Today went pretty good. I kind of woke up at 7ish but I was able to get a bit more sleep before my 8am alarm. I went next door to see if Mumma needed anything. She talked with the hospice people I think. She put another small fent patch on Gramma, and said to keep it low on the oxy. Because we only have a little bit left and she doesn’t know when we’ll get more. We have two left right now (because she got one this afternoon). We still have some dilaudid pills but those are for when she really needs stuff.

Mumma thought they were 5mg like her old oxy pills, but the ones we got are 10mg, so that explains why Gramma was asleep most of the day yesterday when Mumma gave her 2. Oops. Our main hospice nurse will be here tomorrow.

I had the morning to myself, so I got new garbage bags for the upstairs garbage and the garbage bag in my room. I haven’t brought the old ones down yet, but I have new bags because they were both very full. I worked on the art doll, I started cutting and sewing the arms. I’m going for a checkerboard, so basically quilting. It’s slow going so far because I’m doing it by hand.

Sitting in my chair was making my back stiff when I got back up, so I did some stretches. I was watching old videos of Joel playing Geogesser while I was sewing. Then I got my stuff ready to go over at 12. Gramma was napping, and Kaila was there to visit. Gramma is Kaila’s Gramma too, but she isn’t as close and me and Mumma (because we live next door, and we have all my life). Kaila also has lived in Milwaukee someplace while we have always been in Waukesha.

Mumma set Kaila up with a bunch of meat we had in our freezers and she is going to cook a lot of stuff for us. I was thinking about suggesting that Kaila could cook easy to freeze and reheat meals because then she can be happy that she’s helping, and then dinner is one less thing Mumma has to worry about preparing.

I mostly just sat on the couch and was on my phone this afternoon. I was mainly on Reddit, and yesterday or the day before I joined the Caregiver Support and Hospice subreddits, so I saw a couple posts from those subreddits today. Reading them the other day was making me a bit teary, but the ones I saw today I didn’t get teary about.

They kind of were similar to some thoughts I’ve been having. I, of course, want Gramma to be comfortable, but I am getting anxious about her needing an increasing amount of care, and how I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t like wish her dead right away, I don’t know. But I don’t know how much/how long I can help with caring. Right now it’s reasonable but I am anxious about what comes next. But I am trying to think about only by the right now and helping as best I can.

The other day when I was crying a lot I hugged Mumma when we both were home and she said that she doesn’t know what she’d do without me helping. So I am happy that I’m being helpful for Mumma so that she can have some time to herself and know that Gramma is with someone capable. Not saying that Grampa isn’t capable, but Mumma worries about his ability to help (he is also old) and a bit of his bedside manner.

But I think that maybe Mumma is worried about me too. I remember in the DDG class we talked about sandwich caregivers and that it’s really hard for them. I want to maybe look up some resources for sandwich caregivers so I know how best to support her.

Tonight she came over with some beef stew at like 4:30 and me, Gramma, Grandpa and her all had some, and then I was basically dismissed by like 5:15. I went home and took a shower right away, but then I remembered I forgot to refill the humidifier bottle on the oxygen machine so I ran over and did that. I don’t know if she came home yet (it’s 6:30). I want to divide the time that each person is watching over Gramma as equally as possible, so I will always be making an effort to provide Mumma with solid time that she can have to herself, but she has definitely been spending more time with Gramma after I’ve been “dismissed,” and I kind of feel bad in a way. But if I stayed with Grampa and Mumma after dinner for that period, I’ll get too exhausted I think. I have to deal with the fact that I probably need more time to myself so I don’t get burnt out or overwhelmed. I think Mumma understands that. And I think that Mumma is going to want to spend more time with Gramma because Gramma is Mumma’s Mumma.

So I am trying not to feel guilty about it. I asked Mumma if she was going to be over tomorrow morning again, and she said yes, so I said I’ll be over in the afternoon. I think she’s going to try and WFH tomorrow. I also said I’d be back to WFH tomorrow.

Normally I would work 7am-12pm. I would be able to WFH from Gramma’s house and keep an eye on her, so if Mumma decides she wants to switch and have me look after her in the morning instead, I would be able to watch over in the morning and still WFH.

I haven’t worked in two weeks because of the holiday week and then the week I took off because the other two people I work with also took off. I actually didn’t work the two days of the Christmas week because Gramma was in the hospital and I went to hang out with her there. So in those two weeks, I feel like I didn’t really get a break. I was thinking today that, man, I have to do work tomorrow.

I’m telling myself that I will just take it slow tomorrow morning. I already told my boss and he was understanding and said he’d add Gramma to his family’s prayers. Gramma is on so many prayer lists lol. One of Mumma’s coworkers has got her on a list at some men’s group in Iowa.

For breakfast this morning, I had the other half of the McDonald’s cookie I didn’t finish yesterday, and I had one of the Frappechino bottles. Then when I went over at 12 I brought the Hi-C orange that Erik got me Thursday night (today is Sunday) and I had two of the mini muffins I didn’t eat from yesterday.

For dinner Mumma reheated some beef stew and it was really good. I had the like half a mug that she gave me, and then I went back and had a little bit more (but left enough for Mumma). Normally I don’t really care for soup but I have been known to eat the beef stew before. I definitely prefer the beef stew that’s brown than the other soup she makes that’s kind of red. Grandpa offered me chocolate pudding for dessert but I didn’t want any.

I helped Gramma pee once today. I cleaned it up fine and I didn’t really notice the odor sticking around my nose that much. I also found out that the like top ring of the bucket can come off, so that should make cleaning it easier. I think it’s there to prevent spilling, but it makes emptying it and cleaning it a bit harder because the liquid can’t come straight out. But now I know it can come apart.

I don’t know if Gramma has had a BM yet. Mumma put Miralax in her coffee this morning I think, but I haven’t heard a report yet. We might have to use the Senna, but I think if we do that we will get her ready for the toilet immediately because she reacts very fast to the Senna (we have prior experience with the Senna being Too fast). I got commode liners so if we know a BM is coming we can use one of those for easy cleanup.

I am prepared to help clean her and the commode if there is a BM, but I’d rather have cleanup be easy and less "embarrassing" for her? When I was helping her pee yesterday she was having a slow go over to the commode and I think she was getting a bit weepy and she said something like “I’m such a cripple,” and I said “Ok.”

I’ve been really trying at giving her two options when something is suggested to her. I’ll do it by myself, or when Mumma or Grampa are there. Grandpa was asking if she’d wanted to move to the couch and she said yeah sure. And then I could tell he was getting antsy so I said “Do you want to move to the couch now, or do you want to wait a bit?” and she said “wait a bit,” so that’s an example at what I mean.

She was taking a nap this afternoon and I just left whatever channel the TV was on, and it was Spectrum News. I saw like the same 5 segments over and over and it got a bit grating while I was looking at my phone. When she woke up and had to pee, the cable box turned off, and when I turned it back on it was on PBS. We left it on for a while, but then Grampa came in and was making noises about changing the channel, so I made sure it was okay with Gramma and I was looking through the guide. I found Seinfeld, and it happened to be the Soup Nazi episode.

We missed the iconic “No soup for you!” but we got some of it. That episode is the one episode that my family references the most so I’m glad I found it. Gramma seemed pretty out of it when we were having dinner. Her oxygen and HR were kind of low before dinner, so I turned up the oxygen flow, and it went up a bit, but the HR was still low after a while. Idk.

Also yesterday Beetlejuice was on the movie channel Grampa likes watching, and I saw the last half of it. And then I put on Heathers on Prime Video and I think Grampa was appalled that I’d put on something like that (it is an R rated movie after all) but I put it on because it had Winona Ryder in it.

Overall I’d say that today was pretty good.

• Mood: good
• Listening to: kindness luigi
• Reading: reddit posts
• Watching: joel play geogesser
• Playing: ACNH
• Eating: beef stew
• Drinking: icewater