readingfool
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2015
- Messages
- 1,142
To try to keep a long story short, my mom has been having a lot of health issues lately, and ended up in the hospital last week. She lives about 500 miles from here, but luckily, my sister is only a few miles from her, so she's been a big help to her the past few years. However, the doctor doesn't feel it's safe for Mom to live alone any longer, and while they love each other and get along fine for a few hours at a time, she & my sister refuse to live together. Cue the "Shelli, it's time to go back home" music. I've been living with my step-mother since my father passed away six years ago; it was the smart thing financially, and neither or us particularly wanted to live alone. There's a lot of guilt about leaving her alone mixed in with my excitement about being closer to more of my family again, but her son is close & comes to see her just about daily, plus she's in better health than my mom, so I'm working on being OK with it. My youngest son is coming with me, but my two older children will still be in this area though we'll all have access to the Amtrak, making quick weekend visits a possibility. Where I am now is a very small town, and I grew up in the country, so I'm not crazy about being in the city, where the neighbors house is, at best, five feet away, but it's a fairly short drive to get out of town or to the lake & peninsula, so I'll still be able to get my nature fix when I need it. Lots of cleaning, sorting, packing, etc. will be going on here the next few weeks, and at the end of the month, my son will drive a U-haul & I'll get the pleasure of driving with two cats in the car. Earl will probably be fine, Boots is mouthy to start with & gets easily bent out of shape if his world is upset in any way, so this should be interesting to say the least. Today I took Earl to the vet for his yearly check-up & when we got home, as he does every year, Boots hissed & growled at him, wouldn't come near me & just acted a fool all afternoon. He does the same thing when I take him to the vet, and even when I (used to) put the flea medication on him - he got so bad about that that I've now switched to the 8 month flea collar for him. He doesn't like that either, but he deals with it a little better. And now that I've rambled so much I completely changed my original topic without a new paragraph, I'm gonna' stop. 
)
I thing the biggest thing will be monitoring her meds & blood sugars, and making sure she eats better than she has been. Even with terrible scoliosis in her back, she can get around fairly well, though she hasn't been able to stand completely straight for probably close to twenty years now, even with surgery.
