Every so often someone will ask me if I’ve ever considered “monetizing” this blog. After I finish wiping tears of laughter from my eyes, I consider my options and conclude, yet again, that it ain’t gonna happen. Mostly because of my laziness, but also because I simply don’t care who reads this blog, or how many people read this blog, or even whether this blog exists into the next year, or the year after that. I have no idea what my traffic is. I haven’t checked my analytics in at least a decade, and don’t even know how I’d do it. Probably Google, but honestly? Who gives a shit.
In January, I think we’ll be coming up on — what is it, J.C.? — 23 years? I think so. I was a blogger before blogging was cool. Only MySpace and LiveJournal, maybe a few others, pre-date NN.C. Then, post 9/11, blogging got hot, and cooled off when the enthusiastic adopters realized you have to update the things once in a while, and what a pain in the ass that is. Then social media came along and destroyed it outright, because if you can’t say it in 140 characters, what’s the point? And yet, on I trudge, like the anachronistic crone I increasingly suspect I am. Yesterday I went to a party wearing skinny jeans. All the younger women — and everyone was younger than me — were in bootcut jeans, and it reminded me that skinnies are out-out-out, but oh well. This blog is like the woman who won’t go outdoors unless she’s wearing a hat and gloves.
Personally, I don’t think I look good in bootcut pants, plus I HAVE ALL THESE GREAT BOOTS and goddamn they need to be seen, not hidden under a bell of denim. I guess I could wear more skirts, but what if I have to get on a horse? Or a bicycle? Just doesn’t work.
And that, friends, is why I won’t be signing up with Substack anytime soon. Because of MySpace, jeans and boots. You can’t monetize that kind of meandering. Besides, J.C. has me with WordPress, and it is a fantastic content platform. In my paid work, every so often I’m asked to update a particular business’ website, and it, too, is on WordPress. Sometimes it takes me a while to get the update done, but so far I’ve always been able to do it. I told my boss that WordPress is like walking into an unfamiliar kitchen to make lunch. You may have to open a few drawers to find the right utensils, but you’ll find them. You won’t have to look under the pillows in the bedroom for the spoons.
And I suspect WordPress will still be around when Substack, et al, join MySpace in the great internet beyond, drifting like ghost ships, or space junk, or whatever metaphor you prefer.
Speaking of that party yesterday, a pro tip: If you day-drink, know when to stop, and even then you’ll probably feel like damp garbage afterward. Also, even excellent champagne is no substitute for good hydration. I’ll leave it there. But it was a fun party. Now the week, the last week before the holidays, begins. This should be the merry-and-joy week, but I suspect here at my house it’ll be the oh-my-god-we’re-out-of-tape week, the when-was-the-last-time-we-mopped-the-kitchen week, and of course the grocery-store-onslaught week. But it still lasts only seven days.
OK, a little bloggage, then:
Would you like to invest in Detroit real estate? Here ya go:
I saw this on Facebook Marketplace. Asking $180,000. Listed 13 weeks ago. Some caveats apply, of course:
NO SELLER FINANCING
HUGE PROJECT
NEEDS FULL REHAB
All 1 bed 1 bath units
Message for address and more details
But would you look at that beauty, and imagine what it might have been like to live there in, say, 1940. The ground-floor units with that little covered patio — imagine sitting out there on a warm spring night, listening to the rain. The second-floor units, with walk-out decks on top of them. All the rest. I don’t know if the one-bed-one-bath deal was the original configuration, or if it got carved up later. But yes, NEEDS FULL REHAB. There are some developers who are taking on projects like this, but as always: Location, location, location.
And speaking of outdated content platforms, I stumbled across this the other day, a glimpse of Benjamin Dreyer, of “Dreyer’s English,” before he was famous. Here’s his annotation of the first paragraph of Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House,” and if you want to know what an editor’s job is like, read. I’ve known only a handful of editors even a fraction this skilled and thoughtful, and considered it a privilege to work with them.
OK, then. I got up early this morning and the murk is just now lightening to somewhat-less-murky in the sky outdoors. (Confession: I really don’t mind the murk, this time of year, except when I do. It’s like permission to not be outdoors, and I’m fine with that when it’s cold.) Enjoy your murk, or sunshine, wherever you are. And start on your to-do lists before you have to besiege the grocery store! Thank me later!
alex said on December 18, 2023 at 9:39 am
The third-floor units with their Juliette balconettes.
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Deborah said on December 18, 2023 at 10:16 am
Hard to believe that Christmas is a week away already, time flies.
Keeping the kitchen floor clean is always a challenge in Santa Fe, the floor tile is white in the kitchen and bathroom, the rest of the place has light tan. I am constantly sweeping and spot mopping with bleach wipes (with no bleach, but that’s what I call them). We have trays on the floor for muddy boots and I ordered a folding stool to keep right inside the door to reach in for, to sit down when taking your boots off outside (safer for us oldsters instead of hopping around on one foot). That arrives tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a snowy winter, good for the land, bad for the floors.
We finished our Christmas shopping yesterday afternoon, buying the gift for the hardest person for us to figure out, my husband’s 16 year old granddaughter. We ended up finding some stuff at a store run by a native American fashion designer, the place is called 4 Kinship. They have interesting stuff that seems to be liked by teens, not cheap though. The woman has been touted by the fashion press, her stuff seems like something my husband’s granddaughter will like, edgy and slouchy, this young woman does not like Barbi type stuff at all. I liked a jacket and my husband liked a sweater, so we ended up getting both of them for her. I think she’ll like this gift, but who knows, and frankly it’s the thought that counts, right?
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Suzanne said on December 18, 2023 at 12:28 pm
Speaking of platforms, I have saved recipes in Evernote for years, the free version. Suddenly, they decide that in the free version, only 50 notes are allowed. They graciously are letting you keep the ones you have, but will no longer be able to edit them. A yearly subscription is over $100 per year. I do the majority of my cooking from things I have saved from food blogs, NYTimes cooking, etc. So, now I am starting Christmas week mad.
But, after doing the cancer dance, also quite thankful that I am still alive to be mad.
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Dorothy said on December 18, 2023 at 12:35 pm
Deborah I am positive you did not mean anything insulting when you said the item you bought at 4Kinship was ‘not cheap’ but when you put it that way, it almost implies that you expected something there to be priced much lower than it was. Let me vent a little bit.
Ever since I’ve started following the account canyousewthisforme on Instagram, I have become emboldened to speak out to remind people the importance of valuing handmade items. People who knit, crochet, embroider, sew, do woodwork, make jewelry or pottery, paint, etc. deserve to be paid for the time they spend making the items they sell. Expecting something like that to be bought for a really low price is seriously wrong and just rude. Perhaps next time you could think of what you are buying at 4 Kinship or a similar business as ‘beautifully made and priced accordingly’. Since you were an architect I’m sure you understand the value of something designed, created, formed, and built with someone’s hands, brain and heart.
That IG account has hair raising stories about people expecting co-workers, friends, cousins, etc. to alter garments by taking in seams, hemming something, making costumes for them, for NOTHING. Brides who want a dress made for them and then when it’s done, they say they don’t like the dress and refuse to pay for the fabric, time spent making it, etc. Young ladies who meet someone and they’re asked out on a date and before they barely know each other, the guy finds out she can sew or knit and he asks for her to make him something. The situations are ENDLESS. Our time is just as valuable as a doctor or plumber or other professionals. And we should be paid fairly and without guilt being heaped on us. (‘We’ meaning me and the millions of other makers…!)
I really don’t want to make you upset, Deborah, but merely wanted to point out I thought it was a poor choice of words to say what you bought for the 16 year old was ‘not cheap.’
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Heather said on December 18, 2023 at 1:52 pm
I’m sure Deborah didn’t mean that the clothes aren’t worth the price. This came up at my family gathering last night–someone was going on and on about how much they loved Zara and I said “well you know those clothes are made by children right?” Maybe not literally children, but their manufacturing facilities are in countries where the labor laws are not strict, shall we say. Her response? “Well, they’re not as bad as SHEIN,” that being a fast-fashion company that was recently the subject of an unflattering documentary.
I used to write about local fashion designers and some of them are my friends now, and yeah, their stuff is expensive, but that’s how much clothes cost when you pay people a decent wage. Also, I’d rather pay $$$ for good quality and have fewer clothes. But that certainly wasn’t the case when I was younger and had less money, so I can understand the appeal of H&M and all those places.
I looked at the 4 Kinship site and my takeaway is that it’s hilarious people will pay money for 80s-style clothes that most people considered horribly ugly in the actual 80s. But some of it is cool, and I like the idea behind it.
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Alan Stamm said on December 18, 2023 at 2:29 pm
. . . — and everyone was younger than me — . . .
Relatably familiar when working out, concert-attending, shopping and even driving. The lone exception that pops to mind is theatergoing (stage).
We’re proud to diversify the gen mix and to be seemingly the only ones not texting on the stationary bike, or in the dark, or in the dairy aisle or at the stoplight.
And as a longtime Dreyer admirer, I also salute the just-retired master. In a farewell essay, the 65-year-old writes* of a career “in the service of making sure that my authors were happy” and adds: “For 30 years I’ve done my best to be a steward of prose, helping authors make their books into, as I often put it, the best possible versions of themselves.”
For sensitive stewardship, says Dreyer, an editor should “listen to what others are saying — and writing — before you start telling them how to do it better.” [Yes, Nancy, I’m also thinking what you presumably are.]
* https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/words-in-progress-notes-from-a-retired-copy-chief/
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Jeff Borden said on December 18, 2023 at 3:36 pm
The orange cancer seems to prefer an author named Hitler. He’s really laying on the Nazi shit at his orgies of idiocy with references to how immigrants are “poisoning our blood.” And the dolts who adore him are eating it up. How long before they start singing the Horst Wessel song?
Striking, too, that four of his five offspring were borne by immigrants. Of course, they were white…
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Icarus said on December 18, 2023 at 3:42 pm
last Thursday my in-laws gave us their tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was a date night but because it was last minute, so many things went wrong.
The good: I loved the pyro-techno part.
|The Bad: some of the slow songs (something about a train) were boring.
\The Ugly: after the “Christmas story” was over, the lead came out and said “I know it’s a school night but we are gonna play a couple of songs from our newest album.
I was under the impression that there would be two more songs and it would be over. but they just kept playing. and playing ..and playing.
IF I had known the encore was gonna go on for an hour, that would have been one thing. but I felt like they were just gonna play one more song and then we could go. so I was trapped.
when the concert finally ended, it took a ridiculous amount of time to exit the FedEx Arena because 1) a lot of Slow Moving People and 2) The Powers that be decided that everyone should exit the way they came in….one exit location for 7200 people.
I know, #FirstWorldProblems but for my first time out and about in the Memphis area, it felt like it could have been better.
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Deborah said on December 18, 2023 at 5:22 pm
Heavens no Dorothy, I meant exactly the opposite, the clothes there are very creatively reworked and I’m quite impressed. First that they weren’t making more stuff but using what is already out there and making it unique. Second, I’m a lousy writer and word choices are not my forte. Sorry.
What I meant to say was that they weren’t cheap like so much out there, and by cheap I meant trashy.
I will try to be more careful with my word choices.
Edit: it took me 3 times using the edit button to get rid of typos etc, that’s normal for me.
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Jeff Gill said on December 18, 2023 at 5:54 pm
Living with my father-in-law, I won’t say I learned to sew (that’s my sister’s deal, bless her, teaching college students the value of some fine stitching among other things), but as his dementia increased, he would pick unconsciously at his shirt pocket and buttons. So for a 62 year old guy I’ve gotten pretty good at putting buttons back on and repairing the stray seam; I even have built up a small sewing box and found online a thimble that fits my too large thumb.
All prelude to: thank you for all the supportive words and side messages over these last two-plus years, and Buck died last night. Today has been the usual roundelay of care facility closure, funeral home folderol, cemetery follies, and a few extra kinks neither here nor there. But if you have someone you are legally & practically (let alone personally) responsible for on the event of their demise, prepare as you are able, because when you are at your most depleted, you will THEN spend the next twenty hours making decisions that have all sorts of consequences and potential five figure implications. Just be prepared is all I’m saying.
And again, I thank the denizens here for your support through this very odd season of my life. Buck was 94 and a character in every sense of the word. He was ready to go, but his mind veered into not being ready to let go of things in any way, so it’s a mix of peace & weariness today.
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David C said on December 18, 2023 at 6:13 pm
It’s a strange feeling, isn’t it Jeff? Sadness mixed with relief in ever changing proportions messes with your head. Rest in peace, Buck.
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John Carpenter said on December 18, 2023 at 6:35 pm
We’re relatively new to the world of “blogging,” having created http://www.emptynestquest.com a few years ago, with all sorts of grand plans for monetization. A turning point was a trip with a bunch of travel blogger/influencers to Shreveport, where we both realized that to make even a small amount of money with something like this, your life has to be devoted to some version of the same social media posts over and over and over, often from places like Shreveport. We still have some ideas for the site, and I enjoy posting things there, especially about the music we are seeing. But we’re allowing it to take its own shape, whatever that might be. I’m reminded of what a late friend of mine said years ago. He was a struggling novelist who also struggled with mental illness, including PTSD. He was also a gifted visual artist, and occasionally gave me beautiful pieces of painted furniture, in lieu of rent. (He stayed with me off and on.) I suggested that he might be able to make pretty good money painting furniture. “Then,” he replied, “I would be a furniture painter.” This is a long way of saying I’m right there with you, Nance. The blog is great. I enjoy hearing about life back in the Pointes. And I very much enjoy your casual but lively and efficient writing style. Life is too short not to meander.
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Deborah said on December 18, 2023 at 6:44 pm
Jeff G, I’m sorry for his loss but it has been so conflicting for you and your family, may Buck rest in peace, and may you get a different kind of peace as well.
Buck is a great name, by the way, the perfect name for the character he sounds like he was.
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LAMARY said on December 18, 2023 at 6:50 pm
I’m working up to having the tough conversation with my brother. He’s so nasty and angry at everyone and everything right now I’m concerned he’ll assume I’m calling to find out what I get when he dies. My nephew who is also in touch with him agrees that it is time for that conversation and that it will be tricky.
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David C said on December 18, 2023 at 7:37 pm
Since my dad passed last month, from time to time mom has called one of us upset thinking dad committed suicide. Today, she had a doctor appointment and they think it may be the gabapentin she’s on. One of the side effects is suicide ideation. They think with that and her memory problems she may be turning it outward rather than inward, so they’re going to taper it off for the next two weeks. I hope it works. It’s heartbreaking when she calls when she’s thinking that. I know as soon as I hear her voice what’s on her mind. When we tell her dad died peacefully in his sleep at the hospital, she feels better but I can only imagine how she feels before she decided to call one of us.
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Julie Robinson said on December 18, 2023 at 8:20 pm
Sending all my love to everyone facing these issues, especially Jeff right now. They are our issues too, every one of them, among so many of our beloved. This life is not for the faint of heart.
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Sherri said on December 18, 2023 at 9:23 pm
This ProPublica piece goes into many of the problems with body worn cameras for police, and how they’ve made little difference in police accountability. I’ve found it’s really difficult to get this idea across to people; they really want it to be true, that BWC will solve the problem. And actually, they could, with a policy change: don’t allow police departments to control the footage.
This piece notes that Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd, had done the exact same thing to people before Floyd, and his actions had been captured by police BWC, but never released, and never resulted in discipline. Video footage controlled by police departments does not result in any change or accountability, but even when you point that out to people, they still want to spend city budget on BWC. And of course, it’s not just the cost of the cameras, there’s the ongoing cost of the storage, and the cost of hiring people to deal with the data. In our last budget cycle, the police department ask for FTEs for managing the data would have hired five mental health responders. But I couldn’t even convince the allegedly progressive members of city council to vote against BWCs, even after connecting them with ACLU people to discuss the details.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-police-undermined-promise-body-cameras
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Ann said on December 18, 2023 at 9:54 pm
Mary, Jeff, David, my heart goes out to each of you.
I get a health newsletter from NPR and the current issue asked “No matter your age, it’s never too soon — or too late — to set yourself up for a long, healthy and purposeful life. So tell us: What works for you? What habits and lifestyle hacks have you adopted that you’d recommend to others?” I responded that nothing we do can assure a long and healthy life and the assumption that we can is just a way of telling the people upon whom the many misfortunes of age may fall that’s it’s all their own fault for not clocking their 10,000 steps or eating enough fiber, etc, etc. If I were a man I’d be a grumpy old one.
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Hank Stuever said on December 18, 2023 at 10:54 pm
I have always believed that NN.C will be discovered centuries from now in some digital excavation effort and will, once translated into New Martian, inspire great study for its details of the life of a 21st-century American woman before the Great Collapse. People (which is to say, “people”) will earn PhDs in Deborah Studies.
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Suzanne said on December 19, 2023 at 7:56 am
Ann @18. I agree. I was never super fit, but I ate healthy and exercised regularly the past 15-20 years. A few years ago, at a checkup with my primary care doctor, I was told that I was the healthiest person they’d seen all day. And yet, last year, out of the blue, I was hit with raging cancer. Obviously and thankfully, I survived but it proved to me that one can do all the things to promote one’s health, eat right, exercise often, and have a good outlook but in the end, our control over our lives is limited. Do I still exercise and eat healthy? Yes, but the focus now is that I do so in order to feel good enough to enjoy the life I have left for how ever long I can, which I hope is a long time.
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4dbirds said on December 19, 2023 at 8:26 am
I am so sorry Jeff. You were a good son-in-law.
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LAMary said on December 19, 2023 at 9:06 am
My nephew is an oncologist so I am counting on his experience dealing with end of life situations to make keep the conversation on track. My most recent phone call with my brother consisted entirely of him telling me how stupid the nurses at the hospital were, how stupid the aides and PAs at the nursing home are, how stupid the woman from the billing department is. All these opinions were delivered with a lot of anger. Same conversation also included a statement that Israel should annihilate all the Palestinians once and for all. When I started to disagree he said, “No. You lost this argument.”
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Deborah said on December 19, 2023 at 9:56 am
I don’t know that I ever commented here, Suzanne, about how impressed I’ve been that you shared some of your cancer struggle with us. You seem to have looked at your cancer squarely in the eye and dealt with it. I’m sure you probably had bad days but you are an inspiration.
I have a friend in Chicago who wrote a book called “Cancer Bitch” about her experiences with breast cancer which is quite good. Former commenter here, Moe, mentioned it while reading it, not knowing the author is someone I know quite well. I recommend it, to all.
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kayak woman said on December 19, 2023 at 10:35 am
Recipe organizing software, way back at #3 Suzanne. My recipes were a TOTAL mess, from hand-written by my grandmother to the NYT app and everything in between. I completely stumbled on Plan-to-Eat (https://www.plantoeat.com/welcome/) at $49 a year, at least cheaper than $100+. It sucks up recipes from websites or you can copy/paste from word files or type them in. It’s working well for me although in no way have I migrated anywhere near all my recipes to it.
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Jeff Gill said on December 19, 2023 at 10:49 am
Hank, I agree: it’s like what James Joyce said about “Ulysses” which was that future scholars would be able to recreate Dublin in 1904 from his work. And he’s not far wrong. Ditto NN.C!
On the general buzzkill front, I’d note as I fear I have before — you will have somewhere between 30 seconds and 30 minutes to answer the question “which funeral home do you want them sent to” after they say “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.” Closer to the 30 seconds end. Care facilities not much more time if the person is not dead but has to go into some form of skilled nursing. Oh, and your top four won’t have bed space open before they have to be moved.
I was ready for all that, and I speak fluent hospice . . . but hadn’t researched that, and picked what seemed the logical option (the hospital’s own hospice program to follow him out and to keep the same MyChart etc.). It turned out they’re a train wreck, and known around here to be so. The facility (#5 on my list) and I managed fine without them: when he died, they told the floor nurse she’d have to call them, and when I got back there, they said they were on another active death and no one could come assist, so she and I did all the paperwork so the funeral home could pick him up. I called bright and early the next morning, 8:30 am, with some closing questions about which the switchboard said they’d have someone call me shortly — Tuesday at 10:45 am no call, but they did shut down his account so I can’t access ANY of his old MyChart data, and I left a message asking them to fix that for which I’ve heard bupkis.
All of which is to say you can’t prepare too much, but be flexible once you have. Staffing is at minimum levels wherever you go, however you handle this, which is a big part of why I bit the worm on this project two years ago, knowing any home care arrangement would be fragile and ever changing even if he didn’t kick them out, which he would have. So be prepared either to be your patient’s own fiercest advocate, or find someone who will do that on your behalf. Because even the nurses who care have 19 other patients all in various states of decay and need.
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Jeff Borden said on December 19, 2023 at 11:19 am
I guess my life has been blessed by not facing these vexing issues with my parents or in-laws, but man, I know many who have and feel great sympathy. My sister (69) has been coping with ALS for the past 18 months, so we’re soon going to face many of the challenges articulated here.
For those looking for interesting insights into the issues of aging in America, may I recommend “Being Mortal” by Dr. Atul Gawande? He posits that the medical profession is quite bad at dealing with elder care and few physicians seek the field because they’d rather be saving young lives than extending old ones. And doctors just want to doctor you. On the morning my 86-year-old father died, his heart specialist wanted him back in the ICU. My sister and I had to stand firm and get him into hospice, which he’d requested. The physician meant well. He was just wrong.
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Jeff Gill said on December 19, 2023 at 1:32 pm
My father-in-law’s obituary went up on the funeral home website, and my wife & I always knew this photo was the one we’d use. It’s from 1951; he was never happy to be in pictures and we honestly have little but group shots with him in the back row since his Army service in Germany.
A small added note: Buck told me that he drove the “High Explosives” truck (you can see the “osives” on the front bumper) because doctrine said each deuce and a half had a driver and a relief, two per truck. No radio. But for grim practical purposes, it was just one guy in the HE transport vehicles. Buck never suffered fools gladly, and “there were a lot of fools in this man’s Army.” So he volunteered for that duty, thinking “I’ll never know it if it goes up” and even slept under his during rainy field maneuvers. Just so he wouldn’t have to put up with other people on the miles across 1951 & 1952 Germany.
That was Buck, alright.
https://www.shirleybrothers.com/obituaries/Myron-Meredith/
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Sherri said on December 19, 2023 at 4:18 pm
Jeff Borden, we dealt with ALS with my MIL, and it’s brutal. Slowly, everything goes away, the ability to walk, talk, eat, hold your head up; everything except your cognitive abilities, which are still intact. Eventually you lose the ability to breathe. My MIL didn’t want to leave her home and move into care, her husband was determined to care for her himself, they resisted help until we had to bring care in because there was no other option when her husband fell and was hospitalized and rapidly went downhill himself with congestive heart failure and dementia.
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Julie Robinson said on December 19, 2023 at 4:27 pm
And to add to the craptasticness of it all, I just heard that a dear friend is losing the last member of her family unit, a child who is 34. All I can do is cry.
I have frequently had to fight for my mom to get good care. She goes to a geriatrician, but when that doc is out her subs prescribe inappropriate meds. The last time was muscle relaxants, which turned her into a drooling, wheelchair bound, equivalent of a nursing home resident. She ony took one, but the Rx was for 280, 3X for 90 days.
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Ann said on December 19, 2023 at 7:07 pm
Jeff, that’s a wonderful photo and a great story to go with it. My own mother had crossed every “t” and dotted every “i” but damned if the assisted living place where she’d been for three years didn’t decide after she was already in hospice that she had to go somewhere else. I summoned my law degree (it didn’t hurt that for a time I ran a nursing home advocacy project) and backed them down but it wasn’t a fun time. There’s been lots of research out there about hospice isn’t what it used to be and that’s certainly been my experience. Nice enough people, but not really much to offer. And that’s at best. At worse, see this New Yorker piece, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/05/how-hospice-became-a-for-profit-hustle
The book I recommend is Holding the Net, Caring for my Mother on the Tightrope of Aging. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34788672-holding-the-net . Not because it has the answers, but because it reassures anyone who thinks this is just crazy hard that they’re not wrong.
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