I’m a planner. An organizer. I guess that’s the biggest part of all this that is so tough to handle. How do you plan this kind of shit? Or organize it? There are so many wild cards. This biggest wild card is mom herself. Is she purposely not listening and doing the opposite of what is being asked of her? Or can she not remember it? She says more and more things that sound like Mickey, which is terrifying. What’s wrong with me? What’s happening? And more like that…..

The sleeping pills of course, were not ready yesterday. So we kept her up as late as possible. We talked about using the bell, or just calling out my name when she needs help during the night. She did not do either, on any of the three occasions in which she got up. The first time she got up, she fell. I heard it and found her on the floor of her bedroom trying to get to the rest room. She got up from the foot of her bed instead of where the walker is next to her bed. Imagine me at 1:15 a.m. trying to pick up an uncooperative person who can’t control one side of her body. So after the fall we talked about what would happen if she fell and hit her head or broke a hip. It would be straight to an assisted care facility. One would think that would be enough to make her not do it again, yet she did. Twice. WTF am I supposed to do with this?

In the morning, mom’s next door neighbor, Patricia, came over to help her shower and wash her hair. Between that and helping figure out the meds, she has been a great help! It had to feel amazing after 4 weeks of not washing her hair! After that another neighbor, Jolene, brought her some flowers and a beautiful new top. Her friend, Helga brought her lunch today and stayed for four hours, which allowed me to go home for a few hours and run some errands. I have not been home since Thursday morning and miss it more than you can imagine. Thank god for the break! Rick and Idgie came and spent the first two nights with me and Tyler came over after work to hang out with us…..I don’t know that I could have hung in there on such little sleep without those two (or three). I finally got her sleeping pills in the evening and am keeping my fingers crossed for a good night’s sleep-for both of our sakes.