overloaded

I had hoped to move this week but the renovations are not done, so we are currently scheduled to move Oct. 22. So it could be worse, but I need to vent.

I had some landscaping taking care of last week, regrading on both sides of the house so the water flows away from the house and not straight at the driveway. I got beds along the foundation prepared for me at the same time. Saturday the university botanical garden had a plant sale, so I bought a good sized arborvitae (emerald variety), to go near the house between two windows where it looks a bit blank. Then I took John to a funeral of someone he cared about and then went to Atlanta to pick up a chair my daughter and I had ordered.

Yesterday (Sunday) started out with two men coming to move several appliances. I didn't see any need to buy a new washer and dryer and refrigerator, but since there were decent working ones at the new house (from when it was rented to students) I decided to swap now so the refrigerator could be installed along with the new appliances later this week (it needs an icemaker line). The person who was coming to help me clean couldn't come because of an injured foot so I unloaded and cleaned the refrigerator and cleaned behind it and behind the washer and dryer when they moved them. John tried to help a little with the cleaning but he is so slow that his help didn't amount to much. He didn't try to help reload the refrigerator. This morning I had to call the appliance service people--the refrigerator that we moved to our current house isn't cooling properly.

I was left with the job of capping off the icemaker line at the old house, as the refrigerator we moved there doesn't have an icemaker. My first trip to Lowes I came home with a cap that was too big, but John went back and bought a smaller one and that worked.

Meanwhile, I had someone coming to cut down some dead trees. They are cedar trees and the one he started with proved to be hard to cut--he borrowed a splitting maul from me to add to one he was already using to wedge the tree in the right direction. He eventually got it cut but it didn't fall--it is held by vines to two other dead cedars. He was going to come back today with a winch but it is raining.

While he was working on the tree I worked on digging a hole to plant the tree I had bought (ironically also a kind of cedar, but one that grows 12 feet tall and 3 feet wide). The clay soil was the right wetness to dig relatively easily so I dug a really big hole and mixed in composted wood chips and lime and fertilizer. I should have asked for help moving the tree and the 40 pound bag of wood chips, but I had enjoyed doing the digging and doing the whole job right. Not surprisingly my back is sore this morning.

These days I usually move to another bed when John comes to bed and wakes me up with his snoring or crying out or just shifting trying to get himself positioned in bed. So I moved around 4 am last night to my son's room (since he is away at college) and realized the bed was wet because the roof was leaking. I went up and put a bucket in the attic but I didn't get back to sleep. We have been struggling with this roof problem for a couple of years--it was supposedly fixed. I called the realtor who is selling the house and asked him for a recommendation of a really skilled roofer. He said they are either cheap or good and I said I want good.

The good news is that the roof leak in the dormer of the new house does seem to be fixed, though there is still a problem with a downspout backing up. I took my laptop back to the repair place this morning--they supposedly fixed it last week but it isn't fixed.

It is all more than I can bear.

hand problem

We went to the neurologist last week and talked mostly about John's partial loss of use of his good hand, which was supposed to get better (it supposedly resulted from falling asleep in a desk chair and compressing the nerve). It has gotten only a tiny bit better, though I notice the last few days John is doing some things he had said he couldn't do, such as taking out the trash. The neurologist said recovery definitely is slower than it should be, and he was concerned by how the muscles in John's arm have wasted. He wanted John to get electrical stimulation at the physical therapists office first, and if that doesn't work in a couple of weeks he will try a cortisone shot in the elbow.

John's massage therapist is concerned it might have been a mini-stroke. I'm not following that up because I don't think the therapy would be any different and I am not up for a new round of doctors right now.

I'm tired of cutting John's food up for him, and this is only the beginning of the journey of helping him with activities of daily living. Caregiving does not come easily or naturally to me.

getting help

We actually are making progress getting packed to move in a month. Today I found a consignment store that looks like a good place to sell some furniture we don't want. We have two helpers, one a strong student and one a woman who can work more independently, who each come one afternoon a week to help with packing. I'm hoping the woman will help John unpack and then slide into helping him manage his things.

I said something to John yesterday that seemed to get through. I asked him to try to find ways for paid help to do the things he can't do any more, instead of expecting me to do them all. Today he asked the student to clean the inside of the microwave and take out the trash.

I'm here

We had at least one of our kids home all summer but now they are both back at school. My daughter helped me a lot with decisions and shopping for the house renovation (a big help because John shows no interest). I taught both kids to drive (talk about stressful). The house renovations have been intense and are still not done--hopefully by the end of the month. Our current house hasn't sold, though there has been some interest. I've been posting renovation pictures on Facebook and instead of blogging Twitter has been about my speed (what I post there shows up on Facebook too).

John fell asleep at his computer and compressed the nerve in his elbow. The result was that he lost a good part of the use of his better hand. It is supposed to get better, but more than a month later it has improved only a tiny bit. He needs me to change his socks for him and cut up his meat. I wasn't expecting to be here already.

My tentative plan is to move the second week of October. Somehow. I am teaching a full load this fall.

I am grateful that John has been able to continue to take responsibility for helping his 98 year old aunt. She took a bad fall a couple of weeks ago and I met the ambulance at the emergency room, as I knew it would take him too long to get there. But he managed after that. Amazingly, nothing was broken and after a little more than a week at the nursing home she is back in her assisted living apartment.

feeling burdened

I've made plans to give away our cat tomorrow--John doesn't like her around because she demands attention. I'm not strongly attached to her but it is still a sad thing to do. I think I have found a good home, at least, someone who really cares about cats.

We are supposedly on vacation in North Carolina and John still seems to enjoy being here, though his hiking is really slowing down. I went back home yesterday and will go again tomorrow to deal with work and house matters. I'm worried I should be there today to look for anything in the rewiring that isn't the way I want it. I forgot to check yesterday whether they moved a switch I wanted moved--I know they didn't move another one. The good news is that they are hoping to be done today with the rewiring.

Our son missed his plane home from Spain Saturday and I had a hairraising time getting him scheduled for a flight the next day. But he is now home and with us on vacation. Next step is to get the details worked out to take him to start college at the end of the month.

I went to a Lewy Body support group yesterday, though I didn't stay the whole time because I wanted to get back to North Carolina for dinner. Still, I liked the other people and I talked about how confusing it has been for me.

Chocolate mousse-torte pie

12 oz semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 teasp instant coffee
1/3 cup boiling water
12 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
2 teasp vanilla
1/8 teasp salt
1/2 or 1 cup heavy cream (optional)

Prehead oven to 350. Dissolve coffee in boiling water and place with chocolate in a double boiler over hot but not boiling water, stirring occasionally until the chocolate is melted. Beat egg yolks and sugar until thick and lemon colored. Gradually beat in chocolate and vanilla. Beat egg whites and salt until stiff. Stir 1/4 of egg whites into chocolate mixture then fold in the rest. Grease a deep dish pie pan, fill with half or less of the mousse mixture, and bake for 25 minutes or until puffed. Turn off heat and leave in oven for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely. Meanwhile chill the remaining mousse (first stir in 1/2 cup of cream whipped until firm if you prefer a slightly lighter mousse). When shell is cool cover it with the chilled mousse and chill 2 to 3 hours. The pie can be covered with 1 cup of cream, whipped, before serving.

John is home

John went to Spain with our son, who is studying abroad there for a month. They traveled together for a few days and then John went to Madrid alone for several days. Going to the Prado was on his life list. He had an international cell phone, and called me for help with several problems. The biggest one was that he missed his plane back from Madrid to Malaga and could only reschedule for four days later. By then he was ready to come home but Delta said the flights were very full so I persuaded him to go see our son in Ronda instead of spending his days trying to stand by for an earlier flight. He's glad he went but was very glad to be home.

He has terrible sleep patterns and has not been willing to try to change them. In recently months he usually falls asleep and sleeps most of the night in an office chair in front of his computer. Then he goes to bed for a few hours around 7 am. He has a chair that reclines and has a footstool and two different laptops but he likes to use the laptop in the privacy of his downstairs office. Last night he pinched a nerve in his arm and today has only partial use of his left dominant hand. I had to help him get dressed. So I expected that he would be at his worst when he got home from holding it together for a trip but he has ended up even worse.

When he is around me leaving anything hard or complicated for me to deal with, it is hard for me to imagine that he can travel alone. But he can still pull it together when he needs to. And he has lived all his life with making a lot of mistakes because of ADHD and is used to it. I discovered he hadn't put the registration paper in his car when it came in April (though he put the sticker on his license plate). He commented that he had made that mistake before.

Today's last straw was when he reported "we have a big problem," the sewer pipe had backed up into our downstairs bathroom. Guess who cleaned that up.