Last day in Tucson

My last day in Tucson didn't turn out how I had planned. Since it was my last day, I wanted to finish cooking all the items I had planned for the week, but best laid plans don't always work out.

Some things are harder to do because my mom comes behind me and putters all day. I was literally on my feet from 7 AM on this Friday morning until 2 AM on Saturday morning. I began the day by making bacon, eggs & french toast for my folks.  My sis came over at noon so I made chicken breast, green beams and roasted beets/turnips with the plan on putting the leftovers in my Kale Soup.

I'm trying to get as much good nutrition into my folks as possible so I've been freezing these items for  them to make mealtimes easier and to reduce their trips to Wendy's.

After we ate, my mom started complaining of chest pains. She started taking her shirt off because she said it was causing too much pressure on her chest. My dad got angry about having to make yet another trip to the emergency room and blamed me for feeding her Kale Soup because she can't eat anything spicy.  At the time, I couldn't figure out why he thought the soup was spicy because the only spice I put in it was sage. I finally figured out why he was so confused.  The day before I gave him some of my kale chips which had a southwestern seasoning on them so he thought all kale was spicy. He didn't understand the kale in its natural state is not naturally spicy.  I asked mom if she wanted us to take her to the ER, but she said she couldn't travel so the paramedics came. Since one of the paramedics was my nephew, he let me ride in the jump seat on the way to the hospital. He asked all the normal questions...rate your pain, where is the pain, what medicines you are taking...etc. However, when you ask a person with dementia, you can't really be sure they are giving you the correct information especially when they give you different answers each time you ask the same question. They asked what meds she had taken that day so I went to get her pill box to see.  I discovered that my dad had not given her any of her meds that day.  In addition, I told them that he had not given her medicine on Wednesday either. Among those meds is Nexium, you know...the little purple pill. I guess that explains the episode.  However, this episode was different. She threw up at home and again at the hospital due to the extreme pain. I asked the doc if they would test her urine, and sure enough she had a urinary tract infection.  No wonder she was loonier than normal this week. Oh, the stories she told me that did not make any sense.

They did an X-ray, blood workup and urine sample. At one point, the nurse told us they were admitting her, but I guess the doc changed his mind because they ended up releasing her.  All of her tests came back normal except for the urine test.  She was finally released about 1 AM.  We got home around 2 AM so I packed since I was leaving the next day.

My mom was the only one that got any rest that night.The last thing on my list today was to make granola, but that didn't happen.  I went to bed at 3 AM and got up at 7 AM on Saturday to get ready for my flight home to Indiana.