Friday, April 20, 2018

A Senior Moment

As if life wasn't complicated enough....we are picking up an 8 week old puppy this evening.  Now she isn't ours but will be my daughter's new puppy.  She will however be staying with us for an undetermined amount of time because Julie's elderly dog Lucy won't tolerate a puppy just yet.  We know Lucy's time is getting short so when this puppy became available Julie fell in love because she looks like her dog Chloe who passed away last year.  So what could I say?  Ron and I thought we were ready for another dog but I said why don't we keep the puppy for awhile and see if we REALLY want to go through dog ownership again.  So.........here we are.  This should be interesting!

I told Ron if we ever get a dog we should  name it Alexa.  That would sure make life interesting.  Ron calls our Alexa by a dozen different names...the last one was Alisa.  Then he gets upset cause the thing won't answer him.  I think it is a hoot!

I went to the allergy clinic yesterday and am going to have allergy testing done.  I really don't think we will discover anything earth shattering to explain the chronic bronchitis but we will see.  Right now I'm just wheezing and coughing all the time but haven't had an infection in 3 months.  That's really good for me.  I'm trying to stay on top of it with the breathing treatments and two inhalers.  So far so good!

I actually feel good over all.  I haven't had to take any arthritis medicine for about 6 months.  I attribute it to the weight loss and I'm thrilled.  My A1C was 5.8, the lowest since I was diagnosed with diabetes so I'm thrilled with that as well.  I still have to take Metformin but who knows, maybe I'll be able to get off that soon as well.

I only have 5 more days of eye drops and then hopefully get fitted for my new prescription.  Glad this is almost behind me.

We scheduled Mike for a colonoscopy next Monday.  This should be an adventure.  He has to have only a liquid diet on Sunday and I know that will be a real trip.  The man loves to eat!  His cognitive issues have worsened but we think he can still live alone for now.  He's also had some incontinence issues every now and then and the gym where he loves to go called me and said they have noticed he is getting worse.  He had an "accident" there but seem unaware of it so they called.  When they talked to him he started crying and begged them not to "kick him out".  He said it was all he has.  Of course they reassured him that was not going to happen but he was so upset they felt they needed to call us.  I'm glad they did.  We were able to reassure him that all was well and that everyone has had an accident at one time or another in their lives.  We then bought him a backpack to put a change of clothes and personal hygiene items in so he can take it to the gym with him.  He was OK with that and thought I was a genius for thinking of it.

Today we had some safety rails installed in the condo.  He's stumbled around a few times and we wanted to take some extra precautions.  We put one outside by the door and an extra one in the bathroom.

My older brother is healing but experiencing some depression which the heart doctor said is common after open heart surgery.  Of course this had also worried Mike and he cries a lot when he talks about Butch.  I think everyone is looking at their own mortality.  Mike has every reason in the world to be fearful of losing family.  He understands he would be all alone if something were to happen to Ron or I especially.  That's why I'm trying so hard to take care of myself!

Well that's my update.  Not exciting but it's life!



3 comments:

Olga said...

That's life all right. You give me that old image of draining the swamp while having to use one hand to fight off the alligators and the other to hold your pants up. And yet you handle it all with grace. Enjoy that puppy.

oklhdan said...

We are Olga, she is the cutest little thing!

Deb said...

It's hard, taking care of other people complicates your life. I'm not afraid of my own death, but I'm terrified of leaving my husband, who is in the early stages of dementia, alone. He also has an extra rare disorder which requires very specialized care, which I know he'd never get in an assisted care facility. So I understand your fear, trying to get things set up so Mike can leave independently. You're one in a million, many families abandon relatives with schizophrenia. Mike is really lucky. And I hope that puppy brings all of you joy!

Hugs from Canada!