A New Me!

    For the 5-6 of you who were avidly following my blog, you may have had to hypothesize what happened to me since my last entry? As you may/may not recall, I had a nasty fall on May 15th, resulting in a very bruised face, sore body and badly broken femur. 4 months in an immobilizer and I was ready to climb the walls. At the same time, my mother-in-law (hereafter referred to as MIL) developed a painful case of shingles. 
     George, my husband, heroically tended to both of us, aided by a caregiver who came almost every day for a while. I moved into her house to make things easier for him. 

     It did not help. He developed a bad case of pneumonia which required 2 hospitalizations and surgery. Once he was hospitalized, my 90 year old MIL started acting up for attention. (Picture the mom on Everyone Loves Raymond). 

At one point I had her in one hospital and George in another. The difference was that there was nothing wrong with her. Unfortunately, I was still walking with a cane, walker, whatever. On one of my trips to visit George I fell again in the hospital driveway, because of the tropical storm we had attracted to South Florida. 
     By this time the MIL had moved in with us and was creating all kinds of difficulties for me. She could not be left alone so that limited my time away to when the care giver was there. Several times she ran out of the house, yelling for help and that she was being kept in a dungeon. She even called the police.
 We put alarms on the doors. We lasted for about 3-4 months and then selected an assisted living facility for her.

      We are now back to the normal everyday worries of paying for everything. We think she will engineer an escape eventually from the nursing home, but they will handle it. Of course, we are caring for her cat, a black cat who is not adjusting well. We have 2 cats of our own and of course, our wiener dog. Her cat has developed some hair thinning probably due to stress. He also is very offended that my cats find his litter box to be the  Toilette Extraordinaire!
  Everyone wants to use it, so he poops right in front of it on the tile floor. There is a bit of hissing and growling going on, reminiscent of MIL herself. 

      In the meantime, my third children's book, Get Ready for Jetty! came out in September. It is a journal style book about a young girl with ADD and her struggles to be accepted and feel good about herself. I think I need to write a book about my struggles over this last year. Both George and I are doing much better now. I am very careful walking and take no chances, hoping no more falls.