What bothers me a bit is the rumor that she was able to rent out an entire floor of the hospital for 1.3 million dollars.  I don’t know how many rooms that is at Lenox Hill Hospital, but I don’t like the idea that people who may have needed one of those rooms couldn’t get one because they were basically outbid…  I understand her desire for privacy, but any people who may have actually *needed* a room on that floor probably wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about who may or may not have been down the hallway, because they may have been more concerned with getting medical care.  My other rumination on this is that if you’re THAT concerned about privacy and you’ve got that kind of money to spend, why not just have a birthing room set up at home?

Where I’m especially conflicted is that I’ve essentially done the same thing with my grandmother in the past 17 months, which makes me just as much of an asshole.  And I’d rather not be, but there you go.  Until this month, my grandmother been a single resident in a semi-private room – what the care center bills as a “suite”.  Did she need a suite?  Absofreakinloutely not.  But she landed in  one when she got there, I wasn’t smart enough to tell them to move her to a regular private room immediately, and by the time I figured it out, moving her would have been detrimental to  her mental health.  (She’s now to a point where moving her to the regular room across the hall won’t bother her.  She is now in the room across the hall.)  So, much like Beyonce, I managed to have my grandmother taking up two beds rather than one, and someone might have needed that other bed, especially since it would have been at a semi-private rate.

I’m still mad at myself that my decisions basically took up a bed in the care center that someone else may have needed.  Beyonce pretty much cleared out the entire wing.

If this isn’t a sign that there is something not quite right with health care, I’m not sure what is.  I have no problem with being able to get what you need.  But my grandmother never needed a suite, but because she could pay for it, screw anyone else that may have needed that other bed.  And Beyonce didn’t need the whole floor, but because she could pay for it, screw anyone that may have needed one of those rooms.

Can’t say I’m sitting here thinking, “Gosh, 2011 was so great, I wish it could have been longer!”  (Been a LONG time since that thought was in my head at the turn of a year…)  Perfectly content to have this one in the rear-view mirror.

But, 2011 wasn’t all bad.  Got on the road to being a full fledged history nerd.  Only 1 trip to Phoenix that was “OMG, oh shit gotta find a flight NOW!!”  Not once did my phone ring at 3AM with my grandmother on the other end asking, “Are you sure you did my taxes right?”  I’m sure there were other things, but I can’t think of them right now.

The downsides were many trips to PHX, which while they are getting easier, still wear me out.  My grandmother is in a pretty bad way at this point – general consensus of the nurses is 1-2 months.  Given my grandmother’s adherence to such timelines so far, I’m still planning on being back in April & August.

Though the chances are high that I’ll be making my final trip to PHX this year, there are good things ahead.  Registered for two more classes this semester.  Hitting the beach again!  Lots of resolutions made that will likely be broken in a week.

So, here’s to 2012 going well.

Every other year we’ve been in PHX for Christmas, we leave on the 30th in the morning, and as such, we miss the influx of bowl game fans coming to whatever bowl game is being held at the UoPHX Stadium next to the hotel.  Given that I am not leaving until tomorrow morning and even though the Fiesta Bowl isn’t until the 2nd, there has been a decidedly noticeable increase in hotel guests who have decided to make a long weekend of it with pre-game golfing and such.

Not a shocking development by any means – heck, I’d do the same if GMU somehow found itself in the Fiesta Bowl.  And as such, the college football fans have arrived.  (Has the Fiesta Bowl always been on the 2nd?  I thought it had been a New Year’s Day game – is this the BCS continuing to screw things up or am I just remembering wrong?)

So, there is an influx of fans deciding to make a drinking and golfing weekend of it leading up to the game and staying at the hotel.  Can’t say I blame them, the weather is pretty decent.  I will tell you right now, if there were any Stanford fans staying at the hotel, I couldn’t pick them out of a lineup, cause they’re just quietly enjoying the weekend.  Can’t quite say the same for the Oklahoma State fans – several of which I ran into this evening during my postprandial Cabernet.  The Quote Of The Night goes to the gentleman to my right who said, “We’re from West Texas, you have to grade us on a curve.”

No shit, Sherlock.  Still, no biggie.

However, there was also a wedding reception this evening at the hotel.  A Muslim Ethiopian/Somali wedding reception.  With some of the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous dresses I have seen in my lifetime.  Seriously – when I headed out for dinner, a half dozen ladies were walking in and I was just stunned by the dresses and I got caught just staring like an idiot and one of the ladies said, “Hi! Happy New Year’s!” and I found most of my voice and (likely sounded like an awed 8 year old) – “You have the most beautiful dresses I have EVER seen!  They’re just… GORGEOUS!”  They were more than happy to tell me that they were traditional Ethiopian dresses (though they really need to add “formalwear” to that “traditional” tag, cause I’m fairly certain these don’t get worn while getting dinner together.)  Seriously, these dresses crossed the lines from “lovely” to “works of art”.  (In talking to some of the younger gals later in the courtyard, I have now discovered that there is a pretty big Somali community in PHX.  Never would have guessed it.)

Now, let’s consider the “grade us on a curve” group and “happy wedding reception”…

Yes, there were some snarky comments from the West Texas contingent as some of the wedding party went back & forth through the lobby.

In a true moment of clarity, I realized going with what would be considered the “Northern Liberal Elite” (of which I am only 2 of the 3) route would do nothing, and my brain said, “It’s time for the ‘Bless Your Heart’ approach*” – cause any southerner knows it means, “You dumbass.”  When the next snarky comment came up, I just went, “Now darlin’, you just need to HUSH!  They are having a wedding and everyone deserves a fun wedding and reception and they’re just all having fun.  So you just hush up now.”

And damned if that didn’t work – if in no small part cause the wives then piled on to boot.  +1 for basically going with “Sheldon Cooper, don’t make me call your mother” maneuver.

Seriously folks, different doesn’t mean anything but different – and if you take the time to talk to people, you’ll find more similarities than you realize, like when I joked with the first ladies I saw this evening that they outclassed my jeans, they said, “But your jeans are more comfortable!”  Or when I was talking to the gals in the courtyard, I was helping them lookout for relatives that would be annoyed that they were hiding out and smoking.

We’re all just people mucking our way through the same mess.  So, be nice.

*While I don’t technically qualify as a Southerner and as such cannot legitimately use the “Bless Your Heart” approach, I spent enough summers with my grandparents in Atlanta to learn how to use it…

Over the past couple days, I’ve discovered that I am once again jumping every time the phone rings.  Then I remind myself I don’t even know who is calling and I should take a breath – except for the fact that I pretty much have to answer the phone anyway.  The level of consistency in Caller ID numbers with regards to the care center and hospice leaves much to be desired.

So, note to whomever has 410-321-58** – oh for the love of all that is good and holy, I told you that you have a wrong number three times, STOP CALLING ME.  This is why your number goes straight to voicemail every time now.  (Yes, I know that 410 is Maryland, but I also regularly receive phone calls from Phoenix with a Minnesota area code, so area codes are fairly meaningless anymore.)

I have figured out that while the hospice nurses do not always call from a “restricted” number, all “restricted” number calls come from them.  (Do not get me started on this.  HIPPA be damned, I am the MPOA, you should damn well show the number you are calling from.  If you are concerned about calling a wrong number and giving away info, then you need remedial phone dialing training.  If you are worried that I will call when you are not on-duty, put your phone on silent.)

So, the phone rang, I jumped, saw the “restricted”, my heart sank, and I answered the phone.  Yup, hospice nurse manager just giving an update – which was that my grandmother still had pneumonia and that she was seriously tired and no one was even remotely inclined in doing anything but letting her sleep…  I was SO good and resisted the urge to respond with, “Well, DUH, she’s near 89 years old with end-stage dementia and pneumonia, she might not be chomping at the bit to make a badminton match, so yes, LET HER SLEEP.”  I’ve already had to go a few rounds of reassurance in the past of, “If she’s sleepy and you choose to let her sleep, that is OK.  It’s best to not go poking badgers with spoons.”  I have personal experience of waking her up when she wasn’t in the mood to get up.  Trust me, while it was satisfying to finally be able to retaliate for all the times she woke me & my brother up at the crack of dawn for no good reason, it still wasn’t pretty.

The amount of snark I have to contain when it comes to my grandmother convinces me yet again that I am SO not cut out for this.  It is (and has been) a serious situation, and yet I fall back on inappropriate humor pretty much every damn time.  Somehow I cannot help but  think that everyone that is dealing with eldercare issues always has a calm, measured, appropriate response for everything – and I never quite seem to have that – or I have to choke back several completely inappropriate responses while trying to come up with the appropriate one.

That all being said, I have to thank her for holding out until the end of the semester, especially since I nearly dropped my classes when she had her bad spell the week before classes started.  Makes me wonder if Sharyn told her Donald was taking classes and not me. ;)

My grandmother has pneumonia.  It does not surprise me that this happened, I have actually been expecting it.

I did not expect that the care center would put her on antibiotics for it.  They say it is pallative, but in an 88 year old woman with end-stage dementia and very clear advance directives, antibiotics are a curative measure.  There is a reason they call pneumonia “the old man’s friend.”

I really would have thought given everything else that managing it rather than trying to cure it would be a no-brainer.  Instead, I had to call the hospice nurse and tell her they need to find another truly pallative treatment for this and to pull the antibiotics.  (Fortunately they do have an absolute boatload of things they can do that will keep her comfortable.)

If my grandmother could have a lucid and rational moment and I told her, “Hey, you’ve got end-stage dementia, and a bout of pneumonia, but don’t worry, they’re gonna clear up the pneumonia so you can just have the dementia that much longer” she would sit up and punch me in the face.  (Advance directives are great, but it’s also good to be able to say I REALLY know what she wants, cause she made it crystal clear over the years.)

It would be one thing if clearing up the pneumonia would give her a normal life again, but it won’t.

Still feel like a bit of a schmuck, though.

My timing is just so impeccable.  The old laptop died today.  2 papers and an exam to write in the next two weeks and it can’t boot up.  Couldn’t have happened on the 15th when time would have been a luxury to figure out if it was the drive, the motherboard, or simply jammed with cat hair.

So, this evening is security patching, installing software and restoring backed up files (yay, Mozy!  Last backup 20 hours ago.  Gotta love it.)

Really old laptop – you couldn’t hold out for 2 more weeks?

As it is, studies have shown that prices aren’t necessarily the best on Black Friday anyway.

Part of the problem is that we’re a very consumer driven society.  If a store is open at any hour with good deals, then someone will show up.  This gives retailers the only reason they need to open.  Problem is, it also gives retailers the only reason they need to tell their employees that they have to cut their Thanksgiving day short so they can be at the store for the late night opening.

I’d love to see one of two things happen:  1. Consumers say, “No, we’re not going to go shop on Thanksgiving because it’s Thanksgiving.  We can wait until normal opening hours on Friday just like we used to do, and the world certainly didn’t come to an end back then.”  or 2.  Retailers say, “We’re not opening until our regular opening time on Friday because Thanksgiving is a DAY of thanks and doesn’t end just because dinner is over and then everyone can go to work.  That, and it’s not right to expose our employees to lunatics with pepper spray.  We’ll see you on Friday.”

Though I suspect we’re long past the point of no return.

ETA:  I’m not anti-Black Friday.  It makes sense that it’s a big shopping day since so many people have the day off.  I’m anti-midnight-psychosis.

I’ll go out there for a couple days afterwards.  I can do Christmas or her birthday, but not both anymore.  (Lord knows I didn’t manage it with any grace or dignity up until now anyway.)  The stress isn’t even remotely worth it, and she’s to a point where she doesn’t know if we’re there, and on the off chance that she does, she has no idea how long we’ve been there, and certainly doesn’t know what day it is and whether or not we’re there on Christmas or if I’m just there myself a couple days later.  (Nevermind the fact that it costs near 3x as much for both of us to go out there for 8 days vs me there by myself for 4 days.)

I have to say, my attitude towards the holidays has improved immensely since making the decision.

Carmen is getting high off her catnip butterfly I bought for her at the beach.  Lily is testing the specific gravity of every item that lies in her path.

Moxley is (as usual) actively chastising both felines for their behaviour.  (I love him to death, but he is a bit of a narc.)

So, in short, it’s a 110% normal night here.

But hey, we’ve got working flashlights,  3 1/2 days of water, beef jerky & snack pack puddings – so I think we’ll be OK.

My grandmother is what I would describe in a “very crappy but stable” status. Everyone agreed that there was no harm in heading home – no real sense in standing around watching nothing happen.  Now, whether this “stable” is short, medium or long term is anyone’s guess, but the hospice nurses have assured me they are going to try really hard to make sure I REALLY need to jump on a plane before they say to jump on a plane.  It helps that I know she won’t die alone by any means, and I don’t have an overriding psychological need to say goodbye.  The woman that was my grandmother left a while ago.

Her anxiety was through the roof and we all thought it was the two day gap in her meds, but I finally figured it out – we’d been barking up the wrong tree all week.  Everyone had been focusing on anxiety management, because that has always been a very, very large problem for her.  It hit me that it needed to be about pain management. There had been a couple occasions where you could tell she just couldn’t get comfortable, and the Best Nurse Ever** gave her some morphine – which calmed her down immensely.   She also didn’t want to open her eyes, and tended to have a death grip on the armrests on her chair.  I mistook the closed eyes as light sensitivity (she’s had issues with that for quite some time – figured the episode last week made it worse) and the hands just a manifestation of anxiety.  Until it hit me – they’re both natural responses to pain.

Now, if you ask her if she is in pain, she won’t admit it.  She will not admit a pain of unknown origin – because then  you have to see a doctor!  (I know that is still cemented in her head.)  She also has intermittent aphasia, and likely had a TIA last week, so if you say pain, she may translate it to chartreuse – and no, she’s not chartreuse today, you moron.

So, she’s back on vicodin with a side of morphine when needed, and while she’s tired and kinda quiet – she’s calmer, which is very good.  I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t see it immediately.

Me, I’m dealing with some re-entry issues – mainly trying to figure out what on earth I was doing before I went down the rabbit hole for a week.  Oh, yeah, trying to get ready for classes @GMU to start next week.  Which I’m now wondering if it was overly optimistic to think that things were stable enough with her in the first place to attempt such an endeavour.  If nothing else, I’ve got until September 30th to drop them.  I still need to pickup my books & parking pass – that was something that was going to happen at the beginning of this week…  Ah well.

And to top it all off, we’ve got a bit of weather headed our way, so today I was out getting supplies.  Figure if I have water & non-perishable snacks, it should help guarantee that we have power & water service.  3 1/2 days of water, Slim Jims and 3/4 of a tank of gas – should be good to go.  (Nice thing I realized tonight – if the power goes out, we will still have hot water.  Gas hot water heaters FTW.)  It’s just a bit of stuff I don’t really need right now as I’m trying to concentrate on getting my brain back in “home” mode and losing a weekend to weather wasn’t on the agenda.

* Quite literally, written instructions.  We call it the Big Book of Death.
** She really is.  I absolutely adore her.