Still further South than we thought we would be...

To update the family without calling everyone, here is the latest from Tucson.


Mom is still in the skilled nursing center at Handmaker and looks to be improving from her bout of pneumonia and an infection of Clostridium difficile ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_difficile ) , both of which she picked up in the hospital while being treated fro the bleeding ulcer. Isn’t it wonderful that hospitals can charge you to treat one thing and give you another to treat on your own at additional expense. Anyway, Mom is doing daily physical therapy and, by her own admission, is not ready to come home.

Yesterday we toured some of the assisted living apartments at Handmaker with Mom and developed a sort of Plan “A” – they have a “Respite Care” furnished apartment that may be used for up to 30 days and Mom agreed that it would be a better place for her to be while she continues to recuperate. Maree will continue to be on a twice weekly schedule throughout this period so that Mom can have both the companionship they have developed and be able to go out for shopping, hair appointments and whatever. But for now she is anchored in the nursing center where they can monitor the demise of the bugs in her systems. We do not know yet when she might make the transfer.

Julie and I had wanted to drive back to Oregon this week, then considered flying, then dropped the idea for now and just unloaded the Suburban into Mom’s garage. Intstead of leaving town we dicided to ask Eric and our property manager to send the things we need for tax returns, and the functioning of our business via UPS. I guess that we can figure out a longer range plan later when we know more about Mom’s prospects for the next transition.

TTFN