Countrymouse Posted November 2018
On My Mind
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Replacing the much lamented 'On My Mind' profile option, this thread is for musings, jottings, whimsies, preoccupations and the rest of the thesaurus for anyone to jot down anything they please.
I can't remember what the maximum character count was before, can anyone else? But anyway it wasn't very many so let's keep to that.
Before this sudden turn of events she has been on blood thinners already for the past two months due to a blood clot in her leg that they believe was from a bout of Covid. That clot had resolved . She’s basically a ticking time bomb from all these clots .
On the other hand , my very frail 87yo mother in law in stage 4 CLL , has been walking around with a blood clot in her leg for the past 3 months and is planning to fly !! Also a ticking time bomb . She will probably survive it .
She didn’t really listen to DH, she dismissed what he said on the phone today . Then she says “ I”ll give you my itinerary just in case”.
In case what ? We aren’t rescuing her , so DH says . We will see . I think we will be packing suitcases .
And MIL won’t draw up POA. So of course DH has no tools if needed. She also still has her partner with cancer and dementia being her servant instead of hiring help in or moving to AL. Really tired of the stubbornness .
I have found you have to be more forceful in defending boundaries with stubborn elders , or they disregard what you say .
I may have to call . Uggh. That may speak louder since I never talk to her on the phone .
You can't change mil. I hope dh stays with the "no rescue" but i know you know him best. You do have to be very firm with your boundaries or people like mil run rampant over them. It's probably ideal of you can be nice and firm but some people see nice as a chink in your armour and move in the get their way.
Do you have a contingency plan in case she gdoes fly and becomes ill? It could probably be managed by phone.
I'm thankful to not be making hospital visits any more. R's ward had a covid outbreak which ended the day he left so I had to mask up and sanitize. I wasn't worried about getting covid - more about losing my hearing aids which are "over the ear" type and can get flicked off when I de-mask.
way - try to relax and think of other things. They take up too much room in our heads!!! ((((hugs))))
Contingency plan ? DH said MIL’s brother is in FL to help MIL. I told DH , all that means is he will be calling you to come .
I’m glad R is home . And wish him a speedy recovery .
Thanks.
Just protect yourself as much as you can. Do you have to go with dh when the crisis happens? R is a reactor too, and I am a planner. I extract myself as much as I can from the last minute reaction stuff. And throw out ideas that he has never thought of that could make it easier for me and him. Like - this one or that one (looking at me hopefully) could drive him what would be 240 - 300 miles round trip because his other car is at his uncles. I said rent a car one way and drop it off there. If he can't drive yet he shouldn't be travelling anyway.
On the other hand these reactors are great in a crisis. We all have our roles.
Enjoying the morning sun on the balcony and watching my little cat garden grow. and watching the young crows fly low.
You are correct , dh is not a planner in these situations . He sees no reason to make plans ahead of time for something that he doesn’t know exactly what the problem will be until it happens . Drives me nuts .
I’m trying to get dh to move up
our next visit , to literally see how she is .
The cat garden sounds lovely.
I doubt it . It’s a horrible drive during beach season through NYC to go out to eastern Long Island. We probably won’t go until after Labor Day .
Yeah.. my DH is like that. Why waste his time planning for A or B when it could be CDEFG? I think he prides himself on his quick thinking decision making.
Quick! Shoot that wild beast running our way! (I of course have thoroughly researched the area, the safest way to travel, what beasts are likely to be present).
Just this weekend, I avoided a situation with high potential risk of mission creep, of falling in a hole. DH said just go.. but say no & leave if you need to.
I'd rather AVOID any chance of falling in that sticky hole thankyou. I guess Way does also.
So. Way stays put. Way's DH lives his merry life. Until a crises befalls. Then he scrambles, packs a bag, boards a flight etc. Way has concrete plans that cannot be changed. Or a sudden bad toothache. Or deadpans "I am not responsible for MIL's lack of planning.
I warned MIL there were risks.
MIL choose to take those risks.
Therefore the consequences are hers".
#tough love
PS I googled the saying:
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Yes , I will tell DH your last line .
However , I know what he will say .
“ If I tell my mother that , she will tell me that she’s not planning on an emergency happening “. That is what she always says.
His mother has an answer for everything that suits her wants and is based on denial .
DH told her it’s not a good idea . She said she will ask the doctor . We are assuming the doctor will tell her not to fly . She won’t listen though . DH also told her he may have a work trip at that time and would not be available .
DH is much nicer than me . I’m at the point of telling her she’s declining and needs to stay put unless she wants an expensive ride back home in an ambulance , hearse , or cargo belly of an airplane . Direct is the only thing that rarely works on this woman . 🙄🙄
Also the family helps family is mentioned on DH’s side . It’s amazing , the level of nearly ignoring us the last 35 years, until they got really old . Then they act like we’ve been so close .
She has been on my heart and I pray she is well.
I was going to fly back by myself to see my dad and stay with friends for a few days every six weeks but now I have this place and am going to still be here for big swaths of time. And all it will be is a stark reminder of how sick our friend is.
Sigh.
Maybe your DH will realize it’s not the same anymore , before the lease is up and not sign again . Or maybe he’ll even realize sooner and you can sublet .
So now you have to set up a whole apt ? Is it furnished ?
I moved from Long Island 19 years ago when I was 40. We had lived there our whole lives . In the beginning we used to go back every 2-3 months . Now we only go back to see my MIL and one couple occasionally . Our other friends have all left except I have one good friend/former coworker still there but she has Alzheimer’s pretty bad now . When we go back to LI , we can’t wait to come home to PA. This is where our life is . It’s also changed where we lived on LI.
It is going to be a hodge podge of stuff. I wish I could get excited about it — it is a very nice place — but I just can’t. All I see is another year of my life going up in smoke.
It is difficult making and maintaining friendships when you are living out of a suitcase which is how my life has been for the past three years. I can’t commit to much in CA where we also live if you have a foot on each coast. I just want it to stop.
That’s understandable.
My DH and I already have said once his mother dies we don’t see any reason to go back . The drive through the city is horrendous . Plus DH has traveled his whole career for work . He has 4-5 more years left . He keeps saying he just wants to stay home and sit out back on the deck .
We have a few trips on a bucket list , but nothing over the top or very far .
It is true , it is difficult to make friends or maintain friendships . That’s been our whole life due to my husband’s work travel and then me wrapped up for 10 years when my parents followed us so I could take care of them .
We have a few neighbors who are our friends and some from DH’s local office . But they are all older than us and retired . They are busy seeing grandchildren on weekends . And two of them are fighting cancer right now . Hard to get together unless it’s during the week , but that doesn’t work for us. It’s weird .
My DH is the same and I have been slowly making changes little by little to make our lives easier and more streamlined. It is too bad you couldn't have just stayed at your parents house when you went to NY until it sold at least. Then no 1 year lease commitment.
I am sorry about your friend who is dying from cancer. It is so hard to lose someone you care about so much. Cancer is a real b***h.
So it’s worth developing a plan with DH. Sitting on the back porch doesn’t develop a new life, and the longer you leave it, the harder it gets.
We will try to do 2 of them before he retires . It should be possible .
@Margaret,
I agree . We had been looking at 55 and overs to move in and meet people . We have given up . New are too expensive . The older ones need work and the bidding wars are ridiculous . They sell for crazy prices and then you have to gut it . I’m alittle over an hour from Philadelphia . A lot of people come to retire here. We have 2 large hospital systems . People move here from New York and New Jersey too . A lot of competition for housing . Will stay put for now at least and need to find a new way to meet people our own age .
We have decided to revisit moving later . When DH retires we could expand our search radius without having to have a work commute to be a concern .
I understand that !!
When we first moved in , the neighbor behind us would invite us to come over if he saw us on our deck . There were other neighbors that hung out all summer long at this house on weekends at night. This group drank so much, we stopped going . I like a glass of wine occasionally , but I don’t find hanging out with incoherent people enjoyable.
Now they are in their late 60’s . I only see the two neighbors behind me hanging out drinking . The rest stopped over the years even though they still live across the street from the original party house .
DH never drank , he didn’t like beer and he said the rest of it tastes like cough medicine . It was always awkward for him at business dinners , especially when he was younger . People would ask why he doesn’t drink .
Now he’s diabetic , so he can’t anyway .
We don’t drive through Manhattan , I hate the tunnel under the river .
We take the bridges , which cost a fortune , the Goethals bridge from Jersey to drive through Staten Island , then the Verrazano bridge into Brooklyn , and drive through Brooklyn and Queens on the always bumper to bumper anywhere from 0- 60 mph Belt pkwy, with its suspension killing potholes . I won’t even drive on the Belt anymore , DH has to do it when we go . They literally drive bumper to bumper no matter what speed they are going , no leaving car lengths in between even at 60mph . My shoulders are up by my ears on that stretch now .
bunper traffic for 4 hours. Just horrible.
In fact sometimes they even made it a goal of the evening to "Get someone drunk" I mean who does this? And why? One night I caught on that I was the target. So I gripped my wine glass tightly and nursed it all night. No letting someone refill it when I wasn't looking.
I don't see my fam much anymore but in April my brother turned 60 and so we went. Still drinking! We left early.
I know. The bridge tolls are crazy . Although the new Goethals bridge is sooo much nicer than the rusty skinny rickety old one .
I haven’t been on the new Tappan Zee ( Cuomo ) bridge , but I’m sure it’s expensive. Probably haven’t been on the George Washington bridge in at least 20 years since we moved off the island either . Back in the 90’s my DH worked for the Port Authority . One of his responsibilities was auditing cost/payments of companies that did ( construction) maintenance of the George Washington bridge . Our phone would ring on Friday and/or Saturday in the middle of the night for DH to approve overtime to fix a movable cement barrier knocked out of place and blocking a lane that got hit by a drunk driver on the GW bridge .
It’s not worth the drive . After my MIL dies , we aren’t going back to the island . Hotel prices are ridiculous too .
We have Zoom now , we can have virtual dinners with the one couple we still know there.
I have younger cousins I never see or hear from , that’s about it. DH only has his mother still there . My in laws were divorced. I’m sure once my deceased FIL’s estate is settled , my DH will never hear from is steppies .
💔💙💐