Doorbells

've mentioned before that Mom is a hoarder.

When I moved back in last spring, the front door (which we rarely use) was completely blocked with boxes of stuff. Papers from two years ago, unmatched socks by the bag, boxes and bags from previously started and unfinished sorting attempts, and an empty video cabinet--while all the DVDs and VHS tapes are scattered around the room.

Once, the screen door locked as Mom and I were going outside to look at something, and we couldn't get back in. Dad was sleeping in the back, and my husband was sleeping in the basement. I went around to the front door and tried to open it. Push. Push. Push. Not enough movement to even get my head through the door.

I had my cell phone, so I tried calling my husband. He didn't answer. So, I called the house phone. Dad didn't answer. I rang the doorbell. Still no knight came to our rescue.

Finally, I pushed hard enough I could get my head through the door, and I hollered, "Dad!!!" He answered, and I told him we needed help. And at the same time, my husband came up the stairs. Finally, we were back in!

So, a few months later, I spent a lot of time emptying that corner, along with the rest of the room. Wow, did that feel nice! Being able to walk through the room and into the hallway rather than walking around through the kitchen. Not having boxes tumble down when their precarious position was perturbed.

Shortly after that, Mom wanted to move furniture around. I'm not sure why, but she decided she wanted the table moved from the dining area side of the kitchen into the back half of the living room. It's no further from the stove to the table, and I figured it would, if nothing else, keep Dad's oxygen hose from tripping us while we're cooking. So, I strapped on my weight belt and got cracking.

As we were trying to figure out where to place all the furniture, I mentioned that since we never use the front door, maybe we could put a piece of furniture in front of it.

"Heavens no! We use that door sometimes," Mom replied, indignantly.

I didn't mention the years the door was blocked before I cleared it out a few weeks prior.

"Oh really? When?" I asked, innocently.

"Well, sometimes people come up to that door and ring the doorbell."

"Huh. I don't know why they would, when the sidewalk comes up to the back door."

"Well, one time the {former, long-retired} newspaper editor's daughter and her boyfriend ran off the road, and they came up to our house to get help. She rang that doorbell."

"She did," Dad interjected. "And I pulled their car out with the old Chevy truck, and she always was real nice to me after that."

I did some mental processing of that information. The year the Chevy truck was traded for the Ford truck flashed through my mind. Then I processed the name of the woman who rang the bell.

She graduated when I was six.

And that was the last time the front doorbell was rung. Well, until I tried to get in when I was locked out the back door.

Adventures in Eldersitting--Overnight Travel, Part 2

o, if you read Part 1, you know how things are going. We went 2 hours from home for a funeral, with the plan to stay overnight--and I forgot Mom and Dad's meds. My Husband, the doll that he is, drove all the way home to get them. While he was gone, my cousin ferried us all to her house. When we got there, I asked my son and my cousin's husband to bring in Dad's oxygen machine, because Dad had used all the oxygen in his two portable tanks.

Big mistake.

When Hubby and I loaded the machine into the van, we hoisted it in without removing the tubing that connects the main machine to the secondary machine that fills tanks. When the guys removed it from the SUV at my cousin's house, the tubing got bumped just right, so that the fitting that connected the tubing to the machine broke.

None of the kings horses and none of the kings men (nor any amount of super glue or gorilla glue) could put Humpty together again.

The main oxygen machine still worked, but required that Dad be sitting within 40 feet or so of a plug-in. The cemetery was right behind the church, but not that close. So, now what?

My cousin and I called some friends of theirs who own a welding shop. They thought they might be able to help, so we went over. Unfortunately, the oxygen tanks used in welding don't have the same type of fittings that medical oxygen tanks do; nor did they have any means to fill a tank.

So, I called the hospital in that town. Yes, they had an oxygen tank we could borrow, but they suggested I call his home medical supplier, because Medicare only allows one company to bill for oxygen supplies. When I called the supplier, I was told they couldn't do that, and we'd have to pay for it ourselves. But, we could go to their sister company an hour away to get a replacement part.

We left a little early for the funeral so we could stop at the hospital to get the tank. We paid a $25 rental fee, and left a $100 deposit to ensure we'd bring it back. We all cried through the funeral and the interment. Then, after we ate with the family, I said goodbye to my Husband again as he drove the hour to the sister home medical supply company. They lent him a tank to get Dad home, we returned the rented tank to the hospital, and all was well.

Interestingly, the hospital sent back Mom and Dad's $25 check. That was pretty sweet of them.

Adventures in Eldersitting--Overnight Travel, Part 1

o, we went to Uncle's funeral. This is the first time we've gone anywhere overnight. Dad really wanted to drive two hours up on Thursday for the visitation (3-8 p.m.), drive two hours back, and then get up Friday morning and drive two hours again and get there in time for the family service at 10 a.m.

I have said it before, and I don't mind admitting it again--I am so not Superwoman.

Dad didn't want to stay overnight because he is on oxygen full time, and between his two portable tanks, he can get about 8 hours of oxygen. We assured him that we could load his oxygen machine into the van and that it would be much better to stay up there overnight.

Ya know, if I'd listened to him, I would have been tired, but I would have avoided two other "adventures" that I could have done without.

First--I have never packed for Mom and Dad before. That was quite an experience in its own right. Get the Depends pads for Mom. Don't forget denture cleaner for Dad. (Dad has full dentures, but only wears the top plate, so the bottom one needed to be left at home in its bowl of water. As I've been cleaning, I keep running across yet another blue plastic denture bowl Dad got from a hospital stay. There were a ton of them, and I've been recycling them rather than allowing them to continue to be collected. Do you suppose I could find an extra one when it was time to go?)

Anyway, next is medications. We were planning to stay at a hotel, and the last thing I wanted was to have their meds packed in a suitcase at the hotel and need some of them while we were at a restaurant. So, I put them in Mom's purse. But, she had just switched to a smaller bag, and objected to having them in there. I put them in my purse.

Mom wanted to take a bag of letters with her, in case she had time to work on them. No, I'm not talking about letters she wanted to write to family or friends. I'm talking about Publisher's Clearing House letters.

As I was walking out the door, I was so concerned that I not forget any of their stuff that I managed to leave without my own purse! Yes, the very same purse that I'd put their meds in!

We didn't have Mom and Dad's meds, but I did have those PCH entries. (She never once looked at them while we were gone.)

When I realized we didn't have the meds, I called the pharmacy. The tech I talked to figured it was pretty important they not miss their meds for a day. I told my husband that I was going to drive back home and get them. He said, "No you're not. I am going to go get them." What a doll. :)

With a 4+ hour trip ahead of him, Hubby couldn't make it back before we'd have to leave the funeral home, so we discussed going to a hotel and getting rooms, and finding someone to bring us there after the visitation was done. When my cousin heard that, she insisted we could stay at their house. Alan thought about stopping there to drop off our stuff on the med run, but my cousin said we could just transfer everything into her SUV, and she'd get us there.

That was a mistake. But, you'll read more about that in Part 2.

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

I did my part. I got the entrance to the living room cleared out. Now, I just have to teach him to go that way every time.

Wish me luck.

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A Little Success

One of the things that is irritating here is Dad's oxygen. It seems like there should be a better way than having the machine sitting in the middle of the house and having hose stretched throughout the rooms. Not to mention that the hose is constantly getting caught on the corner of the fridge or on Stuff in this full-to-the-gills house. "Watch out for Dad's hose!"

The way the house is set up, you can walk in a circle through the kitchen into the living room and back into the kitchen. In the middle are the stairs to the basement. At each junction of the two rooms is a hallway; one leads to the mud room, the other to the bedrooms and bathroom. The oxygen machine sits in that junction.

Well, the past few days, I have been working hard on cleaning out the living room, and I finally got to the Stuff blocking the opening from the hallway to the living room! Yay!

This morning after breakfast, he was getting up to go sit in his recliner, and I posed a question:

"So, Dad. I cleaned out the living room. How would you feel about going into the living from the other end so your hose doesn't lay across the kitchen floor?"

I was prepared for him to say no. Seriously. He doesn't do any more walking than he has to. His recliner is a straight shot from the dining room table. Going the other way would require him to walk at least 18-20 feet farther.

He surprised me by saying yes!

It's little moments of reason like this that really make my day.

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