Snowed In

Hope everyone who is from my area survived the storm with little issue! I spent quite a bit of it in CT with The Boyfriend, as my parent’s street was unplowed for four days and I could not get back! We are all fine, though, and the snow is slowly (VERY SLOWLY) melting!

We all had a lovely Valentine’s Day. The Boyfriend came down and we made dinner for my parents. My Mom browned and stirred the rice (supervised, of course) and did a great job! She can stir anything into submission! We made dirty shrimp in a beer and butter sauce and Mom couldn’t shovel it in fast enough! Nothing makes me happier than to see her really enjoy a meal. Dad brought home chocolates for both my Mom and me, but he is a firm believer that flowers should be reserved for “just because” occasions.

My birthday is the day after Valentine’s Day, so we had some more celebrating to do! Mom and I have a tradition of dancing to Prince’s 1999 & Little Red Corvette (on vinyl of course!) in the morning! Then The Boyfriend and I went out for breakfast and made a quick trip to Target. We had a very low-key day and dinner out with friends. Saturday we all went to my cousin’s for cake! My Mom tends to only last an hour or two with all of our crazy family, but she does love her brother and always perks up in his company.

On Saturday, we also started Mom on Diabetes medication. After her last blood test came back right on the cusp of being in the diabetes region, we decided we were going to try and fight it with diet change. But knowing that (hopefully) I will be working soon and Mom will be home alone, it is hard to control what she eats. We’ve stopped keeping things like cookies & sweets in the house (or at least in Mom’s reach. Dad and I are a head taller than her at least so it’s easy to put things on top of the fridge!) but we decided it was better to try and regulate it before we ended up needing to do insulin injections.

Never a dull moment here! Hope this awful winter weather passes soon so we can get out some more!

The Winter Blues

It’s been a little rough around here lately.

After getting my positive biopsy results, I received my Synthroid prescription and have been battling the side effects ever since. I think my mood swings are rubbing off on my Mom, too.

Lately, she has started getting up and going through her morning routine while I am still asleep. She did so last week and into this week. This morning she was yelling for me at 6:40am because she didn’t remember how to turn the water on. Then at 8 she was yelling “is anyone else in the house?!” When I came out, she had the wrong channel on the TV (she watches CNN) and couldn’t get it right.

Sometimes, when I get frustrated I want to cry. I won’t let myself yell at her: that wouldn’t help. It would just upset her. But I spend a lot of time with my feelings bottled up. I resent the situation I’m in, which I suppose is natural. But that resentment turns into guilt and then I just start to well up. It’s impossible to rationalize the situation, because my Mom’s brain can’t follow my explanations.

I think she’s been feeling low lately because I’ve been going into NYC for job interviews and she’s been home alone longer. I know my Dad wants to bring someone in, but he’s not ready to do it until I’m actually working full time. But I know we’ll need to start before then so we can slowly introduce this new person into Mom’s life.