Wednesday, March 26, 2008, 18:51
Easter Dinner
We ate Easter dinner at my nephew and niece-in-law's house on Sunday, and I'm happy to say that we got bunches of pictures of my great-nephews and my great-niece!
Unfortunately, I was not able to see Alex (my great-nephew) in person. I figured I had better get to the nursing home to check on my former neighbor. She has been having a terrible time. And in fact, when Randy dropped me off at the house to get my truck, there was, indeed, an urgent message on my voice mail from the nursing home staff. So I missed seeing Alex in person. His mom and dad went to dinner with his dad's family, and then they came to my nephew's house afterwards -- after I had left.
A Nightmare
My visit to the nursing home on Sunday was like something out of a nightmare. I am not going to go into all of the lurid details, but the long and short of it is that my former neighbor was yelling at me and belligerent and extremely verbally abusive to me and at one point, I thought she was going to throw a shoe at me. She is convinced that I am part of the conspiracy to steal all of her money, and she told me that I was a criminal and ought to be arrested and thrown in jail.
When she was our neighbor 30 years ago, she was physically and verbally abusive to her husband and to her husband's grandson. I personally witnessed her physical and verbal abuse to her husband. The summer after I got out of high school, I worked for her husband and helped him with his horses. Years later, he told me about how abusive she was to his grandson. She was a heavy drinker and may have been an alcoholic. But I was a teenager at the time, so what did I know?
She has been verbally abusive to the nursing home staff as well. And while she was in the hospital, she tried to kick and hit the nurses. The woman still smokes, and her social worker has observed her lighting cigarettes at her apartment and then forgetting she lit a cigarette. The social worker is afraid to let her live alone in her apartment because the woman can't even get out of bed by herself but also because she is afraid the woman will burn down the apartment complex.
I am no longer planning on going to the nursing home to see this woman. I do not need this from a woman, that up until last week, I had not seen in 25 years. Over the last 25 years, I have received Christmas cards from her perhaps 10 times. I always wrote back to her after getting the Christmas cards. That's been our only contact in 25 years.
I was, however, able to find out the name of the woman's niece, found a telephone number for her and called the niece Sunday evening. Before this, the woman would not tell anyone who her family members were and said it was "none of their business" that she was in the hospital. The niece said that, as a family, they had tried to get this woman to assign Power of Attorney to a family member so that this sort of thing would not happen (she now has a court-appointed guardian). She refused and became extremely angry with them. They decided, as a family, there was nothing they could do to help her. Can't say as I blame them.
So that's it for that. . .onto better and much more cheerful things.
Babies and More Babies!
My little great-nephew Alex, who was born in October, is a quite the cute little fellow. Sunday afternoon after I left, Randy sat down with Alex and the camera and was able to get a picture of both of them. Alex also was quite fascinated with his new little cousin, Evelyn Rose, who was born in January.
Evelyn Rose is at the point now where she is making all kinds of faces and is working on getting her expressions down pat. She can smile. And she can frown. She likes to have her pacifier for company, and she likes to look up her mommy when she is sitting her mommy's lap. She loves it when her daddy plays with her, too. (Evelyn Rose's dad played football for UW-Stout and was presented with an award for being an outstanding scholar AND for being an outstanding athlete. He is a packaging engineer.)
My other great-nephew, Eli, was having a great time on Sunday, too, because although his birthday is not until April 18, everyone brought birthday presents for him. He had so much fun playing with his new tractor. And guess what his first word was when he started to say words. Yup. That's right. Tractor!
Kittens
A week or two ago, Randy was able to get a picture of Henry-the-kitten playing with the pink dollie that was Pixie's when she was a baby. The dollie has a squeaker in it, and the kittens, if you can call them that since they are getting so big, like to make the dollie squeak.
One night, Henry, Katerina and Dora somehow managed to pull Pixie's plaid blanket out onto the linoleum, and then they all laid down on it for a nap. Randy is no longer having trouble telling Henry and Katerina apart because Henry is much bigger than his sister now. If you look closely at the picture of the three of them, you can seen the distinct rings that Henry has on his tail.
The three kittens continue to LOVE to curl up with me on the couch when I lie down to rest. I never thought when I came down with influenza on February 26 that a month later I would still be working on recovering, but I am. I keep coughing from the post nasal drip running down the back of my throat, and I keep re-injuring my ribs.
Duke
My old kitty cat, Duke, is continuing to improve on the Procrit. I am hoping to get him into the vet clinic this week to check his red blood cells. And I am happy to say he has started talking to me again! When I come home from somewhere, he often will come out to see me and will MEOW! when I say his name. He likes to MEOW! when he's in the bathroom curled up by the heat vent, too, and wants me to bring him some dry kitty food. (He has decided he likes being waited on, even though he is perfectly capable of jumping up to the kitty food table in my office). Duke's anemia obviously is much improved, and I am hoping that with the regular subcutaneous fluids I have been giving him, his kidney function levels on the blood test will have improved as well.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Sunday, March 23, 2008, 13:39
Topsy-Turvy
This past week has been a horrible, topsy-turvy week. A lady who was a neighbor of ours almost 40 years ago, who is now 85 and who had lived in California for the past 25 years after her husband died, all of a sudden, out of the blue, decided to move back to Wisconsin March 1.
She ended up in the hospital for more than a week. I spent the substantial portion of this past week sitting at the hospital with her. She has now been transferred to the nursing home in town.
She is suffering some dementia, is very angry about being in the nursing home and thinks she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She is thin and frail and can hardly get out of bed by herself, much less take care of herself. But she insists she ought to be in her apartment by herself.
At the hospital, she thought they were trying to poison her every time they tried to give her pain medication (she is in a lot of pain from her hip and back) or when they tried to give her heart meds or blood pressure meds.
She will not tell anyone her niece's name (who lives in California too) and she has no other relatives or friends in this area, except another good friend who is 95. I don't even know if the niece knows that she moved, although I kind of doubt it.
I spent much of Saturday afternoon at the nursing home. Randy came down there too, and we got home at 7 p.m. It is difficult to be around someone who is so angry and so upset all of the time. And yet I feel like I have to go because there is no one else.
Thanks for listening . . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
