Brussels Sprouts or Sidney Poitier?

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In honor of Aunt Jean who passed away a year ago today:

Aunt Jean and two other great beauties.
Aunt Jean and two other great beauties.

Aunt Jean was an Australian blonde beauty who married my husband’s uncle in 1945. During World War II, Uncle Mike was stationed in Australia. He met Jeannie at a dance contest,  won the contest and her heart. At 18 years old, she moved to New Jersey without knowing a soul, moved in with my husband’s family and stayed here mostly, for the rest of her life.

Jeannie worked in New York City.  She had copious stories about all the famous and infamous people she met, more by accident than on purpose, which may be one of the greatest gifts most of us are missing by not listening to the tales of the elderly.

Her friend Mae was a live-in housekeeper in a high-fallootin’ building on the Upper East Side. When Mae’s employer went out of town, she was allowed to have her own guests over for dinner. So Jeannie and her friend Ellie got all dressed up just to go in the fancy building and up the elevator to Mae’s apartment.

Now the point of this story from Aunt Jean’s perspective was, as I was making dinner, she wanted to tell me how great her Irish buddy, Mae, concocted Brussels sprouts, so I could do the same. Something to do with sautéing them in onions and butter and bacon. But this is how she got to the Brussels sprouts recipe.

“So we were in the elevator going up to the penthouse and in walks a very handsome black man. My friend, Ellie is pulling at my sleeve and gesturing to me that this is someone I’m supposed to recognize. She’s rolling her eyes and trying to be cool, while the gentlemen is politely staring straight ahead. Finally, it hits me and I say:

“Excuse me Mr. Poitier, it’s so nice to meet you. Do you live in this building?”

“Why yes, I do. Do you?”

“No,” I say, “we are just visiting friends.” I said it like we weren’t visiting the housekeeper, of course.

“Well, that’s nice. And what is your name?”

“My name is Jean and this is my friend, Ellie.”

With that the elevator door opens for Mr. Poitier’s floor and as he gets off he says, “So very nice to meet you, Jean and Ellie. Have a lovely evening.”

“AUNT JEAN!” I said, “you met , Sidney Poitier????? You never told me that.”

“Oh, yes lovey that was fun, but let me tell you about the Brussels Sprouts, I’ve never had any so delicious.”

We miss you Aunt Jean, because whenever you were around….

“We just had to Laugh……”

©2014Cathy Sikorski

 

Weighing In……………

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I noticed a weird bruise on my arm last week on Thursday. By Friday it had morphed into something that looked like a bear climbing a tree. It didn’t hurt. I had no recollection of bumping into things, or drinking too much wine on Wednesday (although now that I’ve written that “Wine Wednesday” sounds pretty tempting). So I went to the doctor.

Bruise Comparison Photo
Bruise Comparison Photo

The first thing they do when they take you into the super secret area where patients are seen is tell you to “get on the scale.” I have been trying to decline this for years. If it’s my annual check up or I think I have diabetes or perhaps I have miraculously lost those last damn 10 pounds by eating chocolate cake and the new Yeungling Black and Tan Ice Cream, then and only then will I get on the scale.

I’m sorry, I may be naïve to think that all American women have a psychological battle with weight, but I know all my friends do. That stupid number can send me into a tailspin of self-loathing and regret for days. I will not have it.

This time I may have been a bit intense in my questioning and refusal to be weighed for a bruise. The nurse ratted me out to the doctor.

“We have to weigh you for insurance purposes,” said the doctor.

“I’m sorry, but the insurance company doesn’t get to play mind games with me. Do you have any idea how crazy that scale makes me?”

“I’m starting to….”

“Women the world over hate getting weighed, even on a good day. It is a sign of our possible failure to literally measure up. It makes us feel bad about our next bagel. And it makes no sense when I’m coming in for a bruise. And on top of all that, not one doctor ever comments on my weight and how that may affect my health, so I have to conclude that unless it’s critical to my visit, it’s not important to the medical community on that day either.”

The doctor looked at me like I needed Xanax at that juncture and said, “we just have to check a box on the form that says we weighed you.”

“So what happens if I refuse to be weighed?”

“We check the box marked ‘declined’.”

So there you have it ladies and gents. If you have an irrational aversion to that doctor’s scale, you can just say “no,” or better yet, “declined.”

By the way, perhaps someone should have asked why I was so stressed by something so trivial. And that’s where the caregiver craziness shows up. In the final analysis, when attempting self care……

“You just have to Laugh….”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski

 

Stroke of genius?

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I called my 86 year old Mom for help.

“Hey, Mom, I need a picture of your cabin in Canada.”

“Okay,” she said, “come over and get it.”

“No,” I told her, “I want you to get it off your computer, and email it to me.”

“Oh, ummm….where is that?”

“Where is your computer?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous. Where is the picture on my computer?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you?”

Maybe I did have to go over there and get it.

“Okay, let’s start at the computer. Are you on your iPad or your desktop?”

“Let me go to the big computer, the picture has to be on there because your

In folder marked "Canada"
In folder marked “Canada”

brother-in-law made it my screensaver.”

I hear her sneakers tweak around the kitchen floor, her bedroom door makes a little squeak as she opens it, and the whirr of her desktop hums through the phone line as she boots up.

“Okay, now what do I do?” she asks matter-of-factly. She calmly clicks on all the buttons I direct her to. We get all the way to the photos stored on her desk top and we are at an impasse.

“Mom, do you know where the photo is stored? Like, what folder is it in?”

“Well, I guess it’s in the one marked ‘Canada’, does that sound right?”

“Just try it. See if it’s in there.”

For some reason, I don’t hear any computer buttons clicking on the other end of the line. Silence, with a little breathing is the only sound coming through.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing? I thought you were looking in the file marked ‘Canada’. Did you find it?”

Now she’s exasperated. Technology has won again. She is frustrated and annoyed, and I have no idea why.

“Ugh….I have been waiting and waiting for the keyboard to come up so I can look for the picture.”

“Wait…what? I don’t know what…..Wait….are you on your iPad or your computer”

“I’m on the computer. I told you that’s where the picture probably is.”

I realize that this octogenarian is trying her best to be in the 21st century. She has willingly taken on a desktop and an iPad. She puts up with her children trying to train her like an organ monkey over the phone, and sometimes it’s just too many things to remember. Plus naming every button as a “square thingy that looks like a tv,” or a “the blue e thingy,” usually ends up with a trip to Mom’s house anyway.

” Um….Mom, look down at your fingers, there’s your keyboard. It doesn’t come up on the screen like the iPad. You’re using the actual keyboard.”

“Oh.”

We both burst out laughing. She does indeed send the picture.

Caregivers need to give credit where credit is due and…..

“You just have to Laugh….”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski

It’s a Jungle out there…..

Caregivers, Humor, Medicare, Multiple Sclerosis, Uncategorized

Caregivers are not permitted to take vacations. But good ones do so anyway. If you can get out of the country and be completely incommunicado that’s ideal (being incognito doesn’t hurt either).

My husband and I took a bucket list trip to Macchu Pichu in Peru. We nearly killed ourselves hiking mountains in high altitude and then melting with sweat in the Amazon jungle. No phone, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury…not really true, we stayed in some damn fine five star hotels for about five hours a night. But the only way to communicate with this caregiver was through email. In a country where you are not allowed to flush your toilet paper and must use bottled water to brush your teeth….WIFI is not high on their list. This caregiver was thrilled to be almost completely unplugged from the world for ten days.

I made sure the folks in my brother-in-law’s rehab knew that they must call my mother if any decisions needed to be made about his care. My mother gave them my sister’s phone number as well. They had enough phone  numbers to start a new yellow pages under “caregivers for Cathy’s brother-in-law.”

Baby Piranha searching for WIFI.
Baby Piranha searching for WIFI.

When I returned from conquering mountains and tarantulas, on a Saturday, there were six messages on my home phone and four on my cell phone from the rehab center. Insurance and Medicare had determined that my brother-in-law could be discharged from rehab to home, where he lives alone, even though the doctor insisted that he must remain on complete bed rest for 2 or 3 more weeks. The rehab center wanted me to know that his coverage was now terminated, three days before I returned from the jungles of Peru.

Even though they tried to call me TEN times…. with no response from me, they seemed to decide that I’m an irresponsible person. No one looked at the file to see if there was any indication of who else to call. No one took one teensy weensy step further and thought: “Gee, this is weird. That lady is in here several times a week bugging all of us for anything from therapy updates to a single sugar packet. I wonder why she is ignoring our phone calls?”

Nope.

I called on Saturday and was surprised to find that at the very least, they kept him in his room, assuming he would pay for it. Now they are  working very hard to see if they can get his insurance to reconsider.

So the good news is we checked a square off our bucket list. The better news is we didn’t die doing it, no malaria and no altitude sickness, no death by diarrhea, no tarantula bites. The best news is my brother-in-law isn’t home in a bed wondering if anybody knows where he is.

You don’t get a vacation and….

“You just have to Laugh…..”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski

 

 

What’s at steak??????

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In the last four months, my brother-in-law has lost somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds. That may seem like a lot, especially for those of us who have been fighting those last damn 10 pounds for years, but it has been a blessing.

He now has lost so much of his Buddha belly that he can actually turn himself a bit from side to side. This is a spectacular advancement in the world of MS and bed sores because he may now be able to spend more time in his electric  wheelchair and less time confined to bed to protect his skin from breaking down.

He, on the other hand, sees that he has been subject to lousy food and a Spartan diabetic diet.  Now, it is kind of hard to point out the beauty of lousy food and a Spartan diet. So after much praise for his ability to scooch around (yes, I do believe that is a medical term), I researched the possibility of getting some fun back onto his food tray.

He is still in rehab for a few weeks to get stronger from wound repair surgery, so I must get permission to adjust his diet. And I do. Everyone agrees his blood sugar is exemplary and he can have sugar instead of sugar substitute. His blood pressure is also stellar, so he can have salt again as well. Hip, hip hooray.

I take this as a sign that I can ‘bring’ him a special meal of his own choosing at least once a week. It’s actually getting to the point where I’m concerned that he might loose too much weight and then we have another problem. I know, the “oh you’ll get too skinny” story is usually baloney, but he has taken refusing bad food to new heights….and I don’t blame him. In fact, he would welcome baloney, but they don’t serve that…too salty.

So, as we live in the Philly area, I brought him his favorite naughty meal. It was a cheesesteak hoagie with hot peppers. That means there were condiments such as fried onions, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise all slathered on that sandwich. He ate every single bite, picked the stray onions, peppers and tomatoes off the hoagie paper, and wiped his mustache with glee.

When the aide came in for his institutional food tray and it looked like he hadn’t touched a bite, I debated whether to confess. Ah…what the hell……….

“I brought him a cheesesteak.”

“Well, good for him,” said the aide. “I don’t think one person ate today’s dinner. It was that bad.”

“So our secret is safe with you?”

“What secret?”

Sometimes you find partners in crime in the best and most unexpected places.

“You just have to Laugh….”

© 2014 Cathy Sikorski

 

What makes the Hottentot so hot? Courage….the Cowardly Lion.

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So I have to prepare a story about courage for a story slam. This may or may not be it.

I think my Mom is one of the most courageous people I know.  She had 5 kids all under the age of 10, and was pregnant with her 6th when my Army helicopter Dad died in a crash. Along with my Nana, she raised six pretty terrific kids (I can say that, I’m the middle child).The problem arises when she mixes her courage with a bit of the crazy.

As you may know, she is a big help to me in my caregiving duties. She is a nurse and was

This pic never gets old!
This pic never gets old!

often  called upon to help me with nonagenarians. She is in charge of all the meds for my brother-in-law. So this lady has got it together.

She gives great advice, except to herself. A few years ago, my mom and my brother Chip, decided to take a trip to Canada. My Mom has had a cabin there since 1972. It’s very rustic. The cabin is nestled next to a little lake. Years ago, my Mom and stepfather, and any other rustic thinking person, would go there all summer long for fishing, wildlife, nature, no electricity, no running water.  The kind of place I would not set foot in.

For the past 5 years or so, my Mom goes only occasionally. She still manages to find people who actually want to go there, but the boat dock is rotted, the trail to the lake is overgrown with weeds, she no longer has a garden the size of the Louvre, and so it’s just a short trip for a few days with those escaping technology or their spouses.

This time Mom and Chip went to check out the new floor that my brothers and brother-in-law had installed. They drove 8 hours from home. They were there approximately 45 minutes, when my Mom tripped on the lip created by the new floor and promptly broke her arm. See, she knew she broke it because she’s a nurse. That and the crack that sounded the minute she hit the floor.

My mother insisted that my brother get back in the car and drive her home 8 hours with that throbbing arm and nasty seat belt, so that she could go to a hospital near home. Now as the one who was probably going to be her temporary caregiver, that was great for me. As someone who tests the limits of courage and common sense. this 83 year old grandmother should have had some sense knocked into her before she hit the floor.

Courage or Crazy…………you be the judge. In any case………..

By the way…that picture IS  the  actual cabin. I made my Mom email it to me….THAT is the next story!

“You just have to Laugh………..”

Cathy Sikorski ©2014

 

 

You’re the Boss, Applesauce….Andy Warhol

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My mother-in-law, Marie, thought I was as cool as Bruce Springsteen.  A few years ago, in one of her long stints at the hospital, the social worker arrived in her room and quickly began her assessment of the situation.

“Marie,” she demanded, “do you know what day it is?”

“No,”  Marie truthfully answered. Marie was in her 90’s and loving her assisted living facility. Every day came and went like it was Tuesday or Saturday, or who-the-hell-cares day.

“Well,” the highly trained professional asked, “do you know who the President is?”

Okey dokey….now I jumped in.

“Is this really necessary?” I wondered while looking the social worker straight in the eye.

“Well, I need to know if she’s oriented to space and time.”

You’re not oriented to space or time if you’re thinking an elderly woman from a facility is keeping up with current events.

“Ask her questions she knows the answer to, if you’re trying to find out if she’s in any way conscious.”

“Well, okay.” She turned to my mother-in-law and pointed to some of the other people who were visiting in the room.

“Who is that, Marie?”

“That’s my son, Ted.” Correct.

“And who is that lady next to him?”

“That’s his wife, Judi.” Also correct.

Then pointing to me: “And who is that lady there?”

“Her?” And Marie pointed to me as well.

“Yes, that lady?”

“Oh, that’s the Boss!”

Boom!

I have become legendary. Last week in my brother-in-law’s room the social worker came in to ask some questions.

“What day is it?”

“Truthfully,” he said, “I don’t give a shit.” Score 1 for the ill and infirm.

“And who is this with you today?” she asked him, pointing in my direction.

“Oh her? Yeah, watch out for her, that’s the Boss!”

“You just have to Laugh….”

© 2014 Cathy Sikorski

Pizza, Pizza……………

Caregivers, Humor, Multiple Sclerosis, Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

Arising at 4 A.M. to get to my brother-in-law’s apartment before the ambulance transport so that I could quickly give him his medications before surgery, as archly instructed by the hospital staff, may have fuzzed up my mind. I’m pretty certain this was the conversation I overheard while watching and waiting for three hours before they took him into surgery:

Nurse on phone: “Yes, those were the instructions. Yes, no food or drink after 8:00 P.M.  last night.  Well, I will have to call the doctor and see if they still want  you to come in.”

Nurse on phone to Doctor:  “Your surgery for 8 AM just called. She wanted to know if she should still come in if she had pizza for breakfast.”

Nurse back on phone to patient: “The doctor says he wants you to still come in. You won’t be his first surgery, but he wants you to come in and see if he can fit you in. What? What’s that? Okay. Well, I will inform the doctor of that, but you still need to come in.”

Take with Pills in AM
Take with Pills in AM

Nurse to any other nurse who will listen: “So she just told me that she also took some opiates and some alcohol this morning too. I don’t know if that was while she was waiting for me to get back to her, or if  she forgot to tell me the first time.”

A different nurse to my brother-in-law, who has a rash around his lips from no liquid for  the last 15 hours, is starving, and has a second nurse stabbing him all over the place trying to get the IV line in so they can administer drugs to make him happy: “Your surgery has just been moved up, lucky for you the first patient had pizza.”

“Oh yeah,” says my brother-in-law, “I was feeling all kinds of lucky today.”

To their credit, not one nurse ever violated HIPPA by revealing the name of the pizza-eating, opiate-taking, breakfast-of-champions alcohol-drinking patient who cleared the way for everyone to move up the line.

“You just have to Laugh…..”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski

 

 

 

A Gentleman is simply a patient wolf…..Lana Turner

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A while ago, I commented on how, at least in the senior community, I felt like quite a catch (I still got it…sort of… ) I learned yesterday, that in those same communities, I’ve got quite a bit of competition.

As the winner of a basket of cheer at a local assisted living facility, I was invited to take a tour and claim my prize. For those of us in the writing profession, this was the mother lode: two huge coffee mugs, two pounds of coffee, flavored creamers, Starbucks Frappuccinos and European biscuits.

My daughter was home for a visit, so she went along for the ride. While we were waiting for the tour guide, a beautiful 81 year old resident stood behind the sofa, greeted us warmly and chatted all about how she loved her new living space. Jane entertained us for 20 minutes with her life story, the benefits of assisted living, and smarmy little secrets about her fellow residents.

A lovely blue eyed blonde aide appeared by Jane’s side and joined us in our lively chit-chat. Then Dr. H came along in his walker. Jane was compelled to tell us he was a physician and very brilliant.  Our blonde friend had a different take on the matter.

“Watch out for Dr. H,” she said, “he likes to grab your butt.”

“Well, yes, dear,” said Jane, “that’s true, but he’s not nearly so obnoxious as Karl.”

The aide scooted around the other side of Jane to get as far away from Dr. H as possible. With that, the good doctor comes over and tells us:

“I’ve been around a long time, but I’m never too old or too busy to appreciate a beautiful woman.”

A collective groan reverberated from all the women in the lobby…..of which there were about ten of us. Ugh.

The aide backs out of the room and Dr. G. follows her as fast as he can, but the walker just can’t keep up with the runner.

My daughter, who is in her twenties, can’t quite fathom that this is her plight well into her octogenarian years, turned to Jane and says: “So what’s the deal with Karl?”

“Oh, most of these men are harmless, even though every one of them is a dirty old man. But Karl, yes, dear you really have to watch out for him. I tell all the new ladies to stay a good distance from Karl.”

“But how much harm can he do in here?” said my daughter.

“Well, it’s like I tell all the residents. Don’t be so stupid and go into his room by yourself. He lures you in there and then he sticks his hand up your shirt. I can’t believe these girls would be so dumb as to go into his room.”

And there  you have it. We all still got it, even if we don’t want it.

“You just have to Laugh…..”

© 2014 Cathy Sikorski