Leah

Just heard tonight that our dear, sweet Leah has passed away.
She has been in and out of the hospital since December...never quite able to recover her health.
Leah has been like a second mother to me since we moved into this ward....(she reminds me so much of my own mom...her sweet disposition, mannerisms, the way she talks, her amazing faith....I've told her several times what a blessing she has been in my life...then when she became my visiting teacher, we became very close.
I could write a whole book about what an amazing visiting teacher she has been. If you looked in the dictionary for a description of a perfect visiting teacher, you would see her picture there.
She would call several days before they were going to visit...(usually within the first two weeks of the month). If she couldn't reach me, she would leave a sweet message, then call back again and again until she got a hold of me.
She has had a few different partners while she was my visiting teacher. All of them wonderful too...but I knew it was Leah that made sure all of their ladies were visited.
When Leah came into your home, she brought the sweetest spirit... she is one of those people who let the light and love of Christ flow from their countenance.
She always asked about each one in my family, and how we were all doing. She wanted to hear about how KC was doing and always had something sweet to say about the service he is giving.
I always got the visiting teaching message, either from her or her partner. You could tell she had put a lot of thought into the message...didn't just read it, but gave her own thoughts about it. I remember several times we would all be in tears as she bore her sincere testimony.
She was a great listener...someone who was easy to talk to and open up to.
She was always bringing me sweet little gifts... I loved when she would bring me things from her garden. After she brought me a spaghetti squash one year, I knew I wanted to grow some too...and I did! She was very generous with everything from her garden and with her gardening knowledge too...
A few years ago, she brought me a beautiful picture of Christ for my birthday...It's hanging in the living room...my favorite!

Leah would never let a month go by without visiting me. When her health started to fail, she would still try to come visiting. The last time she came, as she was going down the stairs, she lost her balance and fell. I was standing right at the door, but couldn't reach her in time. Anne and I got her up and into the car, I felt so bad for her. You could see she was just feeling frustrated and sad that her body wasn't letting her do what she wanted to anymore.
After that she called me to do her visiting teaching..."I'm so sorry I'm not going to be able to visit you this month... this call will have to do until I'm back on my feet..." what an amazing example!
She was always the one who was serving others, so when it was her time to be served, it was tough for her to let that happen. She didn't want people to bring meals in to her or have help around the house, but people just loved her so much, they would just do it anyway.
Everyone loved visiting Leah...instead of you going there cheer her up and make her feel better, she always made you feel better instead. Amazing humble lady. I feel so blessed to have had her be a part of my life.
I am happy for her to be with her dear Bernard again... she often spoke of how much she misses him and looked forward to their reunion. She is one of those people who you know without a doubt is going straight to heaven... I'll have to tell my mom about her...I bet they would be best of friends when they meet in heaven.

sigh....

This post is going to be all over the place because that's where my head is right now...all over the place.
We got home from a wonderful weekend in California with the family late Tuesday afternoon. I will have to do a different post about our trip. I will just say it was a few days of heaven for me.
So grateful to my sisters for making it possible for me to go. Teina was here when we got home. She said mum had gotten a cough a few days before and it had been getting progressively worse. She said mom had been coughing all night so she was pretty much exhausted the next day. Late afternoon, she started coughing really bad...like non stop. I had given her some cough medicine, but it didn't do anything.
So I called the nurse and told her what was going on. She told me to give her some Mucinex if I had any and if that didn't do anything then to give her some morphine. I questioned it cause she is not in any pain. The nurse said it will help calm her and stop the coughing. I gave her a mucinex, but it didn't stop the cough at all. I got her into bed, hoping once she got settled down, the coughing would stop.
I watched on her monitor but could see that she wasn't going to stop coughing. So I went and gave her some morphine. I sat with her for a while till she dozed off. She was breathing really fast which was unusual. She slept quietly till about 7:00.
Rebecca came this morning to help mom with her shower. While we were getting her ready, Rebecca says " I have to tell you something...I don't really know how to tell you.... but I gave my two week notice on Monday." She went on to tell me that she needed to quit so she could do better with her nursing school and give it her full attention. She said she has become so attached to mom, that it was breaking her heart to think of not seeing her anymore. She is a very special person...so kind and loving. She got down where she could look at mom's face and held her hands and explained to her that she was going to be going to school full time now, so she would only see her a few more times. She told her that she loved her and would miss her so much.
Mom said " I will miss you too...you have been so kind" By now we were all bawling. Oh man, Teina and I were just talking about what a God-send Rebecca has been to us. The other aides are fine and get the job done, but they don't spend the time and talk to mom and love her like Rebecca has done. She will surely be missed.
When we got mom out of the shower, we could see that she was having a hard time breathing...very labored. Rebecca said she was going to call the nurse and let her know how she was.
Mom slept most of the day...woke up around 1:00, and I fed her a few spoon fulls of soup. I got her to the bathroom, but as soon as she was back in her chair she was asleep again.
She slept most of the afternoon. Cheryl came by to see how she was doing about 4:00. She listened to her heart and lungs and tested her oxygen level. She said she has fluid in her lungs which is causing her to breath faster to try to get enough air.
I asked her what we could do for her and how we could treat it. She said " are you sure you want to?" I was like WHAT? of course if what she has is treatable, we want to treat it! She said "Why?.....you know pneomonia is a friend to old people....she is not in any pain and would just sleep and sleep till she goes."
Oh man....that is not a decision I will make. I had a meltdown when she said they would support us in what ever way we decided to go. She said if the infection is viral, the antibiotic won't help, but if it's bacterial, it may help. I told her to go ahead and call in the antibiotic and I would call my sisters to get their input.
I called Teina and told her what Cheryl had said. She also didn't feel good about not treating her. I called Leslie and Teina called Brenda to let them know what was going on.
I picked up her prescription and had her take one. I tried to get her to eat some dinner, but after a few bites of mashed potato's, she said she was going to throw up. I think she was just coughing so hard, everything just came back up.
About this time, mom's visiting teacher called to talk to her. She is such a sweet heart and has called several times while mom has been here to see how she was doing and to give her the visiting teaching message....now that's a good visiting teacher. I told mom who it was and put the phone up to her ear...she knew who it was and tried to talk to her, but couldn't get a word out without coughing. I could hear Sharon telling her to not try to talk...just to get feeling better and know that I love you!... (me bawling again...) I heard her say to put Paula back on the phone now, so I took the phone. Sharon said she could hear that mom was in a bad way and would remember her in her prayers and check on her in a day or two.... she said "you know your mom is a real special lady... now we were both bawling....yup...I know that without a doubt.
I gave mom another dose of morphine and after about a half hour, her cough has quieted down and she is sleeping.
I have always known that this is inevitable, but have put it in a deep dark corner in my brain that I don't like to visit. Your mom is always there...right? Who do you go to when you have a problem or something good happens...your mom of course. God's way of preparing us for this is kind and loving...she slowly over the years has become the one who needs our care instead of her caring for us. I guess we have been lucky that way to not have her suddenly taken from us like daddy was. It's given us all time to try let the thought of her leaving us and going to be with daddy ease into our hearts. I know mom is ready to go...now I need to somehow get myself ready too.

What I've been doing in my spare time...

Hmmmm I just got Olivia's Christmas jammies done! Pathetic ...I know!

They have a story. I found this cute fabric with polka dots and monkeys

all over it and fell in love with it.

I was going to have them all done to send for Christmas, but when I was with them in November when Camille had Sam, I became aware of the fact that Olivia is scared to death of monkeys.

She won't have anything to do with anything monkey...stuffed, pictures, movies about...when she saw this cute monkey I had won for a white elephant gift that was wearing a hula skirt, coconuts, and had big red lips, she came and handed it to me and told me she did not want it in her room!

So I put the fabric (halfway sewn) away and thought I would save them for next year. Then when I was tidying up my sewing room, I came across them and decided to just finish them up and put them away done. So I got them all done, then when I looked at them, I realized she will be way to big to fit in them next year...especially the slippers, so I'm just going to take a chance and give them to her. Maybe she's over the monkey thing? Also, It's 90 degrees in Arizona now, so the flannel may be a bit much. They do keep it pretty cool in their house though and if she is anything like her grandma, she will love the woolly warmness of the jammies.

Who knew you can make slippers? I made this little kitty for Olivia a little while ago...

There's nothing better than that phone call.."Grandma a kitty! and it has the cutest little skirt! I love it!"

I've been loving the pictures Camille sends me of Sam's fatness.

Olivia getting ready for pre-school. She is so ready to start regular school...so smart!

Camille says Sam is rolling all around now. Can he get any cuter? I don't think so.

Candice and I were just talking about how before Sam was born, we didn't know if we could ever love anyone like we loved Olivia...YES WE CAN! Sam has won all of our hearts

Been wishing spring would come...we will have a few good days, and all of the flowers will bloom, then it will snow and flatten them all down.

I mean I know that's how spring in Utah goes...but this is not normal. It's April 14 and

it's about 32 degrees...snowed last night.

Sick of it.

Yesterday Rebecca came to help mom with her shower and she told me that she was really glad that she was there....I guess the people at Rocky Mountain Health had tried to take her away from mom and let a full time girl come in. Rebecca is just working part time while she is going to nursing school, so she has less say about the hours she gets.

She said she really put up a fight about it though and told them they couldn't take her patients she had become so attached to away!

I was so glad! It hadn't occurred to me when Jessica ( the other new aide) had said that they had scheduled her to come every day. I thought maybe she was going to come help Rebecca when mom was having a bad day....not to replace her!

She is so wonderful with mom...I don't know what I would do without her.

Anyway, Rebecca and I got mom up and into the bathroom, and she said she thought she would be fine to get her into the shower since mom was standing pretty good.

I told her that mom needed more help eating her breakfast and taking her pills, and she said "of course I will do that!" I love her!

Anyway, so I went to play racquetball. I had called R last week and told her I wasn't going to make it cause mom was having a bad day and I wanted to stay with her.

R started asking me about mom when I got there and I told her how she had just gone kind of limp and weak. She said her mom used to do that when she wanted to get out of going to dialysis...that she would fake being weak. I know there is a reason why R is the way she is...she has had a really crappy life...we hear about it every week. But when she said that I wanted to smack her. Mom is trying her best and it is not in her nature to even think of faking anything. I was just like...."nope, my mom would never do that."...and I had to hurry and go into the court to keep from saying something I would regret.

Last night I had all the YW over to teach them how to make jam.

We had a little party for Jenni too cause it was her birthday.

The girls all joined in and participated...some washed the berries, some cut out stems, then some mashed the fruit....then there was the adding of all the sugar and lots of stirring. Kirstin worked on the pectin...dissolving and boiling, then added that to the fruit. I had the bottles all ready, so Maggie took over filling the jars. They all did their part and the jam turned out yummy...I had made a loaf of bread in the bread maker and it was just done when they came so we got a slice of warm bread with the freshest strawberry jam for a treat!

I hope they had fun!

After the girls had left, I took a slice of bread with jam down to mom

and we had a nice moment reminiscing about when she was a YW leader

and the fun things that they did. I treasure those times when her mind is clear and we can talk like we used to....they are getting fewer and fewer these days.

losing it...

Don't mean to always be such a downer, but today was really stupid. It started when I was taking mom her breakfast and tripped over the laundry basket that I had left at the top of the stairs...sending her glass of orange juice flying all over the kitchen floor and the clean clothes in the laundry basket . That will teach me to put the clothes away. Then a little while later, Candice called me and ever so kindly asked me why I had booked her flight home from California leaving out of Phoenix. WHAT? Did I really? yup I did. When I went to find a flight for her, all the information from Phoenix just came up because that was the last place I flew. Somehow, it didn't click in my brain that we weren't going there. I had even called Candice and asked her if I should get the insurance in case we needed to change it....oh no...it will be fine! Candice has a heart of gold though and could hear me coming apart on the other end of the line, so she quickly added that she had already talked to Camille and they are planning on coming home on Sunday night, so Candice can ride with them to Phoenix, then fly home from there in the morning. Wow, what a blessing! Wow I am losing it! I have been officially banned from ever booking any flights ever again! I had an appointment to get my hair done this afternoon, but Keelee called and said she had a cancellation in the morning, so I took it...hoping mom would sleep most of the time. We got to chatting like we always do (why is it so easy to open up to your hair dresser?) and she asked me how mom was doing...she remembers mom fondly from years ago when her and Camille and Katie Child went up there and stayed with her. I told her a little about the struggles she is having right now, and she said something about how I was having a most beautiful mansion being built in heaven right now for the service I was giving her. I didn't know I had all this built up inside me, but when she said that, the flood gates were opened and I just sat there and bawled for a minute. Like I said...totally unexpected. Keelee is a dear...very understanding after what she has been through with her own mother. I think I'm going to blame my irrational crying and lack of brain function on this drug the Dr. has me taking for my womanly problems. When he gave it to me, he said there may be some moodiness and irritability. HA! I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin! I toss and turn all night..(we've been over that ) having gross night sweats and crazy anxiety. I tried to call the doctor today to talk to him about it, but both he and his nurse were in surgery today. I'll talk to him tomorrow. I think unless he can find something different for me to take, the surgery would be better. It's a good thing I have pretty wonderful family and friends that lift me up, listen to me, and make me feel a little less crazy. ( and can make me laugh about doing dumb stuff like I do!) I received some sweet messages from friends and family that sure brightened my day! Stacey came over tonight to give me a hug and to listen. love her! She is going through such a hard time with her own mom right now...she has full on Alzheimer's but keeps clinging to life. There is no way they could care for her at her home, so she is in a nursing home. Stacey has to constantly plead with the care givers there to be more aware of her needs and take better care of her. Very heartbreaking. I am glad that mom is in the condition she is that makes it possible for me to care for her. She has had a pretty good day today. When I think about it, I got nothing to complain about.

I've been thinking the past few days about some great blessings I have in my life....sometimes I get to feeling down...mostly from watching mom struggle, but then something will happen to put things in perspective and I realize that we are very blessed and I should only be giving thanks for the many tender mercies in my life. I will list just a few... The fact that mother is not in any pain. Many good friends who surround us and lift us up with love and support. Knowledge of what is waiting for mom and the rest of us on the other side of the veil. Amazing family...always there for me! My sisters... their love and support...love them! The sweet ladies from hospice... truly angels! An amazing husband who I love more every day. The opportunity I have to spend this time with my mom and the things she is teaching me about patience, faith and love and enduring to the end.

The latest from KC

March 23, 2011 Hey guys, Everything is going well. This has been a CRAZY week. Last Wednesday Elder Croese's parents called and said that one of his cousins had passed away and that they were going to have the funeral on Monday 23, and they kinda wanted him to just come home and help out the family because he only had like 10 days left anyway. So we spent from Wednesday to Sunday wrapping up all his loose ends and saying good bye to people. We spent his last night, Saturday, at President Sorensons house and at dinner with them and then we all shared our testimonies. It was really cool. So he left Sunday afternoon. It was sad, I love Elder Croese. So I will be with a mini missionary until transfers next Thursday. You ll never guess what his name is....Muhamed! He is from Uzbekestan, hes 21 and was baptized a little over a month ago. He is a way cool guy, its way interesting serving with him. He only speaks Uzbekski and Russian, so we are both communicating in our second language. Its kinda hard sometimes, but it just makes it more interesting. I was thinking about how 2 years ago I would have never imagined that I would be serving in a little city outside Moscow tracting homes with a Muslim convert. Crazy. We have had a good time so far. We have had some success with a less active guy, he had some problems in believing a prophet because he only believes what Christ Himself says, but then we told him about the Doctrine and Covenants and read the intro where it says something like " The voice of the Lord Jesus Christ in the latter days." and then he said" Oh, now I understand you. The prophet speaks the words of Christ.", we had been trying to explain that to him for the past 3 or 4 meetings but this was what helped him get it. It was cool. Thanks for the pictures of Sam, that one of him and Liv is really nice. I heard about the missionaries in Japan that got moved around, do you know where Blair went? It is good that he still had a while left to serve and didn't get sent home. That so sad that so many people died. Did Hatsumi know anyone who died or was affected by it? I haven't really seen any pictures of it all but I heard that its really bad. I hope that you guys have a nice week. Love you tons. KC

March 30, 2011 Hey guys! I hope that you all had a nice week. Mine was really interesting. It was really cool to be able to serve with Muhammed for a while, he is a really good guy. I learned a lot about Muslim culture, and I think he learned a lot about American haha. We took a bunch of pictures so i will send those. I don't know if you remember when I told you a couple weeks ago about how we met the girlfriend of an inactive member, but we stopped by again and met with them. She explained how she felt about the orthodox church and said that she liked our church service better and wanted to learn more. So we agreed to teach her the lessons. She is a really nice lady, and is really interested, so hopefully she will get baptized. President told me that I get to train again. So I get to meet my new companion tomorrow. His name is Elder Clawson, he is from American Fork. So I'm way excited about that. I wanted to train again before I went home. I will be with him for 2 transfers(3 months) and then I will only have one transfer left! I cant believe it! I will do my best to give him the best two transfers ever. Training is cool because it helps you to be a better missionary faster because for the first little while its kinda like serving a solo mission or something because your comp doesn't really understand whats people are saying and doesn't know what to do. Anyway, Its going to be way cool. I am going to try to send some Photos. love you guys. KC April 6, 2011 Hey guys! Things are going great with my new companion. He is awesome. I am so lucky to be able to help him out. He is way energetic, which is just what I need right now. He used to sell pest control door to door so he is already a good salesman, so we are putting his sale skills to the test knocking doors and contacting on the street. He loves doing it, so that's awesome. We are having lots of success in our area. We sat down in a bus the other day and I heard someone saying "Jensen" "Jensen!", so I turned around and it turns out that we got on the same bus as one of our investigators. We ended up getting stuck in a huge traffic jam for like and hour and a half, so we had lots of time to talk. In the end she said that she and her daughter would come to conference this weekend! Yes! And then yesterday, we were stuck in another traffic jam, so I asked the guy next to me if we could get acquainted while we were sitting in the jam, he turned out to be a really nice guy who was really interested in the gospel. I ended up teaching him the first lesson there in the bus, all about Joseph Smith and stuff. He asked way good questions and was way sincere. He is married, so hopefully she will be on board too. That’s tough sometimes. Lots of cool things are happening right now. It’s awesome. I haven’t seen conference yet because they show it a week later, but I am way excited to have investigators come. I think that they will love it. The weather here has actually been really nice, not 70, but like above 50, so we have been going in just our suit jackets, its soo nice to not wear a heavy coat or a hat. Sorry no pictures this time, I forgot my camera. Next week. Thanks for the pictures you sent. We don’t have any flowers here yet, but the snow is going away fast. So in a couple weeks there will be stuff growing. I love you guys tons! KC

Today was a much better day! Mom woke up happy and for the most part, was pretty clear in her mind (she did ask me if I was going to bottle my daffodils?) Kelley stayed home till after she got out of bed so he could take her bed apart and make room for the hospital bed. He is a peach. He has been getting some really bad headaches lately and I know he had one this morning when he was unscrewing the zillion screws on that bed.....(really sturdy but a pain to move around!) Mom's nurse called to see how she was doing and after a day like yesterday, I was happy to tell her that she was much better. (Yesterday when Rebecca came to help with mom's shower, I told her about what had happened the day before and she asked me to stay close by. We worked together to get her into the shower, then Rebecca said she would be fine. A few minutes later, she called out to me. I ran down there and she said mom had had another episode where she went all limp and unresponsive. Between the two of us, we got her out of the shower and got her into the wheel chair. Can I just say one more time that Rebecca is amazing! She is so kind and tender with mom, and you can tell that she genuinely loves her. She takes both of moms hands in hers and kneels down in front of her so mom can see her and says " I'm so sorry you are not feeling good right now, but I don't want you to worry, because we are going to help you". Then she hugs her and says "I sure love you Jean" I just stand there bawling. We got her dressed and into her comfy chair and by the time, Rebecca was leaving, mom had perked up some. Rebecca said she was going to call the nurse and let her know what had happened. I got a call just a little later from the nurse saying she wanted to come over and check mom out. I got mom some breakfast, but by the time I brought it to her she was sound asleep. She slept most of the morning. When Cheryl came, mom was still pretty confused and her vital signs were not super. We talked about new concerns and she told me they would have aides come more often to help me and she suggested I get a hospital bed....then if she is having a bad day, and can't get up, she will be more comfortable in bed. Mom seemed to be feeling better later in the day. When Kelley got home, I ran and got some groceries and did a few errands. Kim had called me and asked me if I wanted a ride to the cannery...we were going clear out to the Magna cannery, so I was glad to go with her. We picked up Jenny and Marlene too, which was kind of a mistake because when we got everything canned, we each had several boxes to bring home and not a lot of room. We fit everything in though with some of it sitting on our laps. I was anxious to get home...it took a lot longer than I had anticipated. Kelley was great to hang out with mom though. He said she was really talkative...he didn't understand much of what she was saying though. He has a pretty sweet relationship with her. It really tugs at my heart when we are saying our prayers , he thanks Heavenly Father for the blessing of having mom with us.) Anyway, mom was so much better today, we could talk and laugh together and she was even guessing the puzzles on wheel of fortune! It was funny this afternoon, Camille called to talk to grandma...she was asleep when she called, but after we talked a bit, she woke up. I took the phone to her and told her it was Camille. She puts the phone up to her ear, and I could hear Camille talking very loudly to her.... but she kept saying "I can't hear you! Camille talked louder...still couldn't hear. We were about to give up and I said "why don't you listen with the other ear?" So I helped her get adjusted to the other ear, and as soon as Camille said something, mom was like " OH! I can hear you now! They had a nice talk and she was able to hear every word! Ha! I didn't know mom had a bad ear! I'm glad we figured that out! I felt so bad when Leslie called the other night and mom just couldn't hear her. They brought the hospital bed and got it all set up. I think it will be a lot easier to get in and out of. I hope she will be ok with it. I'm about ready for bed...the past 3 nights, not so much sleep....I'll wake up about every hour having a hot flash and break out into a sweat. I throw the covers off and just lay there until it passes... then I get cold and have to cover all up again. Lots of reading time...

This has been a rough day. When I got mom up this morning, she seemed better than yesterday. Still kind of out of it...didn't know where she was. I got her all ready for the day, then had her sit in the other big chair because the comfy chair was still wet from where she spilled her water yesterday. I fixed her a waffle and some oranges and bacon for breakfast cause I thought maybe she would be able to eat it if she could just pick it up herself. She can't use the fork very good these days. She can't quite get it up to her mouth. When I set her food in front of her, she acted like she didn't know what to do with it, so I fed her. She ate pretty good like that. She nodded off after breakfast and slept most of the morning. I came down about 12:30 to take her to the bathroom. She was awake, but didn't look right. I said 'Mom should we get into the bathroom?' She just stared at me with this real blank look on her face. I took her hands to help her up but she was just limp. I was like 'mom are you ok?' She didn't respond. I thought if she got sitting up better, she would perk up, so I got her out of the seat and into the wheelchair. I took her in the bathroom and tried to help her stand up and hold onto the rail. She just went kind of limp again. I could see that wasn't going to happen, so I got her back into the wheelchair and took her into her bed. I thought if I could lay her down on the bed, I could change her depends. I'm not sure how I got her there, but she ended up on the bed kind of laying sideways. She was really out of it and I was getting really scared. I got her all cleaned up and helped her lay more comfortable in the bed, then I went and called Rocky Mountain hospice. Mom's nurse was off today, so they hooked me up with her replacement. A male nurse named Lynn. I explained what had happened and he said he would be over in a few minutes. I called Teina to let her know what was going on. It was calming to just be able to talk to her. She said she would come right down, but I told her I had the hospice nurse coming and to wait and see what he said we should do. In the mean time, I went back in with mom. I had turned the tv on in her room, but she was just staring at the ceiling. I asked her if she wanted me to read to her. Nothing; so I got one of her old journals and started reading to her. It was a real old one...from 1957. Mom was writing this time and was telling about how daddy had played for a new years eve dance and had made 10 dollars. She said he had given it to her and told her to get herself something nice. I stopped and looked over at mom. It was like something clicked and she said "Del was so good to me" We talked a little bit more, then the nurse came. I told him she had perked up a little bit. He said this happens as people start to decline. She can seem pretty good, then have a few bad days, then seem pretty good again, but just not quite as good as she was before. He came in and was really sweet with her. He checked her blood pressure and oxygen level. He said everything looked pretty normal. I felt kind of stupid for calling him then, but he assured me that I had done the right thing. He said they want to know what is going on with her and they are there to help any time. He said to just watch her and let them know if there was any change. I was like bbbbbut but but how can I get her to the bathroom, when she can't even stand up. At this point, mom had thrown her legs over the side of the bed and was looking like she was going to leap out. I said 'Mom can you stand up?" She said "of course" and stood with our help and got into the wheel chair. The nurse said 'I think she will be ok now." She slept most of the afternoon, then I got her some dinner and she ate pretty good with me feeding her. The Relief Society presidency came over a little later to meet mom. They were wonderful with her...sure do love those ladies. She chatted with them for a while, then as I walked them out, they started asking more questions about her situation. I told them about what she is and isn't able to do. They were very understanding and offered to come sit with her anytime I needed to get out. About nine, I asked mom if she was ready for bed. She said yes, so I tried to get her into the wheel chair. She doesn't seem to know how to get herself into the chair. I try to push-guide-lift her into it, but ended up having to have Kelley help me. Thank goodness he is always there..."do you need some help?" I had quite the time getting her from the wheel chair to the toilet. She gets this grip on the hand rail and won't let go. As I am prying her fingers from the bar, telling her and telling her to let go so she can reach the toilet...I won't let you fall! I just keep thinking " I can't do this anymore" I don't want her to have to go into a nursing home. It makes me sick to think of how she would be cared for. or not cared for. I have heard horror stories and I just couldn't do that to her. I don't know what to do.....When I pour out my heart to Kelley, he tells me that we will keep her here as long as we can care for her...and he will help me any way he can. He knows how I feel about it and is so understanding and supportive. I am going to talk to the hospice people tomorrow and see if I can get more help....and hopefully mom will have a better day.

Beware of the cats...

Mom is having a hard time today....she actually started down this road Saturday when I went to get her out of bed. She got into the standing position, but then seemed like she was frozen. I had the wheel chair right up against her, but she couldn't turn around and sit in it. I tried to help her get in it, but she kept saying "I need to get my bearings" and went down on her knees. I was so glad Kelley was home...I ran and got him and he came and lifted her into the wheel chair. Getting her onto the toilet was....difficult....She didn't want to let go of the hand rail which she needs to do, to reach the toilet. Rebecca didn't get here till about nine and I couldn't leave mom sitting there waiting that long, so I got her in the shower. Rebecca got there as we were finishing up. She has a patient right before mom that is needing some extra care, so I know she can't help getting there late. I needed to get out of the house, so while she was getting mom ready and doing her hair, I went for a run down the canal road. It felt good...it was a beautiful day and after being in the steamy bathroom, I needed some fresh cool air. We watched conference (which was quite wonderful and uplifting) then I ran to the store to get some groceries while Kelley was home with mom. He is so great with her. He brought her a beautiful bunch of flowers the other day. She couldn't believe he would do that! The other night I went to do baptisms for the dead with the YW and Kelley stayed with mom. When I got home and was getting her to bed, she said, "You are lucky to have such a special man" I said "I sure am!' He always jokes with her and makes her feel better...Saturday morning when I was trying to get her in the wheel chair and she ended up on the floor on her hands and knees, he came in the room and said, "Grandma, if you're going to pray, let me know so I can join you!" Saturday night while Kelley was at priesthood meeting, I fixed mom a good dinner. When I sat down with her to bless it, she said she wanted to do it. She always says the most lovely prayers...a little repetitive, but so beautiful and sincere. This time, she couldn't remember how to start the prayer. She stammered for at least a minute, (my heart was breaking!) then busted out with "bless the scooter store!" I guess that was the last thing she had heard on the tv. I tried so hard not to laugh! oh dear! Then she went on for 15 minutes saying a lot of stuff that didn't make any sense at all. Yesterday, she was really confused when I got her out of bed. "I don't know this place!" She didn't eat much all day and was pretty quiet. My heart just breaks when she is like this. Then this morning, well, It has been like talking to someone from another planet...She hasn't made any sense at all. What ever she sees on the tv, she will have something to say about it...It started with the price is right. I was up fixing her breakfast and when I brought it down, she said "The price was wrong! And it's New York Life's fault!...they are going to have to pay millions to those people....did they take your money too?" I told her that it was just a game show on tv and they didn't take our money. She still went on about it. I can't remember all the things she has said this morning...pretty much something to do with everything she sees on tv....and all complete nonsense. Lizzy stole her cookie out of her hand and instead of blaming Lizzy, she said the cats were stealing all the food right off the shelves in the stores. Then they were stealing the money right out of the banks. Then President Monson came on the news and she said "Did you hear that? President Monson said we all should get a machine gun to protect ourselves from the cats...they are stealing our tithing!" Oh dear! I have stopped trying to explain or disagree.... I just say "really????" and " hmmmm that's interesting". The mind is such an amazingly complex thing! What is going on in there? I hate to see mom digress like this, but I knew it was inevitable. It seems like she will have a a few bad days, then be her old self again....I'm sure hoping for that.