June's Gloomy Blooms

Slowly our old life is fading into a new one, things are transitioning for all of us. Meeting new people, places and getting accustomed to changes within the family dynamics.

It didn’t really feel like June temps were higher than usual, it's rained for the past 13 Saturdays in a row, and we didn’t get to spend as much time outside as we’d like to have. My blackened toe is healing and walking is getting a bit better. Albeit I need some time to go try on some new walking shoes.

Grampy was too sad without Grammy around, so no Father’s Day or birthday celebrations. Grammy missed going to her first great-grand-child’s baby shower. Fortunately, they came down for a visit and brought a mini party to her the next day.

The month flew by, we were so preoccupied with finishing round two of the MassHealth Long Term Care forms for Grammy. All told, I must have scanned and emailed over 200 pages so far. Not even sure if we're finally done or not, will have to wait and see.

To make matters even more confounding - we just moved in our new place in May and come June first they sent us a package wanting us to recertify, so that we “sync” up with everyone else for Oct. {sigh} This means I literally have to give them everything I just gave them to move in here two months ago. I’m not even finished unpacking! But it is what it is. So we have to. Hopefully once it done, we won’t have to do this for another year or more.

A lot of people wrote in with opinions, so forgive me if this is a repeat, but we'll spell a few things out about service dog work. As not everything is an affrontive or offense that needs defending.

Sven is my service dog, but I am not a patient of the hospital where Grammy is staying. With that said, he was not allowed to accompany me when visiting Grammy. She’s in a unit for memory care and some of the patients are there for various degrees of mental health treatments. No one knows how the patients will react to seeing him and it could pose a danger to others if someone flips out. This doesn’t mean Sven is bad, or untrained or anything else. It could be a fear of dogs, allergies, etc. And just that as a rule they can’t risk an outburst or problems with staff or patients getting hurt. The hospital’s responsibility is to their patients, not me the visitor. Where I can take a walker or use a wheelchair, he can sit these trips out at home safe in the AC where he can't get hurt either.

Again, yes, I do have rights as a disabled person & use of durable medical equipment such as a service dog, but NOT in this situation. I’m a visitor, and not necessary to patient care, the hospital only has a mandate and or obligation to care for their patients, all of them. They don’t have to allow any visitors in and certainly not service dogs in confined spaces. So those were the terms. We obliged. It's their environment and I don't have a right to demand anything. End of story.

Moving onwards, I have a million things I could or should be doing for ourselves right now, but I’m also experiencing another wave of exhaustion, fibro/lupus flare up. Despite having a larger kitchen and being able to store, cook and eat better food and sleep in the cool AC, I’m still having a hard time. Everything is throbbing or partially numb, I’m not sleeping. I’m drinking 2 liters a day of water but still experiencing constipation and things not being right. Some of you mentioned it sounded more like MS symptoms. There is MS/MD on both sides of the family tree, but honestly, I do have radiculopathy and hoping the flare up has something to do with that. However extended periods of numbness aren’t good either, migraines can often feel like a stroke, so who knows. We have an appointment with PCP in the fall. Let’s hope it’s just stress or withdrawal symptoms – I’m eating a lot less carbs these days.

Lastly, my apologies, there’s not too many pictures again this month of the places he’s been on account of privacy or appropriateness. Funeral homes for pre-planning, Attorney’s offices for paperwork, Banks, Credit Unions, Town Halls, etc. just aren’t the places for scrapbook photos. But here's a few we did take.