Saturday, August 20, 2005
We've exercised two days in a row!
Both sessions have been real workouts. I don't want to repeat material here, so, if you're curious, the following are the session write-ups:
Thursday's Session
Last Night's Session
The old Mom & Me One Archive is transferred and deleted. The new Mom & Me One Archive is fully functional, now. I've changed the old index page so that if you encounter an old link it will take you directly to the new one. Yes, there will continue to be broken links throughout. My plans are as follows, not necessarily in order of importance or execution:
Oops! Gotta go. Time to awaken The Mom. We may go to Costco, today, I'm not sure. Maybe tomorrow. We need to do her hair and that may take so long that it will be easier to do an exercise session than walker her around Costco. We'll see.
Later.
Thursday's Session
Last Night's Session
The old Mom & Me One Archive is transferred and deleted. The new Mom & Me One Archive is fully functional, now. I've changed the old index page so that if you encounter an old link it will take you directly to the new one. Yes, there will continue to be broken links throughout. My plans are as follows, not necessarily in order of importance or execution:
- Meticulously review all of Mom & Me Too to correct broken links and catalogue it for the upcoming Table of Contents;
- Review all non-journaled pages that aren't tests for broken links, redesign of the navigation areas for inclusion in the Table of Contents;
- Begin and upload Table of Contents even though it will be a continuing effort for quite awhile;
- Redesign all medical test pages to remove Trellix (the old site builder software courtesy of my ISP) bulk.
Oops! Gotta go. Time to awaken The Mom. We may go to Costco, today, I'm not sure. Maybe tomorrow. We need to do her hair and that may take so long that it will be easier to do an exercise session than walker her around Costco. We'll see.
Later.
Friday, August 19, 2005
I've finished transferring...
...all the material in the Mom & Me One Archive. I won't be deleting the old site until I've corrected a fair number of links that target the old address. These are primarily links at the Movies, Mom & Me site. I'll be doing that shortly. There will, of course, continue to be broken links for awhile. I'm working as quickly as I can to fix these. I've also got a fair amount of material to begin filling in a Table of Contents for this site. I'll be going through this site to target posts pertinent to the divisions into which I'm collecting the links for the Table of Contents.
So far, so good, today. Our curious day on August 17th made me realize that I need to structure my mother's days a bit more firmly. I'm working on that now. More...
...later.
So far, so good, today. Our curious day on August 17th made me realize that I need to structure my mother's days a bit more firmly. I'm working on that now. More...
...later.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Last night was one of those, "I'm so excited...
...about being alive I just can't get to sleep," nights for my mother. Of course, she slept more than a fair amount yesterday, too. As I've mentioned in a few places, the last few days she's been suffering from some condition I've been hoping was a cold and fearing was an adverse reaction to the Macrodantin she's been taking [The link, by the way, is the clearest, easiest to understand source of basic information on this antibiotic I've found on the net.]. Yesterday, though, my nervous system couldn't take any more worrying. I inhaled deeply several times when I awoke and decided, hell or high water or 14+ hours of night sleep, I would not awaken Mom, I would let her "sleep it out". She awoke on her own at noon, which isn't too much later than I've been awakening her and 1 hour shy of the 12 hours I usually apportion her before I freak and awaken her.
She looked good. Breathed very well on her own until halfway through the standing portion of her bath. At that point I put her on oxygen because she was coughing up phlegm and I figured some of it would probably get caught in her bronchial tubes. She removed the cannula, though, and literally threw it aside before walking out in the kitchen. I was so solicitous with her while she was dressing and preparing for her entrance into the dinette that she said, "Why don't you go do something else!?!"
So I did. I brought the concentrator out into the dinette so she could have easy to breathe oxygen during breakfast. At some point, though, she again took the cannula off. When breakfast was over she walked into the living room to her rocking chair without oxygen and without distress.
I was much relieved. "Your praying must have worked," I said.
She fixed me with a puzzled stare. "What praying?!?"
"Remember? Last night before you said your prayers (she says her prayers every night; not on her knees, of course, that would be ludicrous, but on her elbows, which is fairly uncomfortable for her in bed; she holds with those theologians who assert that one should never be completely comfortable when praying) I told you in no uncertain terms to pray for yourself."
Although I've never heard her prayers, she is a private, silent prayer, I know that it is highly unusual for her to pray for herself. She's rarely thought that her life needs prayerful intercession because she firmly believes that "everything will be fine". Even "when bad things happen" to her I've rarely known her to consider an event a personal "bad thing", thus, I suppose she's right. She recognizes "bad things" in others' lives though, and prays innocently and directly on these.
"I don't remember. I probably didn't, though."
Actually, she probably did. When I become frantic enough to order her to pray for herself, because my demand is so rare it usually scares her and I have a strong feeling that she follows my orders.
Anyway, for whatever reason, a cold winding down, the air drying out and no longer precipitating an excess of mucus in her throat, her body adjusting to the Macrodantin, she was feeling very good yesterday. I didn't try to allay her desire to nap, sticking with my personal vow to relax and allow her to determine what she was going to do with herself yesterday. As it turned out, I went to the grocery for about 45 minutes immediately after she settled in for her nap and when I returned she was sitting on the edge of her bed and greeted me with, "I slept hard! I guess I needed that nap!" Fast and hard, and she was ready for Round Two of The Day.
During the afternoon and evening I put her on tank/pulse oxygen at 3/lpm. After three or so episodes of her taking off the cannula and me fussing at her to put it back on she finally said, "It's bothering me!" and I let it go. She had no stressful breathing episodes for the rest of the evening and didn't indulge in an extraordinary amount of mouth breathing.
I think the new cannulae I ordered are part of her recent tank problem. Without thinking, I okayed the delivery of 1600 and 1600-4 cannulae. She hasn't been using this type for over a year. She's been using the 1053-7's. The nasal holes are larger, thus her sometimes shallow breathing triggers the pulse regulator, whereas the 1600 nasal tubes often don't. I corrected this mistake when I placed our supply order yesterday.
Anyway, back to our day. We watched the news, I made a hearty dinner (she had only two meals yesterday, although she had a large interim glass of orange juice) of which she ate almost everything on her plate. Lately she's been leaving a bit of dinner on her plate, copping to fullness. I've noticed, too, that the literature for Macrodantin cites "loss of appetite" as a possible side effect, although this new quirk can't really be considered "loss of appetite" for her. I also know that Mom was upset that her weight was 144 at the doctor's office. She prefers to hear weight numbers below 140 so she might be trying to lose a little weight, although the doctor was unconcerned and, as I've noted previously, her clothes are not fitting her any more tightly, thus, I think some of that weight is probably muscle weight, which is good.
While shopping I happened across a very reasonably priced copy of In Good Company, a movie we rented a while back and both enjoyed. Mom enjoyed it so much that she laughed out loud and talked back to the movie, which is unusual, so I knew this was one we needed to purchase. Since then I've been looking locally for a wide screen copy of it. Although I found one yesterday, courtesy of a knowledgeable clerk who was surprised I asked for a widescreen copy when I noticed that only full screen copies were on the shelf, I discovered that most customers in Prescott ask for full screen, thus most video retailers rarely display widescreens.
"Stupid," he said. "The studios are gearing down to stop producing full screens. It costs too much money to make them. Movies have to be reedited for full screen and they don't look nearly as good, anyway." I didn't know that studios were going to drop full screens nor why, but it makes sense. Watching a full screen movie that was filmed for wide screen is a bit like reading an abridged version Moby Dick with random descriptive passages deleted. Although you may never know what you're missing, you're not getting the full emotional and intellectual impact of the piece.
Once again, back to our day. So, Mom watched the movie as if for the first time and reacted in exactly the same manner as she had during her first viewing. "We need to get a copy of that movie," she said. "I think I'd like to see that again."
"We have a copy, Mom. We just watched our copy."
"How did you know we'd like it enough to own it?"
I lied in order to preserve her dignity. "Oh," I said, "I'd heard a lot of good things about it and had a hunch."
"Good hunch," she confirmed.
We watched the 2200 news and she was ready for bed. An hour after retiring, though, she was up. She ambled out to her rocking chair, put on her house coat and settled down, mentioned that "a cup of coffee sure would taste good," upon which I hustled one. She turned her rocking chair toward me and we began an animated, wide-ranging conversation, without the benefit of oxygen. I swear, it was like two years or so ago. Because this interlude reminded me of the journal material I'm currently transferring and cataloguing from two years ago, I decided to read her some of the more interesting entries, especially some of our conversations I'd recorded. She was delighted. We talked about how she was somewhat more active back then, more interested in "getting out".
She volunteered that, "maybe it wouldn't be so bad to do some of those things again. I've never been to the mall here," she has but who's counting, "and we haven't been out to eat in ages." We have, in Phoenix on August 6th, but one episode in over a year doesn't count.
Later she decided she wanted to sit in the dinette and read her gossip magazines.
"Do you want company?" I asked.
"No, I can see you from here. If I need you I'll let you know."
She was up for another hour. She had one episode of "looking for something", which is to say, scavenging for cigarettes, I imagine. I let her scavenge without telling her what the object of her search was. After a few minutes she sighed, said, "whatever I was looking for must not be important," and settled back down with her tabloids.
About 0100 she decided to return to bed. I tucked her in, reminded her, again, to "pray for [herself]", to which she asked, "Why?" and I told her, "in case you're reacting badly to the antibiotic you're on."
"Why am I on an antibiotic?"
"So you won't have any more urinary tract infections," I said.
"Good. Okay. Are you going to bed?"
"Not yet. I'm not ready."
"Good. I'm not sure, but I might be up again."
"Don't worry, I'll be here if you get up."
"Good."
She was up once more, around 0300, just before I went to bed, to use the bathroom. We had two versions of a conversation about my house coat and how it was like hers, one in the bathroom and once again, as if anew, in her bedroom as I was tucking her in.
Her final words on the subject were, "My house coat looks good on you. You should get one for yourself."
"I did, Mom," I said. "I'm wearing it."
"Well, good. It looks good on you."
I told her that, because of the lateness of the hour, I'd let her sleep in this morning until I start to worry. I suggested, again, buckwheat berry pancakes for breakfast."
"Mmmm, that sounds good. How about rustling some up now?" she joked.
"You know, Mom, I'm asking because I've suggested them the last couple of nights for breakfast the next morning and by morning you've decided you didn't want them because they're 'too sweet'."
"Well, don't ask me tomorrow, just make them. I'll eat them."
I laughed. "Gotcha," I said.
I don't think she awoke any more in the night. The bathroom door wasn't the slightest bit ajar when I awoke this morning and the toilet was clear. When she uses it in the middle of the night she forgets to flush.
If she's not up by 1300 today I'll probably head in and test her waters. It's sunny, cool-warm, yet another "perfect" day, as my mother pronounced yesterday. If she decides she's not ready to rise I'll probably let her sleep a bit more. As usual, I find that when I settle down and allow her, mostly, to follow her own druthers, she and I both feel better.
I awoke out of a curious dream this morning which took place in this house. One of my sisters, although I can't place which one, was here with Mom and me. The sister and I were involved in a heated discusssion about me needing a vacation from taking care of Mom. The sister (I wish I could remember which one, although I remember in the dream that the sister didn't look like any of my sisters, despite me knowing that she was) was arguing that "parents don't get a break from parenting so you don't get a break from taking care of Mom."
Just previous to awakening I remember my dream self being so frustrated and upset that I announced that she was wrong and I was going to walk out and take a vacation anyway. "If you can't stay around to take care of Mom, leave. Then we'll see what happens..." I remember saying ominously. I also remember heading for the door.
My awakening reaction was a hard shake of my head and the thought, "Whoa!" I wondered if maybe I really do need a caregiving vacation. The more I thought about it though, the more I considered that the dream was simply a flushing all of the anxiety I've been experiencing over the last week or so, wondering if Mom is so severely affected by the Macrodantin that its administration is going to turn out to be yet another medical blunder.
Anyway, as of yesterday I've determined that my need of a vacation is probably not the case, besides which it seems that Mom and I may be at the door of experiencing yet another Ancient One Revival; which will feel like a vacation for me, as it always does; one of the best vacations I can imagine.
Doing good. Once again, surprisingly, with much relief, gratefully, fearlessly, both of us. Doing good.
She looked good. Breathed very well on her own until halfway through the standing portion of her bath. At that point I put her on oxygen because she was coughing up phlegm and I figured some of it would probably get caught in her bronchial tubes. She removed the cannula, though, and literally threw it aside before walking out in the kitchen. I was so solicitous with her while she was dressing and preparing for her entrance into the dinette that she said, "Why don't you go do something else!?!"
So I did. I brought the concentrator out into the dinette so she could have easy to breathe oxygen during breakfast. At some point, though, she again took the cannula off. When breakfast was over she walked into the living room to her rocking chair without oxygen and without distress.
I was much relieved. "Your praying must have worked," I said.
She fixed me with a puzzled stare. "What praying?!?"
"Remember? Last night before you said your prayers (she says her prayers every night; not on her knees, of course, that would be ludicrous, but on her elbows, which is fairly uncomfortable for her in bed; she holds with those theologians who assert that one should never be completely comfortable when praying) I told you in no uncertain terms to pray for yourself."
Although I've never heard her prayers, she is a private, silent prayer, I know that it is highly unusual for her to pray for herself. She's rarely thought that her life needs prayerful intercession because she firmly believes that "everything will be fine". Even "when bad things happen" to her I've rarely known her to consider an event a personal "bad thing", thus, I suppose she's right. She recognizes "bad things" in others' lives though, and prays innocently and directly on these.
"I don't remember. I probably didn't, though."
Actually, she probably did. When I become frantic enough to order her to pray for herself, because my demand is so rare it usually scares her and I have a strong feeling that she follows my orders.
Anyway, for whatever reason, a cold winding down, the air drying out and no longer precipitating an excess of mucus in her throat, her body adjusting to the Macrodantin, she was feeling very good yesterday. I didn't try to allay her desire to nap, sticking with my personal vow to relax and allow her to determine what she was going to do with herself yesterday. As it turned out, I went to the grocery for about 45 minutes immediately after she settled in for her nap and when I returned she was sitting on the edge of her bed and greeted me with, "I slept hard! I guess I needed that nap!" Fast and hard, and she was ready for Round Two of The Day.
During the afternoon and evening I put her on tank/pulse oxygen at 3/lpm. After three or so episodes of her taking off the cannula and me fussing at her to put it back on she finally said, "It's bothering me!" and I let it go. She had no stressful breathing episodes for the rest of the evening and didn't indulge in an extraordinary amount of mouth breathing.
I think the new cannulae I ordered are part of her recent tank problem. Without thinking, I okayed the delivery of 1600 and 1600-4 cannulae. She hasn't been using this type for over a year. She's been using the 1053-7's. The nasal holes are larger, thus her sometimes shallow breathing triggers the pulse regulator, whereas the 1600 nasal tubes often don't. I corrected this mistake when I placed our supply order yesterday.
Anyway, back to our day. We watched the news, I made a hearty dinner (she had only two meals yesterday, although she had a large interim glass of orange juice) of which she ate almost everything on her plate. Lately she's been leaving a bit of dinner on her plate, copping to fullness. I've noticed, too, that the literature for Macrodantin cites "loss of appetite" as a possible side effect, although this new quirk can't really be considered "loss of appetite" for her. I also know that Mom was upset that her weight was 144 at the doctor's office. She prefers to hear weight numbers below 140 so she might be trying to lose a little weight, although the doctor was unconcerned and, as I've noted previously, her clothes are not fitting her any more tightly, thus, I think some of that weight is probably muscle weight, which is good.
While shopping I happened across a very reasonably priced copy of In Good Company, a movie we rented a while back and both enjoyed. Mom enjoyed it so much that she laughed out loud and talked back to the movie, which is unusual, so I knew this was one we needed to purchase. Since then I've been looking locally for a wide screen copy of it. Although I found one yesterday, courtesy of a knowledgeable clerk who was surprised I asked for a widescreen copy when I noticed that only full screen copies were on the shelf, I discovered that most customers in Prescott ask for full screen, thus most video retailers rarely display widescreens.
"Stupid," he said. "The studios are gearing down to stop producing full screens. It costs too much money to make them. Movies have to be reedited for full screen and they don't look nearly as good, anyway." I didn't know that studios were going to drop full screens nor why, but it makes sense. Watching a full screen movie that was filmed for wide screen is a bit like reading an abridged version Moby Dick with random descriptive passages deleted. Although you may never know what you're missing, you're not getting the full emotional and intellectual impact of the piece.
Once again, back to our day. So, Mom watched the movie as if for the first time and reacted in exactly the same manner as she had during her first viewing. "We need to get a copy of that movie," she said. "I think I'd like to see that again."
"We have a copy, Mom. We just watched our copy."
"How did you know we'd like it enough to own it?"
I lied in order to preserve her dignity. "Oh," I said, "I'd heard a lot of good things about it and had a hunch."
"Good hunch," she confirmed.
We watched the 2200 news and she was ready for bed. An hour after retiring, though, she was up. She ambled out to her rocking chair, put on her house coat and settled down, mentioned that "a cup of coffee sure would taste good," upon which I hustled one. She turned her rocking chair toward me and we began an animated, wide-ranging conversation, without the benefit of oxygen. I swear, it was like two years or so ago. Because this interlude reminded me of the journal material I'm currently transferring and cataloguing from two years ago, I decided to read her some of the more interesting entries, especially some of our conversations I'd recorded. She was delighted. We talked about how she was somewhat more active back then, more interested in "getting out".
She volunteered that, "maybe it wouldn't be so bad to do some of those things again. I've never been to the mall here," she has but who's counting, "and we haven't been out to eat in ages." We have, in Phoenix on August 6th, but one episode in over a year doesn't count.
Later she decided she wanted to sit in the dinette and read her gossip magazines.
"Do you want company?" I asked.
"No, I can see you from here. If I need you I'll let you know."
She was up for another hour. She had one episode of "looking for something", which is to say, scavenging for cigarettes, I imagine. I let her scavenge without telling her what the object of her search was. After a few minutes she sighed, said, "whatever I was looking for must not be important," and settled back down with her tabloids.
About 0100 she decided to return to bed. I tucked her in, reminded her, again, to "pray for [herself]", to which she asked, "Why?" and I told her, "in case you're reacting badly to the antibiotic you're on."
"Why am I on an antibiotic?"
"So you won't have any more urinary tract infections," I said.
"Good. Okay. Are you going to bed?"
"Not yet. I'm not ready."
"Good. I'm not sure, but I might be up again."
"Don't worry, I'll be here if you get up."
"Good."
She was up once more, around 0300, just before I went to bed, to use the bathroom. We had two versions of a conversation about my house coat and how it was like hers, one in the bathroom and once again, as if anew, in her bedroom as I was tucking her in.
Her final words on the subject were, "My house coat looks good on you. You should get one for yourself."
"I did, Mom," I said. "I'm wearing it."
"Well, good. It looks good on you."
I told her that, because of the lateness of the hour, I'd let her sleep in this morning until I start to worry. I suggested, again, buckwheat berry pancakes for breakfast."
"Mmmm, that sounds good. How about rustling some up now?" she joked.
"You know, Mom, I'm asking because I've suggested them the last couple of nights for breakfast the next morning and by morning you've decided you didn't want them because they're 'too sweet'."
"Well, don't ask me tomorrow, just make them. I'll eat them."
I laughed. "Gotcha," I said.
I don't think she awoke any more in the night. The bathroom door wasn't the slightest bit ajar when I awoke this morning and the toilet was clear. When she uses it in the middle of the night she forgets to flush.
If she's not up by 1300 today I'll probably head in and test her waters. It's sunny, cool-warm, yet another "perfect" day, as my mother pronounced yesterday. If she decides she's not ready to rise I'll probably let her sleep a bit more. As usual, I find that when I settle down and allow her, mostly, to follow her own druthers, she and I both feel better.
I awoke out of a curious dream this morning which took place in this house. One of my sisters, although I can't place which one, was here with Mom and me. The sister and I were involved in a heated discusssion about me needing a vacation from taking care of Mom. The sister (I wish I could remember which one, although I remember in the dream that the sister didn't look like any of my sisters, despite me knowing that she was) was arguing that "parents don't get a break from parenting so you don't get a break from taking care of Mom."
Just previous to awakening I remember my dream self being so frustrated and upset that I announced that she was wrong and I was going to walk out and take a vacation anyway. "If you can't stay around to take care of Mom, leave. Then we'll see what happens..." I remember saying ominously. I also remember heading for the door.
My awakening reaction was a hard shake of my head and the thought, "Whoa!" I wondered if maybe I really do need a caregiving vacation. The more I thought about it though, the more I considered that the dream was simply a flushing all of the anxiety I've been experiencing over the last week or so, wondering if Mom is so severely affected by the Macrodantin that its administration is going to turn out to be yet another medical blunder.
Anyway, as of yesterday I've determined that my need of a vacation is probably not the case, besides which it seems that Mom and I may be at the door of experiencing yet another Ancient One Revival; which will feel like a vacation for me, as it always does; one of the best vacations I can imagine.
Doing good. Once again, surprisingly, with much relief, gratefully, fearlessly, both of us. Doing good.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
I'm continuing to record...
...information about how Mom is doing over at the Mom's Daily Tests and Meds. I'm continuing on my productive roll over at Mom & Me One Archive. It continues to be incredibly instructive for me to review the material over there that I wrote two years ago. I'm in the process of recording the couple of months before her back injury laid her low for several months. She was pretty spiffy back then, compared to now.
I've been noticing a lot of broken links to areas all over my compilation of sites and have been fixing them as I go. These are links that were broken when I began having to move stuff around in order to keep myself from running out of space. I had planned on transferring everything I wrote, no matter how outdated. At that time, for instance, I used the Updates page a lot...then moved it and forgot to go back and correct the broken links. I haven't written anything on that page for ages, well over a year. I've decided not to get rid of it. I'm fond of it for its relic status. I did, however, decide to drop a series of very short posts written over 8/26/03-8/27/03 in which I tried some experiments with links that didn't work. Overall, I'm leaving the material exactly as it was written although I'm correcting spelling mistakes I notice and syntax when I run across a sentence that makes no sense. As well, I've discovered that the journalling facility I used back then made some very curious errors in time/date posting and I'm correcting those. Good thing I don't use that facility anymore. Jesus! What a mistake that software is!
Anyway, I think I'll head back over there and transfer some more days until I get tired. I'm planning to do some yard work in the morning; branches to cut, weeds to harvest for my compost bins. Amazingly, I hope it doesn't rain. I think I'm ready to roll a little slower with the archive transfer, now.
I've been noticing a lot of broken links to areas all over my compilation of sites and have been fixing them as I go. These are links that were broken when I began having to move stuff around in order to keep myself from running out of space. I had planned on transferring everything I wrote, no matter how outdated. At that time, for instance, I used the Updates page a lot...then moved it and forgot to go back and correct the broken links. I haven't written anything on that page for ages, well over a year. I've decided not to get rid of it. I'm fond of it for its relic status. I did, however, decide to drop a series of very short posts written over 8/26/03-8/27/03 in which I tried some experiments with links that didn't work. Overall, I'm leaving the material exactly as it was written although I'm correcting spelling mistakes I notice and syntax when I run across a sentence that makes no sense. As well, I've discovered that the journalling facility I used back then made some very curious errors in time/date posting and I'm correcting those. Good thing I don't use that facility anymore. Jesus! What a mistake that software is!
Anyway, I think I'll head back over there and transfer some more days until I get tired. I'm planning to do some yard work in the morning; branches to cut, weeds to harvest for my compost bins. Amazingly, I hope it doesn't rain. I think I'm ready to roll a little slower with the archive transfer, now.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
I am completely overtaken and fascinated...
...by my project of transferring the Mom & Me One Archive over to a decent journaling facility. I decided to take the opportunity to read the posts in an effort to continue indexing for the forthcoming Table of Contents I intend to set up. Wow! It is truly amazing to read the stuff I journalized two years and one month ago. At that time:
As I've mentioned previously, that will take awhile. I'm in the first flush of rereading what I previously wrote, though, and I'm driven, so you'll have to excuse my absence here for awhile. I'm sure the initial surge of energy will settle down soon. In the meantime, if you notice that there isn't much news here, check over at Mom's Daily Tests & Meds. Today's breakfast post, for instance, includes a long discussion of her recent determined sleeping and my frustrated response which exploded today. You'll find, over the next days, that much news besides test device readings, additional pills and what was eaten will be posted there.
- I would worry if my mother awoke as late as 0945;
- She was getting out a little more than now, but not much more;
- We were having exactly the same discussion about using the wheelchair as we do now;
- I had finally been beaten by doctors into accepting the inevitability and necessity of coloscoping my mother;
- I was close to being convinced that she did not suffer from Anemia Due to Chronic Disease;
- Her diet was not yet nearly as stellar as it is now. She was still eating an extremely high concentration of refined carbohydrates and fats from nutritionally deficient substances, and was still on metformin, although I was in the early stages of monitoring metformin and trying to cut back on it;
- I was fully aware of her slow decline and seemed to be taking it well, although I had already put myself on Black Cohosh;
- I was just beginning to notice how my devotion to taking care of my mother was going to affect my social relationships of all types;
- I was in the early stages of designing the organization of this group of sites.
As I've mentioned previously, that will take awhile. I'm in the first flush of rereading what I previously wrote, though, and I'm driven, so you'll have to excuse my absence here for awhile. I'm sure the initial surge of energy will settle down soon. In the meantime, if you notice that there isn't much news here, check over at Mom's Daily Tests & Meds. Today's breakfast post, for instance, includes a long discussion of her recent determined sleeping and my frustrated response which exploded today. You'll find, over the next days, that much news besides test device readings, additional pills and what was eaten will be posted there.
