Christmas 2009 without Mom

Christmas is a time of thinking of past holidays, the reason for the season, and family and friends. This Christmas is the first one without Mom in all my years. I have been struggling to recapture the mood of the season and the thing that helped the most turned out to be working with hospice two days caroling. It does your heart good to find nurses so concerned about the patients, their family, getting treats for the pets and coats for the grandkids of patients. For all the bad times, there are more good folks than you read about in the newspaper. This fall after burying Mom, I was robbed as have many around me, and had to go to gates across the driveway and a burglar alarm system. Yet I met as an installer someone who I taught water sampling to years ago, heard from an operator, traveled Muhlenberg and McLean County by church bus and got to revisit dozens of old spill site cases, and was treated for lunch by Santa Claus twice. One of my blessings at a time like this year was to find how much friends and family meant. It is a blessing I can still remember my Papaw on Christmas visits to the farm and how it was for him to read Rip Kirby to me from the Messenger. Live long and prosper and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and enjoy having Reindeer fly.

Trinity Stables October 10, 2009 Horse Show

http://picasaweb.google.com/peyton.adams/OCTOBER10TRINITYSTABLESHORSESHOW#

Diana and I had the fun of working the gate as several wonderful folks with intent and courage jumped barriers, and did dressage tests. It is a wonderful bunch of folks to know.

Surprise Lily blooming post ice storm winter

Our Surprise Lily bed blooming after two years at long last on July 23rd, 2009.
http://picasaweb.google.com/peyton.adams/SurpriseLilyBloomingJuly2324th2009WithIceStormCleanUp?feat=directlink

Elder care and care giver roles

One of the issues when you are a care giver of the elderly is you find your own world changes even with the natural rewards of taking care of someone's needs that need you. One thing I catch in myself after a month in RMC is working to keep up with the weather outside that room, the day of the week and every morning I start out telling Mom what day, time, and day of the week it is to help her. I find myself now speaking more loudly than normal after trying to ensure she can hear and I catch myself when tired I repeat statements and phrases after trying to be advocate and translator for her for hours. Part of care giving with a 92 year old Mom with a bad ear and poor eyesight, is keeping her goal oriented for the future, part of her own healing efforts, keeping her focused on goals like eating when you have no appetite, and feeling a participate in her own healing. I also find the nurses must talk to each other around Mom and she is hearing what they say about other patients and it goes in her internal tape recorder to replay for me each morning of the night's adventures. I find myself trying to keep oriented for things like how to get her to eat after having nausea an hour before I get there by 7 am to help feed breakfast. I go back at lunch and supper to try and get her to eat and drink more at each meal and to keep a check on things. Medicare's 21 days in transitory care started last Monday so this is the 7th day and physical therapy is working to get her able to feed herself, get to a chair, and in and out of the hospital bed with air mattress on her own. I helped the nurses with wound change out and care this weekend learning how to help and freeing the nurse assistant to take care of a new patient nearby who needs a lot more help. Mom watches CNN to keep up with things and I read the Messenger to her. Your world shrinks to a certain environment. Getting off to MCC for Tai Chi, going to see Belle our horse and loving on her a little with a treat, or reading helps get me some mental relief and I try and work out at the Fitness Formula for my knee still which helps.

Tai Chi at MCC for relaxation and growth inside

One of my blessings is while dealing with Mom sick in the hospital is Madisonville Community College atmosphere and how the Tai Chi class helps me cope and relax. As a care giver, it is hard to take time for yourself. It is a good blessing that folks I can look up to are good influences in my life. One thing we talked about in between three sets of forms was what heroes we have for good things. So you could think to things like Jane Goodall, a scientific hero of mine, Ben Franklin a childhood hero, Cousteau, Steve Irwin, Issac Asimov, Leo Laporte for technology reporting on TechTV etc., James Hancock a Madisonville post man and expert bird watcher who I used to do Christmas bird counts with in support, Paul Summers who is the most honest politician I ever knew, Don Hayes who mentored me in the office and who shows best how best to live your life, Charlie Basset who worked with me for many a year and who was one of the WWII veterans who made this world safe like my Uncle Donald and Uncle Buford, my teachers who taught me how to think and learn to love learning, and spiritual influences like Christ, John Wesley, Paul Cartwright who as a circuit rider preached with two pistols on the pulpit in the 1700's, Paul, Barnabas, Peter, Buddha, and Silas.  We all are the sum of the positive and negative influences in our lives and I was lucky to have good parents, family, and was lucky enough to have many good friends that enrich my life from the Van Sandt's, Greg, Jim, Nancy, and Ann Wilson, the Madison family, and now Larry and Cherri Neisz I got to know recently as neighbors. I worked with an extended family that meant a lot to me as co workers and operators I inspected for years. Many folks are not that blessed. But heroes can include ordinary folks not famous that simply do good things to make the world a better place like Sue Ann Salmon I know from Madisonville, Mrs. Sigler my Ky History teacher at Providence, Rella Jenkins my guidance counselor from MCC days, and many a fire marshall, EMT, fireman and policeman I saw in action at spills regularly doing heroic things well.  Part of growing as a person is being nurtured by good influences in your life. Now that I am retired I look at going back to MCC after a full career for fun things like my Tai Chi class as a circle of life that has been enriched by encountering folks all this time. I have even added new friends in my class now. Just like my barn family includes Trinity Stables and Hazel and Frank's for learning about horses and riding- and Tai Chi also helps with riding well- I am lucky enough to have many friends and family that help add to my life.

I was recently thinking about popular culture links to our every day life. I like to collect old radio programs as mp3's, and enjoy even the commercials from the 1930's and 1940's when radio was the Internet of its day for communication. The Shadow was an influence with Zorro for the Batman, Sherlock Holmes was an influence for every detective that came afterwards, and many a scientific concept came from Issac Asimov, Sir Arther Clarke, EE Doc Smith, Philip Jose Farmer, Robert Heinlin etc. into popular culture even in the history of some words. Issac Asimov for example added the Three Laws of Robotics used in even other media. Just because something is of popular culture also does not mean it is not culture. Even Charles Dickens was a popular culture in his day with crowds reported at the dock waiting for the ship to arrive with the latest edition of the magazine publishing installments of his stories with the cry, "What of Little Nell?" Now that is success in popular media that still now is studied in school, and I have in a card game called Authors!

Live long and prosper and may all your cultural moments be popular and uplifting.

Caring for the elderly

I have been taking care of my Mom since March 4th, 2009, in Regional Medical Hospital with Dr. Harralson, and Dr. Wood, three floors of nurses now, the emergency room staff, and Dr. Fellows all involved in a team effort to make her better. Mom is the widow of a retired Methodist minister and lived alone until the ice storm evacuation. There Diana and I found she needed more help daily and had more health care issues. I ended up calling Wound center on some pressure sores and with Betty's help and Dr. Larson got them treated. We found out she had only 82 on oxygen and that lead us to the emergency room, Dr. Harralson a fine young man, and being admitted. She went from third floor, to 4th floor after surgery, to 6th floor transitory care under medicare rules. The surgery was to remove a ping pong sized stage II tumor out of her urinary bladder that has been making her anemic for days and since that was her 12th cancer surgery in her life at age 92, that was a lot for her to go through. The nurses have been good to her and physical therapy has worked with her to get her up to the hallway, to sit in a chair out of the bed, and to move around with even exercies in bed for range of motion. Movement like breath is life and she is still on oxygen. Working to have roles reverse, getting the care for quality of life the best I can, and trying to handle all of mom's business including the destruction of her meter, the yard trees, and fence damage while dealing with three insurance claim adjusters while Mom needed care has been hectic. I have learned the role of care giver includes having good days, bad days, and sometimes painful days of worry where you go in the room as sunshine no matter how much your mind whirls when you leave that room. I have used the time while she was in care to get feed her at meal time to encourage her to eat while working on getting projects here done. I have worked hard to get her direct deposit control, get her projects maintained, keep her home safe while getting my home prepped to have the front bedroom become her room near the guest bathroom facing the front for a view. I may need to center a hospital bed on an air mattress plugged in backing up the house with a generator, where I can help turn her on a turning sheet and prop her off the pressure wounds even in that mattress. Elderly care I am trying to learn how quickly. Thankfully I have family and friends that care about me and that helps make a difference. It is really a blessing.

Peyton

Ice storm 2009 and the clean up begins

The latest photos:

 http://picasaweb.google.com/peyton.adams/IceStormJan26Feb14th2009?feat=directlink

I have been working on three property issues due to the storm where we had no power for 14 days.

 Mom's house took limbs falling on her yard, on her fences, and on her new roof section, no power requiring Diana and I to evacuate her to my home at age 91, no phone, no cable due to lines crashing down, and her meter pulling off the wall.  My property had 55 trees and I now have 48 with damage, a giant limb on my harness shop, limbs on my roof, limbs on my garage, limbs on my side shed, and a yard full of debris. I worked 10 hours in two days and hauled off my neighbor's side of the creek channel we share on to my yard the limbs that fell. The channel receives flow from the state highway and by culvert from the far side of the roadway so it gets leaves from areas other than my trees. Half the channel is shared by my neighbor. During the storm the best comes out of people too.

 Larry and Cheri Neisz came up to sing by autoharp and guitar to serenade my Mom by lantern light heating with kerosene heater while we warmed tea water by Coleman camp stove. We managed to keep up with the world by portable scanner and listenting to WFMW radio locally as local officials came to the radio station to tell the world what was going on. The land line was in my driveway with the box for AT&T in the gutter of my roof pulled off, the cell phone towers crashed, I was charging the razr Motorola on my car jack, and using its browser to keep in touch and see Ryan Hammack's new baby that came during the storm, and after we got power back up we had a 57 mph wind storm that rushed through blowing more limbs down and requiring shingle damage repair on my home.The same storm blew underpinning off my old trailer and my neighbor's home while my water line under the place without heat tape or power burst and had to be shut off. Mom's house got so cold the refrigerator held until it got 71 degrees F after hitting 8 F during the storm. I ended up tossing out my refrigerator, freezer, garage freezer, Mom's refrigerator and freezer contents.

 Farm Bureau came and did Mom's and my place while I am still waiting to hear from Shelter Insurance about the wind damage at the mobile home. There is nothing like having Ike hit us in September with wind damage blowing the cap off Mom's house still covered in a tarp without the roofer getting to it, the ice storm, and then the next wind storm. At one time Kenergy reported 42,000 without power and 2500 snapped poles. I have a new pole in my back yard, the old one snapped at the base still on the ground by the old transformer in my back yard, and I was one of the lucky ones. Mom had her 92nd birthday on Feb 12th in my den where she now sleeps on the couch tucked in with 5 blankets as we prep the front bedroom to take her in to support her. She is very intelligent and sharp mentally but her body is getting frail. Mom really likes Larry and Cherri. Paul and Karen Summers came and helped stack and clean Mom's yard of limbs out front for the city to pick up. Ann Wilson helped me by having a place to do laundry and took in her freezer some of my steaks. I learned during the cold that you can take a bath out of no water rinse soap in a bread pan heated on a Coleman propane stove with your cat telling you its COLD and my service was lacking. Tiggerr has not been pleased. Meanwhile I have been cleaning Mom's laundry now I have power, cleaned the kitchen and both bathrooms and been washing everything in the front bedroom. I had Direct TV come out and have to repair the dish struck by the limbs and that let Mom on the 12th gain having TV to watch. I have several religious channels she can watch with her news programs to help her. I daily get her up, use a foam cleaner on her legs and feet and put her in clean socks, cover in the recliner with blankets and let her watch TV or listen to the radio as she sleeps a lot during the day. By 8 pm she is getting ready to go to bed tucked in the couch in the den with 5 blankets on top of her. 

I really felt alone when Diana and I lost every communication method we had in the dark and cold and I knew Mom was with me with roads blocked and the only hospital working off a generator. She was very fragile and the shelter in the First Methodist Church for the Red Cross had hot food but no heat. I still spent 6 1/2 hours of cleaning and chain sawing with John Gregory to get Jimmy Messamore's yard cleaned up by Mom's and the fence pulled up so his dogs could get in the front yard. The limb that fell got our fence and almost reached his deck plus we had to get the limb off his outbuilding for him. He is 85 and can't lift 5 pounds so I thought it was the decent thing to do. I still have two yards to clean up and I still need to get rid of the old mobile home at Elk Creek. Meanwhile I am working on getting things done for Mom's house, I need to get the limb off the harness shop and Jason Wiley has found a Glenn Bennet who is due at 10:30 am to to give me a quote on getting it off the shop so it can be repaired, then I get to get a new roof on the garage after that, and then deal with a property full of limbs down and more hanging in the trees overhead on my old walking trails on the property. I am next hoping to look into alternative power for emergency capability for the future. At least I had heat, water, a way to cook, camping gear, a way to get the septic tank pump powered by generator from a friend to keep it from overflowing as I have one that pumps to a front yard lateral field, and Mom was safe where Diana and I could look out for her.

 It is an adventure. There is a famous Chinese curse- and due to my Tai Chi work I have read a lot lately about Chinese literature and history- that goes something like, " May you live in interesting times!" We are still one of the lucky ones.I have Mom back in her recliner covered up as I wait for the latest contractor to see if he makes it on time. I waited all day yesterday. It is a common theme.

 I had this remind me as a geek of my 3 year old Christmas where Papaw lived on Happy Lane-that was really its name near Nebo Kentucky- and I stayed with him when the cold fired grate would die down during the night and buckets of water would freeze. You laid in the feather bed and pulled your jeans under the blankets to try and keep warm and did not dare move to either side. Your breath would freeze on the blanket, Mamaw would cook on a coal fired stove, Papaw would get up and fire up the grates, and his water was a hand pump dug well by the back porch. He had his own chickens, farmed with two 17 hand high mules, had his own pigs, his own outhouse near the chicken coop and smoke house, raised his own corn and vegetables for a root cellar and had two lights hanging down from the ceiling and an ice box on the back porch using a block of ice. He was actually more ready to survive than our era and had more skills on daily survival. He ended up taking care of Mamaw in Manitou as the arthiritis crippled her and as a tough old farmer became her nurse. I hope to be able to do as well for my Mom. After Mamaw died in Jan 1969, Dad died in October 1969 and two weeks later Papaw took a step in his kitchen with his pipe and matches in his other hand and died so fast he died in mid step. I always felt the fast way was his reward for being so faithful to help Mamaw who died by inches over months. I was always proud of him. I have his pocket watch and I hope to live up to his level. Its kind of like working with folks like Don Hayes who are such good folks and mentors you count yourself lucky to have them as friends, but you also know they set the bar so high you need to be worth of them as a friend too.

 When you are as lucky as me to have Summers, Wilsons, Madisons, Van Sandts, Carrolls, Davis's, Hornbacks, Burgers, Hayes, Bassets,Martins, and my work family and operators to have has friends you are rich even in a ice storm. I managed to check on Ron Daughertry who lives in Sorgho without power as one of my operators I was always honored to inspect and found as usual he was working to get his limbs cut up to donate the wood to an Ohio County elderly family that needed wood to burn for heat. When I got power back and went through all my emails sent by folks that had power it was a great relief to me since I was worried about so many. I did get to meet Pete DeFabio my neighbor better and that was good.

 I am trying to keep up my horse riding lessons, keep Mom safe and supported here, hopefully to keep getting to Fitness Formula to keep the knee rehab going etc. and this March Tai Chi at Madisonville Community College I hope to take again. Flint Bone came out and worked on my lock to the den with WD 40 while I got to show him my book collection on Tai Chi as a fellow student. It turns out Flint likes photography like me and my friend Tom Wortham and Lowell Mendyk. I posted the ice storm photos to my web album on Picasa which I use for all my digital photos now. I use a lot of google services. During the storm my friend Cecile Thomas broke her right femur and ended up in traction in a hospital bed after 6 days without power in Lexington and my friend and former director of the Kentucky Division of Water Sandy Gruzesky was driving early in the morning to Bluegrass Airport and hit a tree at full power getting hurt and having a lot of us having her in our prayers during this emergency time. Sandy was going to testify with Tom Fitzgerald my friend that is such an environmental expert in Kentucky on coal slurry ponds after the TVA spill in Tennessee that happened like the one I worked for a week that hit the Big Sandy from Martin County Coal years ago. She is a very forward thinking person, military wife and officer herself, and someone I knew when I was dating Diana when her horse I was on decided to run away toward the clothes line with me going WHOA. I managed to stop it about 6 feet from the line. Diana and I also duct taped and pad packed a sore foot for one of her horses. Horse people tend to know each other. Belle my Tennessee Walking Horse bay mare with star blaze was pretty shook up  during all the ice storm with limbs cracking popping and falling down. Oddly enough I was able to get to Trinity Stables Ministry and take a horse lesson from Robards Kentucky and that helped make me feel a little more normal. I was learning how to count 20 steps by Sparky a grandson of the great Secretariat dressage horse and then stop exactly on the 20th step. It turned out to be harder than you would guess since 19 or 21 is not good enough and you have to be going straight all the time. Its almost an exercise to be mentally aware of every time your horses left leg moves up and kind of feel your horse more innately. Sparky did better when I tacked him up since I am also being trained in how to tack, bridle, halter, and groom the right safe way. Since Sparky likes to bite, its a good lesson on how to be aware while grooming and talking to Sparky. My school had a semi come down the country road with the ice on phone lines and cut every phone line from Zion to Robards! They still do not have a phone. I sure felt better when my cell phone towers came back up. When you consider at one time even emergency responders had no grid up anywhere, all of Hopkins County was dark except for fires and generator lights, there was only one station in Madisonville with a generator for fueling even police cars, the ham radio tower back up went down, the KU and Kenergy systems went down, AT&T could not even cell phone their own people when they lost fiber optic cables twice that connect cell phone towers, my computer modem had no phone line for DSL, my wireless laptop had no modem to talk to and no easy way to recharge it, and my only weather browser was on my cell phone and it was my only contact with family with friends when the towers were repaired. 

Folks all over the county had oxygen generators running out of power with oxygen tanks as emergency back up being hauled by back and elbow to supply them with the roads blocked by debris and wires etc.

 Tuesday morning on January 27th, Mom was saying she could huddle over a gas heater and stay warm and did not want to leave her home. Diana and I had to use my mother in law to tell Mom she had to leave as we drove over there just as her phone failed later. When we got there the house was already colder and Mom was still in bed. We got her bugged out in two intense hours of throwing stuff together and picked her up and down the ice coated sidewalk to the Toyota as branches were falling down all around us and Mrs. Hopes meter pulled off her wall as I got the car door open for Mom. I managed to get Mom to my house, and Diana put down two bath towels down on the ice in front of Mom so she could shuffle with walker and cane across the towel and then we would pick up the back towel and put it down in front of her and eventually like rolling blocks to build the pyramids we managed to get her in the den. I had to sit down for a while when we had Mom here covered in blankets and safe. I got her for Christmas one of those blankets with sleeves, Sonny Hovious had gotten her a blue and white fleece wrap, and I had a Batman blanket Louis and Gina Madison gave me years ago with a Cookeville throw of Diana's and we managed to get her warm and safe. I have been working since to keep her comfortable and feel safe here. I discovered she really needed more support and help than she had wanted to admit before and I think I may be able to keep her happier with me and safer. I hope to have the front bedroom prepped with my old twin bed staged in the bedroom so she can have a level ground beside her own bathroom by the laundry and near the kitchen with her own TV, radio, etc. Mom's biggest hurdle here is there are two steps to get up from the den towards the parlor floor where we stage her walker to get her safely to the bathroom and kitchen. I know how to cook and clean and at 56 now that I had my birthday on Feb 15th, I know how to do nursing support after all the times I took care of family and friends in hospital rooms all these years. I can get in the floor and hand clean my Mom's feet after all she did for me when I was much smaller and needed even more help. My Mom is worth a lot more than that.