Burt’s roller coaster has just been on one dip after another. His being bedbound poses a serious risk. Today we are expecting a visit from a nurse from VNS to assess the damage. We are treating two sores and the beginning of one on his butt cheek. Perhaps the nurse will have some added wisdom.Continue reading “A sea change”
Author Archives: TheRealTamara
Woke
Staying woke requires I stop buying from Amazon. We caregivers are prone to order from the mega-company as they have everything. I switched to a small family owned purveyor of incontinence and other caregiving products. They do not have everything I am accustomed to get. Carewell should help with our needs well enough. An earlyContinue reading “Woke”
Today
He is sleeping more. Some days, he sleeps through a meal. Other times, we skip his night time meds. These are mostly to help him sleep so that’s okay. His constant talk is baffling. It’s hard to tell what he’s saying. He often talks in his sleep, although even when he’s awake I often can’tContinue reading “Today”
Day to day
There is so little that changes by any magnitude. Burt remains in bed. He wriggles from his side posture to lie on his back. He shifts from the middle to which we’ve struggled to put him until his head leans on the bed rails. The bed rails were causing a dent on his forehead. WeContinue reading “Day to day”
My Burt
Burt looks through his intense old man’s eyes, with a seriousness that is touching. The look is fully reminiscent of the boy in him. Like that boy, he is sorting out the ways of the world. Conversations that draw simple and astonishing conclusions flow much of the day. He has lots of questions and gets manyContinue reading “My Burt”
Maybe
At 4am the other night Burt said «my wife was here but she ran away.« I said I love you. Today I am wondering as he says where’d she go (meaning me, I think) if he misses me the way I miss him. I tell him I love him often. Often he gives me aContinue reading “Maybe”
Jazzy
My discovery on my pared-down- no-more-cable teevee of jazz videos wingtailed nicely with an email. My friend BW found the must hear 20 jazz hits. More on those soon. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Night time jazz cafes. So let’s talk about those first. This is a category of YouTubes which IContinue reading “Jazzy”
It’s the little things
What’s your favorite candy? Memory is a blessing. We can live in and relive our favorite things. And the things we loved that maybe are now lost. I mentioned that moment while I stood by a V’Day display of chocolates and realized Burt no longer could appreciate that Hershey bar. That small realization came with Continue reading “It’s the little things”
A hiccup [story]
As we were finishing our lovely lunch, my great friend S started to hiccup. My hiccup wisdom came in play here. Burt, I said, had been hiccupping. I hadn’t noticed but then I did. An online support group had shared this issue so I was primed. In Burt’s case, it was likely an autonomic whateverContinue reading “A hiccup [story]”
Ambiguity
There is a pet term for the grieving and loss we feel as our loved ones dwindle and decline. As they lose themselves to confusion and disorientation, they are lost to us. Sometimes, the diminished cognition, reductive common sense, and other unraveling occur over many years. Each new feature of this unwinding is another lossContinue reading “Ambiguity”
this is our life 