Hi Ann - thanks for the kind words and sharing your experiences. You have done amazing care/support work for your family. I don’t think I could have balanced all the plates/balls you did when you were caring.
You and Hubby have done a good job with the apple pie. I hope you enjoyed it - looks very nice.
I went through a spell when I was making apple crumble and then apple crisp. There was a time when rhubarb crumble was my favourite desert, but I haven’t had that in many years.
Glad to see your winning streak continuing 
Connections
Puzzle #882
- one of those days when it fell into place - didn’t know the purple, but you don’t need to
Wordle 1,604 4/6*
- Never heard of a FUGUE, but having eliminated a lot of the letters in the first three guess and with GUE in place and only U available as a vowel for the second letter and possibly a Y, a lot of guessing and playing around with available letters resulted in the solution - that I guess is the beauty of unlimited guesses of “made up words” since there is no penalty, just a warning saying “invalid word”
#waffle1388 2/5
streak: 82 - Happy to take 2* as the dream of a century remains
Oh dear!
It’s only 45 minutes into Monday and I have finished the puzzles. Looks like I will have to start decluttering my room
Here we go.
Connections
Puzzle #883
- Close shave but it was bang, bang, bang … all or nothng - decided not to sleep on it and it paid off
Wordle 1,605 6/6*
- Ditto. Went for it and knew there was a possibility of a blow out, but a Phew! it is.
#waffle1389 4/5
streak: 83 - what can I say? Another 4* performance and only 17 more to go
And a BONUS.
Mum is so relaxed.
She was having a mare during the day with her nemesis - bloating and nothing was helping. Then I went for it - something I had been asking for for a long time, but which wasn’t happening. I wanted Mum to use the commode - something I initiated maybe a couple of years ago or so but which was aborted and I never found out why. Something happened during the session when this was done - it was the morning wake up call and the agency carers were responsible for doing this.
The very first effort was A1 and I was so pleased as I felt this was going to a huge help. This carried on for a few days/weeks and I was never involved as I don’t do the morning call (late afternoon and nights) and then all of a sudden, I was told there was some problem and they stopped doing the sitting on the commode. I couldn’t get a straight answer and haven’t had an explanation to-date other than some wishy washy explanation. I kept saying we should try again, but nothing was done, again no explanation.
Today I said I have to do it myself. So I asked my sister to come and help and she was not very enthusiastic, but I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. We prepared Mum and took her to the commode in a sling and tried to sit her on it. My sister was responsible for positioning and it wasn’t a good effort. My sister said, abort and go back to bed. I said, no, sorry we have to sort it, I am not waiting any longer unless I know why it isn’t happening. So we switched roles, I took over positioning and sister steered/supported. Raised Mum up made adjustments and lowered her on the commode and made adjustments.
Checked position- all OK.
Checked Mum - had already relaxed and was comfortable
Explained to Mum she was now on the commode and she should do the “business”
She remained very relaxed - totally different to just a few minutes ago when she was lying in bed and making a racket trying to release the trapped wind.
I said to her she will sit on the commode as long as she needs to - it’s just like sitting in the wheel chair and we’re going nowhere until she’s done.
She sat there comfortably for half an hour.
We took her off and she hadn’t actually done much of an output (she had already done this in her pad prior to the transfer to the commode) but it was the experience/proof of concept.
I said to my sister - that’s it. I see no reason why this cannot be done everyday and starting now, this is what we’re going to do. No excuses. I’ve had enough of being in the dark about why Mum is being denied this which in my view is very natural and easier for her to do the bowel movements and which was successfully implemented when first suggested. She agreed and so today will be proof of the pudding as they say
Since the commode sitting, Mum has been totally fine and I hope this is yet another step forward onto bigger and better things. It’s a huge weight off my mind as I just couldn’t see why it wasn’t being done (and I still don’t know - maybe one day I will find out). For now I’ll take this as a personal victory and hopefully Mum will be so much better off for it - there are so many benefits from doing this.
#waffleelite
streak: 16
