Chickafinty ~ A Life in the Laundry

Well, that didn't turn out how I expected

Had a very lazy start to the day this morning. Mister Bear was on church cleaning and I opted not to go as I had to iron the tablecloths from morning tea last week, and return them to the church. When Mister Bear and the kids got home we picked up the mending from the menderes, dropped the table cloths in at the church, headed for K-Mart to return some clothes that didn't fit, had lunch and drove to Spotlight for some yarn. There's a new baby on the way for friends of ours and my fingers are itching at the thought of making a baby blanket for the expected arrival. Mister Bear and the Ladybug fossicked around in JB Hi Fi while Chickabid and I went mad in the wool department. No, Chickabid is not much interested in crafting, but he is interested in mathematics. He brought along his calculator so he could add up the cost of everything we bought, including the yarn. Anyway, we chose the yarn - lots and lots of lovely colours as this baby blanket is going to be in rainbow stripes separated by bands of white - collected the bear and the cub and drove to Aldi for the grocery shopping. I expected to go home after the groceries and unpack them, and then spend a lovely few hours crocheting away on a new ripple blanket BUT I called Dad to see how he was, and the news was he wasn't great. In fact, he was in a lot of pain and initially thought it might have been chest pain. We flew home with the shopping, I jumped in my car and got over to mum and dad's as fast as the law would allow. By the time I got to their place, the Amos had already arrived and were checking dad out. They loaded him into the ambulance; Mum and I followed in the car.
Mum was confused about exactly who was in the ambulance...apparently it was the quite young man who is staying with them (?!?!) but she had no idea where dad could possibly be. Mister Bear and the kids met us and the hospital and I left mum with them while I sorted out where dad was. Apparently everything jogged back into place quite suddenly with mum while she was in the waiting room and she got a tremendous shock to find that dad had been taken to hospital in an ambulance. She had no idea what was wrong with him and no idea how she got to the hospital. Such is the craziness that is Alzheimer's.
They fixed dad up with some morphine for the pain and put him on a drip as he was quite dehydrated. They established that it was abdominal pain and not related to the heart - big relief!- took blood and did an X-ray. Mister Bear and the kids went home to organise everything for the definite arrival of mum, and the possible arrival of dad, at our house. I took mum to the cafeteria for something to eat. Mums forgetting to eat, and only eating tiny amounts when she does, so it is really important to make sure that she eats regularly. Our minister met us in the cafeteria and went with us back to dad's bed where he talked with us for a while and then prayed with us.
Mum was really tired by this stage so dad suggested that we head for home via their place to pick up some clothes etc. Dad was going to be given some more morphine, so it would have been a bit pointless hanging around. I took mum home to collect some stuff, and some stuff for dad in case, and then we drove back tour house, narrowly missing being wiped out at the major intersection on the way!
As I write mum is (hopefully) fast asleep in our bed. When dad comes out of hospital he is not going to be ale to care for mum for a few days at least, so they will both have to move in with us while he recovers. Mum insists that she will be fine by herself, but I beg to differ, especially as she was marvelling at how much our house looks like the other house she was at this week...in fact everything is identical, even down to having the same sort of dog as at the other house. The bathroom Iain the same place and the curtains are just like the house she was at. That house was this house. It's all very confused.
Today didn't end up the way we thought it would. I will feel better when we know what is wrong with dad and what course of treatment will set him to rights. I'm not expecting to sleep too much tonight. I need to be awake in case mum wakes and gets confused about where the bathroom is and such-like. I also need to monitor her CPAP machine and make sure that it is switched on all night and doing what it is supposed to be doing. Mum wakes in the night, gets annoyed with it and turns it off.
I need both patience and strength to cope with the next few days. I need them in spades.

A week of disruption

I was hoping to slide back into a comfortable working pattern after our holiday, but that has proved to be impossible.  It's May, 2013 and that means it is 200 years since Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson made their historic trip across the Blue Mountains.  It's also the week that I booked a trip to Marrickville for an Oz Opera performance of The Magic Flute.  It's also the week that Dad had surgery on his eyebrow for a skin cancer, and the week for attending a play about the crossing of the Blue Mountains.  A play that we didn't end up getting to.

School happened on Monday, the performance on Tuesday, Dad's surgery on Wednesday, our normal volunteering thing on Thursday, and then finally, school happened today.  It has been one of those weeks.  Lots of learning going on, but not necesaarily anything that winds up in a plan.

Next week should be all right as there are no disruptions booked.  The piano tuner is coming on Tuesday and I need to book an electrician at some point to fix up a few electrical problems we have.

• Ladybug's light switch isn't working properly
• the hallway light won't work at all
• neither will the outside light
• the light globes in the lounge room keep blowing even though they are supposed to be the long life kind...it makes us think that something is wrong with the wiring somewhere
• we need another power point in the laundry as I can have the washing machine going, or the dryer going, but not both at the same time
• we need the fan switch from our bedroom looked at after it nearly caught fire (what is it with me and fans and things catching fire - as if once in a lifetime wasn't enough!

But apart from those things it's going to be a pretty standard school week.