Getting lucky without playing the lottery!

UPDATE: My mother-in-law passed away this afternoon about 5:40. Rest in peace, dear.

This is a repost, complete with previous comments, from almost a year ago exactly.

Picking a nursing home for a loved one is hard work.

After sorting through government ratings, touring affordable - and unaffordable - residences, and asking strangers on every street corner, IT Guy and I finally relied on our own experience.

Neither one of us have personally needed a similar facility, but after my mother fell and suffered severe brain damage several years ago, we placed her in a local Methodist home called Crestview.

IT Guy and I had inquired about availability at Crestview during the course of M-I-L’s hospital stay and rehabilitation. Availability in a good nursing home is just another way of getting lucky, only without buying a lottery ticket.

The day before M-I-L was scheduled to leave rehab, a bed at Crestview opened up, so to speak. Since IT Guy had a meeting, I escorted M-I-L to her new home.

It was lunchtime when we arrived. I asked our escorts if she could see her room before she ate. She was worried and I wanted her to be able to enjoy her meal and start the whole experience off on a good note, without reservations about where she would be sleeping that night.

Of course, they said, as they pushed her down the hall, me faithfully following behind the wheelchair. I’d been down this hall many times, daily, in fact, for a full year.

We turned left in front of the dining hall. I waved at several people I’d known during my Mother’s stay. Not that they would remember me, but I remembered them.

By the time our little parade got halfway down the hall, willies started wiggling up my spine. It was all too familiar. I knew the people who lived in the rest of the rooms in this wing. I’d just waved to some of them.

The CNA kept pushing my M-I-L and I kept following, until there was only one room left.

My mother’s old room.

And that’s where we turned, right into my Mother’s old room. Right up to her old bed. Right across from her old roommate.

The only available bed at Crestview was my mother’s old bed. To me, it was like going home.

More cancer musings

I sleep like a chicken with gas. Let me explain.

A couple of days after my breast biopsy my left underarm started swelling slightly and painfully. The doctor said it wasn’t infected, nor could it be galloping cancer. It was probably a reaction to the biopsy.

A couple of days later my right underarm started doing the same thing. I wasn’t able to get a good night’s sleep because of the pain and worry but Doc said everything still seemed OK.

Of course it worried me even more when the good doctor called me while on his vacation to see how I was doing. That’s never a good sign in my book!

Meanwhile, at the hospital, M-L-L’s arm swelled up (quite large). Nurses elevated it by hanging her arm with a tube sock (OK, it wasn’t a tube sock but that’s the best description I can give you) from an IV hanger. Her swelling subsided.

Hmmmzzzz, my sleep-deprived mind thought.

That night I surrounded myself with puffy pillows. I stuck my fists into my armpits and propped my elbows high on the pillows, sort of like a sleeping dancer doing the chicken. Lo AND behold, the next morning the swelling and pain in my armpits were much less.

Since I was such a genius, I decided to tackle another problem that will be looming shortly — pill swallowing. You see I’ve never, NEVER been able to swallow pills. I’m not on any meds now so I don’t get a chance to practice much. And anyway how many of any one type of pill can a person swallow in any one setting to learn how to do it!

Furniture Man bought me a large bag of M&Ms for practice but I couldn’t swallow them either. I just kept thinking of the waste in swallowing good chocolate whole without even tasting it! Instead, I pulled a can of baked beans out of the cupboard.

Need I say more?

No, I have not been discomboobulated yet!

Yes, I know that word only has one “o” but in my case I think it should be a double. FINALLY, two weeks from today, I will be at MD Anderson in Houston, finding out the fate of said boobies.

I say “boobies” because where one goest, I think the other should goest. After all, they are a matched set, unlike my daughter’s whose set doesn’t match at all. I’m not giving away secrets here. To see the disparity, one only has to look at her — when she’s naked, which hardly counts at all since she is a workaholic, doesn’t date, and isn’t married. I mean, the girl is hardly ever naked nowadays, even though she works from home and could be naked 24/7 if she wanted to be. [This paragraph is a test for my daughter to see if she REALLY reads The Texas Woman!]

Anyway, I don’t want to have to go through life trying to keep my chest level or equally poufed. I’m too old for vanity, too young for cancer, which reminds me of my cousin Janice who says she's too light for heavy housework and too heavy for light housework. I always liked Janice. I should keep in touch more often.

I won’t miss my C cups at all. At least that’s how I feel right now. I might feel different when I wake up with nothing. Nada. Zip.

I have been busy while waiting to be summoned to The Big C Hospital. M-I-L has been critically ill…twice. We’re talking with Hospice today to put in motion her next steps through life. Such sadness and, between her situation and mine, such pressure on my poor husband. Thank God for his strong shoulders and loving heart.

I posted this makeover earlier this month and took the table to M-I-L's assisted living apartment. She loved it but yesterday we had to move her back into the nursing home. I'm sad to say there is no room for the table and back it goes into storage.  Oh, well!

Table revival

It'd been packed away at the side of the shop for over a year.

I knew what I wanted to do with it but I didn't have the time to do it nor a place to put it when it was finished...



...until now. My M-I-L needed a small eating/domino table in her new assisted living apartment. I couldn't wait to supply her with one!




So I dug out the table and painted the top white with swirling black sides, then I added wild roses and leaves...

...and shabbied everything slightly so M-I-L wouldn't feel bad when accidental scraps and dents occurred.

I love one stroke leaves.

The wild roses are kinka one stroke. Maybe they're carnations. Whichever, they're pink.

And M-I-L loves pink!

John Wayne ain't dead!

I'm not usually a name dropper but I was visitin' with John Wayne yesterday, talkin' about Texas and the Old West, ya know, and I reminded him of the old joke: Old cowboys never die. They just smell that way!

Not that John smelled. He didn't. I was just talkin' about cowboys in general.

Knowing I was a water aerobic instructor, he came back with: Old swimmers never die, they just have a stroke. That John's a real jokester.

Since we were at my M-I-L's nursing home, I countered with: Old photographers never die, they get sent to an old focus home.

He stated: Old bloggers never die, they just move to a new URL address.

Then I said: Old pole dancers never die, they just lose their grip, which reminded me of a story about my mother.

As you know, my mother was in the same nursing home that my M-I-L lives in now. One day as I was getting ready to go to work, I got the call that every adult-with-a-mother-in-a-nursing-home dreads.

"Your mother's stripping in the lobby!" Linda told me.

"I'll be right there!" I said. I figured since she was wheelchair bound, I'd get there before she dropped her last scarf.

So here's the chorus because this story would make for a fine country/western song:

Oh, my mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.
My mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.
After she fell and cracked her dome,
We put her in a home.
My mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.

By the time I got to the nursing home, aides had hustled Mom to her room, dressed her again, and given her a cookie.

"Mom," I said. "What's been goin' on?"

"Nothin," she said, smacking her toothless lips around another cookie.

"I hear you've had quite the morning. Ya know, ya can't go takin' your clothes off in the lobby. You've got to come back to your room to do that."

Mom kept gumming her cookie.

"Mom, you listening to me?"

To which she replied, "They were just jealous 'cause I wasn't wearing a bra."

To the chorus!

Oh, my mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.
My mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.
She tried her level best
To fit in with the rest but
My mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.

True story. Well, not the John Wayne part, but the rest is true. Within nine days Mom lost her grip on her pole. What we didn't know on the day of the strippin' was that she was suffering from a massive infection due to a busted intestine at an old operation site. Fevers don't always show up in old strippers people.

In her right mind Mom would have loved this story and the song...if it was about someone else. But I can see where someone could think that stripping was OK at this establishment. Take a look at the email address on the business card of my friend who works there!


Hmmm, Mike must be in charge of all the old "madams" that live at the home!



Here's Dr. Gene Howard A.K.A. John Wayne with my M-I-L. See ya later today, dear.

UPDATE From Trash Talk: Deb added this verse to our family song and I'm laughing so hard, I'm peeing my jeans!

Oh, my mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.
My mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.
She'd ride without her vest,
Showing everyone her chest.
My mother was a wheelchair ridin' stripper.

Thanks, Deb!

I've got to get this off my chest!

On second thought, I kind of like all that stuff there. The painting is a still life I did years ago. It's fun to still have the original items that are in the painting.


These three chests have been in IT Guy's family for generations. It's now our turn to honor them with a place in our home. We proudly welcome the chests and their vintage contents.


They are filled with baby shoes, old wedding albums, vintage photos, and old quilts.





My M-I-L antiqued this chest years ago. A Steven Walenta print, a wedding present from the photographer and author himself, hangs above the chest. Look at the depth in that picture. It looks like you could just reach through that frame into that old room, doesn't it?








This small chest is my favorite.



Thanks for letting me get these off my chest.

Life behind the blog

Placing a loved one in a nursing home has to be one of life's harder decisions. That's what IT Guy has been struggling with this holiday.

No, FringeGirl, he's not placing ME in a home. It's his mother. But bib to bib is our destined life cycle, if we're lucky - or unlucky - enough to live that long.

Sorting through someone's life's possessions is a painful yet interesting process. M-I-L didn't throw anything away. Neither did her parents. The ID card at left is from when she managed the Post Exchange at Camp Bowie, Texas, at 22-years of age.

Her father's driver's license is dated 1936 and has the vital statistics hand written in pencil. Licenses back then had two tearaway sections for, apparently, when the driver received a ticket.

The bottom tearaway states "Detaching this stub reduces license to second class." The tearaway in the middle of the license reduces the license to third class.

The section on the back of the license is a Felony Conviction Report and revokes the license altogether. A policeman could see if the driver had priors faster than in today's computer age!

One of my favorite pieces is the Official Headlight Certificate dated 1927. Not only did your headlights have to be in compliance with the law in the State of Texas but the certificate had to be presented to the tax collector when you registered your motor vehicle.

The certificate clearly states on the back, "Do your part to make night driving safer in Texas."


My New Year wishes for you are that your headlights are in compliance and that your driver's license remains long.