Four March Somethings

Robin Uncategorized March 28, 2020

Each month, my online friend Heather hosts a blog link-up entitled SHARE FOUR SOMETHINGS: Something Loved, Something Read, Something Treasured, Something Ahead. Each month I say I will hook up; each month I don’t.

If an international quarantine and stay at home order don’t take away all my excuses, I will need to face the fact that perhaps I am not being honest with myself about who I am and what my intentions really are.

I don’t wanna do that, so here I go!

Something Loved

I love that my college student daughter is home.

Well, not home exactly. She spent her spring break in New York and has been exposed to someone who was exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID 19, so she is self-isolating at a mobile home we are in the process of fixing up. But she is close and I have seen her and we are making plans.

Not exciting plans because, well, COVID is the biggest buzzkill of a lifetime. But we are planning on helping the dog learn how to behave well and that is actually a life-changing prospect.

Something Read

My reading is a bit lacking. I admit it.

My daughter and I finished The Penderwicks on Audible. We have begun the Great Illustrated Classics version of Around the World in 80 Days.

I have been listening to/watching podcasts for writers, then popping over to web sites to get to know new authors.

I have, as always, spent most of my reading time on research studies and health articles looking for help for my family.

It’s kinda boring.

Something Treasured

This may sound arrogant, but I treasure the ability to think.

These are fascinating times we live in. The world is both incredibly distant and unified in experience all at the very same time.

I see people posting things online, enmeshed in their own fear, and they don’t actually look into what they are posting or THINK about what things actually mean. Many times in these last days someone has posted something inflammatory.

I then respond with statistics that offer a different way to look at things. The comments are then taken down. People are INSISTING on their own feelings and perspective…facts are secondary.

Ugh.

Something Ahead

A remodeled house.

ALL THE HAPPY HANDS FLAP WITH PRAISE.

I am a wee bit ashamed of my inability to function well in the house we live in. I have never really liked it; I liked what I could see it becoming. And it was affordable.

But there’s no great place to eat as it currently is, and there are too many started–but not finished projects–working toward the BIG remodel. I have been stuck.

I hate that feeling.

But things are significantly underway now, and I couldn’t be happier.

There are now and will be many more moments in the coming weeks to push pause. To think and reflect are valuable things, and I am grateful for this brief moment to do just that.

Day 4

Robin Uncategorized March 28, 2020

Have you ever seen a toddler that was so out of control it was a scene? Like a train wreck people stare, roll their eyes, and judge? The mom seems oblivious and ferociously defensive at the notion that anything their darling child is doing might be wrong?

That is me, except with my parents.

I am the daughter who is unrelentingly unwilling to acknowledge there might not be hope. The incurable disease might not be cured and the “Progressive” in its title is not a joke. It actually guarantees things are getting worse.

My mom has a terrible disease and lost her ability to talk over two years ago. Last December, she was no longer able to swallow, so she lost the ability to eat and had a feeding tube put in. That transitioned us to needing 24 hour care, and it turns out my father needs it as badly, if not worse.

He falls all the time.

People love to point out any flaw in his memory or thinking. (I, on the other hand, accidentally drove the wrong way down a one-way street this week, so I am gentle with the imperfections of life.)

We have issues with constipation and the unfortunate consequence of overcorrecting.

Recently I talked them into a 5 week time frame of intense therapies and treatments. They will do neurofeedback, hako-med, medical wave, Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy, oxygen therapy, and lower back decompression designed to increase circulation to the brain and body. They ~~will~~ are supposed to be in the pool three times each week. Twice they’ll exercise for an hour, once for half an hour. They will also get weekly massages, once for my mom and twice for my dad.

But things keep getting in the way of my plan. And I hate that.

Yesterday was DAY 4. I took my mom on the two-hour journey to Louisiana for cranialsacral therapy. The plan was to then take her to neurofeedback and then the pool. (My dad had been up all night with intestinal issues and was too tired for the newly-put-in-place program.) All day my mom had looked a little wonky, so when she said she had the chills we changed course and scheduled IV Therapy for her.

I had already made an appointment for my dad, so there they were, side by side getting their particular cocktail of vitamins and minerals and fluids pumped in. The last time I did that for my dad, he didn’t fall for days.

Last night my husband had to head over at midnight and help him off the floor.

Each day I pray to the Lord, asking for HIS help to help my parents. I ask HIM to show me which way to turn.

It’s only Day 4. It is not supposed to be perfect.

I want HIS work in my parents to amaze everyone who thinks I am nuts.

Here’s how it works for me: Any new idea that eases my heart or mind a bit, I consider to be from the Lord. I don’t hear audible voices. I don’t have burning bushes, but if I believe HE is for me (which I do) then I believe that help is from HIM.

And then I thank HIM for allowing my father to have made enough money to pay for the new idea. Then I talk to my parents and if they agree, I consider that HIS work as well. They can be stubborn, old codgers.

Yesterday was only DAY 4. I can look to HIM for a better tomorrow.