Monday, August 19th
At 1:30 PM, A came by to meet me, my mom, and Humphrey and to do an interview for the position of driving Humphrey to and from me. Of course, she loved Humphrey and was a very nice woman. Mom thought she was mature and responsible, and pretty much trusted her. Wonderful! We would start using her on Wednesday. Yippee! Mom had to go to the paint store to take advantage of a sale, and M and I decided not to start anything and just watch short things on YouTube. We almost watched an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Hawaii but the final five minutes were after 4 PM, and mom and M started packing up, and ignored the show. How dare they have more important things to do than watch TV!
Tuesday, August 20th
I got up in my chair in time for J's visit. I sit in the small dining room across from my room. There's hardly anyone else in the room, so it's a nice place to be alone, although it is somehow colder than my room. My bed gets wheeled in here when I'm going to have a lot of visitors at once. Anyway, it's a nice room where J can give me a massage or I can have my therapy session. It's definitely better when half of the overhead lights are turned off so I can see my iPad screen. It's the place I hang out when I am not in bed.
Wednesday, August 21st
My friend from high school, E, brought Humphrey at 11 AM, like I asked. I had told him my other helper was coming at 2 PM but I had not made clear that I needed him to stay with me for those three hours or that I needed him to give me lunch. So I sprung that all on him and he graciously complied, although feeding me lunch was definitely awkward for him. I really do have a bad habit of expecting too much from people who offer to help me. I later profusely apologized for putting him in that position and will schedule A to come earlier so E does not need to feed me.
Anyway, A showed up at 2 o'clock and E was able to leave. A and I then had a chance to talk and get to know one another. Or, really, I got to talk about myself. Isn't that everybody's favorite subject, themselves? I showed her my website, the blog and my essays. I read her the first essay on procrastination and she laughed in all the right places. I talked about how I wanted to create videos where I instruct someone on how to Hoyer me as they are doing it. She said if I could rent the Hoyer lift, she could help me film that. That gives me renewed energy to do it!
When it was time to go and A brought out the carrier, Humphrey walked over to my side and curled up next to me. A immediately recognized that as an ‘I don't want to leave’ move. I told her to give him five minutes and by that time he was open to getting in the carrier. It was nice not to rush the end of the visit.
Thursday, August 22nd
I teetered on the edge of deciding not to get up, but I knew I would regret it if I did. So I told my CNA I wanted to get up, and there you go. There have been times when, by the time they brought the Hoyer to me, it was late enough in the day that I just stayed in bed. This was not one of those days. I sat in the small dining room until my therapist arrived. That makes it sound like I moved eventually but I didn't. I stayed in small dining room through the therapy session and for the rest of the day after.
Friday, August 23rd
Wednesday had been such a wonderful long visit with Humphrey that I wanted to make every visit with him six hours. Now that we had found A, it was possible, I thought. I told mom as much, and she accepted it at first, and then the next day she came back with, "He eats dinner at 5 PM, and he doesn't want to miss that, and he needs to pee; it’s too long a visit to ask him to hold it." It makes me supremely irritated when someone tells me what Humphrey does or doesn't want. I am very in tune with him and I would never do something that harms him. He wants to hang out with me more than he wants dinner and six hours is not too long to ask him to hold it. I was venting to my helper and she asked Siri how many times a day does a cat pee? The answer is 2 to 4 times a day for a healthy cat. Humphrey just got diagnosed with kidney disease and it has not affected his peeing schedule yet. So a six-hour visit is not too much. Mom accepted that and I was very relieved.
Saturday, August 24th
My sister was very busy with work and she did not have time to visit me so no sister, no Humphrey and no food for the week. I didn't really mind. I don't know why, but I didn't. I thought I could catch up on my blogging but that didn't happen. So I spent the day not doing much of anything.
Sunday, August 25th
Mom stopped by after church and we had a nice visit. I know we will get all this Humphrey stuff worked out in time. It just takes doing it once or twice to get in the swing of things. The photo this week E took of me on Wednesday. Doesn't look like he needs to pee, does it? Oh I just need a good slap sometimes! Have a great week!
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