Saturday, November 12, 2005
And here's another thing...
...has anyone noticed that this Medicare Part D plan, with it's built in confusion and ability to be accidentally misunderstood and misused, is being foisted up one of our two most vulnerable populations, those two being our children and our elderly? Of those two populations Medicare Part D falls upon the vulnerable population that is the least well cared for?
It's almost like it was planned this way.
Once again, thank you President Bush.
...later.
It's almost like it was planned this way.
Once again, thank you President Bush.
...later.
No, nothing's been wrong...
...in fact it's been a very satisfying week. I just haven't gotten back to the computer, much. I've been doing other things. I discovered, tonight, that I need to at least keep up on stats, though. As I was going back and reviewing them for stat ketchup over at Mom's Dailies I noticed that the Blood Glucose monitor had lost a day's date apparently a few days ago and all her blood glucose stats were mis-dated and mis-timed. That was fun. If I'd been keeping up with entering them I'd have noticed it sooner. Luckily, I was able to remember when I did and didn't take glucose readings and time them accurately from comparisons with her blood pressure readings.
After a bit over a week of active days, Monday this week began a week of Mom not wanting to move much. I gave in. She stayed up quite a bit, actually, and there were a few days when she didn't nap. She really slept in this morning, our first rainy, stormy day in a long time. She awoke once about 0930, went to the bathroom, had not yet leaked through her underwear, we changed them, she went back to bed for another three hours and when she awoke her bed and her pajamas were still dry, so it was a light chore day for me. I hadn't realized, previously, that half my chores center around her leakage. As well, of course, we only had to bathe her groin. I checked her over, as I usually do, and we applied lotion and she washed her face but there wasn't any reason to do The Full Bath Deal.
When she's been up we've been catching up on movie watching, talking, looking through holiday magazines for interesting recipes, drawing up lists of ingredients and comparing them against what we have, read-watching more of the Bible DVD, playing Sorry and talking. There was one time phasing episode wherein she thought I'd roomed with her in college and wanted to know what I'd heard from "Mavis" and some of the others in her college clique. Otherwise, though, she's been pretty clear and in the moment.
When she hasn't been up I've been combing stores for more unusual ingredients. I'm still trying to locate Robertson's Scotch Marmalade locally; I used to be able to get it from our regular grocery but apparently they no longer carry it. I've also been sorting through our food cupboards, getting rid of stuff that's too old to use.
I've also been attending to paper work sorting and spending some time determining whether my mother should sign up for the new Medicare Part D. As it turns out, she needn't bother. She's getting a much better deal from TriCare than she could possibly get from Medicare, especially since she takes so few prescription drugs. Thank goodness!
After reading all kinds of booklets and website about the Plan D I'm realizing that it is probably yet another way our government is making it so difficult and confusing for us citizens to get any prescription drug help that many of us will either manage to be confused right into spending more on prescription drugs than we already are or need to or give up and decide to go it as we've been going. Such a shame, and a sham. WHY CAN'T THIS COUNTRY FIGURE IT OUT?!? HEALTH CARE OF ALL TYPES SHOULD NOT BE LEFT TO BIG BUSINESS OR A GOVERNMENT THAT CAN'T AND/OR DOESN'T WANT TO CONTROL BIG BUSINESS!!!!! Jesus fucking Christ!
So, anyway, life is continuing smoothly, I'm feeling good, Mom's feeling good, we're both doing well and looking forward to the holidays.
Oh, I had one low day. I ran into our Fed-Ex delivery woman at the grocery last Friday. I wished her "happy vacation in November" from her parents and she effervesced into telling me that yet another rung of her family, an extension in Phoenix (so weird that she has extended family in both Florida and Phoenix and so do I) have decided to host her Mom and Dad for December in order to give her and her husband a holiday break.
"It's the best Christmas gift we've ever gotten," she said.
I can imagine. In fact, I spent the rest of the day imagining what it would be like to have family members come out of the woodwork and offer to host their shared elderly relative(s) for a month here and a month there. Then I got over it. You know, whatever. The truth is, if passing shared relatives around doesn't start fairly early in the shared relatives' Ancient dependency, pretty soon it becomes impossible because of all the necessary routines that need to be carried out and which take a little time to understand and get used to.
I know a change in our the WASP social structure isn't going to happen while I'm sharing my mother's life. I hope, though, finally, this documentation will become an avenue to a grand rethinking of social structures within the U.S. (and elsewhere, if necessary) that, well, that will make it impossible for what is happening to me, to me my mother and lots of other people to happen.
It's getting late.
Things are fine. I'm not sure how much I'll be reporting here for awhile. I've still got lots of stuff I want to attack and I can't help but take advantage of this easy, delightful period of enjoying Mom.
She thinks she might want to go to Costco with me tomorrow. Hallelujah!
Later.
After a bit over a week of active days, Monday this week began a week of Mom not wanting to move much. I gave in. She stayed up quite a bit, actually, and there were a few days when she didn't nap. She really slept in this morning, our first rainy, stormy day in a long time. She awoke once about 0930, went to the bathroom, had not yet leaked through her underwear, we changed them, she went back to bed for another three hours and when she awoke her bed and her pajamas were still dry, so it was a light chore day for me. I hadn't realized, previously, that half my chores center around her leakage. As well, of course, we only had to bathe her groin. I checked her over, as I usually do, and we applied lotion and she washed her face but there wasn't any reason to do The Full Bath Deal.
When she's been up we've been catching up on movie watching, talking, looking through holiday magazines for interesting recipes, drawing up lists of ingredients and comparing them against what we have, read-watching more of the Bible DVD, playing Sorry and talking. There was one time phasing episode wherein she thought I'd roomed with her in college and wanted to know what I'd heard from "Mavis" and some of the others in her college clique. Otherwise, though, she's been pretty clear and in the moment.
When she hasn't been up I've been combing stores for more unusual ingredients. I'm still trying to locate Robertson's Scotch Marmalade locally; I used to be able to get it from our regular grocery but apparently they no longer carry it. I've also been sorting through our food cupboards, getting rid of stuff that's too old to use.
I've also been attending to paper work sorting and spending some time determining whether my mother should sign up for the new Medicare Part D. As it turns out, she needn't bother. She's getting a much better deal from TriCare than she could possibly get from Medicare, especially since she takes so few prescription drugs. Thank goodness!
After reading all kinds of booklets and website about the Plan D I'm realizing that it is probably yet another way our government is making it so difficult and confusing for us citizens to get any prescription drug help that many of us will either manage to be confused right into spending more on prescription drugs than we already are or need to or give up and decide to go it as we've been going. Such a shame, and a sham. WHY CAN'T THIS COUNTRY FIGURE IT OUT?!? HEALTH CARE OF ALL TYPES SHOULD NOT BE LEFT TO BIG BUSINESS OR A GOVERNMENT THAT CAN'T AND/OR DOESN'T WANT TO CONTROL BIG BUSINESS!!!!! Jesus fucking Christ!
So, anyway, life is continuing smoothly, I'm feeling good, Mom's feeling good, we're both doing well and looking forward to the holidays.
Oh, I had one low day. I ran into our Fed-Ex delivery woman at the grocery last Friday. I wished her "happy vacation in November" from her parents and she effervesced into telling me that yet another rung of her family, an extension in Phoenix (so weird that she has extended family in both Florida and Phoenix and so do I) have decided to host her Mom and Dad for December in order to give her and her husband a holiday break.
"It's the best Christmas gift we've ever gotten," she said.
I can imagine. In fact, I spent the rest of the day imagining what it would be like to have family members come out of the woodwork and offer to host their shared elderly relative(s) for a month here and a month there. Then I got over it. You know, whatever. The truth is, if passing shared relatives around doesn't start fairly early in the shared relatives' Ancient dependency, pretty soon it becomes impossible because of all the necessary routines that need to be carried out and which take a little time to understand and get used to.
I know a change in our the WASP social structure isn't going to happen while I'm sharing my mother's life. I hope, though, finally, this documentation will become an avenue to a grand rethinking of social structures within the U.S. (and elsewhere, if necessary) that, well, that will make it impossible for what is happening to me, to me my mother and lots of other people to happen.
It's getting late.
Things are fine. I'm not sure how much I'll be reporting here for awhile. I've still got lots of stuff I want to attack and I can't help but take advantage of this easy, delightful period of enjoying Mom.
She thinks she might want to go to Costco with me tomorrow. Hallelujah!
Later.
