A Collection of Days

Last night I dreamed we were in a large apartment complex in the desert. It reminded me of the place where we took our last hike when we were out there in February. Between the buildings in the complex, between a back building and a front one, there was a large unlandscaped area. We were on our way to pick up Laura. As I headed out between the two buildings there was a big black puma coming through a small wash. It was large, it's coat was glossy, and it was walking toward me. I got in the car and told you. You said, "There's a puma? Where?" But then I woke up.

So much has happened these last couple of weeks. Dad has been in the convalescent facility until this afternoon. I have gone there almost every day over these two months. Carmi and Nonong have been there twelve hours a day but during the nights they are gone, and Dad gets up and falls. He forgets he's gone to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He forgets what time of day it is. He'll fall asleep at 7 pm, wake at 9, and wonder where his breakfast is. He's had two falls, neither of which were documented by the staff in incident reports until we pushed it. Carmi and Nonong will be doing 24-hour shifts for at least the next couple of weeks. If Dad settles down and gets off the Vampire Schedule, we'll be able to go back to 12-hour shifts.

Quincy has been in the house for much of the last two months. He has a growth on his paw and we're hoping it will heal over and get a hard paw-like skin on it. That seems to be taking too much time. We put all kinds of bandages on it and make booties out of my collection of unmatched socks but after each time we think he's healed, it opens up and starts to bleed again. It seems to be getting larger, and our neighbor, the vet tech, says it will need to be removed. Oh, boy! More vet bills. We need a vet in the family.

Kyle was able to wrangle a new phone for you from Sprint. It arrived today and you spent several hours figuring out how to use every little function it has. You should be sitting pretty; it's the latest and the greatest.

You have reached the point where you are starting to dread your chemo days. You look forward to every other Tuesday with trepidation. You are starting to get neuropathy in your hands and feet. You reached into the freezer at the grocery store to get some ice cream and were greeted by shooting needle-like pain in your fingers. It has been getting better within a few days after your chemo treatments but lingers a bit longer each time. You are more sensitive to both heat and cold now. The doctor says that sometimes people get neuropathy permanently after chemo.

Tomorrow at work two things will happen: 1)the K teachers will meet with the district literacy coach who will euphemistically ask us why our kids are so low and 2) we will finally find out who our new principal will be. It's crazy hair day at school. But every day is crazy kid day.