The tinny electronic chime on our clock just rang out that it’s 7 AM (it actually chimes at 7:02 I have discovered). I did the follow up on my Mom’s care yesterday. Spoke to her psych nurse who told me they were “discharging” Mom from in-home care. It was unclear to me if this was because she was refusing services from the occupational therapist member of their “team” or because her psych med doses are unchanged at this point.
The psych nurse said I might be missing things in my Mom’s behavior that would help me better understand her functioning. This is funny because that was exactly my thought about the psych nurse. She did exceed my expectation by being familiar with Mom’s current meds.
I took her advise to heart and questioned the person the psych nurse suggested I talked to at Resthaven where Mom is living.
This person seems to be in charge of the care given to residents. She was much less sure that Mom needed to go immediately into more supportive care and classified Mom as borderline between “independent” living and supportive care.
I put “independent” in quotes because Mom is thankfully not all that independent in her present circumstances. She does not administer her own meds, the nurses do and I am particularly grateful for this having done this little duty for Mom and Dad was Dad’s competency plummeted and Mom’s mental health went into a spin.
After talking to the person in charge I chatted with Mom. She seems open but not enthusiastic about moving to supportive care. She is improving very gradually. Her affect has returned to her face. Her awareness of her surroundings is much higher than it was. She is not as weak or confused as she was three or four weeks ago.
Unfortunately, I do think if this is a plateau she has reached rather than a stage in recovering some of her functioning that she probably needs supportive care.
But for the time being we are waiting to see if she continues to improve.
I also arranged to meet with my Mom’s estate lawyer today.
He had indicated that Mom is at the point we need to reassess managing her assets. Not sure what this means, but this guy’s knowledge of the law around these issues exceeds local judges. He helped tremendously to salvage large amounts of Dad’s estate so that Mom could be provided for and Dad was able to receive excellent end of life care.
Eileen is going to be present for some of this. My brother Mark will be there “telephonically” (the lawyer’s phrase).
All of this is taking a good deal of time and mental and emotional energy. I love my Mom and I love family, but I also want to be careful not to spend more time and energy on this than is healthy for me.
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People Aren’t Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say – Yahoo! News
Incompetent People Too Ignorant to Know It | LifesLittleMysteries.com
This links are for Nick who actually read the Micheal essay I linked in at the last post. The first article credits the second. They both refer to some recent research that indicates most of us are not aware of our own lack of abilities and competence. Since I am largely an autodidact (despite years of schooling), self assessment is very important to me. Thinking about my own lack of awareness (and denial) helps me get closer to having perspective.
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Home | LifesLittleMysteries.com
This web site seems to have interesting links and articles. I have bookmarked it for future checking. It is the source of one of the links above.
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Words from the Dictionary of American Regional English | People & Places | Smithsonian Magazine
I love words:
Those fluffy bits beneath the bed, for instance, are dust kitties (Northeast), dust bunnies (Midwest), house moss (South) or woolies (Pennsylvania)
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Why wait? Six ways that Congress could fix copyright, now
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Bookmarked to read.
We have had a long conversation in this country about class, race, ethnicity, and gender, how the moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities attributed to those in favored or disfavored categories create the circumstances of their lives, and, as they do so, reinforce an acceptance of the belief that these qualities are real, these characterizations are true. When there were no women in medical school or law school, or in higher education, it was easy to believe that they would not be able to endure their rigors. We in this country are fortunate to have a moderately constant loyalty to the idea of equality that has moved us to test the limits imposed by these cultural patterns, some of them very ancient, some of them once virtually universal and now still deeply entrenched in many parts of the world.
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Benediction by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In his book on Religion and the Twenties, my friend and colleague, Henry Idema quotes from this short story. The whole thing is online. Cool. I admit I looked it up because I couldn’t believe a character was named Kieth (Is this pronounced KYE eth? or is it just another spelling of Keith?)
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6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying | Cracked.com
I include this link even though it is slanted to agree with goddam liberals like me. I thought it was pretty witty. And correct.
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