I had a vet appointment scheduled for Waldo this afternoon because his allergies have been super bad. They were bad all summer, but I kept all the windows closed (no AC) for the most part and ran my air purifier nonstop.

But things really didn't improve this fall and I could often see his nose was totally plugged up with snots and I felt his appetite was a little off, probably becus he couldn't smell the food.

I procrastinated a while about bringing him in because it is very hard to get him there. I have to plan out how I will grab him, and I only get one chance. If he squiggles out of my grasp, he'll run and hide for the rest of the day.

Anyway, I DID manage to get him there and I'm glad I did. He got his allergy shot but he also got a shot of antibiotics because the vet said his teeth were bad and he had an infection going which was probably making him pretty uncomfortable. (I couldn't tell from his behavior.)

I have some liquid antibiotics I'm supposed to squirt in his mouth twice a day, but I highly doubt I'll be able to do that, given his extreme cautiousness and timidity.

But I need to get the infection under control because in a week I must return to vet to have a few teeth pulled and to do his bloodwork to make sure his thyroid levels are where they should be. (He's already on meds for that.)

It's going to be real difficult to administer his new liquid meds, and no one can help me do it. He's never let another human near him in the 6 years I've had him. After a few times of me grabbing him, I'm sure he won't trust me, but I have to try.

He was so shook up from the vet visit. Of course, there was a lunging pit bull there when we were. I gave Waldo half my wild sockeye salmon at dinnertime for a treat, and he appreciated it.

In other news, today, I also inquired about rates at the local cemetery and scheduled a visit this Thursday to pick out a spot and pay for it. My mother will be cremated and I plan to pick a full sized plot that could accommodate up to 4 cremated remains. I never thought of making my arrangements for myself, but I might as well go there too. It occurred to me that when my father dies, he could go there too, but how ironic...divorce kept my family separated all these years, but in death we could all be reunited.

Anyway, this is a very picturesque cemetery that I often admired as I walked by on one of my walks. It dates back to the 1600s and is very peaceful.

This is just one of several unpleasant tasks I'm facing. It needs to be done now so I don't have to do it later when my mother passes. I also have to make arrangements with a funeral home. I'll leave that for next week.

Quite frankly, the thought of shooting up someone's veins full of embalming fluid is extremely distasteful to me, and very invasive sounding. Not to mention, what do all those chemicals do in the ground? Also, I never liked seeing the dead body all made up and on display at wakes, and so I don't intend to do that with my mother (or myself). I know it probably helps some people with closure to see the body, but anyway, this is one reason I'm choosing to go with cremation, so there is nothing to see. However, I think it would be a comfort at times to have a place to visit, and I can't bear the thought of either keeping the ashes in my home or having the responsibility of scattering them anywhere, so this is why I am buying the plot for the ashen remains.

Although we are talking about an incinerator here, cremation is generally considered to be more "green" than traditional burial, which is important to me. It's also quite a bit cheaper because you're not paying a funeral director to do their thing nor are you having to buy an expensive casket.

I am so weary of all this stuff and am feeling burnt out, depressed and generally very sad. My mother will probably be discharged end of week or Monday but have to wait i guess til tomorrow to get the word from head of nursing whether my mother could return to assisted living (most likely with the live-in aide or 2 12-hour shift aides) or skilled nursing.

Skilled nursing would be a whole lot easier for me to manage but what i've been saying all along is that as long as i still have funds, i want to do what i think will make my mother most comfortable, and that would be her own room, with her own paintings and furnishings, in assisted living, with its living room-like common room and so on. Much less institutional than the nursing home.

The aides thing for the brief time i had them was of course a huge pain in the ass with the 1 quitting and the other one just barely holding on. If they say okay but you must have the aide/aides, it's going to have to work pretty well. I just can't keep putting out fires or leaving work, even when working from home, on and on.

Although it's so much more expensive, the 2 12-hour shift aides might be better in other ways. I wouldn't have to worry about paying them a separate weekly grocery stipend, or where they'd cook their meals or hang their clothes or their personal stuff in my mother's bathroom because they wouldn't actually be living there like a full 24-hour live-in aide.

I could have greater confidence that the night shift aide would also actually be awake and more capable of dealing with my mother if she was up all night, because at the end of her shift she'd be going home and be relieved by someone else. But what if she left my mother sleeping in her room and got bored and decided to go into the common area/living room to talk with another aide or watch TV and then my mother got up in the middle of the night and fell? How could I even monitor whether that could happen?

I want my life back but have to keep reminding myself that the costs will be so high with assisted living AND the aide or aides that this scenario will only last 10 months or so. So it won't last forever, assuming my mother doesn't have another medical crisis like a fall and fracture.

Right now they're saying at the hospital unit that she's still having periods of delirium, and this could still take time (like weeks or months) to clear. Apparently this is a result of the anesthesia. She also has another UTI, which really does a number on elderly women mentally.

When I visited my mother there last Saturday, we had lunch at a table with a lovely 94-year-old woman. I felt sorry for her. She told me her husband had died 8 years ago and talked about what a wonderful life they had together. He was a college professor at Cornell in Ithaca, NY and they lived on the college campus. She had been living in Mystic, CT, a beautiful town, but she had been brought to this facility where my mother is because they thought she was depressed. She has 3 daughters, in their 60s, but 2 are on the west coast and one in Massachusetts and she never sees them.