One thing leads to another

Thanks, everybody, on your sort phrases and properly needs in the course of the previous two weeks. I admire them. We have been tying up free ends associated to Duane’s life and loss of life, and we’re almost completed with the whole lot.

• Duane’s memorial service is that this Sunday. I have been gathering pictures from relations, and have put collectively a slide present of recollections. After the memorial service is over, the ultimate free finish can be his monetary accounts. We’re prepped to deal with these, nonetheless, and are simply ready on the loss of life certificates.
• One in all my rooms downstairs is stuffed with Duane’s collections of historic cash and Magic: The Gathering playing cards. The cash are a thriller to me. I watched as he collected them over time, however I by no means bothered to study something about them. Why would I? Now, I want I might paid consideration. The playing cards, alternatively, I can deal with. There are many of them — my guess is a minimal of 168,000 playing cards and maybe twice that quantity — and so they’re largely unorganized, which implies I’ve months of labor forward of me with a view to promote them. However I perceive the sport and I perceive collectibles, so that is all inside my ken. It is simply loads of work.
• Kim and I’ve determined not to undertake any extra of Duane’s fish. This was a tough determination. Duane very a lot wished me to take his fish, particularly the 19 Mbuna cichlids. And there is part of me that wishes to have them. They’d be enjoyable. It could honor his reminiscence. However I additionally know that the fish can be a problem, that they do not match with our long-term plans. So, if no one else within the household needs them we’ll donate the fish to a pet retailer, then promote or donate the fish gear.

Issues have been difficult barely as a result of I bought sick. Duane’s prolonged household was passing round a nasty chilly for a lot of April, and I managed to catch it the day after he died. It laid me low for a number of days. (And now, at this very second, Kim is residence sick from work with the identical chilly.) Thankfully, it is not COVID.

Issues have additionally been difficult as a result of my mom’s well being points have not too long ago reached a kind of disaster.

Extra Adventures with Hospice

Final week, simply days after my cousin Duane died, the reminiscence director at Pleased Acres contacted us. “We expect you must think about inserting your mom in hospice,” she mentioned.

I used to be gobsmacked. Why?

Mother has been affected by undiagnosed reminiscence points for over a decade, and he or she struggles with each anemia and diabetes. However these are all power situations. She does not have a terminal prognosis. Why would she want hospice?

The previous ten days have modified my thoughts.

Mother has misplaced fifteen kilos in the course of the previous month. She not reveals a lot curiosity in meals (besides milkshakes). Her power digestion points proceed, as do her power urinary tract infections. Now, she’s dropping the power to stroll. She’s begun to fall. For the reason that center of April, she’s had 4 E.R. journeys resulting from falling. She appears like she’s been in a brawl.

And, as of this week, Mother has begun experiencing incontinence. All that is to say that I’ve overcome my resistance to the concept she ought to be in hospice. Perhaps she ought to. It could’t harm, and perhaps it should assist.

The medical doctors are nonetheless mystified as to precisely what is going on on with my mom. One enormous barrier to prognosis is that she is basically non-verbal. If Mother has a powerful emotion, she will talk. After we had been driving her residence an appointment the opposite day, she croaked, “Burgerville.” She wished a milkshake. If I present her pictures or video of her cat (the cat that Kim and I’ve adopted), Mother brightens. “That is my child,” she says as she holds my telephone.

Principally, although, she says nothing.

She hardly responds to questions. Typically she’ll nod or shake her head or smile, however largely she presents no response. (My sister-in-law took her to a health care provider’s appointment final week. Steph says that Mother mentioned nothing for the whole journey besides one phrase once they bought again within the automotive: “cashews”. She knew Steph had cashews within the automotive.)

As a result of Mother doesn’t (can not? is not going to?) inform us what she’s considering or feeling or experiencing, all we and the medical doctors can do is act on what we observe. They’ve run assessments to find why she’s been vomiting blood for the previous six months, however they’ve discovered nothing amiss. Similar with the UTIs. Similar with the reminiscence points.

“Look, I do know that is irritating,” her physician informed me throughout a one-hour video name in February. “And I want we had some solutions for you. Belief me after I say, nonetheless, that each one of those assessments are useful. They could not inform us what’s fallacious, however they permit us to rule out many doable issues.”

And so right here we’re at present. At the moment, my brother and I signed the paperwork to confess Mother into hospice care. We do not consider she’ll die anytime quickly, however we additionally know that the assisted dwelling facility is not geared up to ship her to the emergency room six to eight instances every month. It is unreasonable to count on that.

With hospice, Mother could have a nurse go to two or 3 times every week. Each time one thing occurs that may in any other case ship her to the E.R. — she vomits blood, she falls, and many others. — a hospice nurse can be to her inside half an hour to verify the whole lot is okay.

I will admit that there is part of me (a massive a part of me) that wishes to maneuver Mother in with me and Kim. Now we have the area. She may have the whole downstairs to herself, and he or she might be reunited together with her beloved cat. Plus, I’ve simply spent two months offering hospice take care of my cousin, so I’ve a tough thought of what to anticipate.

However…

I additionally acknowledge this stays a poor thought. It was a poor thought a decade in the past. It was a poor thought final 12 months. It is a poor thought now. It is a poor thought each time it happens to me.

Mother wants skilled care. Duane’s state of affairs was completely different. He was a wholesome younger(-ish) man on the finish of his life. Mother is an older lady whose well being has been declining for greater than a decade. The employees of the assisted dwelling facility know her and take care of her. They’ve coaching that I do not. So, I will let go of the concept she ought to reside with us…for now.

So A lot To Do

I do not count on that Mother’s state of affairs would require as a lot time and a focus as Duane’s did. We’re paying $7000 monthly for skilled professionals to provide her the very best care. Nonetheless, I count on to commit at some point every week to her.

In the meantime, there’s a lot that I would like (or want) to get completed in different corners of my world. My life has been on maintain for nearly three months now. I am desperate to resume it. There are loads of massive tasks looming on the horizon:

• I am fats and need to get match. I joined a neighborhood fitness center right here in Corvallis in the midst of February. I exercised there 4 instances earlier than I started spending most of my time with Duane. I need to start exercising once more. In actual fact, I would like my bodily health to grow to be my prime precedence for the rest of the 12 months.
• Kim and I had supposed to do a few landscaping tasks this spring. One challenge — a facet fence — is essential to her. One other — landscaping the entrance yard — is essential to me. I’ve had no time to begin on these (or different) chores, however I need to achieve this earlier than the bottom turns laborious for the summer season.
• I’ve drastic plans for Get Wealthy Slowly. (Drastic however good.) I’ve written 5000+ phrases about my thought course of however the brief model is that this: I hate what the trendy web has grow to be. I detest it. And I am unhappy that Get Wealthy Slowly is a few small a part of that. I need to strip this website of most (all?) promoting, undertake a minimalist format, and revert to one thing nearer to the running a blog model I used twenty years in the past. If you would like me to jot down completely about cash, you may be upset. If you happen to’re a kind of who’s comfortable to learn any of my musings (monetary or in any other case), you may be happy. Once more, I might began shifting this route in January and February earlier than getting derailed by Duane’s state of affairs. I would like to seek out/make time to renew this work.
• I have to re-write the software program for the household field manufacturing unit. My father wrote the unique packages in 1985 utilizing an Atari ST laptop. I re-wrote the packages in 1998 utilizing Visible Fundamental on a Home windows PC. Now, in 2022, it is time to write a 3rd iteration of our software program, and that is a challenge that may take a few months. (One problem is that I will have to study a brand new programming setting. I feel I’ll use Xojo, which can permit me to construct cross-platform apps.)
• I need to discover volunteering with hospice. Duane’s loss of life modified me in some very profound methods. Whereas I used to be caring for him, my melancholy and nervousness vanished utterly. (They’ve resurfaced some up to now ten days.) The explanations for this are apparent: As everybody at all times says, probably the greatest methods to beat nervousness and melancholy is to assist different individuals. Plus, as tough because it was to assist Duane die, I discovered the expertise so, so significant. Anyhow, I really feel as if I’d be capable of do some good on this world by serving to with hospice, and I need to discover how I might help.

Through the previous ten days at residence, I’ve both been sick or been coping with points that require my rapid consideration. I’ve had no time to dive into these deeper tasks. Now, as issues settle, I need to pursue them within the order listed above.

Which means the primary two issues I will be engaged on are my health and our residence. It would take every week or two to get these tasks shifting, however as soon as I’ve some ahead momentum I can then resume my work on this web site. I am keen to take action! I’ve a transparent imaginative and prescient of what I would like Get Wealthy Slowly to be, and I want that I may merely snap my fingers to make it occur. In actuality, I do know it will be a gradual, gradual transition. The earlier I can get it began, the higher.