Genevieve's Care Corner

Jim left to go visit Mom around noon.  Mom’s been really looking forward to an overnight stay with her 2 daughters at Kathy’s place for the past week now.  The agreement was that while Greg was out camping with his brother, Mom & Penny would have a sleep over with Kathy at their place.  So Penny was to pickup Mom on Sunday and they would return on Tuesday. When Jim arrived today, he found Mom smiling from ear to ear with bags packed and saying “Penny should be here at any time to pick me up!”. Jim had to break the news to her that 'today was Saturday, not Sunday. Penny wouldn’t be picking her up until tomorrow.’ Jim said he could just see the joy & excitement drain from her face as she asked “You’re kidding me, right?”. Once Mom realized it was Saturday, she also realized she'd need her pillbox. Jim helped her look for it in her luggage. She knew she'd packed them in her luggage, but they had to completely unpack everything looking for them because she’d plac...

 We head to Mom's place right after lunch. Mom's barefoot and getting ready to start setting her hair. Jim goes out to the backyard and gardens. After she sets her hair she immediately goes out to see what Jim's up to, rather than sit in the Living Room and talk with me. When she comes back into the house I ask her if she is walking differently today.  She agrees and says something about not being stable on her feet and placing her foot down firmly feels better. So I ask if she shouldn't be wearing some shoes.  But she says she feels more sure footed being barefoot.  Then she mentions that she can't really feel her toes.  I ask her if she's mentioned this to Dr. Rodriquez. She says that 'Yes, she's told him'.  I remind her that I was at her last appointment and I certainly don't recall her ever mentioning it.  Her response was "Well he knows! I had gout and this is caused by that!"  I tell her that numb toes are not caused by gout, ...

12:00 noon - We called Mom after doing our grocery shopping in the morning. She said she'd gone out to the garage to start the car, but once again it isn't starting!  That remark quickly lead to her complaining that she hasn't received her license tabs renewal yet.  Jim reminded her that they'd filled out the License Tabs Renewal forms for that the same day she'd received it.  She mentioned that the paperwork she has says that she could check the status on their website but that when she got on the "thing's" (couldn't remember the word laptop) Facebook & Tik-Tok page it wouldn't let her see the Secretary of State website.  She had no idea how to get from there to the website!  'Everything is supposed to be Facebook' and 'she doesn't know what this TikTok thing is about!' She was obsessing about it and kept repeating herself on the phone, so I asked her how the pajama bottoms that I'd taken the waist in on fit her.  S...

Today was Mom's 87th birthday ! Charlie & Evelyn had arranged for the family to gather at  Antonio's Italian Cuisine  in Sterling Heights for her birthday dinner.  They also got a big, beautiful (and delicious) cake for dessert!  It was a great time. We picked Mom up at her place and arrived around 2:30.  Dinner was at 4:00, so we had plenty of time.  She was excited to go, and asked us for our opinion and help picking out jewelry to wear with her outfit.  (Jim's a big help in that dept.  Me? -not so much). In the excitement of getting to the restaurant, we overlooked the marque on the sign out front.  Apparently, Evelyn & Charlie had arranged for a personalized birthday message for Mom.  How cool!  After we finished dinner, we grabbed a picture of it with Mom, Charlie, Penny & Jim in front.  (Unfortunately, Greg & Katie had just left, a few minutes earlier).   For more pictures of the event, see Penny...

12:30 pm> Jim calls Mom with “Duo” and has a good conversation with her and tells her that he’s making her a sandwich for lunch that we’re bringing over.   She mentions that she was feeling a little out of sorts this morning.  (If she’d been drinking, then we’re not surprised). The visit went well, and Mom didn’t seem to be too badly off balance, and had no evidence of poor speech.  Jim picked up more twigs and branches in the yard, while Mom and I chatted and put together a grocery list for Jim to use when he shops for her tomorrow.

3:00 pm> Charlie & Evelyn text us that they have Mom, and take her out for dinner.  Later, around 7:45 Jim calls her to see how her visit went.  She is talking with slurred speech again and seems distracted.  Says she’s watching TV which helps explain some of the distraction, but not the slurred, soft speech.  Jim finally is blunt with her and asks, “Did you have something to drink at dinner?”  and she he- hums and then finally admits to having had “only 1 drink”.  Based on how slurred her speech was, I suspect she had more than just 1 drink.  But we really don’t know if the problem, which occurred a week ago, is reoccurring or if it’s just due to a dinner drink or two.  We let her get back to her TV show and say good night.