Wednesday, January 27, 2021

All Things Dad LOL

This town we call home is beautiful. It shines especially bright at 5 on a winter morning. 


Michael had an appointment in Anchorage at 1 p.m. Dad had an appointment in Wasilla at 2 p.m. Those who know Alaska know THIS wasn't going to allow me to be at both appointments. Michael left at 11:30.  

Dad and I picked Alex up at work on our way to his primary care appointment.  This was a huge help as I didn't have to lift the chair in or out of the back of the van. My shoulder has been tweaked. Alex stayed in the car and took a warm nap while we went inside. I really like this NP. He is caring and thorough and his philosophy of care seems to line up with ours. We left the appointment with encouragement, a referral to a specialist, and a plan for dealing with sleepless nights.   I opted to keep doing what we are doing for as long as we can...and that includes a healthy dose of prayer for peaceful nights for dad. To use drugs they often use in situations like the one we are experiencing would require a big shake up in meds and we'd all rather avoid anything "new." 

Dad's blood sugars are STILL doing well...and we opted to lower his metformin by 1/3  this time rather than lowering his insulin  a bit more. Nathan told me if I EVER have craziness, as we did this month, with a med to call him personally - and I will.  

Dad used to love Nathan. He's been rude and surly the last 3 or 4 visits as he blames him for taking his license. To be honest, *I* am the one who had the talk with him when the evaluation results came back. His doctor in OR put a big note in his records that his driving needed to be evaluated. Nathan had little to do with it, other than following through.  It doesn't matter; Dad has been mad at Nathan.... Today he looked at Nathan and said, "You know, the hardest thing I've ever had to face (and I've had a lot of hard things) was losing my license."   ::sigh::  

Nathan was so good. He reached over, got down so dad could see his eyes, and said, "Harlan, I know that was terribly hard to lose. I'm sorry." 

Dad said he was mad at all "4 of them" who took his license, but he sees it wasn't Nathan's fault and he's a "good boy from Wyoming."  Shew....

After the appointment dad wanted to celebrate his good blood sugar numbers by having a piece of pie at Sunrise. Whatever!  I know he is eating sugar free at home and I know he isn't going out to eat every day - I turn a blind eye to the shenanigans when we do go out. ::snort:: 

By the time we got home it was too late for me to make the chowder I had planned. We opted to make Wed night our pizza night. We got everyone where we needed to  be on time for the evening.  I probably need to take Nolan's suggestion and make Wed night our pizza night rather than Friday night. 

One of Dad's therapists recommended we get a "day at a time" calendar to help him with days, dates etc. I found this one  and it's a hoot. Every day Dad has to figure out what is wrong with the picture....so we get to laugh, we engage powers of observation, and there are history facts on the back. This is tomorrows - he ripped 2 off today - whatever. LOL The year may go really quick around our house.