Lord Love A Duck - 6

For anyone that hasn't been following along, Lord love a duck is one of my mother's expressions. I have no idea what it means other than that she is exasperated. So these posts always involve Mom but I'm the one that is exasperated.

I visit Mom twice a week and I have about three hours each visit to get things done for her. On Monday I struggled to get one load of laundry done and the kitchen floor washed. I sent John to the grocery store so I could get it done. Not much to show for three hours!

I had big plans for today but so did Mom. As soon as I walked through the door she had her to-do list in hand and was reading it off.

Top of the list was to have John go out and read the number on the telephone pole out front. The street light has been flickering and driving her crazy so she called the power company to complain. They wouldn't send anyone out unless she knew the number on the pole. Simply giving her address and saying the pole closest to the house was not specific enough for them. She seemed to have forgotten that John retired from the power company and she went into a long winded explanation of where to find the number on the pole. She was all concerned about his boots because she didn't want him to get snow in them when he climbed the snow bank to get the number?! We could see the metal tag on the pole from the house and he did not have to climb the snowbank to get the number but she was concerned about his safety until he returned.

Mom can no longer go shopping so she gets catalogs. Lots and lots of catalogs and she is always finding things she has to have. Her latest order came in a box that just fit in the mailbox. Mom cannot get out to the street so my sister brought in the mail when she visited yesterday. The box was wedged in there so tightly that she had to go back in the house and find tools to help her get it out. Heaven forbid the mailman should walk an extra 50 feet to deliver a package to the door for an old lady! One of the items in the box was a sleep mask to block out the flickering street light.

Apparently the extension cord for her nebulizer has been getting tangled in the chair legs. Rather than mention that to us she saw a neat little plastic gizmo that will coil the extra cord and keep it out of the way. Of course you can't buy just one, you have to buy a six pack. I finally figured out the directions (my Greek is improving!) and after breaking two nails and enlisting John to help I was able to show her that there was no way that much cord was going to fit into that little plastic thing. I went out to the kitchen and found a wire tie and shortened her cord. And as long as I was sitting under the desk anyway I dusted too! She was very dissapointed that her little gizmos didn't work so I guess we'll have to shorten her phone cord or something next week.

It seems like once a week some light bulb needs changing so John took care of that while I ran downstairs to bring up the laundry I hung on Monday. Holy cow! It was almost 11:30 already so I sent John off to the store by himself again. Mom gets Meals-on-wheels but yet she still needs things from the store at least twice a week. Sometimes she has a list for my sister too!

While John was gone I decided to try and clean the table or at least straighten it up a bit. Mom never throws out anything. Still on the center of the table were the papers that came with her chair. _ The chair that we got her last summer. The manual was sitting on the desk (you never know, she might have to look something up!) so I stuck the delivery papers in it and tossed the two paper tags in the recycling bag. My mistake - letting her see me do it. She went right over to the bag, took out both tags and placed them neatly in the manual. What were the tags you ask? One was a square that said, "Made in America" - certianly something bad would happen if we got rid of that! The other was a - gasp - YELLOW CAUTION tag. It had to do with how to put the chair together and is covered in the manual. Um, Mom, the chair is already put together and working fine! I should just shrug it off as a quirk of old age but I so wanted to run into the bedroom and rip the tag off the end of the bed, the one that says, "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW." I restained myself figuring that that would just give her a heart attack.

Then she took five full minutes to ask if I would get mad if she asked my advice but didn't take it. No, Mom - you'd be in the majority if you didn't take my advice. She went on to say that my sister had told her to get more information first. Finalllly she got to it. The company that services her furnace had sent a flyer offering prepaid services and she didn't know what to do. So I took  my sister's advice and called them. They want to charge her and extra $150 for what is essentially an insurance policy that will cover any needed repairs up to $750. I pointed out that she has annual service and has never had a problem so I thought she should just set the $150 aside and in five years she'd have her $750 saved up but would have parted with it if she didn't need to. Will she take my advice? Probably not!

I finally gave up any idea of getting anything done and we had a nice chat about her grandmother and other memories of long ago.

So the dust bunnies won this round but I will beat them back next week!

Lord Love A Duck! - 5

Goodness, has it really been more than a year and a half since I've had one of these posts? For anyone that hasn't been around that long, Lord love a duck is one of my mother's expressions. I have no idea what it means other than that she is exasperated. So these posts always involve Mom.

Mom had an appointment with her primary care physician this morning, one of the few things she leaves the house for. I headed down to her house this morning. There are two highways I can take, either 81 or 690. I'd heard there were lane closings on 690 but not where so I elected for 81, construction and all. No problem, I arrived early.

So we're she's chatting (she's been very chatty lately!) and I interrupt to tell her I need to get ready to leave. I use the bathroom first and head out to the garage to get the cooler for meals on wheels. She's still sitting in her new throne chair. I grab the oxygen pack, an extra cylinder, my purse and her suitcase purse and lug them through the living room and out to the car. She says she'll be right behind me. I go back to help her down the steps and she's vanished. She'd forgotten that she needed the bathroom too! So we get out to the car and she has trouble getting in. I say,"let me move the seat back," but nooooooo, she's fine. Finally she manages and we're off, only about five minutes late. Of course I had planned to leave five minutes early because it's always something.

To get to the doctor's office from her house you have to take 690 or cut through the city and without even thinking I headed for the highway. Now we know where the lane closures were. Rather than deal with the crazy traffic I decided to get off and take the boulevard, which quite concerned her. "I have no idea how to get to the doctor from the boulevard!" she exclaimed. Pause. "Of course I don't know how to get there from the highway either so I guess you know best." Thanks Mom!

We start talking about the way things were in the old days along this stretch of road. She tells me about the old muck farms and I point out the bowling alley where she bowled in league. I make a couple of turns and she exclaims, "This is Widewaters! How'd we get here." We arrived at the office right on time. (And can anyone tell me why it's called Widewaters!?)

Now usually it's hurry up and wait at this doctor but today they took her back fairly quickly. The nurse wasn't the one we're used to and she had a hard time with the bp cup. Apparently is wasn't reading out on the thing-a-bob on the wall she she kept pumping it up. You could tell Mom was in pain and finally the nurse decided to start over. She pumped it even further this time and Mom started yelling at her to stop and take it off, so no bp today.

While waiting for the doctor we talked about what she wanted to talk to him about. She was concerned about the swelling in her feet and legs and I was concerned that she's been unsteady on her feet. So the doctor comes in, says hi and before he can say anything else she exclaims, "Is there a limit to how much shrinking I'm going to have? And I don't mean sideways I used to be able to reach the second shelf in the cupboards and now I can't and it seems to me that the vertebrae can only shink so much and I want it to stop!" The last was said in a single breath - no small feat for Mom! He asked her how long it has been since she couldn't reach the shelf. Her answer - a day or two. Oh my, I never saw this one coming. He asked if she'd lost more than two inches and when I said yes he started hustling her out the door and down the hall for a bone density test. I insist that he look at her ankles first.

While she is having her test I am parked on a folding chair in the hall and an old woman sits down next to me. She was waiting for the same test Mom was having. She bought her clothes in 1999 for a trip to Tampa that she must have really enjoyed. She worked 42 years at the same company, has wonderful children and beautiful grandchildren and great-grandchildren - and was obviously very lonely. I continued to listen to her even after Mom joined us in the hall. She was really a sweet person and I hope one of her family calls her tonight!

Mom finally gave in and asked for her oxygen and I hooked her up. The doctor comes to talk to us right there in the hall - so much for privacy! Mom doesn't have osteoporosis so he tells her to take a calcium supplement and increase her water pill to twice a day. Mom's stumbling has really worried me but she refuses to use her cane. I know from experience that if the doctor tells her she has to she will so I bring it up again. He tells her she needs to start using the cane. She complains that with only one useful arm she can't carry anything if she uses it. He responds that then she needs a walker and they have a small triangular one with a basket and a tray that would work well for her, come back in a month.

So we make an appointment and head out to the car and she wants to know if I've moved the seat back yet. I had but I moved it back some more. Then her oxygen tank ran out. I knew it was low but not that low! I switch over to the other tank and realize that the first tank stopped because I hadn't opened the valve properly. Crap. She's fine so I don't switch it back and start out of the parking lot. She decides that she feels like going to shop for a walker. I was shocked but figured strike while the iron is hot. She knows where the place is - a little shopping area either on W. Genesee or Erie Blvd, she can picture it! I can't, so I call home so John can look up the address for me. It's on E. Genesee. East, west, what's the difference!?

So we leave and I turn right and she says she's sure we need to go west. I tell her that we need to get to E. Genesee St first. I go to the next corner and turn left on Erie and again she says she thinks I'm going the wrong way. I explained we had to go a couple of blocks further yet. My patience was waning. We finally got to the intersection and I pointed left and said, "Well that way is Fayetteville, which way do you think we should go?" Finally we agreed and went right!

Thirty or so pleasant blocks later we came to the store. It was right by the old Christian Science church that I used to attend. "See, I knew it was right here!" If she'd told me it was near the church to begin with things would have been so much easier.... There is a handicap space right in front of the store. I hardly ever use one but I didn't want to drop her off and go park, so I took it. She promptly told me that I couldn't park there, couldn't I see the fire hydrant? (The hydrant was one space up and this spot was clearly marked.) I started fishing for change and had to explain why I was going to pay if there was no meter. I came back with the receipt and put it on the dash but I don't think that she understood how it works.

So we head into the store and see the walker the doctor had described right off. But she has had in mind for some time that if she got a walker with a seat she could get out to check the mail. You know walk a little, sit a little. Never mind the fact that the walker would be in the garage and no good to her in the house. I took a different approach and pointed out that those walkers probably wouldn't fit through her tiny house. (They were just as wide as the three wheeled one was in back. But we do not need to tell her this, agreed?) The three wheeled one had a basket, tray and carrying bag so she took it for a test walk around the store. I noticed she was breathing through her mouth. For whatever reason the oxygen wasn't working again. She so seldom uses the portable tanks but I am fairly sure I had it hooked up right the second time! It seemed to be working in the car. They adjusted the height for her, took her check and we were finally headed home.

She seems much steadier with it and I really hope she uses it. Her house is tiny and she can't get to the kitchen with it, so when John and I go again we'll have to switch some things around and maybe take the kitchen door off. The new lift chair takes up a good chunk of floor space in the living room but she seemed to get through there OK and I moved the couch and table down so she could get to the hall easily.

John and I had an appointment at 2:00 and after running to the store for her calcium supplement I was starting to feel pushed for time and asked if there was anything else she needed before I left. Well she needed to tell me about her new trash service which took a few minutes.

Now I'm running late and a bit cranky and she says, "I can't tell you how much it means to me that you and your sister come as often as you do and do so much for me."

Love you too Mom!

Lord Love A Duck, Part 3

Thank you all for your caring comments about my accident. I thought I'd update how things have been going. Already some of you are scratching your heads because of the title. You may recall that in LLAD part 1 Mom decided to change phone service to cable service and then changed back. In part 2 I was in trouble for failing to inform everyone of her new number. No car was involved in either story but I'm sure you see a theme. I bet you can guess where this is going.

I called my agent as soon as I got home Monday. She took down the details of the accident and said it was too late in the day to have an adjuster assigned to my case so she'd call me in the morning but they had 48 hours to assign someone.

Tuesday morning came and no call. I figured there was no point in bugging her as there were literally dozens of accidents on Monday.

Late Tuesday afternoon I got a call from an adjuster from my insurance company looking for the other woman involved in the accident. I explained to him that she had a different insurance company so he must be looking for me. Nope, he was assigned to her claim not mine but since he's the one that handles claims in my area he was sure I'd be assigned to him and he'd be out this way Thursday. I was a bit angry. OK, alot angry! I'm the one that has been paying premiums to this company for 100 years so shouldn't I be their priority?

Wednesday morning I called my agent and of course got voice mail. I left a polite but unhappy message about the service I was getting and asked her to call the company and find out why no one had been assigned to my claim.

When she didn't call me back I called the company directly and asked why I hadn't been assigned to anyone yet. I was transfered to a very rude woman who told me I did have a claim rep assigned and I was given her number. Of course they couldn't transfer me, I had to call her seperately.

I was not a pleasant person by the time I reached her. She very politely told me that she could not reach me because in my file they had my old phone number. My agent had called her in the morning with the number I had left with my message. It seems that when we changed our number two years ago that we never officially notified the company. So now I'm wondering why I have an agent!? I've talked to them a few times but they never checked or updated the file.

(The adjuster got my number from the information I gave to the other woman. Apparently he and the claim rep. didn't put two and two together.)

My car rental was approved. There were no cars available until today. The adjuster did come on Thursday, he was very nice and wrote us a very large check. The body shop is ordering parts and should start work early next week so all's well that ends well I guess. But I do believe I will be looking for a new agent as she still has not called me back!



When I got home from work today I mentioned to John that more snow and ice had come off of the roof. He told me that he'd gone up on the roof to get it off while I was at work. I started to lecture him about how dangerous it was it be up there when no one else was here - what if he'd fallen!!!! His response "Well I would have only fallen a few feet." Point taken but I'm hoping he doesn't go up there again when I'm not here.

Lord Love A Duck! Part 4

Well it's been awhile since I've used that expression and really thought it would not find it's way back here, after all, it's been nine months.

In Part 1 we had difficulty because Mom changed her phone number.

In Part 2 I was in trouble for not informing everyone of her new number.

Part 3 was difficulty because we changed our phone number.


Earlier this week my aunt, the same aunt that was upset with me before, called worried because she got someone else when she tried to call Mom and since the number must have been changed again was Mom alright!!!??? Mom's fine and after a couple of minutes my Aunt realized that she had transposed two numbers.

Yesterday Mom had an appointment with the cardiologist. I had asked for (and been granted) the time off weeks ago. I checked with the dispatcher to see who would be filling in for me and they didn't have me down in the book. No problem, we still had one sub left.

John and I both had a stomach bug on top of our colds so I called Mom to see if she wanted to risk us giving it to her or if she wanted to reschedule. She chose reschedule so I called the doctors office. They informed me that she did not have an appointment for yesterday! After pulling up her file on their computer they had her down for tomorrow at 2:00. They were very sorry but they needed to change it and she wasn't sure why no one had let Mom know. Since I was sick it worked out in our favor but I would have been $%#%$!!!! if I had gotten Mom all the way to the office to be told the doctor wasn't there! Her GP's office had made the appointment but had not given them the new phone number. Is it just me or would you think that they would have either called the GP's office for the number or maybe sent a post card?

Moving on. I knew I couldn't get another day off this week so I asked John if he could take Mom. No Problem. Except that we were both sick and forgot that he gets the boys off the bus on Friday's. I called BJ and he's going to make other arrangements for the boys.

Hopefully I haven't forgotten something else. Hopefully the cardiologist is the last one that we forgot to update her phone number with.

Lord Love A Duck - Revisited

Back in December Mom had problems with her phone. I won't rehash the whole thing but I was the one that said I'd let everyone know about her new phone number.

My Aunt called me this evening quite upset because Mom's number had been disconnected and WHAT IS WRONG!

Oops!

I assured her that Mom is OK and explained about the new number. She was worried about Mom and the rest of us with the national news covering our snow storm. We chatted awhile. My Uncle is not well. I'll have to see if Mom is up to a trip to Michigan soon I guess. I doubt she'll go but I'd be happy to take her. Maybe over April break.

In my defense they NEVER call each other. They still think of phone calls as expensive and write (infrequent) letters to stay in touch.

Now I'm racking my brain, wondering who else I forgot to tell.

(The picture at the top of the page is my Uncle, my Mom and their Sister, who left us several years ago.)

Lord Love a Duck!

I have no idea what that means. My Mom always used that expression when she was exasperated. It seems appropriate today. (If this is too long to read, the point is at the end)

John and I were there yesterday and when I went down stairs with the laundry I saw that the hot water heater was leaking. John came down and opened the relief valve a couple of times and that seemed to take care of it. It had a tag that said the valve should be opened once a year so it was years overdue! We left a little dish under the pipe so we'd know if it continued to leak.

After the funeral today we stopped to be sure it wasn't still leaking. It's not but Mom is set on having the plumber in to check on it next week. We can tell her that it is fine now until we're blue in the face but she won't be satisfied until she has the plumber in.

Now for the rest of this story you need a little background. Back in early November, the cable company called Mom and offered her a great deal to switch to phone service with them. I called her lifeline provider and they assured us that it wouldn't affect her service with them. We discussed that her phone wouldn't work if the cable OR power went out but she has a prepaid cell phone for emergencies, that Country Girl had gotten for her. She decided to switch.

They came and hooked her up. Everything worked fine. Then the bill came. It was for much more than they had told her it would be. So she called them up. She got frustrated with them and told them to come take it back out! She was not happy and had gotten to worrying about service if the power went out. Everything was supposed to be switched back to her old phone service today.

So when we got there today she said that the cable company had come and disconnected her but that the phone people had not shown up yet and she had expected them in the morning. We asked if she had her cell phone out and turned on. Of course not! So she got it out so I could call the phone company and see what was going on.

Did I not mention in my last post that I am not good with electronic gadgets? I could not turn that phone on. I got mine out and handed hers to John. I called the phone company who said that they had turned Mom back on way back on Dec 15th. We tried her phone and no dial tone. Meanwhile John got her cell on (or so we thought!)

Did I mention that we stopped after the funeral? John & I were both dressed in our best suits. The phone company needed us to go outside with a phone and see if we could get a dial tone at the box there. You can not open the box without a ratchet set. So back to the basement (note to self - CLEAN down there!!!) Mom doesn't seem to own a ratchet set. So we decided to check the inside connections which involved a folding chair and cobwebs.

We weren't able to fix the problem for her so she'll have to wait for the phone company to come. I tried to call her cell from mine so she'd know what it sounds like. It had already turned itself off! John plugged it into the charger but we still couldn't get it to work. We asked her when the last time she had charged it was. Never!? Why would she have to charge it, she's never used it!

So I told her that I was leaving mine with her. She said she didn't know how to use mine so there was no point in leaving it. Now my cell is ancient by cell phone standards and therefore easy to use. It is also big enough for her to see more easily. So I showed her how to dial, talk, end, answer, end. I called her after we got home and she was relieved because she was worried that she wouldn't know what it sounded like and might not be able to answer it. I'm relieved because until we get her phone working she has no lifeline service and the cell is better than nothing.

Not knowing that she'd need it, I didn't have my charger with we so I will go back to her house in the morning with it. Maybe by then her phone will have charged and will work.

As frustrating as this whole thing has been I am very grateful that we still have Mom!