It's been a roller coaster couple of weeks. A week and a half ago Zoe went up to Oak Harbor to check out HomePlace, a care facility for Alzheimer's and dementia patients. This was pretty traumatic for Zoe but HomePlace is highly regarded and she knew that she had found the place for her mom, Gerry.

Then last Wednesday Gerry fell on her back and had to be taken up to the hospital in Coupeville by the Paramedics. Luckily she didn't break any thing but it put a big scare into us and we realized we need to have her watched 24 hours a day. Zoe has more about this in her blog. We had been having care givers come in the evening and then we added them in the days too. There were usually gaps of a couple of hours that I watched her.

Then Thursday Gerry fell again but the caregiver caught her and wrenched her back. The caregiver's, not Gerry's. On Friday Kathy from HomePlace came down to evaluate Gerry. Zoe goes into detail in her blog. Zoe has been real hard on herself but she has done more than most daughters would.

What really firmed up our plans was that Sunday Gerry decided she didn't want the caregiver around and we had to send her home. Zoe had been hoping to put off taking Gerry up to HomePlace for a little while longer but now it became clear that the time was now. When the caregivers aren't here I spend my time in Gerry's room to make sure I am near her when she walks since she is so wobbly. Try spending 20 hours in an overheated room. (She gets cold very easily so we keep her room at what is comfortable for her.) I can't do much more. It could happen as soon as this weekend but there is paperwork to fill out and and doctor's orders to get filled. Soon.

In the meantime I spend a lot of time with Gerry. We still have someone coming in the evening for three hours and Zoe spells me as she can but she is not in great shape. Not only has this taken an emotional toll but, when we were in the Emergency Room, she had to catch Gerry as she was sliding off the bed and Zoe wrenced her back and screwed up her knee. We are having a good time now! I finally set up my old laptop. A guy from Switzerland gave it to me. It's an old IBM Thinkpad of 200 mhz. The tricky part is that it has a European keyboard and I have the keys mapped to the US standard. Tonight I finally pasted little pieces of paper with the correct symbols on them. 25 keys were affected. I don't like laptop keyboards anyway but this was pretty painful. At least I can now do something while Gerry is sleeping. It won't be too much longer.