Fifth Monday

Things are going okay in da Woods. The cottonwoods are flowering right now, so the edges of the woods are all frosted in white. I took some photos of the current flowers -- here are some of my favorites.


dd, Marie and I met with the Hospice admissions people Tuesday. She's still basically in pretty good shape, but she's been losing weight pretty steadily (We didn't have any weights to prove our case, but dd was able to show how Marie's back brace is nine inches less in circumfrance than it was last year). With the VNA ready to switch nurses anyway, we figured it would be a good time to make our own move.


We spent an hour or so with two nice women, and it was determined that Marie can be admitted to their program under a 'failure to thrive' diagnosis. That has to be re-evaluated every three months, and if they decide she's thriving, we'll have to go back to the VNA. Day-to-day, it won't be much different. We'll get a bath aide three days a week instead of the two times that we're doing now, and they might be able to get some volunteers to cover a couple more hours a week. dp left her state retirement pension death benefit to Marie, so we can afford to cut back a little on Pathways adult daycare for private staff.


We all think Pathways is a good thing for Marie, but the bus trip can be hard on her. In theory, dd and I are now job-sharing the care coordinator job so that I can phase myself in to overseeing Marie's care. dd's ready to phase herself out -- eldercare administration has never been a field to which she aspired...


I took the day off today -- I'm realizing with 20/20 hindsight that Mondays are particularly bothersome -- today is the five-week anniversary of dp's death. On the flip side, though, It occurred to me this weekend that I'd been carrying around a fair amount of fear for the last year. Realizing your greatest fear is actually kind of liberating -- now that dp has actually died, I'm pretty much freaking fearless.