A Visit With Doreen

We went to visit Doreen today. Getting out of the house was a little rough. Mom kept trying to do too much this morning; I kept telling her to stop and just focus on getting ready to go, but she wouldn't. Result: she started having trouble breathing as she was just about ready. She insisted on lying down even though I told her she needed to sit up in order to be able to breathe better. (This is something we discovered 10 days ago during ER visit #9 for the difficulties caused by her tricuspid valve insufficiency. She was lying down and wasn't able to breathe so I took her in to the ER, on the ride there she got better and when she was there, sitting in the bed, she had no problems breathing. For best breathing results she has to be sitting up at 100 to 120 degrees.) So after she continued to complain she couldn't breathe while she was lying down, I propped her up. I told her I was going to cancel the trip to visit Doreen, she said no, she wanted to go even if it killed her. Dad said not to take her, I said I at least needed to get her in the car to get her to the ER. Mom recovered enough and walked to the car. Within 10 minutes she was breathing okay again and had totally forgotten about not being able to breathe. By the time we reached Aunty Judy's house she was excited to go to see Doreen.

Doreen was glad to see us, especially Aunty Judy, whom she had not seen in a while. Janeth (the caregiver) had a new client, Grandma Norma, who is 95 years old and was driving and living alone up until a few years ago. Since our last visit they have also gotten a rabbit and birds for the clients to interact with. Janeth & Doug have been enlarging their house and will soon be including a large lanai so the clients have a shaded outdoor area where they can enjoy themselves.


What I like about how Janeth runs things at her assisted living home is that she treats her clients like they are family. Several times that we have visited she has served us lunch. This time was no different. I don't know what the names are of the dishes, I just know the one on the left is made with noodles and the one on the right is a soup made with lechon (whole pig roasted on a spit). Lunch was delicious!


On the way back we visited with Uncle Roy. I misunderstood my conversation with Baron yesterday. I thought we would be rescheduling for next month but he meant to come over after we left Doreen's. Which is what we ended up doing. I have not seen Uncle Roy for a whole long time; he looked great! He celebrated his 94th birthday in April. When we left Baron gifted us with cookies, fried rice, and hash.

Clockwise from top left: Blueberry scones, peanut butter cookies, fried rice, hash patties, 3 bags of arare mix (for a snack on the plane), oatmeal raisin cookies, and pumpkin cheesecake

Curtis & Lori are hosting a Halloween potluck tomorrow night. I am making Fluffy Dinner Rolls and salmon and bringing pumpkin spice ice cream from 8 1/2 Desserts. Up until now I have been mixing the rolls by hand; a task that requires a lot of muscle. A few weeks ago Mom bought a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for me. Tonight was the test run and it works great! The dough was much easier to work with than when mixed by hand and the rolls came out great. I think I am really going to like having a Kitchen Aid!


Happy Birthday to Kai-chin!