Home from the Golf Tournament

I just got home from the foundation’s annual golf tournament, one of our biggest fundraisers. Kate is not home; so I know she got to go with our neighbor to the orchid garden. I looked around for her debt card and money and tip information and found them on the bed in her office. I guess that means that the neighbor had to pay. I know this had to be embarrassing for Kate. She had worked so hard to do this on her own.

On a different note, Kate gave me a bill for plants that Ellen had bought for her on Wednesday. It was $230. She acted scared to give it to me. She had held off giving it to me since Wednesday afternoon. Then she said something that I have thought for a long, long time. She said, “Think of it as my therapy.” That is exactly how I think of it.

Lots of Caregiving

I am with Dad in the hospital. I received a call from Mountain Valley at 6:00 am Friday morning saying they had discovered rectal bleeding and recommended that he go to the hospital. This morning they performed an endoscopy and discovered that he has 3 ulcers in his upper intestine. That’s good news as it can be treated with Nexium which they are doing intravenously now. He’ll probably go back to Mountain Valley on Monday.

This is the second time in a week that we have taken him to the emergency room. It is on these occasions that one becomes keenly aware of the multitude of people Who are here on a daily basis. Yesterday as I took a break to call Larry, a woman in the parking lot called to me. She told me her daughter was very sick and needed a wheel chair. I went inside, got a wheel chair, went to her car and brought her in. I noticed the mother was struggling from some type of foot problem and suggested she might need a wheel chair as well. After leaving the daughter with an attendant at the check-in desk, I took another wheel chair out to the mother and brought her in.

Two friends from Littleton, CO, visited us for 2 nights this week. It was good to see them. Kate enjoyed their company and was unusually talkative. She gives a fair amount of misinformation, but it doesn’t usually matter as the listeners don’t know and won’t have occasion to discover the mistakes.

She continues to spend time in the yard which I have noted on several occasions is her therapy. The plants don’t complain or give suggestions and neither does anyone else. For me it does occasionally present a problem. That is usually when we are scheduled to go someplace, and she gets caught up in the yard rather than getting ready. That occurred this week as I was focusing on getting the house ready for guests. She had brought in cuttings from the yard and put them in a small vase around the sink in the laundry room. While it was a nice touch, she didn’t notice that there was dirt all around the sink. If I hadn’t specifically suggested cleaning the area, she would probably not have noticed.

Recently Kate has become more sensitive about being corrected. I am having to learn not to say anything that might make her feel bad. One of my bad habits is asking, “Do you remember . . .” Because there is less and less she does remember, this is not a good thing to say.

A Brief Overnight Trip to Nashville

Yesterday we went to Nashville to visit our friends, Ann and Jeff Davis. We had a nice lunch with them and then went back to their home for a visit. We had a good time, but as we left, Kate said she felt a little insecure with them. The Davises are both very smart. She felt it was difficult for her to join in on the conversation and felt a little left out. I was disappointed because Ann is someone Kate has always admired. At one time, the Davises had lived in Knoxville. I hope that our next visit with them is more successful.

Before meeting the Davises, we went to a mall in Franklin. As is our custom, we wanted to go our separate ways and set a time to meet at Belk’s. I waited for her about 15 minutes before calling her on her cell phone. It turned out that she was waiting at Sears. Today we went back to the mall and arranged to meet at same place. While I was waiting for her, she called to ask where to meet me. It can be difficult to coordinate with her.