Spillin' the Tea at 503

Time to play catch up – starting with —> the recent Super Bowl … sort of. It’s been quite some time since anyone around here used a word other than “toilet” in front of the word “bowl”! Yeah, as you can imagine, the bathroom is used quite extensively here … Anne said she doesn’t clean it any more, she apologizes to it!!

Back to the game: Mom watched it, along with Anne, Dave, Trish and me here at The 503; Dad slept. It was good to see Seattle come out on top. As a Yankee fan, nothing exists north of Connecticut, so I’m not sure who the Seahawks played that day! Note the map below: this is map of the United States according to Yankee fans – the Atlantic Ocean borders New York – the end of the country on the east coast!

February Updates

Trish and I went up to Maryland for Dr appts and to see the 3 out of the 4 kids and Oliver from 11-21 Feb. Dr appts went well and the weather cooperated with our travel. While we were away, Anne stayed at The 503 to care for the folks until Mike & Lizzette arrived on 19 Feb. While we were away, and on the advice of the hospice nurse, Dad was hooked up to oxygen when his pulse/ox dropped to 64 during the nurse’s visit. Since then, he’s connected to oxygen for most of the day and we disconnect it when he goes to bed at night. He gets pretty winded going from the bed to the bathroom (about 10 feet), the bedroom to the kitchen and the kitchen to the living room. These are not great distances and he uses the walker for all movements. In addition to this development, he’s cut back on how much he eats – he said he gets “full” quickly. He’ll typically eat most of his breakfast, consisting of two over-easy eggs and two pieces of toast, skip lunch and take a few bites of something for dinner. Lately, this week, he’s spending more time in bed sleeping or in his lounge chair sleeping … but his preference is lying down in bed more often than not. We try to keep him moving about to help prevent bed sores; but, we’re not always successful.

Dad – Amused with Himself!!! Oliver – Making a Point

Springtime is Coming Our Way

Mom is doing well – considering! She’s been complaining of pain in her hip & thigh the last few weeks and came down with a pretty bad sinus infection and cough that traveled to her lungs. And of course, all of that turned into a really bad cough and congestion. Fortunately, she was able to avoid pneumonia and after a trip to her primary care doc, antibiotics are clearing up whatever infection was going through her! She is well on her way to much improved health.

Using Her Device at the Table – During Dinner!

We arrived back at The 503 just in time to celebrate Trish’s birthday – which was a pretty big one – she turned 60! Lizzette, Anne and Mike did a super job of decorating the house, making an orange cake with a very special cake topper and helping celebrate with pizza and beer! And of course, it was all topped off by the “Gething version” of Happy Birthday!

Anne and Dave went up to Virginia to spend some time with their favorite son and daughter-in-law and their two kids – Millie & Cooper (I’m gonna pay for that!). Ariel and Jon made the trip as well from N. Carolina with Mason, Julie and Grant. While they’re away, Trish has taken over “chicken & dog duties” and that means frequent Denali visits.

Anne visiting VA – enjoying kid time …

So, there we were at breakfast one morning and Dad was having a good start to his day – he got up early, came out to the kitchen and asked for coffee and breakfast. With his breakfast in front of him, he took a bite from his plate – fork in his right hand, piece of toast is his left – and staring down at his plate he said “I woke up in the middle of the night last night” and paused. To which we replied, “Yeah, what happened?” And he said, “…it was dark!” I love mornings like that!