Too Much

Well, last night I finally scanned the pictures for Mom's memory book. I had some organized, got some from her room, and brought her across the street. She insisted on driving, which actually made it easier because of how heavy the bag of pictures was. We went first to Walgreens. There was hardly any room to work, and it kept starting over and losing what I had done. Finally, I asked the photo person there if she could help me. She bascially said no and gave me a hard time for scanning in a frame (which I only did because there was no room to take the picture out of the frame). All of this goes on while Mom is behind me. I tell Mom we're going somewhere else.

So, we go across the street to Osco, where there is a bit more room and the technology is so much better. The people are very friendly, and I have Mom look at pictures after I scan them in. She seems pretty bored and annoyed through the whole thing though and constantly asks when we can leave and if I'm done yet. There wasn't a way to get the CD of pictures without actual copies of the pictures, although I'm sure if I had more time and patience, it could have been done, but so I spent an extra $8, and we got out of there sooner.

Then, we get back to Mom's place. As I make her a cup of tea, one of the care managers asks Mom nicely, "so Helen, who is this that you're here with?" Mom stammers and looks anxious and finally says slowly "my cousin." This is the first time that she's not even known my name. I look at her say, "I'm [Karma]; you're daughter [Karma]." She's now having a hard time answering people often and rarely doing activities it seems; I think because she's having a hard time following them.

I try calling a couple of friends to meet me out somewhere, but I can't get ahold of anybody, so I go back to my Dad's. I had spoken with his best friend earlier, who told me that she's also going to do Chelation therapy because of a muscluar degenerative disease she's been dealing with, and that she has a good M.D. doctor who will be administering it. So, I figure that I can at least tell Dad about this.

I pour myself a big serving of B&B, make some guacamole, and watch CNN for a few minutes to see that the IAF has killed 4 UN observers before Dad comes in to put on the local news. I go upstairs and work on downloading the pictures on to kodak.com, which takes forever even though they're on a kodak picture CD. I stay up until 12:30am, and then sleep like crap because the bed is so uncomfortable and I'm still so stressed.

This morning, I am really dragging. I asked Dad about the bed, and he said that he bought it in 1979 but insists that since it has always been a guest bed, it only has a few years of wear on it and is still good. So, now I have to find a different room in the house to sleep in I guess, that's what he suggested. So, I either have my office which has a decent twin size bed - but then I have to go from sleeping in a king to a twin and have no separation between where I sleep and work (which cognative behavioral sleep therapy - which I do - forbids) OR to a decent bed in the basement where the air quality is so bad that Dad wouldn't let Mom go work in her office down there.