The 21st Century Matriarch

My yard is full of subjects for macro photography this time of year.

The wildflower garden is in its second season and is very lush after the spring rains…both flowers and insects abound.

The area in our front yard that once hosted a large tree (before we moved here) now has mushrooms after almost every rain. It is surprising how quickly they can develop and then degrade to black goo.

One of the daylilies I planted last under the red maple is blooming this year. Hopefully the plant will propagate to surround the trunk. There are enough buds to appreciate this year from a photographic standpoint.

I’ve let the Virginia Creeper that came up in the front flowerbed cascade over the castle rocks. Mowing the lawn contains it once it is in the grass. I like the foliage now and it will look great in the fall when it turns red.

I’ve found several eggs in the grass and always try a photograph. This one was white. The cracks in the shell around the edges and inside appealed to me. The grass offers a sense of scale.

I took pictures of two small branches blown off by an overnight storm – making a macro image of the part that interested me the most.

The plant by the mailbox is full of buds. Another plant of the same type is near the house, but its buds always get eaten and there are holes in the leaves!

The two ‘hens’ that I bought last year at a farmers’ market have more and more chicks. There were only 3 chicks at the beginning of the season. I count more than 30 chicks in this image when I look at it on a bigger monitor!

I enjoy ‘filling the frame’ with magnified images from my yard!

A lot had happened over the past month.

A resident of the assisted living home came down with a respiratory infection but was getting better; then another one became sick and spent a few days in the hospital before returning. My dad didn’t get sick at all. The episode caused an uptick in anxiety for my sisters and I for a few days.

One of my sisters was going to cut his toenails and discovered two small wounds on his leg. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten them and there was no incident reported by the staff. Fortunately, they were not infected and appeared to be healing.

With the staff turnover, we have realized that his medications are not being given as consistently as we assumed. One of my sisters reviewed the meds with a staff member and discovered that the supply of some supplements had be depleted and no one had told us more needed to be purchased! Most of what he takes are supplements, but now we are concerned about whether he has been getting his few prescription drugs reliably since his ophthalmologist discovered he had a small stroke near one of his optic nerves and can only see light and colors in that eye now; we will always wonder whether the assisted living staffers were giving him the eye drops prescribed to lower the pressure in his eyes.

My dad complained of his front teeth hurting; we have known for some time that his lower teeth were loose and that there was not enough bone or other teeth to do any kind of restoration. The decision had been made to cut up his food and train him to avoid using those front teeth. But that was before they started hurting. My sister that handles most of his medical appointments contacted the doctor that comes to the assisted living home for most of his medical needs and discovered that they there is a dentist in their practice! Within a few days, the dentist came, got updated x-rays, and pulled two lower teeth! Both were not in much bone and were relatively easy to pull. Now the staff really will have to pay more attention and cut up his food consistently; even though the requirement has been in their document for him since January, they seem to lapse into serving him food that he can’t eat with the teeth he has (or rather doesn’t have).

The only doctor he leaves the assisted living home to see is a dermatologist; a small skin cancer was removed this month. The visits are quite tiring for him…being in the car, waiting for the doctor…the procedure itself is very short. My sisters and I anticipate a time when he won’t be able to withstand that kind of medical appointment.

He is still doing puzzles – enjoying the shared project with anyone visiting him. He is joyous every time one is finished.

The flower beds at the assisted living home contain some of the plants from his previous home…planted by one of my sisters. They are doing well however, she is frustrated that one of the beds that she hasn’t work on, is full of Virginia Creeper; she is too allergic to do anything that bed.

The weather in Dallas has gotten hot enough that walking in the afternoon with Dad might not be a good idea. We all try to take him for neighborhood walks whenever the weather is cool enough. The walks will probably be more and more skewed to the mornings.

Dad seems to be adjusting to the upheavals well enough. He is more resilient that any of us anticipated.

Previous Elder Care posts