FERGUS is 9!!!!!

He stayed in bed until 9:00, although he REALLY wanted to get up at 7:30. That's too early for him so I reminded him that he wanted the energy for staying up later. Now I have the whole morning to plan for the party.

We are off to pick up friends in Guelph (about 35 minutes away) this afternoon to have them come back here and have a big play. Ferg's best friend, Adam will be here when we come home from Guelph. They are planning to have a play outside, a treasure hunt and then pizza. Fergus has also asked for a dessert pizza instead of cake so we will see how that goes over. Presents will finish off the home portion of the party before we pack them in the cars and take them to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the movie theatre.

All in all I think all of us are equally excited about the party plans. I am even going to take Fergus out for lunch this afternoon so that I get some time alone with my birthday boy. He and I rarely get time one-on-one and so this is more for me then it is for him. He is very much "my" son in that his personality is much like my own so I don't think he will mind having to spend time with just his mom.

Downstairs, Henry is okay with being home. It is FAR more work than Christena thought it would be. I know he has only been gone for a few weeks but the difference in his abilities is dramatic as are his medical needs. I have spent no fewer than 3 hours tracking down all of the medications he now needs to take. He is being nebulized 6 times a day and that takes timing and patience.

Henry asks after his brothers and sisters many times a day. He does not understand that Canada is not Scotland (or Wales). He asks if we have seen Robert or Jack or Tillie or Maisie. We try not to further confuse him (because there just is no way to correct him and make him understand) so we tell him that they must be at work or out or something. When we have tried to tell him the truth he has become angry and he doesn't want that any more than we do. I am glad he thinks about his family though.

It is a glorious spring day and I am going to go out and enjoy it! I hope you are well.

He's coming home again

The long-term care facility that Christena looked at last week with Douglas and Jennifer is 50 kms. from our home. As I mentioned, Christena does not drive and would have had to take two different types of transit to travel one way. This coupled with the fact that she was convinced that others would look at her and assume she put Henry into care because she didn't want the responsibility anymore and she has decided to have him come home.

I know she never wanted him to go into care in the first place. I have tried to help her understand that no one would EVER judge her for putting him into long-term care because it is extremely emotionally and physically difficult to look after someone who is as mentally and physically incapacitated as Henry has become in the last couple of months. She didn't hear me though. She didn't hear Doug or Jennifer when they said the same thing. She is worried about how it looks and I am sure that is as much a product of the age she grew up in as anything.

If she wants him to be at home for now, until a bed becomes available at the local facility, then Doug and I are certainly happy to help her achieve that goal. She wants him home. She believes he wants to be at home. She may very well be right. The hardest part is that he doesn't know anywhere to be home anymore. She told him that she was going to bring him home and he was confused. He told her he "was home." The next day he told her he wanted to get out of there and go home.

She misses him and I don't blame her. They have been married for 43 years (April 25) and that is a long time to live with someone. I am sure I would miss Doug too and would do whatever I could to keep him home.

Henry will come home with a variety of new medications and machines to help look after him and people to come in and help out but at least he will be here. That will be easier for all of us, I am sure of that.

Hug your family!!!

Happy Ostara

Warm spring wishes to all of you! It is a typical spring day here in southern Ontario. It dawned cold and sunny and warmed up, clouded over and is now raining mid-afternoon. Goddess only knows what tonight will bring.

Henry is still in Georgetown. We know that he will be moved out of town when the next available bed comes available but we are not able to know what community he will be in. We have asked for consideration because Christena does not drive and we shall see if that is recognised at all. We acknowledge that the local hospital is not equipped to look after him as they do not have secure facilities. Yesterday afternoon he wandered out while the staff was on lunch. Thankfully he didn't get too far before they stopped and redirected him.

This reminds me of stories my parents would tell when my grandmother first went into long-term care. She was there for some time before the decision was made to place her in the secure unit as she made her way out "to go home" on a few occasions. That's what Henry was up to. He was "going home" when they found him. The challenge is that he doesn't know where home is. Even when he was here he would ask when they were going home.

Jennifer has gone back to Calgary. I am certain it was excruciating to have to leave with all that transpired while she was here. She has so much work to do that I know she is feeling grossly torn between all that she wants to be able to do. It was lovely to have her here though and to be able to spend some time together.

My irises are starting to poke their small, leafy heads through the soil in the front garden. I was looking this morning at the new bed I put in around the front tree and wondered if I should get to work at it before the ground gets too hard. I think I need the temperature to increase a little though. There's something about working the soil with your hands that rinses the worries of the world away.

Happy Spring/Ostara to all of you!!!

How Often Does It Happen

that we make a point to speak with the people most important in our lives about our wishes for the future? Nestled in bed, safe behind the cloak of darkness you reveal your secret worries to the person you love the most. Is it the future? Is it a fear of not being able to pay the bills? Is it a desire to be something you are not? Is it a longing to have more time to connect with the family you adore?

I hear many people pledge to their loved ones a commitment to stay home, a promise that no matter what, they will never be placed in a long-term care facility (previously known as a "nursing home" -- although that sounds funny to me as a breastfeeding educator). How can we ask that of the people we love? How can we even begin to know what may still lay ahead of us?

I ask these questions at this time as we are facing something monumental in our home. The doctors at the hospital are worried about the combination of Henry's lung cancer (and it seems to be advancing faster than we thought) and his Alzheimer's disease. They do not feel it is safe or wise for us to bring him home once his current bout of pneumonia passes.

To that end, Christena and I met with the hospital administrators about what was required from us, as the family, to begin the process of having him transferred to a long-term care facility. We also wondered about the costs, the locations of such places, and whether or not we would be allowed to bring him home from time to time over the holidays or something. The two women we met with (Sylvie and Brenda) were lovely. They understood how difficult it was to have to talk about these concerns and were nothing short of patient with both of us.

We have left it now in their capable hands. We know, and are slowly trying to come to terms with the idea that Henry is not ever going to live with us again. I am certain this is not what he wants. Christena feels desperately sad that she can no longer handle his care on her own. It is unbelievably sad to see how much he has changed. He no longer knows where he is living let alone who the people are in the house he lives in. Except Douglas. He always seems to know his son. That will change too, I am sure. It breaks our hearts to watch him go from confused, to angry and then cognitively completely unavailable in rapid succession. It must break his heart to that he has no control over this. Somewhere, in a recesses of his brain, I wonder if any part of him has an inkling as to what is happening to his body and his mind. It's impossible to know. I truly hope that he has no idea.

If anyone -- family or otherwise -- has any questions or would like more information about Henry's health, please email me or leave a comment here for me to advise me to get back to you.

Take care of yourselves!

Quinn followed Grandpa's example

Quinn decided he wanted to try having his picture taken like Grandpa. This is what he came up with. Given how hardy our laughs were, we were all glad Aunt Jen arrived Saturday afternoon with her various hats to choose from. This was the hat with the rhinestone skull and crossbones on the side (which is unfortunately, not visible in this image).

I wanted to post this quick note to update family overseas about Henry's health. He appears to be suffering from pneumonia again and we had him admitted to hospital last evening. His breathing became quite shallow and his oxygen levels seemed to be dropping so, despite his desire to stay home the decision was made to have his lungs looked at. The X-ray revealed what we had suspected and had been warned would likely happen. The pneumonia was back. The doctor (different than the doctors we saw a month ago with him) thought the pneumonia was quite bad and was somewhat upset that we had waited so long. He did not compare to the X-rays from last month's time in hospital so I don't know if it is worse this time or not.

Henry continues to be his feisty self and would rather be home than in hospital. After his experience of getting out and wandering around the neighbourhood last week (he was looking for his childhood home in Glasgow) we felt it important to warn the hospital staff in case he decided to pick up and leave. I feel badly for him being kept against his will. It is so hard because we know that the hospital is a better and safer place for him to be.

Henry is having a good day

What we consider to be a good day is that Henry is willing to come up and have dinner with us at our house and is not getting too impatient about getting home.

He was even willing to let Quinn stick his plastic ball on his chin and Aunt Jen's hat on his head.

We are enjoying having some time to spend together as a family as we make some monumental decisions about what the future holds for all of us.

Take care

Today seems better, so far . . .

I woke today to find myself sleeping in my own bed. That's a great start to the day. Hopefully that means that the sedatives we had ordered for Henry for nighttime did what they were supposed to do. Hopefully that means that Christena finally had the chance to have a full night's sleep.

Quinn shows fewer scars over yesterday's call to the paramedics than I do I think. His lip still has a bit of a discolouration on its right side and his finger still has a VERY small spot from the glucometre. Other than that, he has completely recovered. I think I will carry the wounds for a few more days.

Anyway, after such a crappy start to yesterday I thought I would report that today the sun is shining, the birds, well, the birds are too flaming cold to be outside as it is still only -11C here (not including the wind chill) and everything seems to be happily moving forward. Things are great this morning and we plan to have a fun day instead of a stressful one.

Thanks to all who sent words of support, encouragement, and more. Don't think I haven't seriously considered following through on the suggestion to go to the Bahamas. My only concern is that I would have to contend with the crowds of gaping tourists who have flocked there to watch the funeral procession and burial of Anna Nicole Smith. Maybe Barbados would be a better idea. Oh right, there is that pesky concern about the cost. Oh well, a girl can dream, can't she???

Here's the 4-1-1 er, um I mean the 9-1-1

Well, what have I done today??? Well my day first started at 6:00 a.m. (which may seem like a normal time for some of you to get up but for this night-owl it is a few hours too early for me) when I heard my mother-in-law, Christena trying to help my father-in-law, Henry understand that the rest of the house was trying to sleep. How my boys sleep through these conversations they have in the middle of the night, I don't know.

Henry has not been sleeping well and despite trying to give him something to encourage sleeping he has been waking every hour or so through the night for most of the last several months. It has escalated in the last couple of weeks. I don't know the last time Christena was able to sleep straight through from night to morning. He wakes and gets dressed, goes into her room and turns on the lights, fumbles through her dresser, comes upstairs "to see Douglas," and tells her he wants her to get up with him so they "can get going home." You can imagine, I am sure, how hard this would be if you were a well-rested person. Now try to imagine your frustration with sleep deprivation. Remember what it was like when you first brought your baby home from the hospital and wondered if you would ever sleep again? It's kind of like that only there is an added layer of stress as you try to work through the fact that although he is old enough to know better, he *doesn't* know any better.

This morning, after I woke to them talking loudly, I moved out to the sofa and to sleep some more. Around 7:45 I heard Henry come to the kitchen door and try to open it but we had had the foresight to lock it when going to bed last night. He went back downstairs for a while. A short time later he was back at the door but this time he knocked. I answered it and told him Douglas was in the shower and then would be going to work. He said he was going back downstairs but when Douglas came out of the bathroom he saw Henry continuing to stand at the top of the stairs.

Sometime after that (so any time after 8 a.m.) Henry let himself out the back door and left the property. He was dressed in a turtleneck and a cardigan with his pyjamas under his dress pants. Ordinarily on a March day that would be enough to keep him warm except we are in the middle of a cold spell and he went out with the temperatures around -20 C. Apparently a woman saw him walking along the road and convinced him to get into her car. She wrapped him in a blanket and called 9-1-1. (9-9-9 in the UK) Around 9:10 a.m. the police managed to find out his name and called to let us know they were bringing him home. I have no idea how long he was out in those frigid temperatures.

Once Henry was home the boys got up and moved around doing normal morning things. Fergus was anxious to get back outside to work on his "fort" so I sent them out around 11:00 to get some fresh air, Vitamin D and exercise. I watched them run around and play, listened (while I worked) to them carving away at the frozen snow beside our house and just trusted that they were enjoying themselves.

While they were outside I was checking my work email and discovered that I can anticipate a minimum $3500.00 pay cut from the hospital this year. YAY! You can imagine that I was in a wonderful emotional space when Fergus and Quinn knocked on the door at 11:54 a.m. asking to come in.

Quinn had blood on his face and I saw there was a cut on his lip. I asked him what had happened and he let me know that it was ice that cut his lip. At this point I was having trouble putting everything together and assumed he fell on the ice and cut his lip. He told me he wanted to see what his face looked like and so once we had his snow clothes off, I took him into our room to have a good look. The blood was smeared up his cheek and looked to be more substantial than I knew it was.

We moved into the bathroom to wash his face off so I could get a better look at his lip. He was trying to tell me what had gone on but then said, "Mommy I can't really see."

"What do you mean you can't really see?" voice rising rapidly.

"I can't see, Mommy!" fear and panic in his voice.

I looked over to ask again what he meant and I saw his body convulsing and he lost consciousness in my arms (I am so thankful I was there to catch him). I grabbed him and took him to the floor in the living room. I was yelling his name and his face was white as a sheet.

Fergus got Christena and then the found the phone for me. As Quinn has never passed out before my first thought was to call 9-1-1 and ask for an ambulance. By the time the paramedics arrived Quinn had better colour and was more upset by the commotion than anything else.

They took his vitals and did a glucose test (yeah, Quinn *really* doesn't like the glucometre) and said he was okay. I chose not to have him taken to the hospital as the more I thought about it the more I realised that it was likely anxiety that caused him to pass out. The blood on his face and knowing I don't like them eating icicles was probably enough stress to cause him to become overly anxious and lose consciousness. I am to keep a watchful eye over him today and take him right to the hospital should he pass out again. (Like they really needed to tell me that . . .)

What really happened outside??? Well, he pulled an icicle off the furnace vent on the side of the house. It is SO cold outside that the icicle stuck to his damp lip. When he pulled it off he took skin off too. This caused the bleeding. (Remember putting your tongue on the cold metal pole when you were a kid?? This is pretty similar to that, except that the metal pole isn't as easy to carry around with you as the icicle.) No fall, no concussion, no major catastrophe.

So, that was my day so far. Actually, that was the first three hours of my day. How was your day? I know my BIL was hit by a car this morning. (Not hard enough to be hospitalized but hard enough to know he didn't like it. And when asked if he got the plate number or make and model of the car that hit him, my source tells me that he simply answered, "No, but I gave him one of my patented evil glares.") Anyone else find today not to be the day of their dreams?????

In like a LION

As you can see, there is snow and ice as far as the eye can see (of course, we live on a quiet, residential street so the eye can't really see very far). I know the boys were anxiously waiting for snow as we watched December and early January pass without more than a few flakes. This is ridiculous though. We got about 6 inches of snow in less than 3 hours yesterday afternoon. We couldn't choose to ignore it either because we knew the freezing rain and then warmer rain were coming and unless we wanted to move heavy snow we had to act quickly. I took this picture this morning and Quinn less posing for having his picture taken and more winding up to be ready to launch his snowball at me. I had to act fast and get in the house again before he nailed me.

Yesterday, while the snow continued to fall I sound myself stuck (literally) at the home of some friends (they have a laneway that is about 1 kilometre long). I was driving the Rabbit and the poor car just couldn't get out until they had plowed the lane. The boys didn't mind. We were stuck at the home of Fergus' best friend, Adam. They took advantage of the extra time to play more video games. It was nice for me though in that Stephanie (Adam's mom) and I rarely take the time to hang out and visit with one another. We are usually dropping off or picking up from play dates while we rush about to get tasks accomplished without children in tow.

Henry is doing fairly well right now. His memory continues to fade rapidly but his physical strength is coming back dramatically. He is eating full meals (toddler-sized portions but full meals none-the-less) and manages to get himself up and down the stairs that connect our homes. He has made a habit of coming up a couple of times a day to see Doug and to visit with the boys. Last night, once we were home and while I was outside doing my share of the shoveling, Henry sat at the table to make and fly paper airplanes with Fergus and Quinn while Doug tidied up the dinner dishes. It was great to hear of him interacting with our boys like that. It happens so much less frequently these days. I know the boys miss it too.

I must finish up here by telling you that while it was sunny 20 minutes ago when I took the pictures of the boys, now it is snowing again. One thing I can't keep track of is the weather patterns of Southern Ontario!

Take care and stay warm!