Archive for the ‘ Chapped Arse ’ Category

She's Baaaaaack!

I am the official “owner” and operator of one little old lady, once again.  She came back yesterday afternoon after HOURS of John and me waiting around at the hospital.  They were trying to discharge 7 patients at once and it was, I’m assuming, a complex process.  Or so they would have me believe.

At one point she looked at me and said, “Krissa… What would happen to us if we just went ahead and left?”

Don’t think I wasn’t already thinking about doing it.

Right about that time they finally got her all fixed up with wheels to the car and we made a break for it exited the premises.

You have never met anyone as bitchy as she has become since she got home.  Well, actually, that’s not entirely true.  It started before she got home.  While she was still in there she commenced to tell me how I should be changing her diaper differently and I need to do it like the nurses do it there and every time she asked me to raise her up in bed she tried to die when I actually moved her.  Keep in mind that I laid the bed out completely flat and grabbed the hospital chux and slid her upward as slowly as I could.  She is no longer the light weight she used to be and I can’t just suspend animation anymore.  She seems to think everything should be in slow mo and I can’t just stop midway between the wheelchair and bed while holding her.  Or move any slower than I already am.  I certainly am gentle and I don’t just toss her around.

Before she came home I received a call from a lady in charge of her case at the hospital and she said, “Ms. Lopez, it says here on her chart that you are interested in a hospital bed for her at home.”

Noooo… I’m not interested in one…

“Oh, well they must have just stuck this note in the wrong file.”

My wheels were turning at this point and I was remembering the two times she asked me if we needed one while she was in there.  I just shrugged and said, no, I didn’t see why, but she insisted it would  be easier for ME if we had one. Translation: She is pitiful and wants all the hospital equipment she can get around her.

We have been through this before.  Years ago when she was on hospice.  It was an enormous monstrosity that left very little room to move in her bedroom.  Well, comparatively.

Here is her room with a twin bed.  That bizarre looking thing with all the thousands of photos stuck on with ten pounds of scotch tape is her rolling cart of tricks.  It’s on wheels so I can move it out of the way to change her and get her in and out and what not.  It has shelves inside with all her accoutrements.

It’s an ancient, cheap, laminate, microwave cart.  And if something ever happened to it… well, we would all perish, I am sure.

The hospital bed we had ate up the walls when “sliding” the head of the bed up and down.  And since she sleeps in a fairly upright position the only thing we would need it to do is sit up some.  I can accomplish this with pillows.  AND a comfortable mattress, not a hospital one.

Bottom line, we’re getting another damn hospital bed delivered here this afternoon.

It's a Shit Explosion.

What a day!  I have spent the majority of it on the phone with the state and other people trying to set H up with a new Provider Care company.  Last Friday I FINALLY managed to track down the owner of the company that sent out our little thief that swiped the hundred dollar bill from my purse.  I had left multiple messages throughout the week for her to call me back and she never did.  I finally just managed to get somebody to answer the phone in the office that didn’t know that she wasn’t wanting to talk to me.

She was a bitch.

I was very nice and told her that I just wanted to make sure she had been told what had happened as I would want to know if it was my company and she simply stated that yes, she knew and the aide had denied it and she was made to fill out an incident report.

I said something to the effect of, “Yes, I am sure she did deny it.  I mean if she stole money from me, why would she have a problem with lying?”.

To which she said… nothing.

That’s about all I got.  No apology, nothing.

I told her that I hadn’t heard from anyone to ask me any questions about what had happened and if anyone wanted to contact me to fluff up the incident report with, ooooh, I dunno, MY SIDE OF WHAT HAPPENED, I would be here, 24/7 to answer the phone or door and help them out.  Cause, hey, you know me, HERE TO SERVE!

She actually indicated that that would not be necessary.  NOT NECESSARY.  So the incident report about the employee stealing from me is filled out entirely by… the employee.  Needless to say I decided to move on to the big boys.

So I called the state of Texas, after all this is a state funded agency.  It’s services are paid for by Henrietta’s medicare.  So the Texas Department of Aging and Disability was contacted.  I tried to nail down the case worker that was assigned to her long ago, but she has been moved to another department.  They gave me another very nice little lady that was horrified to hear what had happened to us and, even though I KNOW she probably hears of stuff like this everyday, (I mean she was in the complaint department), she was courteous enough to be understanding.  She looked and said that the agency was supposed to report what had happened to the state as a matter of law and, guess what?, they hadn’t.

Big surprise.  (Can you hear the sarcasm dripping off here?)  I asked if they were gonna get in trouble for it and felt like a little kid that had been wronged and wanted their brother to “get it” for what he’d done.  Vengeful, ugly, spiteful feelings.

Felt sooo good when she said, Yes”.

She then put me in contact with my new case worker and they are faxing John a list of new agencies at his work for him to bring home and me throw darts at and pick out a new one.

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In Poop News today, Henrietta is still without a catheter.

How is this Poop News, Krissa?  A catheter is only a font for urine.

Well, don’t worry, I will tell you, ( read sounding a bit vicious), BECAUSE I KNOW YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW.

We are going through tons of diapers and latex gloves and poor H is usually opting to stay in bed almost all day since she has to be changed so often.  I am getting up well before dawn with John and changing her and then again about 10:00 AM and so on.  Well, after I had fed her breakfast she rang for the bedpan and said she had messed her diaper.  This is not unusual, but the amount of it was something else.   The…. stuff, (trying to be nice here and not offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities), was squirting out the sides of the diaper and covered a good part of the hospital chux that she was lying on.  It also managed to get it on a little pink pillow that I had been using to put between her knobby knees.  I did not see this and picked the pillow up and tossed it over against the wall on the other side of her bed to get it out of the way.  I was a bit frantic and, indeed, was on hold for some agency office or another.

I know my previous little soliloquy about the locating of the proper people to talk to was fairly straight forward, but come on, we’ve all been on the other end of phone trying to do business with a government agency before…  I went through 5 or 6 different people and called tons of numbers, some of which didn’t work, and was on hold all. freakin. day.

So I am trying to get a move on with this diaper so I don’t have to hang up or lose the person I’m waiting on and start all over again.  I have a look of …. shock and awe(?) on my face apparently, as Henrietta repeatedly asks me if she has diarrhea.  I tell her no, she just has… a lot.  Period.

I had thrown on a robe to go in when the bell rang as I was in the process of changing clothes.  Yes, I do multiple things like this while on the phone taking care of business.  Witchypoo, over at Psychicgeek can relate to the whole being-tied-to-the-phone-while-attempting-to-move-about-your-life scenario.  Well, at some point the tie around the waist of my fluffy pink robe had swung forward and drug through the poo.  Henrietta just innocently lay her hand down by her side,  In the poo.  The little pink pillow I threw up against the wall to get it out of the way?  Trail of poo going down the wall.  I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING.  It was gruesome.

I kept thinking, “Oh my gawd.  These are the very last two gloves… what if there’s more of it?”  There is no way there is anymore shit left in that little old lady.  And John is bringing home more gloves.  And diapers.  And,  sadly, Miralax.

I got her dressed and all squared away eventually and she just looked at me and said, “Krissa, I think I’ll just stay in bed for a little while…”

Ya think?

Poor thing.  It wore her out.  All that hauling up her butt and cleaning from the back of her thighs to the middle of her back.  Me too.

Needless to say, I took a long hot bath and read a little bit in my book, About the Author.  It’s the book club book for the present at Holly’s blog, Anglophile Football Fanatic.  Go check it out and read along with us!I

I swear, by my very own little old lady, the next post I am doing is a giveaway.  I have acquired some really pretty darn cool prizes and have a Unconsicous Mutterings coming up.  If you will play, I will pay!  heh heh.

Please stay tuned for further bowel movements developements.

Ewwwww, GROSS!

Well, here it is.  Sunday.  About twice a month my SIL sees fit to come and visit her mother for an average of about an hour and a half.  NORMALLY she shows up long after the “poop-time-frame”.  Today, however, she miscalculated and appeared before H was off the bedpan.  So, by default, (and CAUSE I SAY SO), the bedpan duty and diapering and dressing of H falls to her.

I was sitting in here doing bloggy stuff and I realized that she was running the water in the tub in the guest bath.

Well, this is odd.

Normally, you just go in and dump the, ahem, contents of the bedpan into the potty and run water in it from the sink and dump again and wipe out whatever… stuck, with a bit of toilet paper.  You also dump the plastic, Folger’s coffee can full of urine from the catheter bag into the potty, fill with water and repeat.  All of this while wearing latex gloves and then following up behind yourself spraying the facet handles and bedpan handles and coffee can handles with spray bleach.  Not to mention the interior of the receptacles.

Well, cuorisity got the better of me when I heard her spraying something over and over and the bathtub running.

Crap, the only thing in there that sprays right now is the spray bleach and last time she used it she ruined the bathmats… somehow, both of them.

So I go in there and she has the toilet brush in one hand and the urine bucket in the other and she is “cleaning” the thing out and dumping the contents into the bathtub.

“Millie!  You don’t do that in the bathtub!”

“Oh, I didn’t dump the pee in there!”  As she sticks the toilet brush under the tap.

I just left.  It really doesn’t matter at this point what I say, cause it all has to be cleaned anyway.  People really do bathe in that tub.

Does anyone want to come and visit me? 😉

The big booty post

Hi gang!  When my brother was a little tyke we’d ask him, “What cha doin’, Cam?”  His pat answer was, “Busy doing stuff!”  Well, that’s kinda me lately.  Hard to put a handle on it and say it was mostly one thing or the other.

Speaking of my brother, look at my masthead.  He Christmatized it!  The bag of coal is to be expected… he is, after all, my bratty, baby brother.

John is only off one day this week and he’s already had it.  We had a good time and even went to see another movie!  I have seen more movies this year than I have seen in the past 10.  Why?  I don’t even know.  And I don’t really care, I’m liking the trend.

We saw Four Christmas’s and it was really funny.  I used to really just not like Vince Vaughn, but he’s grown on me and I thought he and Reese Witherspoon were both very funny in this.

John and I rode around running errands listening to a Simon and Garfunkel CD and then moved on to John Fogerty.

We stopped at one place so I could buy a new curling iron and when we got home I was throwing away the packaging when I happened to notice the… directions.  Yes, curling irons need directions.  I know.  I was a bit amazed by this, but that’s nothing when you actually consider what they say.

Did you know that, among other things, you are not supposed to bathe while curling your hair?  NO!  Really!  You’re not!  Shocking, I know.  (heh heh…shocking…)

Also, apparently you are not to ever, under any circumstances, consider using this appliance while sleeping.  Ever.

It is very specific when it says that the iron is hot when in use and not to use it against your skin or eyes.

Ya think?

I know it is a lot to remember, but I plan to spend a good deal of my “free time” (BAHAHAHAHAH), studying this instruction booklet until I am certain that the next time I take the curling iron to bed with me I know exactly how to use it safely.

When we came home from all the errand running and movie going, John painted my toenails!  Does it get any better?  I think not.

Needless to say there were green beans for supper!  heh heh heh On the down side… I think I screwed up my nails… OH WELL.

The Boyfriend had some dental work done yesterday and Kes is over at his house today.  She’s basically out of school for the rest of the semester and enjoying the freedom.  Now if she can just get her pharmacy tech test taken and get a job as one all will be good with her.

Keelan has started forgetting to take her medicine and is showing the effects.  She is being a “Bee-otch Extraordinaire”.   When she is rude and snaps at me on the phone, my first reaction is to tell her to come straight home… only I don’t want her HERE.  Not under those circumstances!  I have been leaving her notes to take the stupid pill and she was doing it, but, all of the sudden the notes aren’t enough to do it.  The notes were necessary in the first place because it got her all cranky for me to tell her to take it, verbally.  (Teenager)  So now we are just moving on to me showing up with the pill in hand and saying something to the effect of, “Here, take this damn thing before I kill you.”  You’d think this would be effective… Sometimes it is.

Henrietta is doing OK, this morning she asked me, “Krissa, do you think (SIL) has my big booty?”

You could have heard paint dry.  “What?”

“You know… my big bootie, I crocheted…”

It’s dawning on me at this point… “The big Christmas stocking?”

“YEEEEES!”

OK, so this is somehow comforting to me.  The “big booty” is indeed a croched stocking and not the emaciated, wrinkled up arse of Henrietta.

And to answer the original question. No, SIL has no idea where H’s “big booty” is.

But I know where mine is.

I just heard the news and again they were discussing the astronaut that let her tool bag float away while working on the space station.  It is reported to have cost a hundred thousand dollars.  This has me thinking of so many questions my leetle head hurts.

Number one, When you are going to send a bag of tools up with a bunch of super geeks to work on things in zero gravity, wouldn’t you consider that maybe it would be good to have something on the bag of tools to tie it off with.  I mean it just seems like it would make working on the space station go much smoother to be able to use both hands instead of one holding the bag and one the tool.  I think NASA needs to hire me to speak for the moral practical majority.  I have tons of good advise for them.

As for the cost of that bag of tools, I’m thinking… Makita?  Snap On?  I mean I cannot conceive of any brand of tools that costs as much as they spent OR couldn’t do what needs to be done in outer space.

So where DO they shop for tools?  Or was it the bag?  If it was the actual bag that costs that much I’m guessing it’s from a high dollar store on 5th Avenue and a knock-off can be found on Harwin here in Houston for a teeny, tiny fraction of the cost.

When NASA hires me that is going to be the first thing I reccomend.

If this much incompetence isn’t enough, when the news guy was finishing up the story he pointed out that the Space Station had been a temporary home for 10 years to people from 15 different continents.

I’ve done what I can and now give up.