my father

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Mom's birthday today. A little weepy.

[Drunk Monk]

There's that old phenomenon where a spouse departs soon after they are widowed. So I've been keeping a close eye on my mom. She's been doing well, overall, but her knee has degraded past the point of any therapy. She is scheduled for a arthroplasty surgery next Monday - replacement of the pads in her knee. It's a major surgery at her age. Needless to say, I'll be at the ready all next week and into the following week to attend to her. She will likely spend 2-3 days at the hospital and then be transferred to a nursing home for 7-10 days - the same one my dad died in. Her insurance is covering most of it.

On the nights when I stay at my mom's, I pass where the Blue Cube was a Lockheed. My dad worked in that facility. Not sure what he did there exactly - I think it was related to when he worked as an engineer for various surveillance machines, mostly radar and satellites I think. He was sworn to confidentiality on that work. Nevertheless he was quite proud to have worked in the Blue Cube, and prior to his stroke, would always make some comment about it whenever we passed it. It's gone now. I watched it being dismantled over several months last year. So many things about his life just vanished.

My mom seems to have finally settled all of my dad's accounts. My dad did quite well - he saved enough money for my mom to live very securely, assuming there's no prolonged medical issue. My mom's greatest fear is to wind up in a home and fritter away all of the savings. I tell her not to worry as it's her money. But she's always generous, very conscious of the financial transfer issues, and trying to prep stuff for me for when her time comes.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Sei Brav. I'll keep you in my thoughts.

[King Bob]

DM - IMO the real fear is if she needs to move to assisted living and won't. My mother went through that for a long time (finally now going to move, whew) and the unskilled care - just keeping an eye on them - is up to $500 per day. It put a huge dent in her savings, and she has been so isolated (and sedentary). Something to think about.

[Drunk Monk]

My parents had what they thought was good insurance, which covered like $100 a day. Seemed like a lot at the time but not nearly enough by today's standards. It's my mom's greatest fear I think.

[King Bob]

Well the house is a big nest egg if she moves, but if she is anything like my mother she doesn't want to think about that.

FYI there was an big upswing in my mother when my father died; it was like a weight off her shoulders. Of course every case is different, but it is a possibility.

[Drunk Monk]

She was pretty drowsy, post-op, as to be expected, but smiling and coherent. The Doc said there were no complications and it all went well, despite the operation taking an extra nail-biting half hour. I'll see her again at lunch. They said they were going to stand her up yesterday night and have her climb a few steps today. Crazy what medical science can do nowadays. She's at El Camino, where my daughter was born and where my father received his last medical treatments. That place is full of robots now - srsly, robots roll around the halls delivering stuff - but the staff is remarkably attentive considering how busy they are.

I spent the night at my mom's house - did some laundry, watched Logan's Run on El Rey and caught up with Downtown Abbey. One of my mom's neighbors came by to find out how the operation went. At 3:30 AM the fire alarm outside my old room decided it had a dead battery, beeping incessantly until I finally got up to silence it. Of course, I had to check the house just to be sure that there wasn't anything on fire, but I didn't ignite anything beyond the dryer in the garage (several fire alarms away) and the heater. Slept very poorly last night. Drinking Starbucks now. Starbucks really sux.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

good news. Glad to hear the operation was a success.

It occurred to me I would be hard pressed to find your old house.

[cranefly]

DM, I wasn't aware your mom was facing an operation. Anyway, glad it seems to have gone well.

[Drunk Monk]

...you were occupied with your own mom's situation.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Glad it went well for your Mom and I hope she recovers very quickly.

[Drunk Monk]

She overdid her PT yesterday and got rather sore. I suspect she misheard the instructions (10X every 30 mins - she did 10X every 10 mins). She is still a little loopy from the pain meds, which is strangely amusing to me. This was her first surgery ever, something that astonished her doctor. It is also the first time she has slept outside of her home in well over a decade. We were discussing that yesterday and think that the last time she slept somewhere else was in 2001 when she returned to Hawaii for my Grandfather's funeral.

She will be transferred to the Nursing Home sometime today. Ironically, it is the same nursing home where my Dad passed away last year. It'll be really weird going back there this evening after work. I used to go there every week to visit my Dad, to say 'farewell' again just in case, something I did for months as you all know from this here thread. I remember when he finally passed, one of my thoughts was 'thank goodness I won't have to go back to that home'. Alas...

[King Bob]

Best wishes DM. It is a depressing thing. I went every day when my mother was recovering from hip replacement and always dreaded it.

[Drunk Monk]

I should say that it is an excellent facility and my mom is quite comfortable. She knows many of the faculty, as do I, as we were there on such a regular basis for my dad for months. But it's weird to go back. Even more so for my parent's home. When I stay over and my mom isn't there, it just reminds me of the inevitable moment when I will have to close that house, and get rid of all that stuff.

My mom is doing well but still in enough pain that she will probably stay at the nursing facility for a week. I was planning to go to Tahoe this weekend with my family to celebrate Stacy's birthday (right after Valentine's) but unfortunately we can't take the pom, so I'll stay behind and tend to my mom. I'm feeling a little under the weather now (good thing we didn't go out last night, Greg) - surely from exhaustion - I feel pretty rundown - so the break will be good. I was invited to Peggy O's 50th this weekend and S is encouraging me to go. We'll see how I'm feeling then.

I made an interesting discovery. My mom hoards bags. She's always on about how we have to buy bags at stores now. When I took her clothes over to the nursing home, she said to bring a bag for dirty laundry. I found two major caches of bags, paper and plastic, in the house. I called her on it and she totally 'fessed to it, grinning somewhat mischievously about being a hoarder. At least it's not spoons.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Ah, hoarding. Don't get me started.