settling

We have been home for five weeks and in that time started school and moved DS1 up to his campus.  It doesn't seem like enough time to establish a routine, but we getting there.  This last week was odd, not having him around, but we're getting used to it.

Mom seems fairly stable this week.  Issues that were plaguing her last week seem to have resolved. Specifically, she had huge bruises up and down her arms from scratching too hard, but the diligence of my siblings in keeping her from scratching and putting lotion on her have helped enormously.  I talk to her every day, and some days we even can have a conversation.  Yesterday was not one of those days.  She couldn't hear a word I said, even though I was literally shouting into the phone.  It's hard.  One of my brothers told me how, from week to week, he notices little things, like she's having a harder time finding the right word (like saying"red berries" instead of cherry tomatoes).  And one of my sisters told me how, for a very short time, Mom seemed like a completely different (and very aggressive) person.  It's all expected but that doesn't make it any easier.

I still don't know what I'm doing for my own diagnostics this fall.  Just yesterday and continuing today I have what I think is muscle pain under my right ear.  (I just put a heat pack on it and it felt good, but as soon as I took off the heat, the pain came back.)  I have been doing my physical therapy stretches religiously, but the tension in my right neck never seems to resolve.  This new pain is different from just the usual muscle tension, which only hurts when I turn my head the wrong way.  This hurts all the time, enough to distract me.

On Wednesday I left school to go pick up the kids, thinking that my grad class was starting that day. (It didn't, that's this week.)  I was texting DD to be please be ready when I felt what I can only describe as a little "pop!" and then felt drainage down the back of my throat.  It tasted a little salty, and I thought, is that mucus, or it it blood? Question answered when blood started dripping from my nose.  Fortunately there is a new ER literally two blocks away from my school, so I pulled in there. The waiting room was empty, so they took my right away.  The doctor gave me a nasal spray that has a vasal constrictor in it, and eventually the bleeding stopped.  He thinks a small blood vessel broke. (My blood pressure was slightly higher than it usually is, but nothing to be alarmed about.)   And he wants me to see my ENT, but my ENT was on vacation last week and the earliest I can get to see him is September 20. I did not book the appointment, mainly because I don't want to have to deal with this.

Still, every time I go out into the heat I worry about it happening again.  My car was super hot that day, and I wonder if that had anything to do with it.  So far it has been OK, I just want it to stay that way.

I'm mostly dug out from the huge amount of grading I had to do.  Now I just have to get my file system set up and all the papers I've collected (not that many, really), filed.  Of course both 7th and 8th grades are having another test this week, so just as I clear the deck of grading, a new pile will arrive!  Oh, and I have 25 pages of reading to do before Wednesday, but I think I should be able to manage that.

Had dinner with all the kids at a nice Italian place last night after mass.  It was great having everyone together again, but the time went way too quickly!

14, 16, 18.