Did ya miss me.... an unnecessarily long update....

Well folks... I'm back in Tennessee... Did ya miss me? I only ask because I missed me a little... By that I mean I missed my day to day life. My routine... this was not a vacation, but it was good to step out of my life for a bit... it has helped me to re-prioritize a little. (More on that later)

 We got home late last night, and it was nice to sleep in my own bed and wrap my arms around my wonderful husband.... Not necessarily in that order....

I missed you guys bunches and although I couldn't post often and could read your blogs less I would log on and re-read your encouraging comments over and over... on the hard days your messages and prayer were all they got me through.

I know you guys want to know how it went... well, I don't know... I mean I do and I don't know... (that cleared it up... I know.) We made a lot of decisions, like they are going into assisted living, but the one we picked has a waiting list and they still need to turn in the application... we ran out of time, so I just have to trust that they will do as they promised (I will check on this)...

The problem is two weeks went by super quick and I didn't get everything done that needed to be in order for them to live safely in their own home until they can transition to assisted living. We got a lot of balls rolling, but I wasn't able to follow through on a lot of things. I will need to travel back up there in 2-3 months to tie up all the loose strings.

I had to spend a lot of my first week there nursing my mother who was released from the hospital within an hour of our arrival. (Not my initial plan...) and caring for the day to day needs of my step-dad.  I also spent most of that week trying to help my mom see the reality of her situation... does she now see it? Honestly, I don't know... she is young (66) and it is hard for her to see what everyone else in her life so clearly see.

She had a great attitude overall and was very open to talking about the issues, but it has to be hard to learn that you can no longer care for yourself. Is she still in denial... yes, but hopefully the next few months will be eye opening for her. They do have a social worker assigned to them and the social worker is very skeptical about their ability or willingness to implement the plans we made. She has agreed to give it a "wait and see" approach to see what will happen next... as long as things don't become unsafe... I was initially hoping to avoid social workers being called in, but the hospital called them in and it turns out to be a good thing. They can be not only a good source of info, but having them means I don't have to be the bad guy... they push issues forward when my parents try to gloss over them.

It was hard... almost all of it. My mom has mellowed a lot over the last few years, and that was helpful. Unfortunately she seems to have aged a lot too and it was startling to see her so old. She seems to focus on what other people her age and older are doing, but she is not healthy or able bodied, so those comparisons do not really apply... She didn't fight me much, which has me somewhat worried that she was humoring me. They were going to send her and my dad to a nursing home because it was not safe to send her home, but our arrival made the home situation different and so they let her go home. She was extremely grateful for that and so she may well have been humoring me... stalling...dragging her feet on implementing the plans... knowing I could only stay two weeks and once I left she would be back in charge. I hope not... I pray not... but a least we do have a plan... even if it is not fully implemented, at least we have it and if worse comes to worse I can implement it. The social workers did require that I (or someone... my parents chose me) have a power of attorney... one that can not be removed, changed or voided unless an impartial third party signs off on it... right now that is them. I have the ability to force the plan on them... I pray I don't have to.

That's it for now... Thank you again for all your prayers and sweet comments... Tomorrow I will share some of the pictures from our trip... photos of my home town... the girlies and I stole away for several mini-vacation moments... We took pictures (lots of pictures) and now I will subject you to them... Lucky you!

Thanks for listening,