Hits and Misses (Dec 24-30)

Can you believe what you are seeing? After many months of absence, I’m actually doing some blogging again. Without further ado, here’s a look back at the week that was…..

HITS

• Christmas is always a joyful celebration for the Freeman clan. Over the course of the holiday weekend, I was able to spend time with all of my family members in various shifts and it was beautiful.
• I gave my mother an iPad for Christmas. She was a little skeptical at first, but I promised to take it slowly and teach her what she needs to know. We’ve done a lot of things on the Bible app as well as email, Pinterest and Tinybeans – an awesome photo-sharing app that my niece uses to share pics of her young son. Mom told me today that she is really liking the iPad and is ready for a few more apps. Now we’ll start learning how to use FaceTime — the real reason I bought the iPad. Video calls from Mom are so much better than just a phone call!
• I finally got the chance to slip away to catch a movie. I decided to see Green Book and was very glad I did. A great cast, wonderful story, and lots of piano playing — what more could I ask for?
• This weekend, I got to spend some quality time alone with Mom. It has been hard for us to connect this vacation since Pop has been out of commission and required so much of Mom’s attention. On Saturday, I convinced her to run to the mall with me for a few minutes to return some gifts and pick up some badly needed jeans. We then enjoyed a quick lunch together at Huey’s (yum!) before heading home. Once home, we began planning the menu for Tuesday’s New Year’s Day lunch. On Sunday morning, we got to worship together at West Memphis First Baptist before heading to the grocery to pick things up. Even though there was nothing extravagant about the events of the two days, I was thrilled to just have a few hours alone with her to talk, laugh, and catch up.

MISSES

• I never want to eat another piece of ham as long as I live. I think we ended up seeing it on the table three times in nearly as many days. Here’s the problem….I don’t even really like ham that much! I just manage to eat a bit on Christmas Day so our traditional family meal can remain unchanged here in the Geriatric Ward.
• Just when I thought I was finally getting over the effects of this month’s stomach plague, another round of nausea hit me on Friday morning and knocked me off of my feet. Fortunately, it was only nausea I was dealing with this time….
• Sometimes desserts are just a flop. Sadly, that was the case here on Christmas Day. This year, Mom and I made a red velvet cake and a snickerdoodle cake. Both tasted better than they looked. (Thank goodness!) The snickerdoodle cake got stuck to the bundt pan and came out in three pieces……the top and two halves of the bottom. A thick layer of cream cheese frosting can cover a multitude of mistakes on a red velvet cake. It also acts as a nice glue to hold things together. The layers were in tact, but since we cooked the cake a little too long it was very crumbly. Oh well…..there’s always next year!

Not the Holiday I Expected

The fall semester had a rough ending for me. In the middle of finals, I got the worst stomach bug ever. Truly, I don’t recall ever being that sick — and hope to never have a repeat performance! As the week drew to a close, I was slowly regaining my strength and was ready for the comforts of the Geriatric Ward.

Since I didn’t want to overtax my body, I intentionally broke the trip into smaller segments. After spending a restful night in Gainesville, Texas, I began the final leg of the trip to eastern Arkansas. I called Mom to let her know that I was on the road, hoping to catch her before she would leave for Sunday services. Instead, I was informed that the Geriatrics were at the emergency room to check out Pop’s foot that was injured at work on Friday afternoon. Within a few hours, I got the report that we were hoping to avoid; Dad’s foot was fractured and he would wear a boot for several weeks. That wasn’t as bad as it could have been……or so we thought.

My first week at home was filled with activity — and more of it than I really wanted since I was still trying to recover my strength. I made a trip to the dentist and helped Mom finish her Christmas shopping (or as much of it as we would actually accomplish before the looming December 25 deadline because of my lack of energy). You see, my mother has gotten the idea that it is better to not purchase ANY gifts for me until I come home so we can avoid after Christmas returns. Personally, I hate doing Christmas this way, but after years of telling her this, I’ve finally accepted that this is just the way things will be.

On Friday, I had cleared my day to take Pop to three doctor’s appointments. (Yep, when I come home I pick up the mantle of taxi driver once again.) The first of these was with an orthopedist at Campbell’s Clinic to examine his foot. The examination seemed to be taking a long time, so I began to fear the worst. Just as I was preparing to ask the staff about Dad’s progress, the wheelchair rolled into the lobby carrying Pop. While his ankle was only fractured, he was now in a hard cast and we were instructed that he could put NO WEIGHT on his foot. We headed downstairs to get a walker before heading on to our next appointment. Once I saw him trying to maneuver on the walker, I knew we weren’t going to have the other follow-up visits today. He would have fallen and that was the last thing that I needed! (Besides, what was the point of having the follow-ups from his heart stint procedure that was performed earlier in the fall since Pop has completed NONE of the physical therapy prescribed? I’m just a little irate about that fact….but that’s a topic for later.)

Once we got Dad in the house, we realized that all of our upcoming plans were going to change. Pop could not navigate the Geriatric Ward’s exterior steps safely, so he would be confined to the front rooms of the house for a month. That means he is spending his days in a recliner in the living room watching a very loud television with the occasional trip to the bathroom and bedroom. That’s it! Since my parents’ home is a shotgun house, there is no escaping activity in the main room…..and Dad’s solution to any distraction to his television viewing is simply turning up the volume even more. (Have I mentioned that I helped Pop obtain hearing aids several years ago that he now refuses to wear because of the feedback he hears when he turns them up? All of our efforts to explain that a simple trip to the doctor could correct the settings and once again improve his quality of life continually fall on deaf ears.)

Needless to say, Pop’s immobility put a crimp in my holiday plans. I hoped to lounge mindlessly on the couch throughout the day and lose myself in the silence or perhaps the storyline of a new novel. I intended to get some serious practicing done in preparation for another busy semester. I’m not the type of person that can get much done when there’s lots of noise and activity around me. I briefly contemplated practicing after everyone went to bed, but I fear that I would disturb Mom’s sleep — and given the extra work Dad’s care is putting on her, she needs as much rest as she can get. (Don’t think me heartless, but I don’t worry about disturbing Dad. He’s so deaf that nothing can wake him!) Instead of practicing, I have spent much of my days in Mom’s retreat while she is at work — my old bedroom that has been repurposed with an oversized chair and television. I get as much reading done as I can, but the sound from the living room makes it challenging for me to concentrate, so I end up watching television or playing a game on my iPhone. This trip to Arkansas has certainly not turned out to be the holiday I had hoped for, but sometimes you just have to roll with the punches.