is kept under the silver chest also had to be moved into the room.  We set up in the dining room a table which we take when go to reenactments to set up some stuff we put out for education and sales at events to put stuff from the kitchen/fridge on.  So this gave a wide pathway through the dining room into the kitchen.  What is on your fridge?  We have 4 magnetic pockets on ours - one each with stuff to take when we go out, one with pencils and pens (and emery board) and one with papers which we need in the kitchen - maybe a dozen recipes or package instructions and other items.  Magnets that hold our keys - 2 each.  Magnetic calculator.  Decorative magnets which hold small items.  On the front of the fridge we added 2 years ago a large dry erase calendar - we use it to keep track of TV shows we want to watch since seasons no longer run as long as they used to - held on with magnets.  Much of this went onto the table we set up in the dining room - the small magnets and the, oh, forgot to mention, the clippers I keep on the side of the fridge near the stove, held with magnets and potholders hanging on magnets went into a plastic basket that is normally next to the silver chest in the dining room - it normally holds items we have bought or received in the mail that we are concerned may have bed bugs and we need to heat in our Packtite heater until we have enough items to run it - this basket went into our studio behind the office with the magnets in it, and during the following week the items we wanted to heat were added.  (Doing laundry and running the Packtite as I write to you.) The food that did not actually need to be in a fridge - soda, condiments, beer (hey, we did not even know we had beer), and the like took over the one open kitchen counter area.  Our kitchen chairs were in the back room during the time(s) they were actually moving the fridges.  Things were so confused that the first time I went to cook after all this, I stuck my hand out (by habit) to grab a potholder - and there were not only no potholders - but no hook for them either and I could not for the life of me remember where they all went.  (I used a kitchen towel as a pot holder.)  If I had to write something down no pen or pencil, no paper?)  Leaving the house - where the heck are our keys?  A couple of days after the second fridge was put in place and we knew it was staying we started putting stuff back.  We also were adding back the soda, condiments, and such to the fridge - a little bit at a time to keep the temperature in the fridge from going up.  I filled plastic bottles with water.  It is recommended that the fridge be kept half full and we generally don’t have that much in it - and certainly we don’t now.  So bottles filled with water are going in.  We found out that the drawers stay a little warmer than the rest of the fridge, so husband’s insulin pens will go in there as too cold is more of a problem than them being a bit warmer than the food needs to be. 

Then it hit us.  Our reenactment unit’s big event at our headquarters would be on Sunday (this past).  We needed the table we had set up.  We needed access to 2 large box/benches that we bring for storage - and where the heck are the folding seats we have we bring with us?  So we did a lot of putting back quickly - the silver chest and goes under it, as well as what was on the table.  We broke down the table- the legs unscrew - and put the legs together in their carrier.  We took out the box benches to the middle of the room so I could sort through - make sure we had what we needed for this event and not bring things we did not - this including checking that we had money for change if we sold anything and setting my embroidery so I could work on the area I intended to stitch without taking out anything modern.  Husband packed a small loom he was taking with what he needed to work with it at the event.  This all went out into our van on last Friday - Saturday was to be rain and we did not want to load it all in the rain if we could avoid it.  Event went extremely well - hot day, but bearable, good sized crowd - no rain.  Everything from the event is back in place in the house.


Yesterday we went and visited my mom.  She has moved into what is called the “assisted living” building at the facility she has been in.  My sister’s plan had been for mom to go to same for a few weeks so mom would realize that she cannot be home alone and then move mom home with her and then into an apartment with aides.  Mom has liked it here so much that as of now we plan for to stay as long as the money can be found for her to do so.  (It is not cheap.)  It is the same group/agency as the one that runs the physical rehab she was in and it seems a wonderful place.  We had not visited since her move to assisted living until yesterday.  She has a small apartment - tiny main room with microwave and fridge and kitchen cabinets (no stove).  It is set up to put one’s own TV and attach to the cable.  It comes with a love seat and chair, as well as table and 2 chairs.  (My sister plans to bring the living room chairs from mom’s house and get her a drop leaf table.)  There is a good sized bedroom for one it is - another TV cable connection in same - she has a small TV for right now.  The bathroom has a walk in - no lip shower and seat to use in same.  Very nice, very modern, and housekeeping will keep it clean for her.  She has a key and locks the apartment when she leaves.  There are pull strings in case of emergency to get help.  Talk about an efficient setup that is nice.  Her meals are included so the cooking/fridge are just extra or if she wants to cook for herself.  The breakfast is served too early for her and instead they bring cold cereal and muffin for breakfast to her apartment.  There are trips - including shopping and entertainment trips that one can sign up for.  They will take her to the doctor.  Of course, she can go out with us whenever she wants and I am pretty sure she could call an Uber, Lyft or cab to go out if she wanted. Movies in a theater twice every day.  Other programs are in a large space which also functions for religious services.  My sister has decorating plans for it for mom with items from the house.  Husband and I were highly impressed. The halls look like one is in a hotel.  We were very impressed.  She has made friends already which is good as before she sat home alone.  The apartment is a model of efficiency and organization.

On the other hand the family now has to go through the house and deal with everything in it.  My sisters, their husbands and the adult children of one of them started last weekend.  (We couldn’t go as we were at the reenactment event.  I have to clear out the stuff left in the last bedroom I used in the house (and maybe in the other bedroom I used for awhile) and help with the rest of the house.  Since the house was hit by Hurricane Sandy the basement is empty.  I am actually glad of same now, as the toys down there would have been the hardest to go through and get rid of it.  I am not sure what is still in my old bedroom, but I think I can deal with it okay.  I let my sisters know that I embroidered a tablecloth when in high school and when I got married I could not find it  - I gave a description and told them that if they came across it to hold onto it for me.  I am lucky that one of my sisters has a plan for items that are not toss, donate or take - but try to sell as they are of value and will follow her suggestions.

Today the monitor we ordered for me came in.  I like it much better than the one we bought quickly at Walmart - it is squarer (more similar to my old one) and it can be turned vertical for when I am reading pages so I can see the full page.  We are not sure we may return the one we had bought for me or we may keep it in case we have another problem like this and need a spare monitor that is easy to move around. 

So last night - husband’s computer started shutting itself down while he was working on it.  We spent most of this afternoon pulling it out from under his work table, clearing off a space on the top of one file cabinets for it stay now.  We opened it and vacuumed it out.  (He read that too much dust in it would make it overheat and shut down.)  We then rewired everything so instead of connecting to the computer on the right side of his desk on the floor, it does on the left hand side of his desk on the file cabinet.  We may be getting rid of a printer that is rarely used and was where the computer now is.  Some small items have to be rearranged - including a label maker that may end up on top of our secondary printer and then be moved when that printer is needed.

Weather is very hot - over 91F today - and humid (thunderstorm tonight), plus everything we had to do - and I never even checked email yesterday - so we stopped at the supermarket while we were out and bought sliced deli turkey for us and potato salad for husband - added to bread in the house and turkey gravy we bought yesterday made a quick relatively cool dinner.  We normally have soup with dinner, but skipped it tonight.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Oh, so many this week -

Make dinner quick and easy, even if it costs more than normal dinner, when you need to.

Just because a facility is a care facility does not mean that it cannot be nice.  (Oh, I forgot, mom had her hair cut and dyed today - first time in year.  She looks 20 years younger than she did before - she is 90, but to be honest, husband and I both liked her hair better how it was.)  One has to be open to what help one needs as hard as it is to admit to needing it and moving to have the help.

Keep your computer clean - outside and inside.

Hurricanes have a good side - I hate to think what it would take to go through the basement and decide what to keep and what to get rid of.