Friends, I have been trying to act as though everything is going along normally over here but, it isn’t. Someone near and dear to me took a bad fall last Friday night and suffered a pretty serious break to their humerus. A trip to the orthopedist today will let us know how bad. What this means is that I am now living away from home and sleeping on a pull out couch - - one ear always on alert for the sound of the little bell sitting on a bedside table across the hall. This makes blogging a challenge. I am not complaining. Honestly, I am scared out of my mind but I am not complaining. True to form, I’m going to respond to this challenge by putting you to work. I’m looking for helpful information about home care, what Medicare will pay for, how to organize friendly, helpful neighbors in a way that respects them but is, first and foremost, helpful to the patient. Is there a Maryland help hotline for people like me who are new to being caregivers? And, just to make you laugh, ...
It’s February 17th and a local business is shouting: SUMMER IS PRACTICALLY HERE!!! I look out the window. I disagree. But the business is Maslow’s Loom and they are selling summer camp experiences for school children. I think what they mean to say is, if you haven’t already planned all your kid’s summer camps already, you’re in trouble. Many folks try to get all that squared away in January. It’s February, for Heaven’s sake. Time is running out! I remember realizing that I would never get to be at home in the summer with my first child. It was a bitter moment. I was divorced. I had to work. Luckily I worked at the school summer camp so we got to be closer together than most. But there was absolutely no choice, no agency in how we spent our summers. On the other hand, my mother was saddled with three children in the summers back in the day as my father headed off to work. No one asked *her* what she’d rather do. I remember an endless string of days filled with outdoor play, running...