It’s been quite a weekend! On Saturday I got a message from my real estate agent that she had two offers to buy the Winnemucca ranch. One bid was for 60K and the other was for 69K. Here’s hoping for a bidder war!
Whoever wins, they better get it done in a hurry! Winter is coming on, and the house may need some work to keep from freezing damage when the cold weather hits.
I would like to get enough to buy some land here in Oklahoma to park my motor home on, but land here is much more expensive than Nevada land. I would rather not have to live in town if I can find a country place.
A piece of property was just posted for sale next to my sister-in-law, so I checked it out. Unfortunately it is a 160 acre parcel and the asking price is 793K without any improvements or buildings. Almost no access, either. The road in is severely rutted and washed out. My car would not be able to drive there.
I am going to check on it tomorrow, anyway, and see if they would split it up so I could maybe buy a ten acre piece in one corner. I have my tractor and lots of time to improve the road.
While reading the New Yorker yesterday I found an article on the guardianship scam going on down in Clark County. Some woman, with the help of crooked lawyers and judges has been signing herself up as guardian for retired people who had a retirement house (paid for) or a large bank account, and then cleaning them out, blocking their children from seeing them or helping them.
The people thought they were sitting pretty for years of retirement, when one day someone shows up at the door, takes them away to a nursing home, and since they have been declared incompetent by some doctor who hasn’t even seen them, they can’t even complain to anybody.
Now I understand why I had to fight so hard to finally get to be Carolyn’s guardian, and promise to use at least 45% of whatever I receive from the property to take care of Carolyn. I hope those people who would take advantage of elderly retirees spend their retirement in a building with bars on the windows and a concrete bench for a bed.
Today when I went to visit Carolyn, she was not in her room. I found her walking down the hall, walking very fast and not shuffling at all. I had to stretch to catch her.
I called her name, and she turned around and smiled. She said something that sounded like “Where’ve you been?” That hurt. I asked where she was going, and she said, “I want to go home.” That hurt even worse.
I had not seen her this agitated in a long time. I hugged her close and whispered in her ear, “You are home. It’s the best home you’ve ever lived in. You have lots of friends here, and I come to visit everyday. I am spending all our Social Security to pay for this, and it’s the best I can do!”
I don’t know how much of this she understood, but she stopped asking about going home, and we just stood together in the hallway, holding on to each other. I was glad that no other people came by to see our tears right then.
We found a couch in the hall and we sat there awhile, with her just cuddling in my arm. I suggested we go to her room and get a bite to eat, and she agreed and stood up to go. She turned the wrong way, so I gently turned her toward her room and we went in.
I opened a yogurt cup for her, and I opened a fruit cup with mangos and pineapple chunks, and we sat there on her couch eating the treats. She excused herself to go to the bathroom, and after a short while she called me.
She was standing there with nothing on below her waist. On the floor was her skirt and her adult underwear, which had done it’s job well, being thoroughly saturated. I don’t know if it was wet before she sat down, or got that way because maybe she forgot to pull them down.
I got a damp washcloth and wiped her off and put a new dry diaper on, and found some pants for her and put them on. I put the used diaper in the trash, and noticing some brown stains on the floor, I got some wet tissue and scrubbed the floor.
When I returned to her front room, I did a scan over the scene, to see if I had missed any more face cream or lotion.
Instead, my eyes fell on a handful of pills on top of her dresser near the foot of her bed. They were of many sizes and colors, pills and capsules both, next to a paper cup which usually has the water to take the pills.
I scooped them up and went out to the nurse in the hall and showed her the pills I had found. She was surprised and apologized for the nurse that had been there in the morning, since these were Carolyn’s morning medications.
I don’t know if she saved them in her cheeks and spit them back out, or if the nurse just left them in a cup for her to take later. She has been obstinately refusing her medication sometimes, and it takes a little begging and cajoling to get her to take them.
The nurse on duty said she took her 2:00 PM pill OK. She didn’t want to take it from the cup, so she said she put it in a spoon and she said, “Oh, that’s how we do it now.” and shoveled it right in.
We decided to put the missed doses aside, since it was nearly time for her evening medications. I went back to her room, and we hugged and held each other tight for a long time, before I promised her I would be back tomorrow for sure. I asked her to treat the nurses nice, and take her pills because she would feel better if she did. I hope she understood that.
I left her standing in her room, and told her “I love you!” as I went out the door. She seems so frail and afraid lately.
How could I help but love her?
right :)
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