Thanksgiving, My Family, A Shiny New Phone, Religion, and Drug Side Effects and Therapy

[shannon730]

So, I suck at posting here, I know that. I really need to do it more but once I stopped being involved in fandom most of my posting moved to Facebook...unless I don't want family to see it anyway. So here's an update on my life for the last few months.

Umm, let's start with family, and for purposes of this post Jonathon is family because as he says we (mom, Michelle, Marisa, and me) have done more to make him who he is than his mother has.
So....family stuff, with bullet points

1. My mom lost her job at the beginning of October. There was some trumped up bullshit that her direct supervisor pulled out of her ass to keep herself and the day shift out of trouble and because she was pissed off at my mom for a few reasons. One of the biggest washat my mom defended her afternoon CNAs (nurses' aides) when Susi, her boss, wanted to blame them for shit caused by the day shift CNAs. And the second big reason was back in July the day shift nurse went on maternity leave and was very good friends with Susi and hated my mom for "throwing her under the bus" when she'd thrown an insulin needle in a trash can instead of a Sharps container and the Hospice CNA got poked. Understand the CNA in question told my mom the last person to give insulin to that patient had been Kris. So my mom wasn't covering her as or anything, my mom put in the incident report what she was told and what that CNA eventually told her own boss. Kris didn't get in real trouble, Susi wrote her up at the Director of Nurses' request but Kris threw a tantrum so Susi tore it up. Anyway, Kris went from saying my mom was her best friend to asking a minister if it was unchristian to wish harm on someone who made you angry. So anyway, in the time Kris was off her husband decided to start a restaurant, his family owns several but now he wants his own. Her husband also believes it's wrong to put children in daycare, you should take care of your own children. So until now he's been staying home with their two year old daughter but now he needs to be at the restaurant during the day and wants her rot work afternoons. The DoN told Kris and Susi that afternoons was my mom's shift (my mom was the first nurse hired to work Memory Care and therefore helped set it up as well as has seniority) and she wouldn't ask my mom to move. If my mom volunteered fine, otherwise Kris would have to work in the main building. So then suddenly a patient's family complains about their mother being left wet and it blows up into a huge thing. My mom is the nurse not a CNA its not her job to change patients, not that she won't but she doesn't check to see if they are so unless they tell her she doesn't change them. They have CNAs assigned to them who are supposed to check them every two hours. That Patient's CNA had marked on their worksheet that she checked her at seven, the family came in at nine. Now, as it turned out the CNA lied, but Susi still wrote my mom up for "not supervising properly". It was my mom's fifth write up. The rest had been for stupid shit, like not taking a lunch break, or the company only gives a three minute grace period for punching in, my mom was ALWAYS twenty to thirty minutes early but the time clock was in the back of the building where there's no door, so she had to go through the whole building to punch in. My mom is an extremely good nurse and very compassionate with her patients and their families so if on her way to the time clock she got stopped and asked to do something by a patient or their family she did it, making her miss the grace period a few times and even though Susi knew she was there because her office is right by the entrance, she still wrote my mom up. And once, and I love this, she was written up for staying late to finish the paperwork that needed to be done by the monthly review the next day. So she stayed making sure everything for ALL THE NURSES was signed and filled out and taking care of what wasn't done so the DoN wouldn't get pissed at Susi (she didn't like Susi). Anyway. Company policy is five write ups and you're fired. Doesn't have to be for the same or even mildly related things, just five. So my mom lost her job for this, while two weeks before a midnight nurse was caught tying patients to their wheelchairs and was only written up and sent to work in the other building where patients are more aware of what's happening.
   
   Anyway, so my mom was fired. It's actually very easy to find nursing jobs, the last time she lost her job when a nursing home closed down, I had her a job interview in the time it took her to get home after falling me with the news. However, for about a year now she's been complaining about back and knee pain. It's arthritis, nothing serious just age, but she also has mild COPD, so she's been coming home for months practically in tears from pain. We looked into her retiring now, at 62, but when I did the math we can't make the bills with what she'd be getting from Social Security right now,. I the suggested we cancel our new fence which we ordered and paid for in July and still wasn't installed and she take the rest off the month off (which was most of it since it was the first week in October). So she did that, applied for Unemployment and got the money from the fence which gave her plenty of time. I actually have used the $8000 to pay bills through the mortgage payment due on January 1. We still had a couple thousand I'd that to live on until unemployment came through which she finally got the first payment two weeks ago after losing four weeks because of their fuck ups and her lack of confrontational skills. I found her many places to apply all of which she had excuses not to, building is too big, the place has a bad rep, etc. I suggested applying at one of the home hospice companies. One inparticular she really liked working with when they had patients at her last job. She kept saying she couldn't, it's a conflict of interest or some bullshit. The she heard that her former job was no longer sending patients to them so she agreed to call. I mean the DoN, HR person, and owner all knew and liked her already where better to apply? She called, and I was right there was never a conflict of interest, so she got the job really easily. She just started last week because she had to have a drug and TB test. As well as background check, because she's going into people's homes. So last week was trainingand paperwork, she had one nursing home with four patients to visit with another nurse on Firsay. She'll start Monday with her own patients. She's losing $2 an hour but they do pay 44 cents a mile and the job is a lot less physical stress because she won't have to be standing eight or nine hours a day. So it should all be good.


2. Marisa decided finally, after a scare, to put her mom on hospice. She's still being a control freak so the hospice aid currently doesn't have much to do because Marisa and Sharon are doing most of it. But she's finally accepting that my aunt is going to die. My mom and the hospice nurse talked Marisa into shutting down the feeding tube. My aunt is still getting meds through it but no food. It's now been six weeks and she's showing no sign of dying. She !arisa put her on hospice it was after being called by the nursing home and to,d to get there ASAP and to call family because my aunt wouldn't make it through the night. Now, no one can explain why she's still here. She hasn't had any food in six weeks. Her body shouldn't be able to withstand this, she's diabetic. Sometimes I swear my uncle is right, we are all going to be dead and buried and my aunt Wil, still be laying in that bed. Marisa has unfortunately now convinced herself that my aunt is still here because she wants to die at home. That isn't it, my aunt isn't aware enough of her surroundings to be doing that, but Marisa is feeling guilty so she's grasping at straws. She feels guilty because she feels like she'll be relieved when my aunt dies. My aunt has been like this for a year and half, and she started controlling Marisa's life with her illness at least ten years ago. For the two years before my aunt's fall Marisa was going to her house every day after work to prepared dinner for that night and breakfast and lunch as well as snacks for my aunt for for the next day. She called my aunt four times a day to remind her to check her sugar. She missed work all the time to take my aunt to the doctors. So yeah, of course she's going to be relieved. She's finally starting to have a life of her own again.


3. In more positive news, Jonathon was accepted at Northwood University, which was his first choice. He'll be majoring in Entrepreneurship. I had no idea that was a possible major but it is. He's also been participating in some kind of young entrepreneur group that goes to various colleges and businesses to learn about starting snd running your own business. They just went a couple weeks ago to Tennessee for some kind of trade show. The last two years he was awarded a leadership award from his ROTC. He was even promoted two extra ranks when he started this year. He's turning into such a responsible, wonderful young man. Funny thing is he says it's because of us, my mom, sister, Marisa, and me, not his mom and dad. That he learned what was important from us. I mean he's seventeen and PREFERS to wear a tie and dress shirt. He even apparently has a preference on knots for his tie. He doesn't like a single Windsor knot, it "doesn't look finished", and he despises the new trend of making the knot inside out, not sure what he means there but his opinion is strong.


4. Raziya is living with her father now. For school only, when she's not at school, weekends, breaks, etc, she's with Sally. Her grades are improving and thanks to summer school she may be able to graduate in June. Or at least walk with her class and finish classes over the summer and first semester of next year.

Thanksgiving news is short, but as it turns out removing my Aunt Beth, Uncle Tommy, and my cousin Tommy from the holiday makes it all so much more pleasant. No fighting or anything. Biggest problem this year was that Sally has no filter and doesn't know when is appropriate to discuss things. Like for the first time Marisa invited her boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner. He's quiet and Mormon and just so not prepared for Sally...who chose dinner as a good time to discuss her menstrual cycle in detail. Jonathon learned years ago to tune out Sally, Josh has never met her and looked like he wanted to sink into the wall when she started talking. And this year Jonathon was with us because he convinced his mom not to make him go upstate with her for the holiday weekend. He didn't tell her he was coming to our place though because she has some jealousy issues but he stayed home and my sister picked him up for the weekend.

While on the subject of Jonathon and Thanksgiving I really need to figure out how to make him understand that as an Athiest he has to learn to keep his mouth shut about religion in front of most people. Yes, the bible may actually support what he's saying, and there is no proof of most religious stories but he can't just start lecturing on this. Most people do not want to hear it and he's going to get himself in trouble one day.

In awesome news, since my mom has a decent about left over and is working now so the money can safely be used for Christmas gifts she has given me an iPhone 6 Plus for Christmas. It's an awesome early gift for me. She got one for herself as well but it seems the back order on black phones is worse than white or gold.

And last update is that we are trying to find a new drug to prevent migraines but they're causing some awesome new side effects like spasming in my jaw and tongue making speaking difficult and some ever worsening concentration problems and trembling in my hands. My psychiatrist suggested a rainbow loom to help with the last two. It's helping I guess...at least I'm getting better at remeber get the patterns and screwing up the actual work less often...this all means I am amassing quite a pile of bracelets that I have no use for.

So how is everyone else?