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ell, really. Has it been that long? More than a year?

There are reasons why, even though I'm still caring for my parents, I haven't blogged about it in sixteen months. No excuses, of course, but reasons galore.

Here are just a few:

• On March 30, 2012, Mom broke her hip. She had surgery, spent a week in the hospital, and then 100 days in the nursing home.
• During that time, Dad realized that she wouldn't be able to move back into the small house we'd been living in on the farm.
• We spent a couple of weeks looking at the few homes on the market in Rural Town and found out there weren't any that could easily be made handicapped accessible.
• So... we built a modular home. Dad paid for it. I did all the leg work.
• Eight days after we moved into the new house, Mom came home from the nursing home, unable to walk, transfer, or go to the bathroom by herself.
• For the next four and a half months, she woke me up 2-3 times a night to use the bathroom.
• Then, she had another surgery after we found out we'd gotten poor follow up care from her first surgeon in Big Town. Yes, the second surgery was done by a different doctor, in Big City.
• After a few weeks in the nursing home, she came home, and with the aid of a vertical transfer pole, she is almost always able to use the bathroom by herself at night. (Yay, sleep!!)
• In the meantime, Dad was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. In the past six months, we've had the doctors call the family together three times, because it was "the end." Each time, Dad miraculously pulled through and after a short time in a nursing home, he returned to our new house.
• Just before the last of those occurrences, Dad went on Hospice. They have been wonderfully helpful, but the rules have changed--now, when we would normally bring him to the hospital, we have to call Hospice. More about that later. Hopefully, more about each of these items later.
• A month ago, Mom was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia.
• Last week, Dad had a mild stroke, but seems to have recovered pretty well.

So, I hope you forgive me for not keeping up on the blog. I'm hoping to write more consistently now that things have calmed down to a dull roar.