Back Home, Exhausted

At my current place of employment I am lucky to be able to pick my own hours. I had chosen to work zero hours this week. The plan was to work on more items for the church bazaar, work AT the bazaar, and then enjoy a couple of days just doing my own thing.

Best laid plans....!! Turns out I was happy I had arranged zero work hours this week, because my mom landed back in the hospital, and I spent all week with her. I finally arrived back home tonight, Thursday, at about 8:00 PM. I'm tired!

Mom is out of the hospital and back in her home. She recovered from her Congestive Heart Failure episode. Her previous one was only two months ago. She will probably continuing having CHF bouts and at some point will not recover. The doctor said she is at Stage 3 Congestive Heart Failure. I didn't know it had stages, but I looked it up: there are only 4 stages. Stage 3 is described as follows: Marked limitation, symptoms with less than ordinary activities. Stage 4 is when one has symptoms while at rest. We don't know how much time Mom has.

Mom is living in a good place with good services. They will continue to monitor her condition. More services will be added, as needed. She had a long question/answer session with the unit coordinator today. She will be getting help with a few more activities, at least until she fully recovers and gets used to her new routine. I learned some things by sitting in on the session. I'm glad I was there to learn, and I am grateful I was able to take these days to help my mom.

Well, back at church, the bazaar and turkey dinner went on without me. I don't know how successful it all was. This is the first time I have missed it in many years. Luckily we had added another person to the area where I usually work; I'm sure they were fine without me there.

Fall colors are past peak, but still beautiful. Very soon all the leaves will fall off the trees. This is the sad part -- November approaching. I've always thought of November as the ugliest month. It's brown, often overcast (gray), and there's usually not much snow yet. Snow is so pretty after suffering through a month of brown, gray, and falling temps. Maybe that's why God gave us November: an ugly month after which we will celebrate the arrival of snow. Do you think so?

I was able to attend a choir concert at the local high school. The building is NEW and gorgeous. My great-niece is in the freshman class there. She is in the front row, 2nd from left. Her choir was excellent, and I was a proud great-aunt.

Now it's bedtime, back in my own bed tonight. What a lovely thought!