Really sick
12/25/2007 06:10 p.m.

I just can't seem to shake this thing. I felt better about a week ago, my cough had all but gone, no more stuffiness...and then all of a sudden, high fevers, chills and sweats, severe weakness, major muscle aches, all clogged up and runny at the same time, raw throat and now back with the tight, tight cough where this bug seems to have settled in my chest. I thought I felt a LITTLE better yesterday, and so with Christmas less than 24hrs away, I did some grocery shopping and a few last minute stocking stuffers. BIG mistake!!! I started feeling really lame about a half hour into the excursion and came home and crashed for two hours. I can't seem to quit coughing or sneezing and blowing my nose. And, oh ya, the headache!

What a way to spend Christmas. And Jeremiah is as sick as I am, poor guy, and was still trying to go to work. Well, he has today (Christmas) and tomorrow off, so I'm going to MAKE him rest (ha, ha!).

Meme has it, too, but to a much lesser degree (thank God) and she, at least, has the opportunity to rest every day. Thank goodness!!

I hope the kids don't get it *knocking on wood*.

Other than that, I'm just waiting for the kids to come home from their dad's and then we'll celebrate our Christmas.

Hoping everyone's Christmas is love-filled with lots of laughter and happy memories. (quietly excusing myself to go puke in a corner before I wear the smile again...hehe).

I am currently Feisty
I am listening to Jeremiah and Steven blow each other to bits

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Kate's wisdom teeth
12/21/2007 09:59 a.m.

Well, she finally got them pulled today, all of them. Ugh. An all day affair, but it included dropping off my youngest son at his grandmother's for the day. Poor Kate. She was one miserable little unit, but she's doing better and at least she won't be in pain because of the way they were coming in crooked.

Whew!!! So glad we have that behind us.

(And, Julie, I know you're reading.....thank you again for the help!!!)

Going to bed finally.....I keep dreaming of the words to a poem I'm working on (Fortress). It will be interesting to see how it turns out since the words are usually just right there.

G'night world.


I am currently Tired
I am listening to Krishna conscious radio

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The temple
12/17/2007 06:36 p.m.
Miah and I finally got to attend services at the ISCKON temple in Portland together. It was very wonderful, full of happy devotees, kirtan (the hindu equivalent of a time for praise and worship), teaching and fellowship! There was a special speaker, a man who was a direct student of A.C. Baktividanta Sri Prabuhpad (who passed away in 1978 I believe). It was a good, practical message. Just to live your life as much as possible being consious of God. And of course, there was prasadam, which is always an excellent experience!

We talked alot on the way home (we live an hour and a half away from the closest ISCKON temple, so there is lots of time to talk on the trip home). I didn't feel nearly as uncomfortable there this time as I did last time. It is a congregation of folks that are mostly not of my ethnic background, and so the experience is not just foreign religiously, but culturally as well. Miah seemed happy to be in the company of other devotees, finally, and we had a nice visit after the service with a couple of the congregation members.

It's so good to remember that, in our daily lives, though we arrive at an office to be of support there, or at a factory to perform manual labor, or live at home caring for the needs of our families...whatever it is we do during the day, it's good to remember that it's most beneficial when we serve as though we were actually serving the Lord, which we truly are. No matter that our children can be thankless, the boss can be cranky or unfair or egotistical or that our backs feel as though they may break under the physical strain of the work we do....it is so good to serve, wherever we are, with the consciousness that we are actually serving the Lord.

Yesterday, we also managed to get Christmas shopping done for the kids within the budget we'd set for it. It's going to be quite a slim Christmas since there are five children to shop for (my oldest said he didn't want anything from us this year). I hope that all my years of trying to set the family tone help the kids to see that our being able to be together is really a better focus than gifts. We got stuff that we could all do together as a family - craft stuff and a video game. Jeremiah is so generous....it's his money after his expenses that are providing this Christmas at all since my "wages" are not in the form of money any longer but rather service inkind. And he doesn't make much (the sad way of wages in such a podunk town as this)!! I'm just feeling so blessed and amazed, as these are not his children nor his responsibility, but he has so generously stepped forward to be our provider in so many ways. I couldn't feel more blessed this year, and I'm WAAAAAAY excited to spend our first Christmas together!!!

Well, it was a lovely day, and I still feel the warm glow of it!!
I am currently Affectionate
I am listening to Nina (our foster dog) bark at the neighbors

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Meme 12-14-07
12/14/2007 11:07 p.m.
I meant to start this journal in the beginning of November, just after Meme came home, but things were going so well at first, there wouldn't have been much to write. But in the last week, she's declining a bit, and so I wanted to start writing about it. Especially since she had what appeared to be a mini-stroke on Wednesday morning, most of her words suddenly garbled, but not beyond recognition. Just slight slurring and some word mis-use and a little garbling, but nothing else. Grip strength equally good, no other confusion and she was getting around with her walker. And it resolved within an hour. Anyway, it's time to do this, start writing things down - both for history, for others who may find their own situations less insane after they read it someday, and because this morning was the first morning I felt annoyed with my caregiver duties. Journaling about it will be good.



Meme woke me up at 5:30 this morning, calling for me over the baby monitor in her room (there are three, on in her living room, one in the laundry room which is an area between the living room and her bedroom, and one in her bedroom). She's never done that before. Ever. So of course the adrenaline is pumping and I fly out of bed, racing downstairs so she's knows I hear her.



She hadn't urinated all night, and she had lain awake, apparently silent because I didn't hear her even stirring around at all, anxious that her usual pattern of having to urgently go every hour or so was not occuring. Also she hadn't had a BM in 3 days and that was troubling her. She told me she hadn't "been to the potty" in over 24hrs. I remembered her going twice yesterday and told her so. She recanted then, saying, "alright. Well, if I did go, it was just a trickle." I asked her when the last time she remembered going was. She said, "Yesterday before noon."

I reminded her that she urinated just before I helped her with her shower. She said, "Ya, but not much. Baaaarely a drop. And I hurt. In my bladder..." (bladdah - the suthin woman in her coming right out)..."and in mah back."



So I called the advice nurse at the local hospital, who concluded she needed to be seen in the ER. Also the advice nurse at her primary care in Portland as her trip to the local ER would be a member out-of-area expense. To the ER. Of course. I mean, what else can they say???



By the time we get there, it's 6:45am. The nurse asks her when she last urinated. "Around noon yesterday." When the doctor exams her, she asks too. Meme says, "Oh, I don't know, sometime late in the afternoon." And when asked if she had any pain, "Not really. No, not now." Within an hour and a half, after a straight cath to get a urine sample and brief rectal exam to check for a possible bowel obstruction, she pees. And then about 20 minutes later, pees again. Her labs look good, her kidney function even better than it has been in a year. But 20-50 WBC in her urine - a slight infection. So, it's good that we ended up going, nipping a UTI in the bud.



And then, on the way home, in her "adult diaper" the hospital provided, the BM. Alot. Three bananas (the way I learned to describe it, from.....somewhere. Where? I can't remember).



She can't imagine how that all happened and says so, just like that. "I can't imagine how that all happened. All of sudden, I could go. Just like that. What in the world is happening to me????"



I wish I knew. But the next time she calls for me at 5:30 in the morning to insist that something is wrong because she hasn't peed in ten to fifteen hours, I think I'll remind her that it won't hurt to wait to go until real people are awake already. I mean, I'm glad we went, because otherwise we might have missed the UTI for another several days. But to woken up like that, wow. That was heart stopping.



She doesn't feel pain the way she used to, and sometimes I swear what she perceives as pain is something else, but I'm not inside her skin so I don't know. She can't describe symptoms the way she used to. Her memory has been slipping worse (again) the last week or so, repeating a comment several times in a short period, (like the way she kept saying on the way home from the ER "It'll be so good to get this infection dealt with.") and asking me to repeat my plans repeatedly, asking me where Jeremiah's church is, and what the name of his church is. Or, asking me obsessively (or dementedly) where her gloves were, her scarf, and reminding me multiple times not to forget them. At least she remembers that she wore them.



Of course she's exhaused this morning, sleeping soundly in her easy chair the remainder of the morning.



It isn't snowing yet and warmer than the weather people thought it would be (35 degrees vs. the 28 predicted). They can never get the weather in The Dalles right. It just isn't possible. The wind patterns here are affected by too many factors, too many different geographies coming together in an apex of sorts right here (knwoing I didn't describe that right). I told Meme that after her comment about loving Christmas trees yesterday, we wanted to put one up downstairs for her even though she'd said in the past she didn't want a tree. She declined, saying she really didn't want one, that it was a sweet thought, but it was a waste of time and money. I argued that she just might enjoy it once we got it up. She said, "No, I don't think I will." She didn't say it in a wistful way, like she felt she ought to say it but she really wished we do it anyway. She does NOT want a tree. But still, I'm undecided. I think I still want to, even if it's just to make me feel better in case it's her last Christmas.



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Coughing and Coughing
12/08/2007 06:05 p.m.


Ugh!!! I hate this part of the cold. More than a week into it, and the congestion in my chest is finally beginning to break up, but with fever and coughing-coughing-coughing. Tight and just beginning to be productive. Ewwwww. Very little sleep last night, had to sit up to prevent the coughing from blowing the blood vessels in my head (and to allow poor Jeremiah to get some rest)!! No voice (my kids LOVE this part) and a headache from the mind blowing hacking.

Heh. I've become a hacker in my 40's. Of the sickest sort. Hehe.

My aunt (who works at the local hospital and so usually has an inside scoop on all the waves of disease that hit this area) says that this bug is typically a three-weeker. Double ugh.

I have discovered one interesting/helpful bit of information. A teaspoon of honey has relieved the urge to cough more than the strongest cough syrup I've tried. Go figure.

Here's to hoping no one else gets this icky stuff!!!




I am currently Tired
I am listening to the hack

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View of generations
12/03/2007 06:18 p.m.

I sometimes think about the generation of my children, how their point of view is so different than that of the folks of my generation. I think about the data they have available, and how different it is from the data I gathered at their ages. I think about how bombarded they've been with violence and shock, how almost nothing real can shock their little socks off.

I used to wonder how teenagers could come into the habit of cutting themselves, but I think I understand now, a little bit. When children are bombarded with the type of media we feed them today, and allowed to become numb to violent expression, how can they be expected to FEEL real life, when their fantasy life has been full of horror for so long that it doesn't phase them any longer? So they cut, to feel something real, something of substance, something they can use their senses to experience. Sharp instruments that cut through real nerves, and then the blood which can be felt, and seen, smelled...and then the real scabs that form afterward, a reminder for a time that something tangible happened, something they had control over, and still have control over. Something inflicted by their own hand, not imposed by media input or parental stuffing.

Is it any wonder that this upcoming generation has to seek out such bizzare (to us, the older generation) input, since what they are "fed" on a daily basis is already so graphic? I suppose we have no one to blame but ourselves. This is what freedom from censorship has done, and I'm certainly not advocating censorship. But holy crap! There has got to be something we can do to preserve the innocence of these young hearts, isn't there?

If there is reincarnation, I think I don't want to come back again. Maybe I have a responsibility to, or maybe I won't be able to get out of it because of karma. Or maybe I am supposed to come back, hold some sort of memory of what I'm learning now, how emotions are precious and should not be stretched so far that a person can't feel any more. I loathe these times, and feel big-picture powerless to hold back the darkness that seems to be creeping into the most precious places, and how innocence is being ruined.

Maybe I'll be a magic grandma someday, the kind that my grandchildren will love to come to see, even if they see me as a bit quaint at first. I hope.


I am currently Gloomy
I am listening to the media

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Wonderful family
11/24/2007 04:48 p.m.

I brought in the mail this morning, and there was a check from my wonderful, silly, totally unobligated step-sister to help cover the cost of putting May down and the rest to help with Kate's teeth. This is one of the step sisters who so generously found a belly dancing class in my podunk little town and then paid for 3+ months of lessons.

While I was, in the final moves, able to have May put to sleep for less than $75 (at the suggestion of the private humane society here, I found another vet who charged WAY less than the other prices out there and then I was able to give a small donation to the shelter for burial), the rest will be a huge help in getting Kate's teeth done.

Julie, your kindness is stunning and very much appreciated.

On a similar note, I am taking Keefer, my other dog, to the humane society today for a visit, to see if he might be able to get along with some other dogs as well. He is very high energy, but is also surprisingly social. For instance, I thought he would want to gobble up my daughter's chinchilla. Instead, they seem to be great friends, calmly sniffing and "kissing" each other through Napoleon's cage. I also thought he'd be terrible with children. But Kate has a friend who has a little boy of about 2, and Keefer is VERY gentle with him.

So, I thought I might look into fostering some of the adoptable pets from "Home at Last." It's reported that being with a family makes these animals' temperment much more appealing to potential families looking to adopt. I like that idea very much; it makes me feel better. I can't wait to see how Keefer will do.

It's so nice to feel like we can do something proactive and positive with the grief over losing May. The kids are so excited to do it!

Here is Keefer:

I am currently Stunned
I am listening to my coffee brewing

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May is no longer with us...
11/20/2007 11:51 p.m.

Well, it's done. May's frail frame weighed only 35lbs (we had her up to about 65lbs at her best).

I wonder where she is, what her spirit is doing, what she is thinking. I wonder if, like other "spirit visits" you hear about, if she sees me and feels how I miss her.




Anyway.


I am currently Sad
I am listening to May's empty quilts

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blech
11/18/2007 07:14 a.m.

I honestly don't know what's wrong with me these days. I'm so bitchy. I can feel the strain of being "stuck" at home already, the only one in my family interested in taking care of my grandmother...and it hasn't even been a month. And of course, I feel terribly guilty about that.

I also feel TERRIBLE about not having a paycheck now, no discretionary $$ of my own. I honestly don't know how long I'm going to be able to tolerate that. And of course, I feel terribly guilty about that.

Plus, Miah is so young. He doesn't understand that to be my mate, especially in my situation, begs so much more of a partner than if he was with someone his own age, and so much more than simply working 40 hours a week. I still have a bathtub to refinish so we can get out of my grandmother's bathroom downstairs and be able to come upstairs to take our showers. I have plastic to put up for the winter, a yard that is screaming to be cleaned, and little handy projects all over. I don't mind doing all the daily stuff that is required now....the dishes and making the beds and doing the laundry and the cooking. I love that stuff. But there is little time left over to tackle the bigger projects. I know these are not his responsibilities. And so, I feel terribly guilty about resenting the fact that he is not helping (except financially, he IS paying his way and then some), and wanting his help with some of the extras that need to be done.

I just feel pissed off all over, and I have all these vague reasons, but really, it feels as if none of them is "the reason." It more feels like I'm just in the worst mood of my life for no reason at all.

Probably underneath that is depression and pressure that I feel from Christmas coming up and no $$, my daughter's wisdom teeth that need to be surgically removed and her in pain and me scrambling to try to find a solution without having to make $2,000.00 appear out of thin air; and my rescue dog who is dying and needs to be put down to relieve her suffering, only I don't have the $175.00 for that; a bill for my son that I can't pay; my other daughter's medicine that I can't pay for; and their dad not going to the courthouse to report that I have physical custody of them so that I can get child support (imagine that, him not wanting to pay child support when for all the years he had them, I paid and paid and don't owe him one red cent). Ya, I think maybe I might be a little pissed off. But mostly pissed off because I feel powerless about the $$ we need. And there is no one to blame. These are my responsibilities, and I'm working on them the best I can but I feel overwhelmed.

I know it's just a matter of doing one thing at a time until it all gets done. And putting it in God's hands because that's really the only thing I can think of to do since my own abilities fall short.

I hate ranting in here, but I don't really have a productive place to do it at home for the moment, and there is no $$ for therapy.

Well.

The next post should have good news. That's the usual flow of it *knocking on wood*.
I am currently Depressed
I am listening to the baby monitor in my grandmother's room picking her breathing.

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I think I'd like to make a new folder
11/03/2007 05:15 p.m.


I'd like a place to just record the day in and day out adventure as Meme's caretaker, and I wonder if it would be appropriate to do that in a separate folder. After all, this journal is simply a separate folder...

It's probably not the best place to do it, but short of searching for another place online to keep a record of what happens, which I don't feel I have the time to do, I wonder if this would be ok???



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