Gary Chronicles - Entry 4 - Muskrat

 So...Gary has had 100 lives.  He has been in car accidents, so drunk he has fallen asleep on his 4-wheeler,  and I could go on and on.  It started when he was 3 and his mom got in a car accident that was impressive in its severity.  Gary was in a body cast for a bit.  But now, our story.

Once upon a time, around a year ago plus or minus a few months, Gary was in a car accident.  He was so much more than drunk it was crazy to me.  I have never been drunk that way.  Not ever.  Not once.  I don't know what he drank but he ran into the ditch.  He ran into a BIG ditch.  He totaled his car.  He hit so hard the steering wheel SNAPPED the fuck IN HALF!  That's pretty hard.  Have any of you ever been in an accident and snapped the wheel in half?  Ever?  Have you ever been drunk enough to snap the steering wheel in half?  How about not wearing a seat belt and end up only with an egg on the forehead?  This kid did.  He was drunk enough to be a rubber band and just bounce.

A friend came out to help my SIL to get him somewhere, keep him calm, really to help him not do anything stupid.  I'm help him not to another stupid thing.

Of course the police came.  They asked him what happened.  He told them he saw a muskrat and swerved to miss him.  A muskrat.  That's the animal he picked.  Of all the critters that could be out in the road.  A muskrat.  What in the thundering blue hell is a muskrat, for the love?!?!?

My SIL called me because most times I can calm him down and he listens to me.  Not this time.  He was telling hospital staff they didn't know who he was, and he was going to call the mayor!  Dialing and they whole deal.  I got on the phone and told him all the calm down things.  He said he wasn't going to calm down and said goodbye with a "love you long time" and hung up on me.

OK, so let's get back to the muskrat.  When the laughter came back enough times he looked up the muskrat.  Gary lives in north Alabama.  There are wetlands rodents.  They look like a cross between a gopher and beaver.  Anyway, they are all over the U.S.  For his convenience he decided that they live in north Alabama and southeast Tennessee.  It fit his narrative.

So, in honor of him, every critter on the side of the road or we see scamper and can't recognize, is a muskrat.

That was the backstory. Someone came to house and he was telling the story about the muskrat and the snapped steering wheel and said, "the car swerved, the ditch did not."

Gary Chronicles - Entry 3 - Lobster

 For those of you who don't know, the dying process is pretty consistent.  No longer wanting food or water or anything else to drink is all part and parcel.  Gary is at that stage.

Each night when we girls, either 2 or 3, go somewhere to eat he askes for us to take a picture of the menu so he can have us bring something back.  We have pretty successfully gone no where except the hotel restaurant.  It's tasty, consistently good and the service is fantastic.  We go and send the menu to Gary and he puts in his order for 7 or 8 things.  We bring it back to him, he takes 2 bites and is finished.  This is consistent, no harm no foul.  Until....

H2O is the name of the restaurant.  It's pricey but I have explained the reasons why we still go.  Last night he decides he wants the Lobster Fettuccini.  This meal includes a full pound of lobster incorporated into the pasta and fancy sauce.  Gary decides this is what he would like to have.  He sends through his order.

In writing...

Gary: Bring me the Lobster Fettuccini.

Me: How about some buttered noodles.

Gary: I want the Lobster Fettuccini.

Me: How about some buttered noodles.

He calls me.  He wants to know why he can't have the Lobster Fettuccini.  I tell him what happens with food.  He orders a shit load, we bring a shit load back, he takes 2 bites and is done.  Meg, his partner of 23 years already knows all of this.  She has spent the last 2 years eating whatever crazy thing he orders.  No sense in ordering 2 meals when she knows the one will feed both of them.

So I tell him I will not by $43 plate of Lobster Fettuccini for him to take one bite.  He is quiet for a minute and says, I see what you are saying.  He got buttered noodles.

Now before all of you hospice-y types start to say it is what he wants, just get it.  No.  We have indulged his every whim to this point.  Lobster is the cut off.

So, here we are in the hotel room.  Calamari, part of some fish or another sandwich, other pasta, chocolate cake, ice cream, cookies, churros, ginger ale, apple juice, water, milk, gatorade and Malibu Rum are present in our kitchenette.  If he can't find something that suits him in all of that, he's just not trying.  He also isn't trying!  He's dying.  He wants tactile stimulation.  Nothing tastes right.  Eat something else that doesn't taste like Lobster that won't taste like Lobster.

Eat that. 

The girls contented that I am in the only one who could tell him no Lobster and he wouldn't be bent out of shape.  Whatever it is, still no Lobster! 

Gary Chronicles - Entry 2 - The Fob

So you know, these things may not be in chronological order for happening.  They are consistent with the times I think of them!

Gary is a smart ass.  I can't imagine where he came from as none of his other family members are.  Ahem.

We have taken Gary to Pensacola Beach this week.  We were going to go to a movie last night and my car broke down.  Well, the battery decided that it was no longer capable of running this challenge. 

Gary decided the reason my car wasn't starting, in fact we couldn't even unlock it, was because of the fob needing a battery.  He's stubborn.  Also a trait I am quite sure you would never find in our family.  Ahem, again.

Here is the run down on the car.  I parked it on Sunday afternoon when we got here.  I went to try to start it again on Wednesday evening when we were going to see Top Gun.  The car was completely and totally dead.  Like the Wicked Witch in Oz, most sincerely dead.  Ford has this neat thing on the side of the door where you can program a combination and get into the car when needed.  The light up wasn't even lighting up.  It refused to be locked or unlocked. Again, red slippers, black & white stripped leggings. Dead.

I am a wretched evil person about a car breaking down.  My sister and/or I could regale you with stories of being stranded.  Dad did it.  Ever hear "the cobbler's sons go shoeless?" That is us.  The cobbler's daughters.  Dad was a good guy and helped everyone.  Could work on anything and fix it.  Genius really.  Just not as much brain power put into our cars.  So they broke down.  He knew how to fix them but had some kind of metal block with the word "preventative" regarding maintenance.  The added feature of me having had the fob come apart in another bag and the inside key being in that bag, in Virginia, doesn't help me today.

Just like Scarlett swore she would never go hungry again, I have refused in my adult life to have a vehicle that I wasn't sure about, every single time.  This is my first experience like this in roughly 26 years.  Yes, I can describe the exact moment I experienced this previously.  That's not what the story is about but you now know it is one of my pain points.

Gary: It has to be the fob

Me: It isn't the fob

Gary: Yes it is.  There is a key inside the fob.

Me: I know, there should be but it fell out and is in another bag.

Gary: No you need to take the fob apart.

Me: I know that.  I know about this key.  I know it should be there.  I also know it is in the bottom of another bag because the fob, this fob, this one right here, kept coming open and the key fell out.

Gary: So you don't have the key. **blink, blink**  There is a battery in the fob that we will need to replace.

Me: It isn't the fob. The entire car is dead.  All of it, no signs of life, zero, none. No little numbers on the door to enter the lock pin, even.  Done.  Dead.

The banter about the fob continues along this way.  Then Kristy gets into the act.  She has been the lone ranger of management of crisis for so long she autopilots into what needs to be done.  All the Louk children are youtubing and researching and, and, and.

Today I called the insurance company and entered service for someone to come and unlocked the door.  That key we talked about, that would have opened the door but it wasn't here, because it's in another bag, in Virginia.  Someone came out, popped the lock, jumped the car and I drove straight to Ford.  The battery was completely shot, a new one replaced it's sad predecessor and bing, bang, boom, Trixie is back on her pretty black wheels.  

It's a relief!  The aforementioned mood/attitude I caught was defused.

Fast forward to tonight.  Gary asks, "was it the fob?" Nope.  Not the fob.  The fob is fine.  Except for that key in my other bag, in Virginia, the fob is fine.

Upshot.  We added an extra night to the vacation in case the car would be stuck under a house for a while, ruby slippers outstretched.  That gave us time to figure things out.  Now the car works.  The fob, the one that was never broken...the one that had a key in it that fell out in my bag, the bag in Virginia...that fob is in perfect working order.  The battery is now in perfect working order.  We have an extra day on the beach. Perfect.  At least it was simple....

Dad Chronicles - July 2021 - Feb 1, 2022

 Much like the Gary Chronicles, these are the musings of time spent, ridiculous happenings, fun things, infuriating things and things that never could have happened had I not gotten divorced.  I'm so thankful for that one thing.  For many reasons, but one of the most important is that my house is open to my family and friends once again.

The X and I called it quits.  He moved out in June of  2020.  I sold our house in July 2021 and moved to the condo that had been my MIL's right across the sidewalk.  Yes, that MIL....where all the chronicles originated. My life has been a series of chronicles, it would seem.

July of 2021 equaled my dad calling me at 5pm on a Saturday and saying, 

Dad: "Hi, baby.  What are you doing?"

Me: "Nothing, just sitting here with Noodle"

Dad: "I'm going to come by and see you."

Me: "Ok, see you when you get here." or words to that effect.

This Saturday night call wasn't just for the evening.  It was him coming over for the evening for about a week.  He would come over, we would shoot the shit, get something to eat, talk until the wee hours and snuggle with Noodle.  He probably came and did that about 1-ish times a month.

If someone had been man enough to take care of me and not to cheat on me, I would never have had this time with my dad.  Well worth it.  100% the better outcome all the way around.

Dad would always drink to much and listen to the TV on 7000 decibels and talk about the old days.  Some stories I had heard before, some I hadn't.  I'm sure they were embellished, but it was his right to embellish.  Some stories I would recount he would remember and other things he had never been told before or couldn't remember.

My sister is a saint.  Straight up, heaven bound if there is such a thing.  She's in easy!  Dad was sick about 10-12 years ago with an abscess on his spine.  It was the beginning of an odyssey that lasted until Feb 1 2022 for her.  After he had been sick he moved in with her and my BIL's family.  He was hard on her.  He was something.  Woke my mother up EVERY morning at 4:30a and said, "Brenda, have you seen my keys?"  Every.  Day.  I don't know how she didn't smother him in his sleep. Truly.  His eccentricities changed, came and went, got better, got worse.  It was a new day every day.  Kristy had to manage that for 12 years.  She'd do it again, probably.  That doesn't mean it wasn't herculean. Because it sure was.  

This is the place where I tell all of you that relief is not only ok but a reality for just about anyone losing someone they love.  Especially if  they have had to take continuous care of the person.  It just is.

And so I was able to have dad around more often.  He had a room, a bathroom to himself.  He knew he was welcome anytime for as long as he wanted.  Some times he stayed more than one week.

And that is the real beginning of the Dad Chronicles and these intersecting with the Gary Chronicles. 

Gary Chronicles - Entry 1 - Here is Why and What

So here is the thing.  I don't want to put this stuff on my facebook.  He's on my facebook and for as long as he is alive the stories belong to him.  Once they are mine completely, maybe.

These are the chronicles of my brother Gary.  As we speak Gary is 43 years old.  He will never be older than that.  Gary and I don't share blood.  He is half brother to my sister.  They have the same dad.  My sister, Kristy is my half sister.  We have the same mom.  Still, I love him.  That's that.

March of 2020 brought a diagnosis of Stage 4 Colon Cancer.  It had already metastasized to his liver.  His oncologist ( I refer to him as my boyfriend, you'll find out) told him there was no getting out of it.  Turns out there was a half of a flipped switch from his mom and half a flipped switch from dad that made this cancer absolutely unavoidable.  At some point it was just going to be there. Down the line we discover that his doc and others had been prompting him to go to the doc over some symptoms and he didn't.  Times years.  So no surprise it was already in his liver.

Sharing a dad made it important for my sister to get checked out before she could turn 40.  She's fine, thank the stars, but she will be vigilant.

Gary said from the start he wanted to travel and for all of us to go with him so he could spend time with us.  The following trips happened:

April 2021 - Gaitlinburg, TN.  Whole family, the whole mess of us.  Dad, Kristy and my BIL John, Gary and my SIL Megan, me and all the dogs.  Gary & Megan's Lola and Atlas.  My Noodle.  Good times for sure.

September 2021 - Jekyll Island, GA.  Just the two of us.  It was a great trip.  We laughed and ate good food and drank good drinks.

Now we are at June 2022 and we are in Pensacola Beach, FL.  Me, Kristy, Gary & Megan.  He is perched on the absolute edge of death.  We are just waiting for it and trying to get his final bucket list items in.  I don't think he really wanted to go to the beach.  He doesn't like the beach.  He does like restaurants and bars and shops and the whole thing.  We have been here for 3.5 days and he has walked downstairs twice and been on the patio maybe 2 times at most.  He has been on the couch 20 out of 24 hours of every day.  Sleeping for much of it.

He has a 43 year old heart and lungs that aren't sure what they need to do, but they are pretty convinced it is not time to die.  So is he.  Still.  He's coming around to it and knows where he is.  He doesn't like it.  That makes all of us.

We put him on hospice and promptly left for the beach.  That was a rough day.  He could have had hospice WAY before this but he has an oncologist (I struggle to respect this breed) who doesn't understand the regulations and how they could have coexisted.  Also not willing to learn.

This is the back story on the Gary Chronicles.  More to follow.....

Laundry vs Nap

 Has anyone else ever had the convo with the man of the house that went something like this...

BIG: I'm gonna throw in a wash, do you have anything you need washed?

ME: (looking into my laundry basket as I am packing my suitcase for my business trip) just one or two things, don't worry about it. 

BIG: you sure?  You don't have anything to wash, not one thing?

ME: I said very little and no don't worry about it. No big deal.

BIG: you have stuff in there just give it to me. 

ME:  JFC stop asking me!  I'm trying to get stuff together. Walk. Away!

BIG: you know you don't have to be shitty

ME:  Again, you ask if you can do something for me, I say no thanks in a decidedly NOT shitty way. Then you proceed to ask me the same question 3 more times and when I finally blow my stack it's me being shitting. Don't ask me that f'ing question again. Go. Do. Your. Wash. 

BIG:  ok, ok. Fine I won't try to be nice anymore. Do your own laundry. 

Ok, so now we are back to where I wanted to be when we started 5 minutes ago. I finish packing, he starts his wash. Why did I have to go through Scotland to get there. Omg, I'm so the guy. I need a nap.

MIL Chronicles - Camping

MIL Chronicles – June 2019

This edition needs a bit of a preface.  As I look back at that sentence whilst writing this I realize this is just going to be a big long story.  As you may or may not know, if I am to do something fun for myself there always seems to be a monkey wrench.  I asked Big if there is a Sable gene that does that and no one told me before “I do.” Surgeries, falls, booboos big and small all happen when I am going to do something I want.

With that.  Since MIL has gotten so much worse over the last couple/three years, Big and I haven’t been able to go anywhere for a vacation or break.  You see, when you are a perfectionist, like Big and not afraid of a thing called hard work, like Big, relaxing at home really isn’t a thing that can be done.  Every moment not accomplishing something is a minute wasted.  Now if you know me, you know I can waste a minute and feel zero guilt.  Zero.  What this equals is the relaxed/chill Big only really happens on vacation and away from obligation.  It’s been almost 4 years since we have been able to go anywhere together.  One of us has always needed to be home for MIL.  Her comfort level (and anxiety disorder) will not allow for her to trust anyone but the two of us.  So there it is.

In mid April of this year, MIL decided that all of the pills she was taking were only keeping her alive and she was tired of it.  Ok….well, don’t take them.  It’s her choice, right?  NO….I didn’t look at the big picture.  What this equaled was her being fluid overloaded 3 days before I had to leave to go to my older daughter’s wedding.  So I said take her to the hospital and let’s get her into some sort of rehab.  Big says why this is what she wanted.  YES, BUT my upcoming trip isn’t optional.  If it were, I would still go.  It isn’t.  It’s my daughter’s wedding!  I’m leaving.  So we will have to figure out what goes and make it happen.  This was Sunday.  Tick Tock MF.  I’m leaving on Wednesday morning at the ass crack of dawn!

So to the hospital we went, revoked hospice services, did a little song and dance about her having improved so much that we wanted to take her off and now that she was fluid overloaded we would like her to get back some of her strength.  She goes to the hospital and then is sent to a casual rehab (vs. aggressive rehab) here in our little town.  Beautiful place and as luck would have it with every stage of these shenanigans over the last 4 years, my contacts have been around to be able to watch her and help us keep an eye out for her to be sure she is taken care of.  This time is no different.  She ends up in a place where a good friend moonlights on the weekends.  Perfect. 

Needless to say, I went to my daughter’s wedding.  Zero guilt.  Lots of fun for my family and all of us while together.  We almost all live in the DC area, but we went to Northern Kentucky to spend time together!

On the way home I started to not feel all that well.  That quickly escalated to a stomach virus that wasn’t my best traveling companion I have ever had, but I had my best real travel companion with me in my sister who took care of things, me and took over driving!  Thank goodness.

When I return, I go to see MIL in the facility she has been in for about a week by the time I see her.  She shows off by doing fantastic over the top fits of accomplishment like remembering people’s names.  She wanted to show Big the gym area and did.  She did laps around the gym.  They had her standing for 6 minutes at a time in one spot!  She did great.  After 3.5 weeks, she came home.  Then she did what she does best and she SAT THE F*CK DOWN.  All the way down.  Completely.  Totally.  All day and night.  Within 2 weeks she was exactly as she had been before her stay in the lovely rehab place.

Big has been telling me forever that he thinks she has dementia.  OK…we’ve had her checked multiple times, we are told no she doesn’t.  Then she really starts to get confused after she came home from rehab.  Telling the same story over and over.  Asking the same question multiple times in the same discussion.  Completely making up stories about people being in her house that have never been or discussing someone who has been to the house once by way of asking how many times that person is going to keep coming over.  The second weekend in June there is to be a walk/run fund raiser for my company.  I’m signed up.  The next day is to be my younger daughter’s college graduation.  **I should note here that Big was not able to come to my older daughter’s wedding because someone had to be here with MIL.**

We are ready to walk (well me, Big was gonna just suck it up and try to make it through the socializing, humidity and bugs.  He doesn’t do bugs) and he calls home to check on MIL.  She’s in a lather, spilling things, dropping things, etc.  Things like this, they are manufactured crises on MILs part.  The idea that both of us are more than 10 minutes from the house….together….for about 5 hours gone, she can’t.  Everything goes sideways.  So, before the walking can begin we bid our goodbyes and head home.  The following day my younger was to graduate.  Because of the sideways things, Big doesn’t go to that either.  He’s not happy about these two things.

NOW fast forward to the weekend of May turning to June.  I am supposed to be attending a bereavement camp for children that is hosted by my company.  I am supposed to be there all weekend.  The weekend before I make arrangements to have my car serviced.  I get up that Saturday morning, talk to a good friend for a while as I drive to the dealership and then go to drop off the car.  I literally get out of my car and the phone is ringing and buzzing with test messages.  It’s Big.  MIL has fallen.  She is in the kitchen, landed on her ample ass and doesn’t have her phone with her.  We should note that she has a travel pouch that she is to have her phone in and around her neck at all times when she is walking around.  So of course the phone is on the table and she can’t get to it.  Because why would you keep it around your neck?  Crazy talk.  ANYWAY…look on camera’s, she’s on her ass.  Big tried to call her and didn’t get an answer so he looked on the camera and there she is.

I get back in my car and start to race home.  About 2 years ago I had the bright idea to buy a lockbox and put a key in it inside the garage.  I’m thinking, if there is an emergency and we aren’t home the fire department won’t have to break down a door and add to the million things I already have to do.  We even call and file the garage code and the lockbox code with the county.  So as I drive home, thwarted at every turn with red lights and terminally slow and inept drivers, I call the non-emergency number.

Before I tell you what is next, over the last 2 weeks leading to this day, Big and I have been discussing she has to go somewhere.  We can’t take care of her anymore.  I said can’t because of her care needs, not can’t because we are just done.  I mean, that too but really we can’t.  Thursday before her fall we went to an Assisted Living Facility less than 2/10’s of a mile from our house.  It’s awesome.  I volunteered to move in and leave Big and she here in the condos.  Oddly, no one took me up on it.  ANYWAY, she falls this day and it’s early.  This is the day we were to take her over to the ALF to have her look at the place and get a tour. 

So after I get on the phone with the non-emergency emergency  call I give my info and tell them of the garage code and the lockbox code.  Before I can get to her I can see the fire department has come in and they have her up and on her rollator.  They have her call me to let me know she is ok.  For those of you keeping track, this is fall #4 with NO broken bones. 

So the captain of the rescue team, whose name wasn’t Captain Obvious but it sure should have been, said you know she probably isn’t safe to be alone.  No.  Shit.  Sherlock.  I blocked the rest of his Charlie Brown’s teacher voice out so I don’t throat punch him rather than to be gracious and say thank you.  I kept it cool and was able to avoid having to throat punch him. 

So in cahoots with the lovely young woman who had taken us on the ALF tour, we are making believe that we are looking at two rooms (we are) that have never been occupied and will be fresh and new and she will get to reside in one of them.  Blatantly untrue, the place has been open for 3 years.  They just need to get the one in the room out so we can move her in.  Luckily she is gullible as shit!

When can we move in, we say?  By June 15^th for sure they say.  OK!!  That’s super.  Big now switches from we have to do something mode to full on dread of cleaning out her house and getting rid of everything.  Estate sale to come….

So MIL has been in her best performance mode of poor me and I don’t want to be here alone and my stomach hurts and I gagged once and, and, and.  The requisite torture for us to endure for considering putting her somewhere.  Finally, Big tells her she’s going to need to suck it up because if the nurse who will come to examine her from the ALF says her level of care is greater than they can do for assisted living, they will decline her.  Then he tells her she’s going somewhere.  The very fancy ALF that we have her believing is part of the Country Club compound OR a nursing home.  It simply isn’t possible to keep her home any longer.  Oddly, she started feeling better.

Every night either myself or Big go to MIL’s house and clean up the mess that has accumulated all day, get her house ready for the next day.  Set out the things she needs for breakfast, get her water ready for her tea, blah, blah, blah…you get the drift.  We typically flip flop days according to who is getting off of work later.  We have switched roles, he and I.  He is calm and trying to deal with her and I have hit my limit and want to jump off of our balcony and just end it all.  The ladies at my work all have work phones.  ALL of them have the same ringtone on their work phones.  It happens to be the one that I have for MIL.  Every time a phone rings in the office its that same damned tone!  My shoulders bunch, my eyes start to twitch and if you are close you can see the beginnings of a growling lioness.  Like ready to eat the poacher of rhino’s lioness.  Bless her.  Had to change that tone!

We don’t get to go into the ALF by the 15^th.  The person in the room MIL will be in is moving to their memory care unit and the family is dragging their feet moving her.  This is my version of events.  I feel certain they are just like us and their lives are just Washington DC suckfest like all the rest of us.  So the new date is 6/28.

Flashback: we have had a number of times where we have lost power and MIL has been stuck in her recliner (electric lift recliner) and we have had to get her out of it.  She blows through a 350# weight limit chair about one per year.  Turns out they aren’t meant to be in 22 hours a day.  Who knew?  Anyway we now get to last night…..

It’s a Wednesday like any other.  I get to MIL’s and she is sitting in her recliner with it all the way up to lift her out.  I figure she’s getting up.  NOPE.  The controller does nothing.  It’s a road to nowhere.  The chair is dead.

Laz-y-Boy doesn’t have in any stock here in Gainesville.  That’s not a thing.  We bought the extended warranty as it turns out!  Yeah us!  The warrantee requires multiple hoops to jump through.  None of them equaling a quick fix.  Luckily her very expensive tempeurpedic bed that adjusts is still here.  Here are the options.  By options I mean one option.  I help her in and out of the very expensive bed meaning I sleep here because she can’t get in and out on her own and she has to pee about every 10 minutes ala diuretics.  How will I accomplish this, you ask?  Well, my younger daughter just moved and for some reason brought our air mattress home.  So I go get the air mattress and set up in the bedroom.  She in the bed, me in the air.  Last night was night 1.  Tonight is 2.  Tomorrow will be 3.  Saturday she will have a new chair altogether and then we will have a spare because 22 hours a day in said chair.

Big comes over to take care of MIL tonight.  She has had to sit upright all day moving from one chair to another in her sitting room.  She says to Big that she hasn’t had a nap all day and she is just so tired.  He says, well how do you think Debbie (*twitch*) is doing today, she was with you up and down all night and she has to work.  AND there was a traffic accident on Rt. 15 and it took her 2.5 hours to get there.  She says to him….well for her it was like she was camping.  He says yes, camping, a vacation really.  One where she doesn’t sleep and has to haul you in and out of the bed.  Camping.

So tonight is night 2 of camping.  I just have to get through 3 days of camping and about 14 days, moving things, pitching things and getting her in the joint.  In.

Ask my kids.  Camping is my best all time thing.  Best.  It’s off to the air mattress I go.