Bfth's Boring Blog

  The above titled song from "Hair" has been playing around in my head today.  Lyrics reflect what I am feeling.   "Where do I go? Follow my heartbeat. Where do I go? Follow my hand...Tell me where.  Tell me why.  Tell me why." So where am I?  Right now I am working from home.  I SHOULD be in the office, but I tried that yesterday and it didn't work out too well for me.  I had several calls from hospice.  The case manager wanted to check in on my dad.  (Fine with me, but they needed to call his caregiver so that she knew.)  A different nurse was going to come out.  Then they both called me afterwards.  The case manager called first, saying that the care giver was going to need more help; who did I know/have who could assist? Well, I thought hospice would assist, and they do, but I didn't have someone every day to help her and I DIDN'T have a back up plan.  The case manager said she would try to get an aid for us and then would also get me a list of agenc

  In today's post I am giving myself a big pat on the back.  I'm praising myself for not having a complete nervous breakdown (I may have had several mini ones), for (mostly) keeping my head above water and (hopefully) getting through today as I have over the past week...with (relatively) calm and (semi) grace. My last post was written on the 18th of this month and it was all about refrigerators, or lack there of.  At that point I had ordered a new fridge from a local business and it was going to be delivered on Tuesday.  I got the call that morning that it would be delivered between noon and four.  I thought they were going to call when they were on the way.  That didn't happen.  What did happen was that a refrigerator arrived in a perfectly undamaged box, but INSIDE the box the fridge WAS damaged and a replacement would be needed.  That replacement is supposed to be delivered today between noon and three.  (I had BEGGED for an earlier delivery time, but...) While all this

 Note:  Before you begin to read, you really should check into my two previous blog posts on my experience with  Lowe's .  They can be found  here  and  here . Father's Day, Sunday, June 18th (also Paul McCartney's 81st birthday):  I'm sitting around waiting to hear when the refrigerator will arrive from  Lowe's .  Despite getting an email yesterday saying that my delivery would arrive between 8 AM and 8 PM, I got NO updates and the link just said that my order was being processed.  By 10:30 I was tired of waiting.  I called the store that it was coming from and asked for an update.  I got disconnected.  I called again and finally got someone.  This person was very nice and told me that it looked like my delivery hadn't made it again.  In baseball its three strikes and you're out.  I shouldn't have given them that many strikes, but...In my nicest (and I do mean NICEST) voice, I asked the person if he would cancel the order as they had promised and fail

Note:   before you start reading this blog post go back and read my  previous post . It will give you some important information about the BS that I have been dealing with when it comes to getting a new refrigerator and  Lowe's .  First off, let me say if you are my friend or if you are my enemy (I don't have any do I?), if I know you or if I don't know you, let me give you this advice.  NEVER  order an appliance from  Lowe's . Let me say that again  NEVER EVER  ever order an appliance from  Lowe's .  After the debacle that  Lowe's  created on Friday the 16th of June, I reordered the same refrigerator to be delivered to the shore address on Saturday June 17th. I was told that the refrigerator that they could not deliver because they had the wrong town had to be returned and I would be credited. As of this writing that hasn't happened; as of this writing there are two refrigerators with processing charges on my credit card.  However I am ever hopeful an

 If you've been reading this blog recently, you are well aware that I am pretty stressed out.  Not over one particular thing, but over a myriad of issues that raise my blood pressure and put a knot in my neck.  I'm starting to look like this:   Despite my attempts, I have NOT been a calm and cool person.  And a recent situation definitely turned me into the guy above. On my last couple of treks to see my dad and visit the house at the shore, I noticed that the freezer wasn't freezing.  Ice trays were empty and when filled with water, stayed that way.  There wasn't much in the freezer so I tossed what was in there out.  My dad's caregiver is the one who uses the fridge the most and with him not around, there wasn't much in there either.  I thought, I'll just let this go for now.  While the freezer section isn't really working, the fridge is still cool... (You know where this is going, don't you?) When I was down the other day, I put a beverage in the

  ...this reminder was told to me today in a hospital room.  (CCU to be exact.)  This words came from a very wise woman.  (Obviously NOT me.) It's a reminder that each of us have our own journeys.  We may have people who join us and stand by us on this journey, but ultimately our journey is our own and no one else's. Let me be blunt, my father is dying.  That does not mean he is going to die today, tomorrow, next week...well you get the idea.  To be realistic, from the moment we are born, we are dying.  From the instant we come out of the womb, we are crawling slowly (or perhaps not so much) towards the inevitable end. My father has faced many health challenges.  There was a quadruple bypass surgery back in the late 1990s.  Then in about 2014 he got a serious infection that landed him in the hospital for weeks.  After that his health was a bit more precarious.  A simple blister on a toe, which wasn't felt due to neuropathy, lead to infection and in many cases amputation. Ne

  Saturday I spent some time with my dad in the rehab facility where he is currently residing.  I was there in the morning, until they came in to "bath him."  I returned about five hours later and stayed until the nurse (finally) came to do his wound care.  (Apparently, they had started the process before I arrived, but needed a "special" nurse to attend to it, so he was left "partially done" for about an hour and a half.)  For most of the time that I was there, he was sleeping on and off.  So I wonder, did I stay long enough?  Should I have stayed while they changed his dressing and attended his wounds?  Does he know I was there?  Have I done enough? I'm constantly questioning myself when it comes to parenting.  (By parenting, I mean caring for my son as well as for my parents.)  Have I done enough?  Should I have done more?  What IS enough? I'm reminded of the lyrics from one of my favorite musicals (and the first musical I did in high school bac

  Dear Mom, It's June 11th; dad's 87th birthday.  I don't know if he remembers that.  I DO know that if I say it's June 11th, he'll know.  Or at least he did yesterday when I told him.  He even knew how old he was going to be.  That, I suppose, is a good thing. As I did last year, I specifically came down here to commemorate this birthday.  (I can't say celebrate because that's not exactly right.)  I drove down yesterday morning.  I saw him in the morning and he was doing relatively well. (Isn't everything relative these days?)  He sleeps a lot.  I'm guessing that's because they've got him on pain medication.  I'm torn because I want him to be comfortable, but in some ways this seems like a step back. When they came in to clean him up, I left.  (Although it was at least 45 minutes between when the cart with supplies arrived outside his door and the actual process starting to take place.)  I headed to Walmart to pick up some things. 

  I am a planner; an organizer.  I like to know the who, what where, why and how of EVERYTHING.  Or at least as it pertains to me.  (As much as I would like to, I cannot control the world.)  Which is why it is so difficult for me to have no plan; to NOT have answers.  Especially when people ask me about my father.  How is he doing?  When will he be coming home?  I have no answers.  Even if I did, my response would change week by week, day by day or even hour by hour. If we go back to early spring, I thought once my dad was released from the hospital, that he would be in a rehabilitation facility for a couple of weeks.  I didn't expect it to all go smoothly.  (Maybe I did?)  I definitely didn't expect the roller coaster ride that we've been on. When I, along with my husband, went to visit him in the rehabilitation center in late March, things were not good.  ( https://bfthsboringblog.blogspot.com/2023/03/when-there-is-no-right-answer.html )  He was so out of it and so unwell

I've always felt that birthdays are important.  It's a day to celebrate YOU.  It's a day where YOU should be the focus.  It should be a happy day.  It should be a joyful day.  However, it isn't always. I've had "bad" birthdays throughout the years.  How could I have not?  How could anyone have not?  Life happens and sometimes stomps on your day.  (Even though I think it shouldn't).  There was the year I had chicken pox.  The year my brother died 5 days before my birthday.  And last year my mom was in the hospital and moved to ICU on my birthday. I'm not going to say that yesterday was a "bad" birthday.  What I am going to say is was that it didn't feel like a birthday; it was just a day.   It was a difficult day.  For as long as I can remember, my dad sends me a card on my birthday.  For most of my life he send me "real" cards.  (You know the kind that comes in the mail.)  More recently he's been sending e cards (which I

 On Sunday, my father, who hadn't called me since the previous Monday (but I saw him on Saturday), left me a voice mail while I was in church (my phone is silenced during the service).  It was hard for him to get his words out, but in the end, he wished me a very, very, very, very, Happy Thanksgiving.  And although it is June, it meant a lot to me.  It was probably one of the most heartfelt messages I've ever gotten from my father.   Let me explain why. As I have written previously, my father has been in the hospital and rehabilitation facilities since February.  (I'll be honest, I’VE lost sense of the exact timing.)  Due to numerous health issues, he developed pressure ulcers that are severe.  (I never realized how severe they could be.)  After his first stint in the hospital, he was released and came home, where he has a 24/7 caregiver.  He also had daily visits from a wound care nurse.  After a week or 10 days, the nurse didn't like what she was seeing and he was sen

 I got an interesting and unexpected phone call last night.  Actually it was a voice mail (I never heard the phone ring) from a professor at Bucknell University.  I didn't go to Bucknell (back then I THOUGHT I wanted to be a nurse [what a laugh] and Bucknell did not offer a nursing degree), but my mother did, so did my brother and while my father didn't go either, he considered himself an honorary alum as he and my mother would go back frequently and he was a big supporter of Bucknell athletics.) and the phone call wasn't for me, but I'll get into that whole long story in a minute.  The fact that the phone call was made got me thinking about professors and their relationship with students. College professor and student relationship are different from the ones you have with teachers while you are in high school.  You are both adults and act as such (or at least you should).  I was never friends with any of my teachers while I was in high school (although I have since t

 June is busting out all over (thanks Rodgers & Hammerstein) and so is my brain.  There's so much going on with the end of the school year. (Who there was so much "stuff" for seniors?  Banquets, awards, concerts...) Then there's work.  How can I be in Newark 3 days a week when there is an event just about every day here in town?  I'm foregoing the music banquet, because I didn't want to pay $55 for a meal that I, as the allergy queen, could not eat AND I still have bad memories of the banquet when I was in high school.  (The ultimate horror of getting one's period in the middle of everything and finding a group to sit with.  I never fell into one specific group and always felt like an outcast.)  And then there's my dad. The good news is that he is out of the hospital.  He's in a NEW rehabilitation facility.  (HE picked it out).  It's right by the hospital, which makes it easy to find.  I THOUGHT it seemed nicer/brighter than where he was be