It Happened -- Hawaii 2022

Travel was unexpectedly uneventful. Our Lyft was cushy. Three years of miles accrual meant that we went first class, which was fine. I got to watch Everything Everywhere all at Once, which was super weird and neat. We went to La Mariana for lunch and had our first taste of the 2022 holidays:

Our local market has what we need, so we just ate out of the refrigerator case, bought some bottled mai tais and sat on the lanai. Mrguy, recovering from a migraine, had some hypervigilent moments. They only bother him.

On my birthday we went to Sea Bear Beach (what we call it), which you get to by snaking through the parking lot. The area where you can swim is a little smaller than before, but you have a shaded beach with very few people on it. I have felt sooo unlaxed since I got here. It's amazing to realize that dealing with my mom has a physical component. I felt my stomach drop in a good way immediately.

Then off to the museum, which had some of the best traveling exhibitions I've seen there in years. The theme was flowers, and there were paintings from their own collection, like this Paul Wonner:

Also I'm totally in love with the butt grain parquet in the gallery and had to take a photo:

We saw a really cool show by Noah Harders.

And a fantastic piece: Soundsuit 8:46 by Nick Cave:

and then we stepped into Rebecca Louise Law's Awakening, an immersive exhibit that was filled with local and non-local dried vegetation strung on wire and crafted into ;aths within space. The interplay of the objects, shapes and depth of field was tremendous.

I have no idea whether I can load this video into the blog, but this is what it was like to experience the piece:

After touring the galleries, we had lunch at the cafe, and then took in the Sundance Indigenous Short Film Program.

It all went to plan.

While I was rolling around in my bed with Covid I planned out some things for my birthday, including finding a restaurant, Senia, where we could have a great meal. We usually don't do this (eat a fancy dinner) but this sounded really special. And while I was too sick to get out of bed, I'd think "Maybe tomorrow I could get up the stairs by myself so I can grab my credit card and make reservations". Eventually my wish came true.

Dinner was delicious. We had an appetizer that came under a smoke-filled dome. We ate the world's richest risotto. We had scallops that were so good that mrguy decided that he might even *enjoy* scallops.

It was just a great great day, and a good way to usher in a new decade of life (depending on how you count it).

Sorry if the video doesn't load. This has been an experiment. 

Big Finish!

Wooo!! It's Christmas!!!

I am draining the hourglass, so to speak, on my holiday duties. The big finish was Christmas.

In the perspective of a person with Alzheimer's there is only the now. It doesn't matter that I spent the previous two days helping my mom see her loved ones. There was only the fact that it is Christmas and we were not doing anything fun. And she hadn't slept much the night before, so I arrived to find her grumpy and disoriented.

It was not a good day for anyone. I counted the hours. She spoke gibberish and was angry for a bunch of the day. I learned what a lot of her distressing behaviors look like in person and most do not scare me.

But there were things I'd never seen: trying to use a napkin as a spoon; trying to eat a napkin; spitting a cough drop into a tissue box...

Then there was the over the top stuff. She refused to let anyone change her underwear for the whole day. I kept watching the bulge in her pants grow, and along with it my concern. She has significant discomfort from rashes which are worsened by her sitting in wet pants. She insisted that she was fine and could use the restroom herself, but can't actually stand without assistance. So how is the going to the bathroom going to work? Or getting into bed from the wheelchair? Or getting into a car?

Mom registered her displeasure in a number of ways. She refused her meals. She cried "How can you do this to me" a bunch of times. She tried to break her own finger (ok THAT really freaked me out). She tried to eat a figurine. And she basically *seethed* all day. At one point I just aimed her wheelchair to a place where she could look out the window and not see me. I set the brake so she couldn't move. Then I passed the time by sweeping the floor, dusting, and polishing her furniture with diaper rash ointment. 

We talked to my siblings on the computer. At least that was kinda nice. Mom didn't care, and there was a lot of gibberish that I couldn't translate, but it made the moments pass uneventfully. Eventually I brought out...the balls.

Mom's been aggressive lately, so I bought some soft Nerf-type balls that I thought we could make a game with. I brought them to her apartment with a hat box, figuring that we could use it as a basket and get out some of that aggressive energy and convert it to fun. I pointed her into the hallway in her apartment and tossed her some balls to toss into the hatbox. She thought I was crazy. Eventually she started threatening to hit me with the soft balls and I asked her to go ahead. She said that she wanted me to hurt the way that she hurts. 

"How can you do this to me?" 

"You've turned into something horrible" 

"You are a sexpot"

"If you were in the bed with me I'd kill you" 

and my personal favorite:

"You just want me dead so that you can go in the fields and fuck boys". She seemed additionally hurt that I wasn't hurt by the awful stuff she was saying to me. As if the fact that she couldn't hurt me meant I did not love her. At one point I wanted to say "I'm on drugs, and they pretty much prevent me from crying, so do your best". And when she said that she was never going to see me again I said "Great!" She was not really selling the idea of why I'd want to see her again, but you can't convince a person with dementia of anything.

But then there were the shrieks. I have rarely heard the kinds of shrieks she emitted when the helpers in Memory Care finally got her dirty Depends off of her. But when another helper and I got her into bed? Those shrieks were even worse. You would have thought that the Devil himself had slid a hot poker up her butt. After we got her in bed, however, it wasn't long before the Beast slept for a bit. And then my sweet mom returned for a few moments. And not long after that I ran away to eat dinner with mrguy.

We found a Chinese restaurant that was open after 8pm. Let's call it Zorba's Szechuan. The food was great but it was after 8pm and they were slamming all of the dishes around as they cleared the tables, and then they broke a bunch for good measure. Our ears were ringing, but we were fed.

Merry Christmas. Is it over yet?

Two More Days!

I need to hit my marks for two more days and then I am done with Christmas. Woooo!!

Primary Caregivers

Get cash end of the year bonuses for primary caregivers.

Give them an extra $20 bill to show my mom so she thinks that's what she gave them. Reinforce instructions on showing the $20 so mom doesn't freak out about the actual amount we are giving them.

New Caregivers

Meet their boss to deliver payroll, have her sign receipts etc. And give her a card and some sort of present.

Get cards and some sort of present for the new caregivers. Figure out how to let them know their card is in my mom's apartment.

Memory Care Staff

Find cards, presents, etc. for favorite staff in memory care.

Family

Host nephew and his family at my mom's this morning. Find cards and some sort of present for them.

Christmas

Care for mom on Christmas. Wrap presents, bathe her, entertain her, etc. I have a huge amount of fear that she will have an emotional outburst about whatever I'm giving her. The last time I gave her the wrong size belt she cried and cried because I bought her the wrong (larger) size and did I really think she was that size. Last year she complained because I gave her too many presents.

After Christmas I only have one remaining task (that I know of) during the week -- a telehealth conference with mom's nurse practitioner regarding her outbursts. Then there's New Year's Day, when I'm her caregiver from 8-8pm.

Then back to work.

As I have often said, and as every parent knows, Christmas is for other people. Mainly my mom and my sister. Yesterday I hosted our amazing nephew and his family, juggling cards, logistics and stuff. I had to take the day off in order to do it, but I still had work to finish before the winter break. The visit was lovely, but I get so stressed out that I'm going to do something wrong or upset someone while I try to make these many things come together simultaneously. My sister was still texting me with requests and suggestions while I was literally already at the table in a restaurant eating breakfast with our nephew and his family yesterday.

Tonight we are having dinner with friends. And hatching plans for a celebration of our own in mid-January.

UPDATE:

All went well. Found lovely chocolates at the local market. Gave 2020 Target gift cards to the girls with the caveat "Could be $20, could be $100 -- no idea what's on them". They are some of the only people I can do this with. They thought it was hilarious. The new caregivers' boss came to relieve me of $2500 and their cards and chocolate. Yay! Mom was unhappy when I got there and actually said "Poor me..." as I was visiting. She perked up when the kids were visiting, which was awesome.

And now, a new tradition: Christmas Eve dinner with friends. Can't wait.

My Favorite Snowflake

Attentive readers of mrsguy might recall the bodacious birthday present I gave to our oldest grandniece several years ago, which consisted of many fake diamond brooches (from the free table at work).

Here's the old post

I got a great photo from her father yesterday, of him in his outfit for Zoom holiday party doings. He looked so happy and snappy in his Santa hat and natural beard that I completely missed out on what his snowflake sweater was made out of -- all of those brooches. Super clever. 

The brooches live!

Hey Man

I was talking to that nice boy the other day. I think he's officially a nice man now, because he and I have just turned 60, but whatever. He reminded me of this time when he and some co-workers from the winery were driving in the Golan when they saw a frustrated driver yell out his car window "Hey, man! Fuuck you!!" They all thought it was hilarious, and that nice man heard the story repeated at the winery, by otherwise nicely religious guys, in Hebrew, with the punch line in English -- "Hey, man! Fuuck you!!" Eventually, the story became so well known that all anybody had to say was "Hey man!" and everyone knew what the rest of the sentence was. 

I also thought this was hilarious, so I wrote "Hey, man! Fuuck you!!" on a piece of paper near my usual perch on the sofa. Mrguy's hypervigilant, so this caught his eye and he started laughing before I could even tell him the story. Anyhoo...

I had a kinda "Hey man!" day yesterday, trying to get a Covid vaccine. I was 4 days away from getting my bivalent vaccine in October when I got Covid. That meant that I had *some* immunity, and wasn't eligible to get the vaccine until December. Last week was two months past Covid, so I tried to get an appointment for a vaccine at my doctor's office and learned that the nearest option was AN HOUR'S DRIVE FROM MY HOUSE. Shoot.

So I went to the Walgreens website and signed up for an appointment at a local store. I picked a perfect day that wouldn't screw up my work week, since the vaccine lays me out for days. I got to my appointment yesterday, stood in line for 15 minutes or so, and when I got to the front of the line, I see this sign:

This was definitely a Hey Man moment. Turns out that the Walgreens website lets you schedule a vaccine at a location that does not vaccinate. Fine. I go home, grab my laptop, schedule at another site and a few minutes later the location cancels. But I really want a vaccine on the date I've chosen. And I've kinda given this day up for being incapacitated by the vaccine, so I drive down to Costco. They have the vaccine but no appointments. So I try the CVS website. I have scheduled for Monday at a CVS in a Target store nearby. 

We'll see how it goes.

UPDATE:

I got my vaccine yesterday at 6pm. I went to bed around 10, and I rolled around in bed (again) like a hot dog at 7-11. I woke up, did my Pilates class and afterward felt like crap. Maybe not a good idea but we're about to go into break, and I need the exercise. In a meeting, a colleague described her vaccine experience as feeling as if for 24 hours someone was pulling her muscles off of her bones. At 25 hours it was over.

My real aches started at 9 or so, after Pilates. I have a project to finish and can't really stop working on it. I took a bath during lunchtime, which didn't really help, and eventually I took some Tylenol (and Tums). I feel much better now, at the 24.5 hour mark, but it might be a rough night. At least I can work from home tomorrow.