My Christmas Gift This Year tl;dr
Is to pick out my 74 year old father's nursing home. Not the one that he will have to stay in forever, but the one that he will be rehabbing from his second broken hip in.
Check out the stats for broken hips and mortality: https://theconversation.com/why-hip-fractures-in-the-elderly-are-often-a-death-sentence-95784
My mother has been doing a yeoman's job of keeping my dad alive, fed, getting him to where he needs to be, and making sure he can clean himself. My dad in the past 5 years has suffered from greatly worsening diabetes complications, poor vision, and low mobility. He also had to rehab from a heart attack/surgery. He didn't do that very well.
I once told myself that I was not going to pick my dad's nursing home. I don't care about him that much, I said. I am going to be far, far away when that happens.
I'm not.
I'm here visiting Ed's mom, and my mother needs me, so tomorrow we're going to tour rehab facilities and find the best match. I expect that I will call the best match the one that is best for my mom, (probably the one closest to her house) because it's her that I have visited several times this week. Dad's been on pain meds too high to notice or care that I was there.
I've already cried out my feelings. I was doing it while Ed talked his nephew into caring about his future. I don't know what to do. I am trapped into doing this adult thing that eventually needs to happen, and I am facing down the mortality of my parents and Ed's mother, and I don't know what to do.
First thing I am going to do is take my meds. I don't know if I have told my journal, but I take anti-seizure meds now that are better sleeping meds than any I've ever had. The reason I take anti-seizure meds is that I have had 2 epileptic-style seizures. We don't know what's causing it, and we don't know why it happens while I am sleeping, but I am going off the anti-depressant medication that increases incidence of seizure, and going on the anti-seizure meds that poleaxe me when they kick in. (Now's a great time to lose the anti-depressants, isn't it?)
Having a new type of seizure is scary. Having any sort of Loss of Consciousness is scary, but having had one type for the past 30 years, I've gotten used to it. But having a brand new type in my sleep that I cannot at all predict or control...is a new type of scary. Especially since the second ever one (6 months after the first) gave me a non-working shoulder. They only seem to happen when Ed is there to be disturbed by them, and my doctor is doing his very best to allow me to keep my driver's license, so I have had every test they could do to not let the state know I am having seizures. I am of two minds on the subject: driving represents freedom to a Michigander, but if I have to stop, there are delivery services for everything and Uber. I could stop. It might even be less stressful to not drive.
That brings us to The News. Pretty sure I haven't told you guys about Ed's New Job. Ed's New Job is with MIRI, the people who want to manage AI risk. It's good for all of us that he's working with them, and he likes it. He's thinking about what should happen should they offer him a second year working for them. (He's always thinking about hypotheticals, so this is nothing new.) He's thinking we should move to California. He keeps poking the idea so that I will get used to it.
Our lease only lasts until August, so getting out of it wouldn't be an issue. But I like where we're living and I like my job, and I am loathe to give it up for something unknown. Of course, jumping into the unknown is a thing I've been doing enthusiastically for years, so I am not sure why the trepidation, all of a sudden. I think it's moving to a different time zone. I've never done that. No matter where I lived in MA, it's always been the same time zone I grew up in.
But, as usual, I would much rather move than have to watch Ed leave for almost a week out of every month. He's my rock, and I miss him when he goes. Plus, if we move, I telecommute, so there's that.
I think I am just babbling so that I can get everything out of my head because I can't just get on my treadmill and watch a show and get catharsis. I'm gonna take my night meds, settle in on the couch with my book, and try to relax my shoulder. (That I really should have gotten PT for, but I didn't think it was serious. Also, it's what I do for a living, dammit.)