One thing my 98 year-old mother did not do in her life time was to collect anything. Well, maybe books. The CBS Sunday Morning show did a story on a man who collected washing machines. He had started his collecting late in life but had managed to accumulate warehouses – plural—full of every form of […]
At 98, she took no pills at all. The doctors and nurses, when I took her in for a check-up, were flabbergasted to learn that she was on no heart medication, no thyroid, no high cholesterol, no blood thinner, no blood thickener, nothing. Even when she arrived here to stay with me, she took none […]
Mom loved books and she taught us to love them as well. Christmas morning brings back memories of opening the most wonderful books. There was nothing more pleasurable than feeling the heft of a book through the wrapping paper and knowing there was hours of pleasure in store. The books were almost always the Caldecott […]
I just thought there would be no more blogs once Mom was gone. Not so. This past weekend, PBS produced a beautiful one-hour program called Christmas at Belmont. All of the music students, and it looked like most of the student body, from Nashville’s Belmont University joined with country singer Sheryl Crow to sing Christmas […]
Martha Louise Gorton Castillo, age 98, passed away on December 18, 2017 at her home in Huntsville, Texas. Martha Lou was born in Utica, New York, on June 25, 1919 to Charles Ruddell Gorton of New York and Caroline Oates Gorton of Greenville, Kentucky. She learned her love of travel early as her father and […]
I was with Mom alone on Saturday. I felt certain I could handle one day alone with her. If the other caregivers could, I thought, so could I. Just because I was also night shift shouldn’t matter. Didn’t nurses pull double shifts all the time? I tried to rouse Mom several times from the bed […]
It’s been a week without water. Okay, not without water, exactly, but without running water. Living out in the country means that we live by well water alone. Many people do, out here in East Texas. Or Middle East Texas. Or north of Houston, anyway. Or much of rural Texas. It’s not uncommon. Unlike the […]
“No! Leave me alone!” It’s 4:30 am and Mom is sitting on the bedside commode refusing to go back to bed. She doesn’t understand where she is or what the bed is. I’ve cut off the wet pull-ups and laboriously slid a new pair up to her knees but that’s it. Not moving any farther, […]
It seems that going Herbal also means going Vegan. (Oh, by the way, it is Herbalist not Herbologist). My sister is a great believer in the vegan lifestyle. She has recommended it to me on many occasions and I keep meaning to try it. I’m certain that I could benefit from eating all those good-for-you […]
What, exactly do night nurses do? I’ve made myself the night shift “nurse” and sleep in the big bed beside Mom. If she starts thrashing, or crawls out of bed, I usually hear her and get up to help. My only duties are to readjust Mom’s covers, get Mom up to sit on the bedside […]