How to Be Sure You Never Lose the Instructions (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Catsynth, Keith, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.   

This month,  River is providing the prompts on her blog.

This week's words/prompts are:

1.pudding  

2.letters  

3.calculations  

4.laundry  

5.candlesticks  

6.system

Charlotte's colour of the month is Vivid Tangerine.

Grandpa, who is as tenacious as i am (tenacious is a strong will, stubborn is a strong won't, we won't admit to stubborn), has finally said yes, he needs more help with Grandma.

In the modern-day equivalent of writing LETTERS, he sent an email to her PCP (Primary Care Physician) asking if, since there is nothing more which can be done for her medically to extend her life, she could be recommended for hospice care at home.

The doctor agreed and made the necessary arrangements, and a person at the hospice did whatever initial intake paperwork needs to be done.  There would be an initial assessment, and because so many people had abused the SYSTEM in the past, he was told she might only be accepted conditionally.

Then the lady who was supposed to set everything up went on vacation and didn't tell anyone anything about an intake processing.  You'd think it would have been on her list of things to wrap up before leaving, but apparently not.

Grandpa called Monday morning and things started to move, though.  It seems they sent everyone except the butcher, the baker, and the CANDLESTICKS maker to do an assessment.  Since Grandma was not having a very good morning, her limbs like PUDDING and barely able to move or talk, unable to remember the day of the week, etc., they did accept her conditionally.  Only the head honcho now has to approve.

It didn't hurt that one of Grandpa's best friends is the owner of the drugstore which supplies all this particular hospice's drugs and supplies, and he put in a call, too, to let them know how badly off she is.

I arrived Monday afternoon to care for Grandma, give her a bed bath and spend the night, and not long after i got there, it seems things started to move along.  A nice gentleman from the drug store came with three pieces of equipment, ordered by the hospice people, for when she may need them.

First, there was the oxygen machine, a la Ms. SH from many years ago, the gentleman delivering and setting up was quite pleased i knew how to use it.  Then the nebulizer, again, Ms. SH and i had many a round with it.  Finally, a suction machine which he showed me how to use and which will come in handy for her coughing spells.

Later i showed Uncle J how to use it all, it's set aside and waiting if needed, and he asked how will we know where to set the oxygen machine.  I told him the nurse who comes by will monitor her pulse oxygen levels and base her CALCULATIONS of how much on that, all we need to do is set it where she tells us and increase when she tells us.  He was quite relieved.

I tended Grandma through the evening, and at one point Uncle J had to help me lift her into the bed as she was simply too weak to get up when i got her onto the bedside commode.

While there, i also did cleaning and LAUNDRY, and since i was listening for Grandma's calls in the night, Grandpa actually got a full night's rest.  She slept most of the night through, also, which is unusual.

The next morning, before i left to go home and babysit our Annie for the day, she was again asking me if she was in a bedroom and whose bedroom is it.  It's been hers for almost 15 years, and it has all the paintings in Vivid Tangerine and lime green and neon pink and other wild and crazy colors she and Bigger Girl and Little Girl did on all the walls.

Methinks it's past time the cavalry was called in, and i hope they can get us enough help so Grandpa no longer needs to lift her, as he's getting to where he can't.

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Today is:

Al-Yaom Al-Watany -- Saudi Arabia (National Day/Founding of the Kingdom)

Augustalia -- Roman Empire (birthday of Caesar Augustus, still the traditional New Year's Day in Constantinople and in the Eastern Orthodox Church)

Checkers Day/Dogs in Politics Day -- thanks to Mr. Nixon; and i'm tempted to further comment, but this one is too easy

Citua -- Ancient Inca Empire (feast to the Moon, and to banish disease, in the month of Coyaraimi, date approximate)

El Grito de Lares -- Lares, Puerto Rico (anniversary of the first uprising against Spanish rule in 1868)

Innergize Day -- the day to take time for yourself! always on the day after the equinox, so usually either the 23rd or 24th, depending on where you live

International Restless Legs Syndrome Awareness Day -- on the birth anniversary of Professor Karl-Axel Ekborn, the neurologist who first described it

National Great American Pot Pie Day

Neptune Day -- planet discovered this day in 1846 by Johann Galle of Germany

St. Adamnan's Day (Patron of Donegal, Ireland; Raphoe, Ireland)

St. Padre Pio's Day

Thrue Bab -- Bhutan (Blessed Rainy Day)

Anniversaries Today:

The University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada, is founded, 1908

Birthdays Today:

Anthony Mackie, 1979

Ani DiFranco, 1970

Elizabeth Pena, 1961

Jason Alexander, 1959

Bruce Springsteen, 1949

Mary Kay Place, 1947

Paul Petersen, 1945

Julio Iglesias, 1943

Tom Lester, 1938

Ray Charles, 1930

John Coltrane, 1926

Mickey Rooney, 1920

Walter Pidgeon, 1897

Friedrich Paulus, 1890

Walter Lippman, 1889

Victoria Woodhull, 1838

William H. McGuffey, 1800

Kublai Khan, 1215

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, BC63

Euripides, BC480

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Marcus Welby, M.D."(TV), 1969

"The Jetsons"(TV), 1962

"Threni: id est Lamentatines Jeremiae Prophetae"(Stravinsky dodecaphonic work), 1958

Today in History:

Concord of Worms, 1122

The first major battle of the Wars of the Roses, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire, 1459

First commencement exercises of Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., 1642

Liechtenstein declares its independence from the German Empire, 1719

John Paul Jones' "Bon Homme Richard" defeats the HMS Serepis, 1779

Lewis and Clark arrive back in St. Louis from their explorations, 1806

The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York, 1845

Neptune is discovered by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams, 1846

Nintendo Koppai, later known as Nintendo Company, Limited, is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi; it produces and markets the playing card game Hanafuda, 1889

The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantome de l'Opera), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, was first published, 1909

The MS Princess of Tasmania, Australia’s first passenger roll-on/roll-off diesel ferry, makes her maiden voyage across Bass Strait, 1959

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announces over television and radio the implementation of martial law, 1972

Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina, 1973

Saint Kitts and Nevis joins the United Nations, 1983

Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm; some passengers only receive minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history, 1991

The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released, 2002

Hurricane Jeanne strikes Haiti and leaves at least 1,070 dead, 2004

Researchers announce the identification of four genetically different types of breast cancer, 2012

Japan's space agency becomes the first to place two robotic explorers on an asteroid, Ryugu, from its Hayabusa-2 spacecraft, 2018

The 178-year-old British travel company Thomas Cook goes into liquidation, stranding 600,000 travelers worldwide, prompting largest postwar repatriation effort by UK government, 2019

Fossilized footprints 23,000-21,000 years old from White Sands, New Mexico indicate settlement by humans of North and South America earlier than previously thought, 2021