more yankee than texas this week

I am up North this week. I have been here since Friday, the earliest Continental could get me here for a mere $1400 after my Mom landed in the hospital on Thanksgiving. No no, not an overeating incident. She bruises really easily, and one on her heel erupted into ickiness and was infected pretty bad. No appointments at the wound center until this week, but on Thanksgiving it was so bad my Dad brought her in. It's got a MRSA infection, so she is in isolation. She's going nuts in there, poor thing. Today will be Day 7. Maybe she will come home tonight, but I do not think so. My bets are on Friday. I think I will have to extend my stay into next week.

The good side of being up here so long is the time to be alone with my Dad. My Mom and her assorted maladies tend to dominate life around here. So I have been able to observe my Dad closely and constantly. And his dementia is far more advanced than I realized. My God. It is amazing. I have been puzzling for a long time why he has been becoming more compliant and tolerant (generally) with me over time. Well, yesterday I figured it out. Right now he thinks I am my uncle. I ask him who I am, and I get "Onkel Heinz". I show him pictures of myself on the computer, and I get "Onkel Heinz! Where did you get that picture? He looks so young!".

Has he forgotten I am his son? Do I even exist any more? Odd, he recognizes that I am their sole heir. He knows I live in TX, work for big-red-multinational-energy-sector-company. He sort of knows that my Mom is indeed my mother. Of course, in the past he has asked her where his wife is. *sigh*

Dad is also just slowing down. That does not shock me. But added up with the perhaps-Alzheimer's, and it is pretty shocking. Same questions over and over, needing to be "directed" around, not following complex thoughts quickly. And his office. He has always been a pack rat, but now it looks like a recycling bin exploded in there. I have to attack that next. After I finish the master bedroom, which looked like Talbot's exploded in there. My mom cannot lift her arms far, and has been generally ill for so long, that my Dad had taken care of most household stuff. Well, now he is slowing down, so... things go downhill. The living room, bathroom, and kitchen are fine. Phew.

I have been slowly been trying to get them to move to TX since about May. Supposedly it takes a year to achieve this. I believe it. They are slowly coming around to the idea, asking about how the finances transfer (no need! the internet!), what about medications (we have CVS too!), are the hospitals as good (better, and there is one within walking distance from my house!), etc. It would be good to have them by me, and easier on driving for them. No need for anything but residential and plain surface streets. No highways.

Oh yeah. Driving. Their family doctor's young assistant doctor bitch submitted a form to the state that my father is not capable of driving safely. Well, it's not like he hits things. He's a good driver up to now, probably will be for a while yet. I happened to talk to the office manager at the doctor, and mentioned it to her and she nearly fell off her chair. They apparently never initiate these things. Well, this eager young chick did, and when I meet her I may have to strangle her.

So there. Don't mess with the Yankee, because now he's from Texas. Bitch.