I've Been Away a Long Time

I haven't been blogging for the last couple months. My mother was ill, in the hospital, then into a horrible nursing home, then back into the hospital, and finally into the facility in the photo. That's the back entrance to Caretel in Brighton, Michigan. It's a nursing home, but they treat the patients like hotel guests, and even call them guests. There is a whole different attitude compared to the previous nursing home.


The care they have for the guests shows in the wall decorations. There are interesting Americana prints in the hallways and some of the rooms, and one hallway is even a museum style display of the works of a famous painter named Turner.

There are several prints from this series of rocking chair pictures - I'm not sure whose they are, but they make me think of Warren Kimble.

There are wooden signs in the hallways and the dining rooms with "pithy" sayings.

At any rate, the decor is warm and welcoming.

My mother is living there temporarily, to regain strength after a long hospital stay and to get rid of a drug resistant infection. Everyone there treats her with great respect and kindness, saying she has a wonderful smile.

Here she is walking with Robin, one of her physical therapists. Mother frequently walks quite a distance after she says she can only walk four steps.

I spend most of the day with Mother, although I don't feel it's as desperately important as it was at the hospital and at the other horrible nursing home. After dinner, Mother crawls back into bed and falls asleep. I go home and pick up the dogs and go down to the farm.

Gibby is there, with eleven adult cats (three have been killed on the road in the past months) and, amazingly, fifteen or sixteen kittens. Gibby anxiously waits until I've fed the cats and chickens so we can play ball. He dearly loves his old soccer ball. It's the first thing he grabs when he comes out of the house and he holds onto it until he steps into the house.

I stand in the grassy place that used to be the parking lot and throw the ball as high and as far as I can - usually almost to the house. Gibby runs as fast as he can and often catches it before it hits the ground.

The other dogs sit and wait - Patches is the only one who pays much attention and she barks endlessly. I think she's cheering for Gibby - her barking gets louder and faster when Gibby does a spectacular catch.

I had two really negative experiences today - so I was very pleased to spend time with happy dogs. Two people, professional people, lied to me today. Lied in obvious ways, and lied unneccesarily. Makes me feel really uncomforable with both of them. One is my doctor. Her office staff is terrible and I have complained about them more than once - when my pharmacy calls for a prescription renewal, they never respond - so I wasn't surprised when they hadn't responded for the last five days. I went to the doctor's office and told the receptionist what I needed. After I was finished, my doctor walked into the office area, saw me, and came right over saying that they had never received a call. How did she know why I was there if they had never received a call?

The other person who has proven she can't be trusted is Ella, my mother's guardian. She called to ask if our lawnmower was broken - I haven't mowed the lawn for three weeks, not since I tried mowing when it was getting dark out and ran over a dog cable that wrapped around the mower blades. I told her yes, it is broken and she foolishly went on to tell me that the neighbors have been calling her to ask if the house was deserted. I have to assume it was my evil brother who called, since he is the only neighbor who even knows that Ella exists. I told her he had to be the caller and she said he wasn't. I asked her who it was, and of course, she couldn't remember. Then she asked if I had not raked the leaves last fall and had let them blow into neighbors' yards. I told her I did exactly what the township told us to do, let the last "leaf storm" lay on the grass. She asked where the leaves are now, and I said as far as I know they are on the grass, breaking up to form new soil, just where the township said they should be. I told her again that my brother must be the complainer and she denied it - I told her I know all of the neighbors and I know that none of the neighbors know her, but she stuck to her falsehood. If she lies about the little things, how trustworthy is she with the big things?