(Semi-)Shawshank Re: Dementia Day 495 (1 Year, 130 days): Challenges Aplenty

Posted 7/21/21

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. –Matthew 7:21 (a.k.a. The scariest verse in the Bible, IMHO)

Have you noticed that there seems to be some truth to the ole adage “When it rains, it pours”? Yesterday was one of those days and, unfortunately it will alter today’s post as well. Yesterday I got the call in the wee hours that mom had had another seizure (Grand Mal, it is assumed…and, no, this isn’t a place to buy Back-to-School-Supplies). Her Oxygen was waaaay down. Like 80s or lower down. That is bad, for the medically uninclined. I was scheduled to see her at 8:30am and that was in jeopardy for sure… Turns out I did get about 7 minutes with her. As a point of reference, she had a GREAT week last week…probably the best since we have been allowed to see her again on our 2 fifteen visits a week. Here are some pix taken off of my stepdad’s phone on Thursday (he doesn’t text):

• 

• 

• 

• 

Here are some after pictures:

• 

• 

Indeed it is a terrible disease. These pictures don’t do it justice, especially since she had been on oxygen for 3-4 hours and had regained some color. She slept the entire visit and only ate 20-25% of her norm.

Then I flew back to work to find disarray: a fluke short in a power brick caused all of my work phones to be dead as Julius Caesar. Not an ideal scenario given that nearly all of our (SeniorAge’s) activities, right now, revolve around phones. I scrambled for quite a bit to fix/have a vendor fix the issues that that dumpster fire caused. In the process of troubleshooting, I had to temporarily break the internet, an equally unappealing issue…and that took a bit to appease. Later yesterday we had an emergency meeting of disaster preparedness folks to stand up a committee of folks to try even harder to address the COVID mess that is our hospital system in Springfield. We now have around 300+ hospitalized. That is a new record. We ship people to other states to find them beds. For contrast, Boston and KC have FAR fewer than 100. We are a hot mess of Covid stew. It is a good thing our talk radio and politicians don’t recommend vaccinations…we would be in a real mess if…uhhhh…errrr…wait, no, we would not. 🙁 I know there are arguments for not vaccinating, but I can tell you that the vaccine helps a bunch if you have taken it and you are exposed to Covid or the variants. You either don’t get the virus or you do and it is a lesser level. You do you…but expect the worst for you and those around you if you Google vaccines and read from/trust folks who don’t have a clue. Variants are evolving to stay alive and reproduce. The more not vaccinated, the more opportunity for variants. AND, if you hate government now, you will really hate them when they start forcing vaccines (and other measures) on people because we won’t even try to protect ourselves in hot spots like my county… Sigh… My job can be hard…especially with mom struggling.

Regardless, I write this to say that I cannot write today. (Ironic considering my excuse is nearly as long as a normal post. 🙂 I hope to resume Friday to update you about two amazing clinical trials I am soon to be involved in. Thank you all and please be safe. 🙂

#EndALZ