Loss for a PKF member

OMG this is horrible news... I am so sorry to hear this Sam. My deepest sympathy...

So sorry to hear this Sam Thoughts and prayers with you and your family.

Quote: Originally posted by Windy Heap

If anything, for lessons learned for the rest of us, is appreciate your family, love, and health. the rest is immaterial. take that extra second today to hug the wife, play with your kids, or scratch your dog in his happy place .

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.

It's been a bit of a slog this year. Mom started having health issues at the beginning of the year and her decline in the past 10 months can only be described as percipitous. In the interim, she went through and laundry list doctors, speciialists, and enough tests and meds that one lost count.

The hospice nurse was shocked at her rate of decline and said that it was something she would expect to see over the course of 10 years, not 10 months.

She went from being in relatively good health to having difficulty with stairs, slurred speech, shortness of breath, difficulty swallowing, walking with a cane, walking with a walker, loss of speech, being unable to walk, only being able to eat pureed foods, being completely bedridden, to finally receiving nutrition through a feeding tube.

During all that there were a fall that resulted in a head laceration, and a significant loss of blood, multiple hospital stays, 2 stays at a rehab center, a dizzying number of ambulance rides, including one ambulance ride that resulted in a multi-car accident.

Along the way, you start expanding your vocabulary with medical terms of a dizzying variety. As I told Danny, they really should have a continuing education course on elder care, because nothing really prepares you for it and a lot of times you find yourself just winging it and hoping you are doing things right.

GACK... reading back over the post...definitely more of a downer than I meant it for it to be (but I guess that's the nature of these kinds of threads). Lest this post sours someone's day, I am going to leave off with something a little lighter.

After my mother started having difficulty walking she was basically restricted to the garden apartment downstairs. One of the more entertaining shows available to her was the daily antics of the local feral population. One of those incidents was my fault but it wasn't really planned.

During the worst of the summer, the water bowl in back would get hot enough that the kits were a bit reticent to drink from it. I got in the habit of putting some ice in it a couple of time a day to cool it off. The first time that Red October encountered this.... well... stalking the ice became the game of the day (in case it turned out to be something she could kill).

Hey... what's in my water bowl


I'm not too sure about this at all, at all.


Maybe if I sneak up on it.


Ice is SCARY!


I think I can, I think I can...


Stop laughing at me!!!


A few minutes after this, Braveheart shouldered past her as if to say "Don't you know anything?? That's just ice, it makes the water taste nummy." (Braveheart can be a bit of a water snob and bee-lines for the water bowl as soon as I change out the water first thing in the morning).

And finally I leave you a photo of Braveheart and Red October enjoying a snooze of the deck.

The Life of Riley


ATB,
Sam

Quote: Originally posted by macboy

And your spirit seems strong as ever. Thanks for sharing Sam.

It comes and it goes... woke up in the middle of the night and apparently a condolence card cames from the hospice staff while I was running errands getting ready for the funeral. I pretty much lost it, but luckily only the fur kids are awake at this time of night.

ATB,
Sam