You can cheat one and not the other. If she sucks down the ice cream, it's probably just the taste.GORDON wrote:Who the fuck knows. I wouldn't expect a cogent answer even if I asked.Malcolm wrote:Is it the effect of the sugar or the taste the she's jonesing for?
My mother-in-law - The art of learning to not give a fuck.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
So as everyone knows by now, I have a hard time keeping my diabetic mother in law out of the sweets. She just doesn't care that she can't have them, and she eats them as often as she can. As such, I have made an effort to keep them away from her in the house (I am not going to deprive my kid a reasonable dessert after dinner), and I ration out low-sugar snacks to try to help her control her cravings. As such, I get irritated when others work against me.
We were at the YMCA the other day, I took her to "Silver Sneakers" which is basically old-lady-water-aerobics. While she is in the pool I hit the gym for an hour, then we meet in the lobby and go home.
Well on this day they were having free blood pressure screenings in the lobby of the Y... and you know how old people love getting their blood pressure checked. She wanted to do it in spite of having just had a doctor visit the day prior, but I don't even care so I just sat down for a few more minutes and looked at my phone.
A few minutes later I look up to see if she is done, and I hadn't noticed they were giving away granola bars.... she was looking at me and stuffed the rest of it in her mouth as I got up to come over. I was slightly pissed and I was a little loud with the lady, "She is a diabetic, and she is a sugar fiend. Is there sugar in that?"
She answered, "No... there's hardly any sugar in those..."
I took the wrapper and of course, my MIL grabbed the chocolate chip granola bar and stuffed it into her mouth when caught.
I was a bit terse when I told her she'd just had her last snack of the day, and let's go.
Afterward I felt a little bad because that blood-pressure lady probably thought I was pissed at her instead of my MIL.
+++++++++++
Tomorrow I address some random comments about how she is an adult and it isn't really my place to tell her what she can and can't eat.
We were at the YMCA the other day, I took her to "Silver Sneakers" which is basically old-lady-water-aerobics. While she is in the pool I hit the gym for an hour, then we meet in the lobby and go home.
Well on this day they were having free blood pressure screenings in the lobby of the Y... and you know how old people love getting their blood pressure checked. She wanted to do it in spite of having just had a doctor visit the day prior, but I don't even care so I just sat down for a few more minutes and looked at my phone.
A few minutes later I look up to see if she is done, and I hadn't noticed they were giving away granola bars.... she was looking at me and stuffed the rest of it in her mouth as I got up to come over. I was slightly pissed and I was a little loud with the lady, "She is a diabetic, and she is a sugar fiend. Is there sugar in that?"
She answered, "No... there's hardly any sugar in those..."
I took the wrapper and of course, my MIL grabbed the chocolate chip granola bar and stuffed it into her mouth when caught.
I was a bit terse when I told her she'd just had her last snack of the day, and let's go.
Afterward I felt a little bad because that blood-pressure lady probably thought I was pissed at her instead of my MIL.
+++++++++++
Tomorrow I address some random comments about how she is an adult and it isn't really my place to tell her what she can and can't eat.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Some have expressed their opinions that it isn't my place to control her diet if she doesn't want me to, and if they didn't know the entire situation, these people would have a point.
So here's some exposition:
+++++
About 9 months ago my mother in law was in her own house, with her son living in the basement, and she was pretty much free and left to her own devices. Mark, her son, helped her devise a routine for her medications which was actually pretty good. She had her own car and was allowed to live her own life. She would occasionally call Dawn at midnight after we were in bed, and she had no idea that it was late. Mark would report finding snack cake wrappers hidden here and there. But all in all, she was self sufficient.
Until she wasn't. And for some reason, she decided I was going to be her primary care giver.
It started out simple... once a week or so she would call Dawn (I never let her have my phone number, I let Dawn screen her calls for me) because she wasn't feeling well and she wanted me to come over and make her some soup. I wasn't thrilled about a 45 minute drive to and from Northwood to open a can of soup, but I did it a few times. But then the calls were coming more frequently. Stuff like, she had diarrhea and needed help. Well, I have a line I'm not going to cross, and that line is wiping her ass. Dawn told her that if she was that sick, she needed to call an ambulance and go to the hospital, which she actually ended up doing. The calls started coming more and more frequently, "help me help me I need help," and when I got there all she wanted was some soup and some water.
Then the dementia kicked in. She would call me and call me for help, and I would do whatever she needed done (short of the aforementioned ass-wiping), and then as soon as I would leave she was calling an ambulance because she wanted more help. She would call them three times a day, and they are required to come to her every time. Somehow they got my cell phone number, and they would start calling me directly, "Hi Steve, it's Ron. Yeah, we're here again and she is asking for you. Can you come out? There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her." Sometimes, I would get home and the phone would ring and it was the ambulance driver again, she called them within 5 minutes of me leaving her house.
We told her directly and firmly that she has to stop calling ambulances for no reason. She listened. Instead she would go knock on her neighbors' doors and ask them to call an ambulance for her because she needed help.
When we told her to stop doing that, she would call random phone numbers and whoever would answer she would ask them to call her an ambulance because she needed help. "Hi Steve, it's Ron again." She was almost genius in her ability to exploit logic loopholes. It was about this time that we decided a woman who spent so much time out of her mind shouldn't be driving, so we made her get rid of her car with the understanding I would take her grocery shopping because I am so awesome like that. We didn't want her killing some neighborhood kid with her car.
After a couple months of this we got her mentally evaluated, and the verdict was dementia with the occasional Urinary Tract Infection which apparently drives old people batshit insane. The cause of this was that she wasn't eating right, not taking care of herself or her house, and it was making her sickly and weak and I was getting calls 3 times a day to go help her.
We got medicare (or whatever) to buy her a month in the Genoa Care Center, to get her straight, fed, and medicated. It is a pretty nice place, I've seen much worse. We took our son there trick-or-treating.
She hated it and was begging to be let out after a week. They wouldn't allow her to keep her cat there, which we know is her biggest priority, and they wouldn't let her be picky about her food. And frankly she made no plans for her retirement aside from, and I quote, "My kids are supposed to take care of me," so she couldn't afford that place long-term, anyway. Not even close, actually.
So she stayed there for a month on medicare's dime, went home, and the problems were about to begin again.... she was sleeping all day, not taking care of herself, and not eating right.
I was pretty much dreading every day, waiting for the next phone call. Dawn worked in Oak Harbor, 30 minutes farther away, and Mark worked 40+ hours and couldn't receive phone calls at work, so apparently it was all left to me.
So I came up with a plan. I figured it would be easier to keep her healthy than to be the one stuck with her when she let herself get sickly, so we made the plan to move her in. She gets a private bedroom and on-suite bath, a chef, and free laundry service, but she has to take her meds, and has to give me control of her diet and sleeping schedule to make sure she isn't eating sugar and cereal 3 meals a day. All we actually asked of her was "Keep your bedroom straightened up, and clean your own bathroom," but we know how that turned out. "I can't remember."
Basically, it's less work for me to keep her here, keep her on a schedule, make sure she eats right, takes her meds on time, and generally just keep her healthy than to deal with a stubborn, childish, crazy old cat lady with a UTI. All I had to do was turn my family's entire existence upside down for her.
So to y'all who had an opinion about how I was taking care of the old lady who has no other options, there's a little context.
+++++++++++++
I think tomorrow I will talk about how hard it actually was to stop her from staying up all night and sleeping all day.
So here's some exposition:
+++++
About 9 months ago my mother in law was in her own house, with her son living in the basement, and she was pretty much free and left to her own devices. Mark, her son, helped her devise a routine for her medications which was actually pretty good. She had her own car and was allowed to live her own life. She would occasionally call Dawn at midnight after we were in bed, and she had no idea that it was late. Mark would report finding snack cake wrappers hidden here and there. But all in all, she was self sufficient.
Until she wasn't. And for some reason, she decided I was going to be her primary care giver.
It started out simple... once a week or so she would call Dawn (I never let her have my phone number, I let Dawn screen her calls for me) because she wasn't feeling well and she wanted me to come over and make her some soup. I wasn't thrilled about a 45 minute drive to and from Northwood to open a can of soup, but I did it a few times. But then the calls were coming more frequently. Stuff like, she had diarrhea and needed help. Well, I have a line I'm not going to cross, and that line is wiping her ass. Dawn told her that if she was that sick, she needed to call an ambulance and go to the hospital, which she actually ended up doing. The calls started coming more and more frequently, "help me help me I need help," and when I got there all she wanted was some soup and some water.
Then the dementia kicked in. She would call me and call me for help, and I would do whatever she needed done (short of the aforementioned ass-wiping), and then as soon as I would leave she was calling an ambulance because she wanted more help. She would call them three times a day, and they are required to come to her every time. Somehow they got my cell phone number, and they would start calling me directly, "Hi Steve, it's Ron. Yeah, we're here again and she is asking for you. Can you come out? There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her." Sometimes, I would get home and the phone would ring and it was the ambulance driver again, she called them within 5 minutes of me leaving her house.
We told her directly and firmly that she has to stop calling ambulances for no reason. She listened. Instead she would go knock on her neighbors' doors and ask them to call an ambulance for her because she needed help.
When we told her to stop doing that, she would call random phone numbers and whoever would answer she would ask them to call her an ambulance because she needed help. "Hi Steve, it's Ron again." She was almost genius in her ability to exploit logic loopholes. It was about this time that we decided a woman who spent so much time out of her mind shouldn't be driving, so we made her get rid of her car with the understanding I would take her grocery shopping because I am so awesome like that. We didn't want her killing some neighborhood kid with her car.
After a couple months of this we got her mentally evaluated, and the verdict was dementia with the occasional Urinary Tract Infection which apparently drives old people batshit insane. The cause of this was that she wasn't eating right, not taking care of herself or her house, and it was making her sickly and weak and I was getting calls 3 times a day to go help her.
We got medicare (or whatever) to buy her a month in the Genoa Care Center, to get her straight, fed, and medicated. It is a pretty nice place, I've seen much worse. We took our son there trick-or-treating.
She hated it and was begging to be let out after a week. They wouldn't allow her to keep her cat there, which we know is her biggest priority, and they wouldn't let her be picky about her food. And frankly she made no plans for her retirement aside from, and I quote, "My kids are supposed to take care of me," so she couldn't afford that place long-term, anyway. Not even close, actually.
So she stayed there for a month on medicare's dime, went home, and the problems were about to begin again.... she was sleeping all day, not taking care of herself, and not eating right.
I was pretty much dreading every day, waiting for the next phone call. Dawn worked in Oak Harbor, 30 minutes farther away, and Mark worked 40+ hours and couldn't receive phone calls at work, so apparently it was all left to me.
So I came up with a plan. I figured it would be easier to keep her healthy than to be the one stuck with her when she let herself get sickly, so we made the plan to move her in. She gets a private bedroom and on-suite bath, a chef, and free laundry service, but she has to take her meds, and has to give me control of her diet and sleeping schedule to make sure she isn't eating sugar and cereal 3 meals a day. All we actually asked of her was "Keep your bedroom straightened up, and clean your own bathroom," but we know how that turned out. "I can't remember."
Basically, it's less work for me to keep her here, keep her on a schedule, make sure she eats right, takes her meds on time, and generally just keep her healthy than to deal with a stubborn, childish, crazy old cat lady with a UTI. All I had to do was turn my family's entire existence upside down for her.
So to y'all who had an opinion about how I was taking care of the old lady who has no other options, there's a little context.
+++++++++++++
I think tomorrow I will talk about how hard it actually was to stop her from staying up all night and sleeping all day.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Genetically, I have a good shot at having an intact brain for decades. Zero history of any predisposition in the immediate family. As a bonus, due to several chemical adventures I know what losing your mind feels like, so maybe I'll recognize it if it ever comes.
Edited By Malcolm on 1444844492
Edited By Malcolm on 1444844492
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Alhazad wrote:Malcolm wrote:[...] I know what losing your mind free like [...]
Freudian slip detected.
I typically have 2-3 tabs open plus emails, so I pay very little attention to my typing nowadays. Context is everything, bitches.
Edited By Malcolm on 1444844515
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
So when she moved in, for a couple days she actually went to bed at bedtime and woke up by mid-morning, but things quickly went awry from there.
One of us would wake up at 2am to use the bathroom, and she'd still be up. Then we see her at 3am, still up. Then she discovered mahjong on Dawn's computer, and she is up until 4am playing that. Sometimes we are up getting Will ready for school at 7am, and she is just going to bed. And when asked, she had a myriad of excuses: my legs hurt and I can't sleep, or my head hurts and I can't sleep, or I don't know. When I asked why her legs and head never hurt during the day to keep her from sleeping, she didn't have an answer.
So the next time we visited her doctor, I told on her, and the doctor prescribed sleeping pills, because the problem is, if she is up all night and sleeping all day, then I am not making sure she is eating right, and taking her insulin, and her other medications, and basically she is living the life of a vampire with no more social interaction than she ever had at home. I am taking a holistic approach to her health.... a good sleep schedule is the foundation, a good diet is the first row of bricks, taking her meds is above that, and just being part of the world is probably the top. But if she isn't sleeping, it all falls down.
So the sleeping pill wasn't working, she was sleeping even later into the day. We were having to get her out of bed at 6pm to eat dinner, and she was starting to act completely insane again. We are at dinner talking about some random thing and she interjects, "My brother joined the Navy because he could swim." Just random things like that.
Then one day I noticed the teabag she was using at 9pm, it looked awfully big. It turns out she wasn't using the decaf teabags I got for her, she actually went to a cupboard I didn't even know she knew about and grabbed the family-sized, fully caffeinated teabags. She was drinking the equivalent of 4 cups of caffeinated coffee at bedtime. "I didn't know. Is that bad?" This explains why she was up all night.
And then I got to thinking.... if she is screwing that up, what else is she screwing up? Her medications all have great big notes on them in Sharpie... "1M" means take 1 in the Morning. "1B" means take one at Bedtime. Obviously, the sleeping pill said 1B, but she was taking it first thing in the morning. I don't even know if she was taking her other meds at that point. I had assumed she was good with her pill system, but obviously not.
So I took that over. I got with her doctor and we did a medication check... i didn't know what she was supposed to be taking. It turns out she was taking 2 pills too many. And once I had a handle on that, I took over the role of human pill dispenser.... usually that task is accomplished with a little piece of plastic with M-T-W-TH-F-S-S on it, but she has an actual trained monkey doing it for her. Classy! From then on she got her correct morning pills in the morning, and her correct sleeping pill at night. She was still fighting bedtime to stay up late to play mahjong ("My doctor said playing computer games is good for my brain so it is ok if I play mahjong 10 hours a day!"), so I solved that by putting a password on the computer and it gets shut off at 11pm.
Almost instantly, her sleeping schedule was fixed.
At her most recent doctor appointment, her doctor told me how much better she looked and seemed, her weight was under control, and she seemed more alert and happy. She hasn't had any "help me help me I need help call the ambulance!" episodes since she moved in... though we have had some close calls. Her doctor said I was doing a great job, she told my MIL to stop giving me a hard time, and she said I deserved major awards and praise. I said, "You forgot 'and you're really good looking, Steve'" and she said, "well that goes without saying, obviously. You are a very handsome man. I especially like how you juggle all of these domestic responsibilities and yet lose none of your masculinity, in fact your manliness seems to actually be enhanced by your concern and care of your family." I responded, "I know. I'm a good cook, too." And she said, "Even though I am married I totally want to make out with you," and I said, "Sorry, even though you look like a hotter Mila Kunis, I'm married and that just wouldn't be right."
Yeah, couldn't figure out how to close this story out.
One of us would wake up at 2am to use the bathroom, and she'd still be up. Then we see her at 3am, still up. Then she discovered mahjong on Dawn's computer, and she is up until 4am playing that. Sometimes we are up getting Will ready for school at 7am, and she is just going to bed. And when asked, she had a myriad of excuses: my legs hurt and I can't sleep, or my head hurts and I can't sleep, or I don't know. When I asked why her legs and head never hurt during the day to keep her from sleeping, she didn't have an answer.
So the next time we visited her doctor, I told on her, and the doctor prescribed sleeping pills, because the problem is, if she is up all night and sleeping all day, then I am not making sure she is eating right, and taking her insulin, and her other medications, and basically she is living the life of a vampire with no more social interaction than she ever had at home. I am taking a holistic approach to her health.... a good sleep schedule is the foundation, a good diet is the first row of bricks, taking her meds is above that, and just being part of the world is probably the top. But if she isn't sleeping, it all falls down.
So the sleeping pill wasn't working, she was sleeping even later into the day. We were having to get her out of bed at 6pm to eat dinner, and she was starting to act completely insane again. We are at dinner talking about some random thing and she interjects, "My brother joined the Navy because he could swim." Just random things like that.
Then one day I noticed the teabag she was using at 9pm, it looked awfully big. It turns out she wasn't using the decaf teabags I got for her, she actually went to a cupboard I didn't even know she knew about and grabbed the family-sized, fully caffeinated teabags. She was drinking the equivalent of 4 cups of caffeinated coffee at bedtime. "I didn't know. Is that bad?" This explains why she was up all night.
And then I got to thinking.... if she is screwing that up, what else is she screwing up? Her medications all have great big notes on them in Sharpie... "1M" means take 1 in the Morning. "1B" means take one at Bedtime. Obviously, the sleeping pill said 1B, but she was taking it first thing in the morning. I don't even know if she was taking her other meds at that point. I had assumed she was good with her pill system, but obviously not.
So I took that over. I got with her doctor and we did a medication check... i didn't know what she was supposed to be taking. It turns out she was taking 2 pills too many. And once I had a handle on that, I took over the role of human pill dispenser.... usually that task is accomplished with a little piece of plastic with M-T-W-TH-F-S-S on it, but she has an actual trained monkey doing it for her. Classy! From then on she got her correct morning pills in the morning, and her correct sleeping pill at night. She was still fighting bedtime to stay up late to play mahjong ("My doctor said playing computer games is good for my brain so it is ok if I play mahjong 10 hours a day!"), so I solved that by putting a password on the computer and it gets shut off at 11pm.
Almost instantly, her sleeping schedule was fixed.
At her most recent doctor appointment, her doctor told me how much better she looked and seemed, her weight was under control, and she seemed more alert and happy. She hasn't had any "help me help me I need help call the ambulance!" episodes since she moved in... though we have had some close calls. Her doctor said I was doing a great job, she told my MIL to stop giving me a hard time, and she said I deserved major awards and praise. I said, "You forgot 'and you're really good looking, Steve'" and she said, "well that goes without saying, obviously. You are a very handsome man. I especially like how you juggle all of these domestic responsibilities and yet lose none of your masculinity, in fact your manliness seems to actually be enhanced by your concern and care of your family." I responded, "I know. I'm a good cook, too." And she said, "Even though I am married I totally want to make out with you," and I said, "Sorry, even though you look like a hotter Mila Kunis, I'm married and that just wouldn't be right."
Yeah, couldn't figure out how to close this story out.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
A few months ago in Hocking Hills, Crystal *last name deleted* made an interesting piece of pork in a slow cooker. I was impressed by how good it was, and decided to try it myself tonight for dinner. I wasn't exactly sure what her exact recipe was beyond, "OMG I need liquid smoke!", so I added my own flair to the recipe, I bought a flavor pack of Stubb's bbq stuff for a couple bucks. It turned out DAMNED good. But just in case it didn't turn out well, I also made some homemade spaghetti sauce and pasta, and the deep fryer was still out from something else so I made some hush puppies from scratch, and some spinach because Will is a growing boy and needs his leafy greens. Spaghetti and barbecue... a classic Memphis meal.
But anyway, this post isn't about that.
The mother-in-law sits down with a double helping of spaghetti, and nothing else.
Me: There's pork and spinach and hush puppies over there.
MIL: I know.
Me: Well you should be eating that stuff too, not just a big plate of carbs.
MIL: *silence*
Me: Go over there and get some meat and spinach.
MIL: Well I don't usually eat pork with spaghetti.
Me: So what? Just go get some. It's good.
MIL: No.
And here we go. Hopefully she didn't just figure out I can't shove food down her throat, even though I had a momentary vision of my doing just that.
Edited By GORDON on 1444949635
But anyway, this post isn't about that.
The mother-in-law sits down with a double helping of spaghetti, and nothing else.
Me: There's pork and spinach and hush puppies over there.
MIL: I know.
Me: Well you should be eating that stuff too, not just a big plate of carbs.
MIL: *silence*
Me: Go over there and get some meat and spinach.
MIL: Well I don't usually eat pork with spaghetti.
Me: So what? Just go get some. It's good.
MIL: No.
And here we go. Hopefully she didn't just figure out I can't shove food down her throat, even though I had a momentary vision of my doing just that.
Edited By GORDON on 1444949635
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."