Laughter is the Best Medicine

At our house we have three indoor babies. My mother has a SchiTzu (Lola), I have a Yorkie (Ella Bella) and then we have a Miniture Poodle (Scrappy).

Animals are so funny, you treat them like your babies so they are actually a member of your family. And they are great company for my mother when she is at home during the day by herself. Each one of our babies have their own personalities and it feels like they are human kids most of the time. They eat at a certain time and get treats just like humans. In fact when I go to the store and buy dog food the bill is just about the same as when my kids were still at home.

I will start with Scrappy the Poodle, he is 9 years old and is like a grouchy old man, well of course in human years he is 49 years old, and over weight with a very short attention span and frequent trips outside to potty. He loves to eat and when he gets excited about something, he jumps up & down and looks like a small white oversized miniture sheep. He likes to smile and tries very hard to talk to you. I just can’t understand what he is saying.

Lola the SchiTzu, she is my mothers baby and I do mean baby. My mother adopeted her from a litter of puppies that my cousin had. She was a very laid back puppy and still is, which is good for my mother. Moving fast or getting excited all of the time is not a good thing for my mother. She has one speed and it is all her own, she will tell you that she will get there when she gets there. Lola follows my mother around the house like a shadow all day long. When my mother sits down, Lola lays down at my mothers feet with her head on my mothers feet. She is very quiet & sweet, I don’t think we ever heard her bark until she had been with us about a month. we have had her taken from our locked back yard in the past and we were very fortunate to get her back. I won’t tell you who took her but be very careful of maintance people working around your neighborhood.

Then there is my Ella Bella! She is my baby and thank goodness there is not another one like her, because she is very high maintance. When I am home she is perfect, but when I am gone, my mother tells me she becomes a bully to the other two and just wears her out. I must admit she does have a mind of her own, but we will wrestle and play together and just have a blast. She makes me laugh. She dances when I sing to her, I don’t know if it is because she like the singing or it is hurting her ears. She knows when it is bedtime and will stand and look at me and not move, regardless how long it is until I go to my bedroom. She has her own pillow and she will lay on it on my bed and look at me until I lay down. She is a blanket hog, if she is cold she will pull the blanket on top of her and snuggle up against me. She thinks she is a German Shephern in a Yorkie Body. She loves for me to toss her in the air and catch her. I would be lost without my little one. I adopted her when she was about 6 months old, from some people that purchased her in Texas and did not have the time to spend with her to train and love her.

When I take my mother out of the house we put our babies in their kennels. And when we return home, it is like you just got home from work and your children are at you, all at the same time yelling mommy mommy. Only they are barking their heads off like you have deserted them for days and you have only been gone 2 hours.

But we love them and they keep our lives interesting and they are wonderful companions.

Last week I noticed a very pregnant cat running through the neighborhood, actually running out of my mothers garage. This is very disturbing to me as I am known as the neighborhood relocater. Cats must be able to talk to each other, because it seems that my mothers garage is like Motel 6 for stray and abandoned pregnant cats. I can just hear them discusing their living arrangements with the new comers in the area, and pointing a paw to each house and discussing the times that dinner is put out for the animals that actually live in each house and when the new ones can show up and eat.

All but one cat in the area that we live in have been spayed or neutured. Except for one very fiesty male cat. I call him Frico the wonderer. I was feeling pretty good about no unwanted animals when I spyed a very pregnant calico female. She had to have been abodoned or dropped off in the area because I had not seen her before. It was Friday night and I already had a plan to set my animal traps with tuna in the can and take her to the vet down the street to adopt her & her kittens out.

I will never hurt and animal, just take then somewhere else where they can get shelter, food & water. I woke up Sat. morning feeling very sure of myself that I caught her and could take her to the vet and be at my grandchildrens scoccer games by 10:am.

What a shock when I checked my animal trap. I didn’t catch a very pregnant cat, it was a very big, ugly and very nasty smelling Possium. This is the 4th possium that I have caught but this one was twice the size of the other ones and much much uglier and mean looking. This one scared me. Since I was running short on time. I put the cage in my car and took it with me to the soccer games, I decided that my son in law could help me let this one loose in the woods.

The possium stunk so bad I was sick to my stomach by the time I got to the soccer field. I had all four of my windows rolled down on the highway so the wind would blow the smell out, but it still stunk. I asked my son in law to help me let it go in the woods and he put on a very brave face and said sure, I’ll help you. When it came time to open the cage my son in law stood about 5 foot behind me with my long ice scrapper in his hand to protect me if he needed to Of course by the time he would have gotten tp me I would have already been bitten.

Long story short, the possium has a new home and I have a cleaned out detailed car.

And how was your day.

How often do you laugh at yourself? I consider myself an intelligent woman, but I can do some pretty silly things, I am just glad that I can laugh at myself. I have some really good friends that use to call me just to get a good laugh.

I have been known to try and tackle jobs that I have never done before and somehow manage to get the job done but it might not have been the best way to get it done.

When I started driving, before I was allowed to take the car out by myself, after I have gotten my drivers license, I had to be shown how to take a tire off and put one back on. My father said that this was for my own benefit, just in case of emergencies. But I always called him or my brother anyway when I needed help. I was living out of state and decided that I needed an oil change, so I went to the store and bought the oil which was all I thought you needed at the time. (I didn’t realize that you also needed a new oil & air filter) I really though I was doing something, I put on my overalls, pulled the car up on the curb (I didn’t have a jack) got under the car with a bucket, unscrewed the bolt to the oil pain and oil went everywhere. Have you ever tried to move really fast in a very confined space, Its not very easy to do. When I calmed down, I heard my neighbor laughing really loud on his front porch so I crawled out from under the car to see what was so funny and he laughed even louder. I walked over to him and he had me look in a mirror and we both laughed until we cried. I was covered in oil from head to toe. He told me that when he saw what I was going to do he just couldn’t contain himself, he put a chair on his front porch and had to watch the show, I had such a look of determination on my face. And when he saw the oil running down the street he knew that I missed the bucket and droped the bolt. I lived there for two years and never had to do my own oil change again, he always volunteered to do it for me and I never said no!

I remember moving once and I had just gotten a brand new waterbed, I had never had one before and I was looking forward to a first time experience! You just fill it up with water and plug in the heater, Right? That would be true with just about anybody else but me. I set it up and screwed on the water hose to start the filling up process. I was really tired from moving, so I laid down on the floor in the next room. What a big mistake! I fell asleep for about 2 hours, I woke up with the sound of running water coming out of the next room. I went running in the next room and there was a water fall shooting out of where the hose was connected. My waterbed poped up and looked like a fresh baked loaf of bread. I disconnected the hose from the faucet and let it start draining, while I went to a rental shop to get a wet vac to save the carpet. When I got back the bed was about normal, so I started on the carpet, I was working furiouly trying to soak up the water from the carpet when the wet vac started shooting out sparks. Now I had sparks flying in a room with a waterbed that was made of rubber. Not a very good combination. Not to mention I was standing in water using electricity, electricution did cross my mind and it was not in my cards. I took the wet vac back to the rental store expained what happened, and the guy behind the counter started laughing so hard he fell down. Then he told me that the last time that wet vac was rented the same thing happened so he didn’t charge me for the rental. He said that the laugh covered the cost.

I would like to say that I do learn from my mistakes, but I am afraid I do have some repeats. This only makes me laugh at myself more

I always say that Laughter is Great for the Soul!

Does it always seem that you are being picked on by nature? We have parking lot that we park at, that is about two blocks away from our building, so I call it the South 4o. So when I refer to the South 40 this is what I am referring to.

Last night when I was walking to the South 40 after work, I was looking at the ground and noticed some unusual slimy wet spots and wondered what they were, when all of a sudden somthing is shooting accross infront of my face. I looked up in the trees and notice a rather large group of birds perched there trying to target practice on the people walking by. I found this really funny as I watched other people including myself pick up our pace to our car.

Today at lunch, I was driving and my best friend had her hand sticking out the downed window playing with the wind, when she was targeted by the birds. I thought that this was halarious. Are birds really smart enough to do this.

I had to remember back many moons ago when I was married and my husband had a recessed hairline. He was out in the yard working, raking leaves and hauling trash, when I heard this loud yell and saw foriegn objects flying through the air. I looked at him and he was targeted by a fast flying blackbird that had been eating mulberries, at least that is what I would say according to the color of it.

I had a convertible and was driving with my mother and had the top down, when in a moving vehicle I was targeted in my lap. My mother and I laughed until we both were crying. I had makeup running down my face just as we were pulling up at the drive up window at Del Rancho, and my mother wanted to know why the lady was looking at me so strange.

Life is too short not to enjoy the little things that bring a smile to our face, remember to stop and smell the roses and smile once in awhil at least make people wonder what you are thinking.

I love kids sports and to be more specific, my grandchildrens sports. I am one of those grandmothers that is always on the side lines and always cheering. I get so excited that my daughter will actually come by and stand by me and say “mom are you having fun yet”?

All three of my grandchildren play soccer, they have been kicking balls around since just about their first steps walking. My son in law was actually offered a Soccer Scholarship in Highschool, but instead of taking the Scholarship he married my daughter. I know that he often wonders what could have been if he had taken the scholarship, but I also see how much he loves my daughter and what a fantastic father and husband he is. I am very proud to call him my second son.

Now that you know the background. My grandaughter is my first grandchild and she was barely walking while kicking balls at the same time. I call her, My Sunshine! They even have a Rotweiler (dog) that would kick and chase the soccer ball all over the backyard, my son inlaw would go in the backyard and play soccer with him. Of course now, the dog is about 12yrs old in people years and doesn’t run like he use to, but he still has the soccer ball and is all over the place with it.

Soccer is usually three outdoor seasons a year and I don’t know how many indoor seasons. They mainly play their games at Southlakes Soccer Field in Moore. I am usually so pumped up on the way to the games, I am listening to my car stereo to songs like “We Will We Will Rock You” or “We Are The Champions My Friend!” My granddaughter thinks this is halarious. I take my folding chair and my water bottle & don’t forget the camera and my mother on her scooter. I sit in the chair until the game starts and thats all I can handle.

I am on my feet hooting, yelling, clapping, cheering all the girls on and having a blast. I get so excited I forget to take pictures, my chairs sits empy for anybody who would like to sit in it, and my daughter is so busy laughing at me she almost looses track of the game. The girls on this team she plays with all started together and know each others moves and really support each other. My mother will be pretty quiet until my girl steals the ball and away we go, shes yelling for her to goal it. They are awsome and they are only 10 year olds playing 12 year old girls. My daughter was told that the Scouts for the Olympic team will be out scouting the 12year olds this season but don’t be surpirsed if they scout my girl.

Now my 2nd grandchild, the one I call My Man, is 7 years old and has practiced with his sister until he could start playing soccer about 3 years ago. He has learned alot just by observing the games and playing in their practices. He has developed his own skill styles and is a wonderful player. When he started it was a riot. I love to laugh and it was great for the soul. If you have ever watched a 5year old play soccer it is great to see, they will get so excited that they will go to kick the ball and that foot will just keep on swinging and they will fall head over heels on the ground, or they will get distracted by something on the side lines and stop what they are doing and just stare. I love it, they are adorable. But his coach is his dad and their team has been #1 at South Lakes Soccer Field for the past two years in their age group. When he gets or steals the ball, you can see this look of concentration on his face and his little tounge sticking out with a grin so large and bright on his face that it could light the sky. He is definetly one to watch.

Now my third grandchild started this season. It’s kind of scary because he doesn’t appear to be afraid of anything and he is such a little guy. He is an asthmatic and takes a breathing treatment every morning. But it dosesn’t slow him down. I know they say big things come in little packages, and if you ever see this little package, I do believe its true. He has two games this Sat. and I have to be there on the sidelines with my camera to get my first glimpse of the “wee one ” coming into his own. This is my little man Tate.

Make yourself feel good, instead of sitting around inside of the house being bored watching TV and go and watch our up and coming generation play some kind of sport. You don’t have to be related to any of them. It is watching life bursting all around you and feeling the energy and excitement that they put off, that helps ignite that spark inside.

What would you do if you were in your golden years and had a family member living with you helping you to get by on a daily basis with your day to day routines and another family member ask you how much money you have in the bank or if they can have a copy of your last will & testament.

Would you be offended? What thoughts would go through your mind? As you know I live and help take care of my mother on a daily basis and have since Sept. 6, 2003. That is 6 1/2 years of my life that has been given to my mother.

In that time we have gone through multiple health crisis and some major remodeling to my mothers home. Remodeling old bathrooms that had water leaking in the floors and walls for years, adding a sunroom that she always wanted to give more light and room to the house, a privacy fence so she had privacy in her backyard from the new neighborhood that was built behind her house, a new CH&A unit, a new hot water heater, backup generator etc. Mostly updates to her house to make it more condusive for her daily living. I have taken her on trips to see things that she had wanted to see before, but never been able to, due to sickness or finances.

I have always tried to give her whatever she needed when she mentioned it so she never had to want for anything. I put all the work that had to be done on my own shoulders and handled all the details and muscle that was needed.

Recently she has mentioned to me that another sybling has been inquiring how much money she has in her banking account and asking for a copy of her Last Will & Testament. This upset her termendously as it would me. That is very private information, and as far as I am concerned nobody elses business. How would you like to be asked the same thing! Our important papers are locked up at well as copies are at our attorneys office.

I am sorry but this does not sit well with me, if my own children had asked me for the same information, I would have said it was none of their business and they would find out when I was gone. Life is for the living, and if you can afford to do something that you would really like to do, then do it. You can’t take it with you so why not enjoy what life you have left. After all it is your money and was left for you.

Who knows how long you will be on this earth, enjoy what you can when you can. It really doesn’t matter what other people think. If they are not walking in your shoes, they really don’t know what it is like.

I love to laugh and do things all the time to try and keep my mother laughing. She is not getting younger, and does feel all the aches and pains as we age which really don’t do much for her desposition, so let her be and if she ask you do something for her, just do it. If she ask your advice, give it but remember you are not walking in her shoes so think it through before you answer.

If you really want to make her feel loved and appreciated without a price in your head. Then ask her if there is anything that she needs, call and invite her out for dinner without an catches. Spend more than an hour with her at a time and don’t criticise her or me for what ever reason you may come up with. Be happy with your life as she is trying to be happy with hers and mine. Find something to make you laugh and stop and smell the roses on a daily basis you will find life will be so much more rewarding. Smile at somebody who looks like their having a bad day, it just might bring a smile back to you on their face. You do get less wrinkles when you smile ( I read that in a book somewhere).

Do you ever have those family get togethers where the family sits around and talks and laughs about things that have happened in the past? Well I have a story for you!

This story actually happened about 11 or 12 years ago, believe it or not.

My father came from a family of eight children that were raised during the depression, one of his brothers who lived in El Paso, Texas passed away, and we were planning the final trip to El Paso for his funeral.

I had a 2 door Ford Explorer, my father was 6′4″ tall and my mother is 4′11″ tall and I was the one driving. Now when you have a two door explorer, it can be a challenge for anybody to get into the back seat. My mother was so short that she needed a helping hand up and then had to crawl on her knees in the back and my fathers legs were so long that they would get tangled in the seat belt straps everytime he got in or out of the car. My father had Alzhimers Disease and was in the middle stage of it, the stages where you were confused or disoriented most of the time but there were moments of clarity when you knew everything that was going on. He did know that we were going to his brothers funeral in El Paso and it would be a very long ride.

Now if you have ever been to El Paso, Texas, it is in the middle of no where and either very hot and dry or cold and wet. Everything started out normal. When we arrived in El Paso, Texas we checked into the hotel and contacted other members of the family and let them know that we were there. They explained where the church was and where my uncle was so we could go and visit. Bless my dads heart he was excited to see his other brothers and sisters but very hard to handle and at times very disoriented.

That night my mother, father, younger brother and myself stayed in the same hotel room. My father ws very confused, he forgot where we were and started pounding on the walls. My mother was a nervous wreck and my brother and I looked at each other and we both wanted to run away. After everything settled down, it was either laugh or cry and it was much better to laugh.

We went to the church the next day and had a beautiful service, that is if any funeral can be beautiful. Now is when it gets wierd. After the funeral and you all line up to go to the cemetery in your procession line, we had about 25 vehicles in this line. But we kept driving and driving until we were almost 30 miles outside of town. My dad was very anxious, a person with Alhizmers does not stay confined inside of a car very well, it reminded me of the commercials are we there yet.

When we finally arrived at the cemetery to our surprise the grave had not been dug yet! There was some confusion about the equipment being there to do the work and the time that it had to be done. At any rate, we were all asked to leave and go back to out prospective places that we were staying and wait for a phone call. The funeral director was to call us when it was time to come back for the funeral.

Well just before dusk the funeral director called and said that everything was done and it was time to go back. After I managed to get my parents back into my vehicle we made the long drive back out to the cemetery. The bobcat was there to dig the hole but it had still not been dug. Now this cemetery was 30 miles outside of town and there were no street lamps around for light. It was an old fashioned cemetery. The moon was the brightest that I had ever seen it.

It was now getting dark, we were asked to move our cars where our headlights would shine on the bobcat and we could get this hole dug and have this over. We had car battery’s going dead. It was finally dug and the preacher was talking, remember the car lights are still on us. He finishes talking and goes to hand the folded United States Flag to my aunt, (as my uncle had been in the Navy) and drops the flag and it falls beneath the casket into the hole. The guy that was working the backhoe, crawled down into the hole and picked up the flag, handed it to the funeral director and tried to give it to my horrified aunt.

Of course the flag was desecrated and he was trying to give it to my aunt. My aunt of course refused to take the flag and said that it needed to be sent back to Washington DC and burned and replaced with another one. It is now pitch dark and there are wolves howling in the background. My father falls into a sticker patch getting out of my vehicle after having his legs getting tangled in the seat belt straps, my mother goes to help him and falls on top of him in the sticker patch. I took pictures of the whole thing, but the film was double exposed and the pictures that printed looked like ghost people standing in a cemetery at night.

Now even though this is a solem occasion, you have to laugh. I would never have thought that I would be involved in something like this in a hundred years. This is a story that will be in the family for a long, long time.

This Friday will be the installation day of the famous backup generator by Generac. All Installation is done by licensed professionals, all cost are included into the total balance that you will pay. Installation Includes Ground Preperation, Permits, Materials, Power Box with Back Up Switch inside your house and of course the generator etc.

We have a 4 bedroom house approx. 1800sq’ mol, and this generator is suppose to handle all of our emergency needs should we have a power shortage in the cold or heat. We will need power for our Central Heat and Air unit, 2 Refridgerators, 1 Microwave, 1 Freezer, my mothers By-Pap (Breathing Machine) & Oxygen Machine. We purchased a 14,000kt Unit. Which should be more than enough power to get us by.

The installer from Generac comes out to your house and will estimate how many kilowatts you will need to just get you by or have alittle extra kilowatts if needed, according to your personal needs. Before you purchase the unit and have it ordered. I found out some very interesting things as I am always loaded with questions, my mother says I am one of those people that has the mind set of, inquiring minds want to know.

I did find out that you use less watts when you use your Central & Air Unit compared to a free standing or ceramic heater. I would have thought it to be the opposite. There are units that run off of natural gas or propane gas. The unit that we are having installed will run off of natural gas as our house is gas & electric. When the placement is picked for the unit, it has to be at least 3 to 4 feet away from any window, due to the possibility of carbon dioxide being released in the air.

Our gas meter is behind our house and beside our sunroom. A licensed plumber will lay the gas pipes up to 5 feet from the gas meter without charging extra fees, if they had to dig out further it would cost Approx. $30. more per foot. The installation should take one to two days to be completely installed. You have a one year warranty on the Generac Unit or you can purchase a separate service agreement and have it maintained longer and more frequently.

I contacted my homeowners insurance to see it I needed to have it covered, we do not and the policy does not change. The unit is under the dwelling part of our insurance policy. It does ad to the value of the home should it ever be sold. There will be a weekly test done and this will be set up on a timer by the tenichian to insure that the unit is working correctly. Every Sat. when the noon bell goes off the generator will kick in and run approx. 15 minutes. It s being set up to kick on when the noon bell goes off, as it is a generator and all generators are not quiet and this should not disturb any of our neighbors. Did I mention that you can purchaset a muffler to be put on the generators so they are hardly noticed when they are running? So far everything sounds fantastic.

My mother is like a kid in a candy store right now, she is so excited that she can hardly stand it. She will be able to stay in her own home should and problems arise with the power being loss for any amount of time.

If this is something that you may want to consider, we purchased our unit through Lowes and they handled all details. This is not an cheap purchase, but not everything worth having is.

This puts a smile on my face, peace of mind is a wonderful thing.

My mother will celebrate her 75th Birthday tomorrow, March 5. Whenever she is asked her birthdate, she is quick to answer 3/5/35. She was born in the eyes of March. In a little farm house between Enid & Pond Creek Oklahoma.

She has had a tough life but a full life. If you ask her about her life she will tell you, that she lost her mother when she was 2yrs old in Pond Creek, Oklahoma to a blood clot after surgery. She has one older sister and one yournger sister. She was raised by her grandmother and step mom and physically abused by her step mom on a daily basis.

She was married at 16yrs old, had my older brother at 17. My father was in the military and died in an awlful car accident celebrating his 21st birthday, my mother was 19 years old and 8 1/2 months pregnant with me at the time.

She remarried when I was 2 years old, My step father was fantastic and he was the only father I ever knew. My older brother died in a drowning accident when he was 29 years old. I had two other brothers from my step father, who I always considered my real brothers as well as my older brother.

My younger brother died of a heart attack at the age of 41, in 2003. My Step father died of Alhiezmers in Dec. of 2004. I could not imagine losing one child not to mention two husbands and two children. She ask the lord almost everyday why she is still here. I tell her, it is because the lord still has a plan for her and there is still unfinished business on the earth for her to do yet.

She has three grandchildren, and four great grandchildren who love her very much. Tomorrow she will be 3/4 of a century old, and has earned everyone of those years. If I could write down all the knowledge that she has learned and all the wisdom that she has to pass on, how much further ahead I would be in this world.

I have heard the stories of the pranks that she has done to other people growing up in a small town, everything from the Haloween Parades down main street where the local kids have stolen the outhouses from someones property and left them parked in the middle of the main drag to the hang outs at the cemetery and the highschool inititations with the horse collars. And I am so thankful that I did not have to go through them.

Celebrate life with your loved one, tomorrow may bring curves, hills and valleys to go through and you may be left wondering how you got there without the guidance that could be given so freely and easily.

Don’t forget yourself when you are wrapped up in the every day process of taking care of your loved ones. You need to be able to tell your story too….

In talking with a co-worker the other day, I was reminded of one of many of my trips to the hospital with my mother. Since I have been living with her, which started in Sept. of 2003, we have made several trips to the Midwest City Emergency Room which ended up in several hospital stays.

Sometimes you just have to remember to laugh, because life is so serious with everthing that happens on a daily basis, if you don’t laugh you will just bring yourself down and everyone around you. This can really give you a bad taste and outlook on different situations that happen in the course of daily living.

I will start this story by laying the foundation. When I was 16 years old back in the 70’s, my Great Grandmother had to be placed into a nursing home. Three days after she was admitted into the nursing home she passed away. She was placed in there because she couldn’t see well enough to take care of herself anymore, other than that she was healthy. She told my mother at that time that if they put her into the nursing home she would die. My mother made me promise that I would never put her into a nursing home. I have held to that promise, but at 16 I really did not realize everthing that could happen and the changes it would make in my life commitments.

I did have to put her into a rehab part of a nursing home for a very short time, it was only for rehab after a knee replacement surgery. She had one knee totally shot and the other one about half as bad as the other. Part of the program after the total knee repalcement in the hospital was a daily excercise class that she was to participate in. She was in so much pain that she refused to participate and she was given meds like the other patients that had the same thing done. I know that it had to have been very painful, but the exercising would have helped to ease the pain. The instructor warned her that she would take longer to recuperate and would have to go somewhere else if she did not start participating in the exercising classes, but she would not cooperate and was very hateful.

When she heard that she was to go to a nursing time for a short time, she came unglued. I could not leave her at home with an unstable leg to get around on all by herself, and I did have to go to work. I still have my own bills to pay.

They were kind enough to put her across the hall from the nurses station since she was only there for rehab and would be leaving soon, she had a telephone in her room so she could call me. The problem was, they put her into a room with a lady who was permenently bed ridden and not in her right mind. And when you put a another woman in a room that is on pain medicine and not thinking clearly and very upset that she is there in the first place, it makes for a very bad combination. This lady started telling my mother that the nurses were going to take all of her pain medicine and give it to other patients, and when I left she would not get anymore and she would lay there in pain. My mother flipped, I talked to the nurses and let them know what was being said, and they informed me that this lady hallucinates and to not listen to anything she says.

I went back and talked to my mother and she calmed down, but in her mind the lady was crazy and she was in a crazy house. I stayed as late as I could without having slept for two days before I left to go home and take care of our pets and try to get some sleep myself. I had just gotten to sleep around 12:30 in the morning when I received this frantic phone call from my mother, yelling at me to come and get her and bring her home or she was leaving on her own. She said that the lady in her room was crazy and was trying to get her to go into cahoots with her against the nurses. My mother had already called 911 on the telephone in her room, and she was mad as a hornet at them , the police said that there was nothing they could do to help her. I called the police department and apologized for my mother and they acted like this is something that happens all the time.

I went back to the nursing home and told my mother that I would still have to go to work and she would be by herself at home, that she should have exercised with the other knee replacement patients and she wouldn’t be in this predicament. Of course she didn’t want to hear that either. After staying home a couple of days with her at home and arranging for physical therapy to come to the house 2 times a week, she finally came to terms with what she had done and what she needed to be doing. Being alittle hard headed at times is not always a good thing, not to mention some of the pain medicine she was on changed her personality, and made her very mean and angry. Of course since I was the one that was always there, I was also the one that received the blunt of the anger and agression.

I have been there for the knee surgery, three back surgeries, a heart attack, diabetes emergencies high and low, difficulty breathing eye surgeries and other aliments. I am still trying to hold onto the promise I made when I was 16 years old, all the while promising myself that I will never do this to my children. Life is too short and I need to learn to relax and laugh alittle bit more.

I never know what tomorrow holds so I enjoy today and smile, and hope that it puts a smile on someones elses face.