Week 25

Holy crap, another week of COVID weirdness. Another month! Will it ever end?

(I’m sure it will, sometime. But not anytime soon.)

Last week, we celebrated my dad’s 73rd birthday. As with my brother’s birthday in July, it was weird (for me, at least) to know it was the last one we’d celebrate with my mom. We celebrated with cards and cake and family dinner.

Mike had a number of shoots last week, so Michaela got to be relatively independent with her learning again. She’s doing pretty well as far as I can tell. It was the first week of her elective classes, which are currently being done via Zoom. She had three or four Zoom sessions with the elective teachers on Tuesday and Thursday, which seemed to add some nice variety to her school week. The Zooms are only every-other-week, and only through September at this point, so it’s not a huge undertaking by any means.

For me, it was a pretty standard week. Lots of work on COVID and wildfire preparedness. Which was timely, since a large fire broke out yesterday that has burned a couple of thousand acres at this point and isn’t contained.

I also fit in a trip to the dentist. My first time since taking my mom. My teeth looked good, but it was surreal to be there. When I took my mom, we rushed out of there and I didn’t pay. I called later that day and they told me not to worry about it, that we’d take care of it when I went in for my appointment. And when I went in, they told me there was a credit on the account and that I didn’t owe anything. The kindness the folks at Stephens Dental have shown is overwhelming. They are just the best people. I was honored to be able to make a donation to Heifer International in their name, to thank them for all they’ve done for my mom over the years.

In other mom news, my mom is here at my house. Maybe for the weekend or maybe forever. I’m not sure.

My dad called yesterday and said my mom wasn’t feeling well. Not pain specifically, just an overall bad feeling. I’d spent the day being super lazy (it’s been 100+ degrees out all weekend, so I am committed to staying inside, in the a/c, and being cool), so I said I’d pop over to their house to check in.

When I got there, it was really, really hot — their thermostat said it was 90 degrees inside — and my mom couldn’t get comfortable. I put some cold cloths on her chest and head, set up a second fan to blow on her, and while that helped a little, it wasn’t enough. I offered to take her to my house, where we have air conditioning and I knew it was a much more reasonable temperature, and my mom surprised me by saying yes. My dad put her in the wheelchair while I grabbed the walker, the box of medicine from hospice, and my mom’s pill case. We got my mom in the car and had an uneventful drive to my house.

Once home, Mike helped me get my mom in the wheelchair and we got her inside. Mike had to take apart our guest bed, which is upstairs, and move it into one of the downstairs bedrooms. My mom is too weak and unsteady to go up our stairs, and the bathroom downstairs has a large walk-in shower. The whole time, my mom was pretty out of it, and she collapsed into sleep once the bed was set up.

Mike had borrowed a baby monitor from our friends, so I was able to keep an eye on my mom throughout the night. She was up and incredibly restless about about 9:30 p.m., 1 a.m., 4 a.m., and 6:30 a.m. I got up several times to help her get to the bathroom. (Yet another way this whole situation is like having a baby again.)

It’s now 1 p.m. and my mom’s been sleeping pretty much all day. Just talked to my dad, who agrees I should keep her here the rest of today and tonight at least, until we see what the weather is like. Assuming everything else remains the same, when the temperatures go back down to the normal range, I’ll take my mom back to her house. If something changes, we’ll have the hospital bed brought here and we’ll roll with it.