Thoughts in 2019

I have rediscovered my blog, set up many years ago for the purpose of informing my grandchildren something about their history and my state of mind over the years.

My mother passed away Friday, March 24, 2017. Her last six months on earth were spent in Hospice care at the nursing home. She only left her bed twice in that period of time. She pretty much quit eating and became skeletal. Five days before she passed away she was awake but unaware. I had to put squares of Hershey bars on her tongue. She was no longer able to pick them up to eat them. I last visited her the evening of Thursday, March 23 with Bob, Katie, and Jeanette. We talked among ourselves. She was seemingly unaware of our presence. Barb and Carol visited Friday evening. They left about 7:30 p.m. The nursing home called me about 8:30 p.m. to tell me she had passed. I truly believe she waited to go until each of us made one last visit.

We had a memorial service at Barb's church the following weekend. It was nice. In 2018 I decided that her ashes needed to be buried near her parents at Ottawa Hills Memorial Park. We used the balance of the money in her account to get a marker. We had a small get together at the Oliver House in October.

My life has become more "normal" again. The stresses of dealing with all of it gradually melted away. I did not realize, except in hindsight, how much the anxieties were effecting me. In hindsight, we probably should have moved her into a different nursing home somewhere along the way, but she was insistent on staying there, and we honored her choice, even though some of the caregivers were not the best. My mother was not an easy person to deal with on a daily basis. She yelled and screamed at them, many more times than I was aware of until after she died. I hope I do not do the same.

Oliver is 12 years old and is now attending Toledo Technical Academy. He hit a rough patch with math during the third quarter but I have faith that he can remedy this. Miles is doing well in school and seems to have a taste for extremely spicy food recently. I have no doubt that this will continue.

I am one year out from my encounter with Influenza A that put me in the hospital with encephalopathy. After two weeks of fevers and coughing I became confused to the point that Bob and Katie thought I had a stroke. I ended up in UTMC and they had me on stroke protocol until they ruled that out. The next couple of days are a blur. It actually was not unpleasant to have everything pretty much blotted out. The biggest pain was having to get up to go to the bathroom, which seemed unduly complicated and seemed to take forever. I spent most of the five days in MICU dozing off, and the next couple of weeks at home doing the same thing. Influenza is a nasty illness I do not wish on anyone, and I have no wish to repeat it.

I am putzing around with selling items on eBay and baking bread. On the plus side I am about 15 pounds lighter than I was before I got the flu. I lost ten pounds during the illness and have never regained it. I started Invisalign braces in September of 2018 and am on the last set of liners. They have curbed my appetite to the point that I really do not enjoy eating all that much. I have mixed feelings about whether I want this to continue once I am done with the braces. I really do NOT want to regain the weight, but I really would like to enjoy salads and fresh vegetables again. My bite is not quite right and the dentist has promised me that they would see what they could do after I am done with this last set of liners. We shall see what happens, I guess.

There is not much more to report. Bob and I lead a fairly boring life. The politics of the Trump administration are so upsetting on a daily basis that it is not worth going into here. I try to disassociate myself from it but I debate how much I can let into my life in order to keep knowledgeable vs. not wanting to know anything about what is going on. There is a balance there somewhere but I have yet to find it.

Perhaps I will keep this blog more current in the future. Time will tell. Blogging has kind of fallen off the radar with the advent of Facebook and other social media. I have no idea whether anyone other than me will ever read a word of this.