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Nov. 24th, 2003 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serindeWe have survived the weekend's demands in tolerably good order. Yay.
The drive to Cleveland was uneventful, unless you count the unusually large herds of trucks on the road which slowed things down a bit in spots. Arrived at Mom's about 2pm on Saturday afternoon, got sorted, and then went over to my grandparents'.
It was better and some ways and worse in others than I'd anticipated. When Betsey'd got back from visiting them about six weeks ago, she said it had seemed to her that Grandpa had pretty much given up, and was in the process of letting go. That's not how it seemed to us, but then, the doctor had started him on Zoloft just after Betsey left (not on account of his mood, mind you; it's apparently to suppress the body's panic reaction when it can't get enough air, which for Grandpa is, well, almost all the time). He seemed in good spirits, with the exception of the occasional flash of frustration or anger if he had problems accomplishing something. But he's also confused by turns--very confused, sometimes--and falls a lot, both of which Grandma says has gotten worse since the Zoloft. When I say "confused", it's not that he doesn't recognize any of us, or doesn't know who we are; but he will get up to, say, go to the living room, and then forget what he was doing and go somewhere else instead, lather-rinse-repeat. Or he will have a conversation with the spot next to him on the couch, which he seems to think is occupied by one of the family. Still, he seems to be enjoying said conversations, which is more than I can say for most of the ones I have over the course of the day, so who am I to judge? (And sometimes he is "in tune"; he was perfectly cognizant of what was going on in the golf tournament he was watching, and was passing on tidbits about the individual golfers to Steve.) But the confusion occasionally gets dangerous--Grandma says that the other day, when she was in the other room, he tried to go down basement for some fishing line and fell down the basement stairs. No harm that time, other than a small cut--we're hard to kill--but an 87-year-old body is not going to be that lucky all the time.
Which leads to the other owie, which is that Grandma is a lot worse off than I'd realized. Her arthritis is bad enough that she can hardly stand up, her vision is deteriorating, and now she's starting to lose track of her thoughts more and more, too. So she's in poor shape herself, and is doing her best to ride herd on Grandpa, and I think she's at the limit of her capacity to handle. Mom and Aunt Marion (Grandma's younger sister) are in and out constantly to help, but it's just not enough; Mom's been trying to get them to think about assisted living, but they've been very resistant to the idea up to this point.
We stayed over there for several hours, and then took Mom to see Master and Commander. Unfortunately it was being shown in one of the smaller (houses? theaters? rooms?) of the mega-plex, so we ended up having to sit in the front row. I didn't need that neck anyways. Next morning, we got up rotten early, had breakfast, and left for Buffalo.
Emboldened by my success at going 95 for the whole way to Skirmish t'other weekend, and by keeping the dial fixed around 85 on the way to Cleveland whenever the masses of trucks permitted, I was zooming merrily along the very-empty I-90, came over a rise, and was staring a Willoughby Hts. cop car in the nose. "Oh, fuck." Pulled over, he said I was doing 84 in a 60 (60?! Whoever heard of a 60 mph zone? That must be why he lurks there). And my usual superior acting skills and instinctual knowledge of how to play the situation, which ordinarily kick in the instant Officer Friendly pulls out up behind me, had gone utterly AWOL. The best I could do was the brave face and quivery lip, alluding to sick family, but I wouldn't have fooled me. And I didn't fool him either. This is my first speeding ticket and, though I'm not joyed about that either, especially since it's probably going to be a nasty chunk of change, the real pisser is that I called on one of my resources and it failed to answer.
We got to Buffalo about twelve-thirty, dropped by the store to pick up one of their in-house roasted chickens (was quite good, I have to say) and a few sides to go with, and then proceeded to Steve's mom's house.
So, his mom has one failed kidney, and one kidney that's operating minimally. The doctors gave her a video and several pamphlets on dialysis options, which she hadn't looked at (well, not the video because her VCR wasn't working right, but.) I read through the literature; it seems what they do now is implant a catheter in your belly, set up a membrane thing in your peritoneal cavity with some dialysis fluid, and that acts as a kidney-inside-your gut. You flush out the fluid with the waste, and then fill up with clean fluid. (You can either do this yourself three or four times a day, just using gravity, or you can hook yourself up to a machine all night which will do it while you sleep.)
She's terrified, which is fair enough, but part of that might be because she's completely uninformed on the matter--because she's afraid to watch the video/read up about it, and also she isn't comfortable with asking questions of the doctor. Sigh. One big question we have for the doctor is, why the fucking fuck is she not on the schedule for this until February?! With only one working kidney and that one barely so...! She's retaining water something fierce--her ankles and feet are very swollen, even though she's on a strict diet and limited fluid intake. Steve is going to call her Tuesday night and give her a list of questions to ask the doctor.
We left some hours later, swung by and said hi briefly to Steve's friends who were conveniently gathered for gaming, and started the drive home, arriving about twenty to one.
The drive to Cleveland was uneventful, unless you count the unusually large herds of trucks on the road which slowed things down a bit in spots. Arrived at Mom's about 2pm on Saturday afternoon, got sorted, and then went over to my grandparents'.
It was better and some ways and worse in others than I'd anticipated. When Betsey'd got back from visiting them about six weeks ago, she said it had seemed to her that Grandpa had pretty much given up, and was in the process of letting go. That's not how it seemed to us, but then, the doctor had started him on Zoloft just after Betsey left (not on account of his mood, mind you; it's apparently to suppress the body's panic reaction when it can't get enough air, which for Grandpa is, well, almost all the time). He seemed in good spirits, with the exception of the occasional flash of frustration or anger if he had problems accomplishing something. But he's also confused by turns--very confused, sometimes--and falls a lot, both of which Grandma says has gotten worse since the Zoloft. When I say "confused", it's not that he doesn't recognize any of us, or doesn't know who we are; but he will get up to, say, go to the living room, and then forget what he was doing and go somewhere else instead, lather-rinse-repeat. Or he will have a conversation with the spot next to him on the couch, which he seems to think is occupied by one of the family. Still, he seems to be enjoying said conversations, which is more than I can say for most of the ones I have over the course of the day, so who am I to judge? (And sometimes he is "in tune"; he was perfectly cognizant of what was going on in the golf tournament he was watching, and was passing on tidbits about the individual golfers to Steve.) But the confusion occasionally gets dangerous--Grandma says that the other day, when she was in the other room, he tried to go down basement for some fishing line and fell down the basement stairs. No harm that time, other than a small cut--we're hard to kill--but an 87-year-old body is not going to be that lucky all the time.
Which leads to the other owie, which is that Grandma is a lot worse off than I'd realized. Her arthritis is bad enough that she can hardly stand up, her vision is deteriorating, and now she's starting to lose track of her thoughts more and more, too. So she's in poor shape herself, and is doing her best to ride herd on Grandpa, and I think she's at the limit of her capacity to handle. Mom and Aunt Marion (Grandma's younger sister) are in and out constantly to help, but it's just not enough; Mom's been trying to get them to think about assisted living, but they've been very resistant to the idea up to this point.
We stayed over there for several hours, and then took Mom to see Master and Commander. Unfortunately it was being shown in one of the smaller (houses? theaters? rooms?) of the mega-plex, so we ended up having to sit in the front row. I didn't need that neck anyways. Next morning, we got up rotten early, had breakfast, and left for Buffalo.
Emboldened by my success at going 95 for the whole way to Skirmish t'other weekend, and by keeping the dial fixed around 85 on the way to Cleveland whenever the masses of trucks permitted, I was zooming merrily along the very-empty I-90, came over a rise, and was staring a Willoughby Hts. cop car in the nose. "Oh, fuck." Pulled over, he said I was doing 84 in a 60 (60?! Whoever heard of a 60 mph zone? That must be why he lurks there). And my usual superior acting skills and instinctual knowledge of how to play the situation, which ordinarily kick in the instant Officer Friendly pulls out up behind me, had gone utterly AWOL. The best I could do was the brave face and quivery lip, alluding to sick family, but I wouldn't have fooled me. And I didn't fool him either. This is my first speeding ticket and, though I'm not joyed about that either, especially since it's probably going to be a nasty chunk of change, the real pisser is that I called on one of my resources and it failed to answer.
We got to Buffalo about twelve-thirty, dropped by the store to pick up one of their in-house roasted chickens (was quite good, I have to say) and a few sides to go with, and then proceeded to Steve's mom's house.
So, his mom has one failed kidney, and one kidney that's operating minimally. The doctors gave her a video and several pamphlets on dialysis options, which she hadn't looked at (well, not the video because her VCR wasn't working right, but.) I read through the literature; it seems what they do now is implant a catheter in your belly, set up a membrane thing in your peritoneal cavity with some dialysis fluid, and that acts as a kidney-inside-your gut. You flush out the fluid with the waste, and then fill up with clean fluid. (You can either do this yourself three or four times a day, just using gravity, or you can hook yourself up to a machine all night which will do it while you sleep.)
She's terrified, which is fair enough, but part of that might be because she's completely uninformed on the matter--because she's afraid to watch the video/read up about it, and also she isn't comfortable with asking questions of the doctor. Sigh. One big question we have for the doctor is, why the fucking fuck is she not on the schedule for this until February?! With only one working kidney and that one barely so...! She's retaining water something fierce--her ankles and feet are very swollen, even though she's on a strict diet and limited fluid intake. Steve is going to call her Tuesday night and give her a list of questions to ask the doctor.
We left some hours later, swung by and said hi briefly to Steve's friends who were conveniently gathered for gaming, and started the drive home, arriving about twenty to one.
