Dad caught my cold. Knock wood I think he is past the worst of it w/o getting pneumonia. But he is hardly eating or drinking and even with JP here I had to drag out the Hoyer so we could move him from his chair to his bed yesterday morning against his desires. Once we had dad in the bed and got done cleaning him up he slept comfortably, so it was a good thing that I finally forced it. I probably should call an ambulance and get him hauled to an ER for fluids, but he doesn't want to and even though the ER was very good about releasing him once they had given him IV fluids and gotten his blood sugar down when the aide called 911 last November I am hesitant to do it. I sure wish it was possible to just have a service come out and administer fluids here at home.
I did do shopping and got cash, burned trash and a decent # of weeds this morning and finally swabbed out the dead freezer with a strong bleach solution. I was wanting to burn more weeds but told myself that moving the freezer into the tack room, or junking it if there is a smell that will mess up feed storage will do more for overall appearance of the place. I used to roll my eyes with mom messing with her flower gardens for small bit of reward while letting maintenance slide. Course she probably thought it should be dad's job to do more of that maintenance.
I am tentatively decided that it would be morally wrong to take or send dad to an ER when he does not want to go. And I don't have a medical POA so I don't know that I legally could do it even if I was flipped on the morality. But when he wakes up I will have to push him to drink some fluids. I need to contact sis. I've no idea what to tell her, but do need to keep her in the loop.
Texted sis. She is working and will call tonight. Well I was not seeking her advice, just letting her know. I am a bit annoyed. She calls me and always it is "you could call me" Well I can't keep track of when her days off are. If she wants me to call she needs to text me with "I'm off and not traveling anywhere on these days" I don't think it matters as far as phone bills go. I texted her last Sunday and she said she would call later and never did. I would have called or texted if there was more definite news on dad.
I don't know what to do about L. I had wondered a few months ago if paying her to come in was giving her the opportunity to start drinking again but I put it out of my head. Thursday she was here and not feeling well so I had JP run her and her e-bike home. She asked him to go to a store so she could buy something. Then I guess the place he took her to needed ID or something and she asked him to take her someplace else 'so I can buy liquor' and he declined, gave her the impression he would later, but he did not want to be a reason she relapsed. I need to suck it up and at least have a frank discussion with her if she comes Monday. This might be why her Dh is stalling on getting the breathalyzer lock put on a vehicle, he fears she would go buy booze to drink at home and relapse into the alcohol addiction and figures having to use the e-bike makes it hard enough that she won't do it, plus she had not been working so no ready cash. Now I don't think trying to make it so she can't buy booze is a long term option. That is something for short term to get past the initial tough physical addiction phase, but I think folks need to come up with another coping mechanism for whatever emotional or mental pains cause them to seek comfort in a bottle.
I've walked up to dad in his bed at least 3 times today and made myself walk away when I see he really is still sleeping. I call it engineer brain. I want to try to 'fix it.' In this case fix him by trying to nag him into drinking a decent amount of gatorade, water, pepsi, or tea. I went back and read a post on a a BB that only has a few members left from the one talking about her father's recent clot in his neck. His arm was numb and poster's younger sister was respecting his "no I don't want to go to a doc" but older sister got a nephew to take grandpa to an ER. It is the kind of situation where it would be good to have gone over various possibilities with dad while he was more with it. If that poster's dad/grandpa was generally of mindset of wanting medical care up to going on a ventilator than yes I suppose one does ignore their "oh I don't need to see a doc just because my arm is numb" and takes them in. I know when I read "when they are 87, you don't ask you just take them" initially and my thought was "NO, just because they are elderly doesn't mean they shouldn't have any say in how much medical treatment they want"
Funny how the countries that are farther down the socialist slope than we are, such as the Netherlands and Canada are going the opposite route and euthanizing people if they are not coherent enough to demand a chance to live as well as counseling folks with depression to have the state euthanize them.
And if I had IV fluids in the house I might be tempted to try to IV dad myself. Luckily I don't have any so I can't mess with it. A dehydrated elderly person is probably hard to get an IV in a vein even for folks that do IVs regularly.
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