Laughter is the Best Medicine

I remember being snowed in on Christmas Day and how cold it was and how it affected my mother. All she could talk about was the weather in Dec. 2007 the worse ice storm in the history of Oklahoma, and being without power at our house for almost a week and a half. The ice storm was horrible. We tried to stay at our house as long as we could because of our small animals, but my biggest concern was my mother’s health.

I had to start thinking of alternative placement very quickly. My son had gotten married in March of that year, so he and my daughter in law were still newly weds. My daughter & son in law lived in Moore like my son did, but they also had my  three grandchildren, who my mother and I adore, but make her a nervous wreck since she is not around them all the time.

I bit the bullet and called my son, he graciously invited us to stay with them, until the power came back on. I packed several days of clothes, my mothers medicine, oxygen and bypap (sleep machine) and two small animals. It was rough not having her own space like she did at home, but she was warm and she did not get sick.

I still worked and drove home every night to take care of the animals that were still there, (make sure that they had food and water  went outside & had plenty of warm blankets to curl up in) before I went to my son’s house in the evening. My mother was never comfortable at my son’s house, you are  never comfortable when you are out of your own element. But we got through it!

She informed me Christmas when the snow would not stop falling, that she was not going anywhere, we couldn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t even get the car out of the garage.  All I kept hearing was, she wished that she had gotten a backup generator that I could have had installed in the house and make sure that we did not lose power again.

You never think about those things until another emergency comes along, we do have a gas wall heater in our garage to help keep it warm there and protect the water pipes and outside animals. She informed me this time if the power goes out that we, meaning me, will hang some kind of a barrier in the garage to hold the heat in a smaller area so we can stay out there.

I always try and plan ahead, I have plenty of food & water, precription drugs refilled, oxygen, blankets, candles, batteries for the flashlights and radio, I love to camp out, so I try to be prepared. I have a Coleman Stove with Propane so I can at least cook some hot means to make sure that she has balanced meals with protein & vegetables.

If this storm happens like the weather men say it will, it could be a repeat of the storm from Dec. 2007, but hopefully not last as long.

Use common sense and take care of yourself and your loved ones and you should be just fine. Remember to smile, this is another memory, another story you can tell your grandchildren in the years to come.

As we come into the new year there is no doubt in my mind that there will be new problems or interesting situations and hurdles that will come up through out the new year.

It is Jan 19, 2010 and my mother has only made one trip to the doctor and that was for a recheck. So far the year has been good!

With the changes in the weather pattern and the the allergy count rising everyday could be a new challenge. My mother did mention that she would like to go on another cruise. I took her on one in Dec. 2003 and it was quite memorable.

My mother is not able to walk to far before having to sit down so I borrowed a wheelchair for this trip. Now I have pushed a wheelchair many times before but never on some of the surfaces that I was about to push her on.

We drove from Oklahoma City to New Orleans and had reserved our room with Carnival Cruise Lines. I never realized how many floors a cruise ship had, this one had 9 floors. Thank goodness our room was above the water line. I would have been having visions of the Titanic sinking through out the trip and Leanardo DeCaprio was not booked on this trip to save us.

The halls on a cruise ship are not that wide, so the first obsticle was getting down this long hall without running over everybody in my path with this wheelchair. Now if you are claustrophobic you might want to look at a more expensive room, like a suite with a balcony, you know the ones you see on the Love Boat Show on TV. You step up into your bathroom and have just enough room in the shower to turn around like a turkey on a rotisserie.

After we managed to get somewhat adjusted into our room, we decided to explore the ship, I soon found out that the halls were not the only obsticles. Considering that there were thousands of people on this cruise and the elevators were in constant demand, the elevators were big enough to get about 6 people in at a time and if you had a wheelchair maybe 3 people.

Bless my mothers heart, I was an awful driver of that wheelchair on that boat, I think I must have hit or bumped into just about every wall on every floor we went. This trip was to Puerto Vallarta, Cazumel one other place that I do not remember at the moment.

There was this beautiful resort that we stopped at in Cazumel that had beautiful white sand, I realized very fast that wheelchairs don’t roll too well on sand. The harder I pushed the deeper the wheelchair went into the sand, my mother gave me this look of , I thought this was suppose to be a relaxing trip. To make a long story short, we ended up having 4 strangers help me get the wheelchair up on a hard surface again with my mother in it.

We got back to the ship and she was sea sick, I let her lay down for awhile and went out on the deck to people watch. I met alot of new friends and throughly enjoyed the visit. Our next stop was at this Puerto Vallarta and it was time to go shopping! I pushed the wheelchair down the ramp and was met by 3 Mexican police carring machine guns. We were told that this was just for security reasons, we just smiled and went on by. The first store we came to, wsa passing out jiggers of free tequila to everybody who came inside. My mother had never drank and she took a hit of straight tequila, my eyes were stuck on the worm in the bottom of that tequila bottle. None for me Thank You!

We shopped and I quickly learned how to barter and get the best deals I could get. But you really have to watch the checkers when they wrap your packages to make sure that they put the items that you purchased, into the bags and not back on the shelf, a stewardess gave us this information.

We were back on the ocean heading back home when the captain of the ship came over the loud speaker and informed us the President of the United States had just raised our security to Yellow Alert for terrorist attacks. The next thing he said was that the President of the United States is aware that their are 4 cruise liners on the ocean at this time. Now if that doesn’t put a shock wave through you I don’t know what does.

I spent the rest of the cruise watching people and making sure that where ever we were I had a pretty easy exit planned. Its funny how you start watching out for anything unusual on the ship like, I saw some panels unscrewed with wires hanging out, your imagination can really get carried away.

We took the Christmas Cruise so there were special shows for the season in the evenings. One night this entertainer was on stage and he needed a volunteer from the audiance, and he saw my mother and tried to get her to come onstage, now my mother is from a small town and usually very quite and reserved, but her voice echoed through out that auditorium when she yelled No Thank You. All I could do was stare at her and wonder how that big voice came out of that little body.

It seemed after that night everywhere we went on the ship he was there and winking at my mother. I thought it was halarious, but she was ready to roll him over with the wheelchair. He even waved goodbye to us as we left the ship the last time, before we made our journey back home to good old Oklahoma.

We ended up having a wonderful time, and alot of laughs and Great Memories.

Remember to laugh, humor is the best medecine.

Since New Years Eve, I have seen snow or ice just about everywhere I have looked. It is so pretty when it first falls and as time goes on it looks so dirty and nasty. I am ready for the green grass again, even if I do have to mow it.

This weather has been extremely hard on my mother. It seems that no matter what she does she cannot get warm and with her breathing issues it really affects her health. It doesn’t matter what she tries to do to prevent it from happening, due to her weak lungs she will always have chronic breathing problems.

A long time ago I learned how to palpatate the lungs ( which is cupping the hands and patting the back to cause a suction motion) so I can help loosen up the gunk in her lungs, in hopes that she can cough it up and be able to breath easier. From the sound of her lungs last night, she will probably be back in the doctors office again this week.

She hasn’t got the energy to argue with me about anything right now which is kind of nice, but at the same time, I would much rather her be able to argue with me, I know she is feeling half way decent if she does.

I did some major house cleaning this last weekend and I am hoping that I did not stir up anything that is causing her to have breathing problems. I work so hard at trying to keep her healthy, that I would feel really awful if I stired up anything to cause her more problems.

On the up side I am keeping her battery operated scooter charged, just in case there is a chance that she will feel good enough to get out of the house again.

How is love your loved one doing during all of the weather changes? How are you dealing with it? If you have any suggestions on how to handle different situations better, please feel free to contact me and let me know.

I will be glad to post your suggestions on my blog. Remember to smile, it causes somebody else to smile. Have A Great Day!

Now that the holidays are over, my mother is in the best of moods and ready to get out and do more things. She had been under the weather for so long and I had, had a cold so we have been really low key, confined to inside the house.

Saturday morning she informed me that she wanted to go to a Casino. I took her for a hair cut , and off we went to the Casino, Firelake Casino in Shawnee, seems to be less smokey, so that is where we went.

I parked the car and proceeded to get her trusty little electric scooter out and ready for her and the battery was dead. That was my fault, in the excitement of her wanting to get out of the house, I forgot to charge it. So, I went into the Casino to see if they had a courtesy wheelchair that I could use for my mother while we were there. I just knew if they didn’t have one, I would never hear the end of it and maybe never get her out of the house again. I was so relieved when the lady behind the desk told me they did. I must have showed the relief on my face because the girl behind the desk really got tickled at me. I had a smile on my face from ear to ear, I guess I could have lit up a room with it.I took my mom inside the Casino and she had the best time, whether she was playing a game or watching the people.

When we were leaving I noticed that I have 14 missed calls on my cell phone. Now my mother and I were together the whole evening and never heard it ring. I started listening to my voice mails and was shocked at what I heard. My brother, son & daughter had been calling just to check on us. Now it is pretty bad when your kids panic because they are so use to you being at home all the time and they cannot get hold of you when they want to. My brother even had a message on there, telling my mother if she was to leave the house then she needed to call him and let him know.

Now my mother has gotten into this habit of asking me on my cell phone all the time where I am and when I will be home. She did not realize how bad she was until she heard my brother, tellling her that she needed to call him when she left the house.

I looked at her and said, so are you going to start calling him when you leave the house with me? Her response was, I guess I have been really bad and I didn’t realize how bad until I heard his message. NO, I will not call him when I leave the house, he doesn’t call me and tell me when he is leaving so why should I tell him? I looked at her and smiled and gave her a that a girl. She apologized to me and has lightened up just alittle bit, and boy does it feel good.

Right Now, everyday is like the Christmas to me. I feel less stress at home, which is a blessing. We reallly don’t know what another person is going through until we are in their shoes, we may think we know, but believe me until you are standing in the same shoes you really don’t understand.

I am celebrating Christmas everyday, how about you?