We have landed!

We are here! The ambulance pulled in seconds before the hospice "admissions" nurse. The stairs were challenging but the two EMTs from Cataldos were wonderful. Mom/Nonna ate a sandwich, Sira made and drank some Diet Coke Ferron ran out to the store for, thickened with special corn starch and enjoyed some fruit salad and now is sleeping. Julia helped me adjust a phone line and Rosie checked in often, just to say hi.

Adelaide is in our former bedroom where we have kept our offices. She said " I feel life swirling about me" - I said we have many many speeds - swirling rapids and burbling brooks and quiet pools for relaxing contemplation. Robert and I both spend tons of time working, reading and wasting vast amounts of at our computers. So she will always have company.



Some of the equipment is a bit "de trop". But I said bring it and they did. One thing looks like a trebuchet. Are we besieging a castle tonight? It is a Hoyer lift. Adelaide looked at it and me and said "Send it back. I will walk!" Cannot blame her. If you have ever seen me drive or watched me moving her in bed, you would agree she has all her marbles when she says "No" to that lift.





Now my sister Cathy will do the night shift. I am exhausted. Sleep is looking sweet.

Hospitals and Hospice

Really, until this moment and at this time in my mother's illness, hospice was just a word and a vague concept - something about not being in a hospital during one's last days. Now I understand that it actually it is about care during last months of life and has a very human component. " Just as doctors and midwives lend support and expertise during the time of child birth, hospice provides its presence and specialized knowledge during the dying process." Still, it does feel like an extension of the "here is your hat, what is your hurry" modus operandi of hospitals today. The gate keepers are called Care Coordinators. Sick folk are thrown out of hospital beds every day by these running dog lackeys* of the insurance companies. Care Coordinators smile and speak like humans but clearly, to do the work they do? They cannot possibly be other than shut down huma-bots. Weasels perhaps?

Today and right now, we wait. It is 10 AM. Mom is not cleaned or dressed. The nurses will do this as I am still a novice on moving mom and dealing with the various tubiage she has going. But I will learn and, I am waiting. The house is set up with a bed and lots of other equipment necessary and unnecessary all delivered to the house by Frankie and his pal. Our daughters have organized, cleaned, moved, cooked and cleaned some more. They have been great. And we are waiting.


*lackeys...


A lackey or lacquey is a term for a uniformed manservant, in its original meaning (attested 1529, according to the Oxford English Dictionary).The modern connotation of "servile follower" appeared later, in 1588 (OED).^[1]EtymologyThere are several theories about the origins of the word. By one theory, it is derived from Medieval French laquais, "foot soldier, footman, servant", ultimately from Turkish ulak, literally "a messenger".^[1] In Gaelic, it is a surname related to the word for stone, leac ---> lackey.