Day 5 writings

I just have to say that there are worse things than being alone. In fact on this particular trip I spend a good bit of time looking forward to being alone. We have been in the hotel four nights and three days now and about half of our trip is over - yesterday was the top of the hump. There has been no talk of me going with Tanisha to see her mom so I have afternoons to myself at the hotel. Every morning starts with a hectic rush to get ready before the transport van arrives.  This morning I ate my fake scrambled eggs standing up looking out the window. There is very little eating time in the morning but I do go to the breakfast bar and load up on food for later.  Tanisha eats sometime after I get her up in the chair. As we work our way through the various elements of morning care the room gets messier and finally arrives at tornado look-alike status.  I think this is part of the reason she doesn't have me come along - who would clean up the mess while we were gone, and how awful would it be to come back tired at the end of the day and have to deal with it? So by now I know all the housekeepers, desk girls and janitors at the Hampton, plus a few waitresses at Cracker Barrel where I hang out for supper. I feel a little sorry for Tanisha when she comes back and tells me about her day and how she had to fend for herself, but no, she was the one who wanted to do this, right? She spends a lot of time watching her mom sleep.

Her mom is staying in the hospital to get intravenous feedings. She has lost her appetite completely and lost a lot of weight so daughter Taylor insisted that the doctors do something about it, even though they didn't think this was the best idea.  Mary is so weak she doesn't get out of bed very much.  She is actually about the right weight for her height now but Taylor and Tanisha are both thinking about malnutrition. Tanisha heard that more cancer patients die from that than from the cancer itself so she has been sending her mom nutrition bars and vitamins and other things sick people don't like to eat. It's sad that Tanisha wants so badly to do something to help but there's not a lot she can do. 

Thanksgiving came and went yesterday. After I cleaned the room I took a nap, sort of.  Then I finished reading my book "Fuse of Armagedon", which I should have been reading on my Kindle, had I not lost it on the airplane. ( I have to say that it's very frustrating trying to figure out how to get people to look for something from afar off.  It's probably still on the floor under the seat, but I'll never find it and that is sad.) I made myself dress up around 4 pm and went over to Cracker Barrel for dinner. There was a line but I didn't have to wait too long to be seated. The waitress said they had been full since they opened at 11 am so I'm thinking this was a good year for them. They must have had a LOT of food stored up somewhere to not run short of anything. The meal was pretty good, except there were no cranberries which is one of my favorites for Thanksgiving. I will make up for that when I get home. There was sweet potato casserole, cornbread dressing, green beans, biscuits, turkey and gravy and pumpkin pie, all in acceptable quantities so I did well without getting overstuffed. I was aware of being alone when most everyone else was with family but that is how I am fairly frequently so I'm used to it. The rest of the evening I spent on the phone, facebooking and looking for something decent on tv.

The transport guy brought Tanisha home around 10. She was tired and out of sorts (I know what that means, but what on earth is a sort?) and spent the next several hours dictating my every move and breath. She says my name a lot - "Get me a washcloth Shirley" "My hip needs to be higher on the right Shirley", "Shirley, put the fan on low cool " as if there's someone else around who might jump to do it first. It always sounds odd to me. And there were lots of little things to argue about which she loves to do when she thinks I'm not obeying her exactly. As much as I do like her at times, I'm always relieved at night when she is finally covered up and snoring away. Which brings me back full circle - when it comes to night duty with Tanisha, there are worse things than being alone.