And the Road Continues

     My wonderful Runtyun has been helping Kyle out at the Cathedral during Music Camp for the past week. What a great way for her to start off her summer vacation! It has been a bit of a challenge getting her to and from Camp, mostly where to go after each day is complete. Her grandfather has been a tremendous amount of help. Thanks Dad.

     However, yesterday at 2:45 he called me and said he would not be able pick her up due to Mom's falling and not feeling so well. Well as you might expect, this bit of information started a whole bunch of balls rolling.

     As it turns out, Mom is OK. She was discharged from the ER around 10 last night. Being 92 we all were concerned for her health and safety, but it turns out we all overreacted.

     And now the complexity of our road to recovery and quality of life for Mother's remaining days is becoming more interesting.

olc

Doc's party pt. 1

There is a party coming up, one that is a flashback to my past...the good and bad old days. It comes down to whether or not to go. For some reason I am making this much more complicated than is necessary. Of course I want to go, yet Atlanta in general and Doc's in particular represents some of the most traumatic times of my tenure on this world.

I find myself staring off into the past while writing this, remembering the fun and the pain. Somehow the face of my beautiful Runtyun appears and pushes everything aside.

Why would I want to go back there? I think this the first question I need to address. As I tell my Runtyun, one can never have too many friends. And I truly have too few. So it would be nice to re-cultivate some old ones.

Apart from seeing some of my old Doc's buddies, I may spend some time with others whom I miss. Eric is one of my best oldest friends, he has helped me with some legal matters, and he can poor a mean slug of single malt! Of course there is Jennifer, with whom I have some kind of bond that is beyond explanation, yet I enjoy her company!

When ever I go down to Smyrna, it is always a test of my resolution to stay off drugs. For all those purest NA folks out there who read this, I do drink beer, which is technically a drug yet I feel that I have that under control.

I even thought about going to an NA meeting at the rehab that I attended before I got clean. Maybe that could be cathartic in some way.

Well, now we have an idea of the kind of posts I be doing in the near future. They will have to do with the process I am going through for attending the party.


olc

Mom's Journey

Wow, I have been focusing my energies on this new project recently and completely ignoring ones which were already going on!

As you know, because you the reader are so loyal to this blog, I have been working on a new blog centered around the Greenhouse Moto Cafe, go on over and have a look. Also, my mother took a fall awhile ago and had to spend a long time at Stone Creek Rehab.

She is a tough old bird, I only hope I am as strong as her when I get there. When she was admitted to Stone Creek, she was awake and could hold a conversation. However, we all knew something was not quite right with her ability to think a thought through to its logical end. Also physically, the bruise on her left temple was still pretty profound and her left arm and shoulder were and are still incredibly weak.

When Mom was released from Stone Creek, both her and Dad were emotionally ready for it. I wonder if their need to "get home where she belongs," may have been premature from a physical therapy point of view. She is so weak.

At any rate though, she is at home and seems to be happier. Their church community brings dinner over for the next little bit, thus letting the two of them get settled into a routine. And there are lots of people coming and going, trying to establish a health program to help maintain Mom's (wait for it!)...Health! 

However, Mom and Dad want to live a quiet life with little distraction. For the moment though, this is not happening.

Dad and I talked a little about his concerns. If the conversation had a title it would have been, Concerns of the Primary Care Giver. Mostly I think, he just needed to let off some steam. He let me know that the invasion of their house was taking a toll on him. I could see it on his face, feel it in his body. After we had talked it through some, a light bulb lit over my head.

The truth is, I was not sure if he just needed to vent, or if he was looking for solutions for his angst. Being a fixer, I took a leap and tried to help him to ease into the new life style they are shifting into. Dad has a number of concerns which he mentioned, but the most important seemed to be the constant, almost revolving door-like, flow of new people who need to come in and help Mom. The perceived demands of the care-givers; when could they come by and help; the fact that these care-givers were giving both Mom and Dad directions on how to live and so forth, was taking a severe  toll on Dad.

After some more conversation, I realized that maybe they needed one day off from the physical therapy, the constant visits from car-givers, the woman, Carol is her name, who is helping Mom with her day to day routine and so forth. They need a day off from it all. They need some predictability in their daily life. I suggested they tell the world that Thursday would be their day, no appointments, no visits, no nothing.

I'm hoping Dad will be able to enforce this.

I wish I was able to say all is well in House Turner. There have been some profound changes in their life, ones which will forever impact them and their style of life. Mom is weaker than I have ever seen her. And Dad will have to learn how to compensate. Saying that, Dad is not 70 any more and is beginning to feel the limitations of nearly 90 years of living on this Earth. It is hard for them to accept help from anyone. After all, they have been doing fine over these many years, right?

I will play my role, as will Martha, and assist in every way I can.

I love you Mom and respect your fortitude. Dad, your quiet strength is so understated that sometimes we just accept it without understanding the toll it takes on you.


olc

On our way home, but what about her?

Something just happened which I need to relate and get off my chest.

The Runtyun and I had just finished having lunch with the Grands and Martha. It was the first time Mother had been able to have lunch outside of her rehab facility since her accident. Lunch went well, the food was good and the family time will last in my memory for a long lasting and pleasant smile.

As all things must do, our time came to an end, Mom had to go back and relax, and the Runtyun and I found our way to a store for clothes. (Imagine that!) No luck on the buying front, but this is expected when we go clothes shopping.

However, as we were pulling into the store I noticed a lady going in with clothes to trade, she looked like she was carrying more weight on her shoulders then the pile in her arms. I thought nothing about it because the place accepts consignments. Well, after a few minutes of waiting for the Runtyun to find something, she came to me and no said there was nothing for her right now, so we left. 

I noticed the lady I just mentioned was out by her car too. Not paying much attention to her I kept walking. As I walked past her car though, I saw a sign that said "Victim of abuse." There was more printed on the sign, but my eye was drawn to the woman. She was crying.

I have to admit that I almost kept going.

But I turned around and called out to her. She turned to me balling her eyes out, her tears flowing from the release of emotion which she failed to control. After some time she was able to communicate that her boyfriend was going to hurt her and she had to leave. She was at this store trying to get some gas money.

It turns out this woman lives a ways from here. How she got to Asheville, I do not know. I think maybe, she just got in her car trying to save herself from another beating and is stranded here with no money or friends.

The woman was truly distraught and my heart needed to help in some way. I told her she was welcome to come over to our place for a minute until she felt strong enough to do something. I gave her my contact info in case she decided to take us up on the offer. Truly, I don't think I will ever hear from her, but I had to do something.

I wanted to do more than offer help. But she was running from a man and I feared my helping would only make things worse for her. I did not push anymore. 

She has my phone number and if she calls I will answer and give whatever aid I can. But some how, I feel I could have done more.

As the Runtyun and I were driving home, I could not stop thinking about this poor woman. I think though, when one offers to help, and genuinely wants to do the right thing, and the offer is declined, one should walk away and know they have done the right thing.

I just hate thinking that she will have no place safe go to tonight. Maybe I could have been more persuasive.

olc

Thoughts and Concerns

For the most part I have kept these posts positive yet the realistic. Yesterday though, I had a back-of-the-head slap from reality.

In truth, my mother is a strong woman, some might say headstrong and she is doing well in her physical recovery. We all are grateful for this. However, she seems to be lonely at Stone Creek. I guess I can understand her emotional state, after all she is used to having Dad around all of the time---at home. Now though, he can only be there a few hours at a time a couple times a day.

The rest of the time she is alone, or doing PT, or doing crosswords puzzles, or watching T.V., or whatever.

I have made an effort to stop by every day for a few minutes. I wish I could do more. However, my daughter, The Runtyun, needs me too. And my job is intruding on our time together.

Mom has had a string of visitors, but they can only visit for a moment. One can only guess at the void that is left when they leave---only to be filled with silence and the sounds of the facility for company.

olc

A bloggers lament

I have been writing on various blogs which I have created for a few years now. I enjoy writing, it helps to sort my disheveled mind. Generating ideas and finding ways to articulate those ideas in an orderly manner is fun. I gain a kind of satisfaction when I hit the publish key.

As much fun as writing and then posting is, a writer this writer anyhow, needs to have readers and feed back. I'm not getting any from any one. So I have to ask myself a couple of questions. Number one, Why? Why aren't people following me and Why am I not getting any comments. 

To get some kind of answer, I sat back and thought for a bit ( you should have seen the smoke pouring  out of my ears). Maybe I am not writing about things others find interesting. Maybe I'm not writing in an interesting way. Or maybe my writing is not getting to a large enough audience.

I don't know, I just wish I had some followers.

olc

And now for something a little different. My experience at the VA

I guess you could say it all started out back in the days of my youth. I thought that if I went into the Navy my life would magically be come better. 

Well, it has taken a few years, but that wish may have finally come true. Maybe a better start to this story would be with Obama care and the fact that everyone should get insurance. Well, I fell into the hole between getting subsidized insurance and anything else. You gotta love North Carolina!

At any rate, the VA stepped up and is giving me some health care! Yay! I filled out some forms and they called me and said I was good to go. All I had to do was show up and we could get started. 

I got there at 8 A.M. for an 8:30 appointment. I did the things they told me to and expected to have everything take a whole bunch of time. My nurse was calling my name at precisely 8:30. She was professional and very friendly and helpful. She had her things to do and say before I got to see the doctor, who was just was as accommodating.

I gotta say the layout of the building was a little difficult to figure out, but I think in the future my site memory will help me to get to the places I need to go. The idea of naming hallways like streets seemed a little funky, but the labels may help those like me to remember directions later.

I was given 3 different assignments, one to get blood work done, another for a couple of X-rays the last was for an EKG. All of the departments were ready for me when I arrived. While the wait for the blood work was a little longer than I wanted, they were pushing patients through at break neck speed---so many people ahead of me.

The other two places had a wait list of less then 5 minutes, not even enough time to pull out my iPhone to check out what was going on outside. Actually, that was just as well, because WIFI and Internet seemed to be nonexistent throughout.

While I waiting for the EKG, I received a call from another doctor at the VA who was notified by my main Doctor that I should have an appointment. We made arrangements for an hour from then.

This one was the longest appt. of all. Four hours after it started, we finally finished. I thought maybe I had done something wrong because it seemed like this guy was trying to execute me. At first he was prodding me with something like a stun gun and when that did not work he started injecting me with needles! Actually, he was trying to track some nerve system issues.Yep, I got them all right. 

Now because I went to these guys, I know about these issues. And now I have a team of medical people out there to help me find ways to fix them.

At the age of 18, I did not think about health care and how to take care of myself when I turned 50 and later. In all honesty, I was not thinking, yet that decision was prescient. The fact that our government has seen fit to create the Veteran's Administration to take care of those who were willing to die for our country may be one of the most telling and profound reasons to be an American.

olc