Last Day in Vegas

We got up at 4:30 this morning to get ready to leave. Mom was a little unsteady and was trying to move too fast and fell. It was sort of in slow motion because she fell against the bed so she sort of slid down the side of it. Since the fall was so slow she did not hit her head or break anything. We got her back up and tried to convince her to slow down since we had a lot of time to get ready for the 7:30 meet up to get to the bus. The plus side of her fall was that we were sort of able to get Mom to slow down and focus on doing one thing at a time. But we had to remind her a lot.

For breakfast Dad and I had the Golden Waffle. It was the only meal of this visit that Dad ate with us. Usually he just finishes off whatever leftovers he finds in the room fridge.


After breakfast Dad went to gamble, Mom usually does but this time she decided she needed to rest before going to the bus. I went back with her to make sure she didn't try to do too much. Our biggest coming challenge was getting her on to the bus so having her get more rest was a good idea. The bus is a regular tour bus with about 4 steps to get in even when it is kneeling. Surprisingly, she was able to get in by pulling herself up using the railings; the driver went up behind her to keep her from falling backwards. When we got to the airport Mom & Dad became part of the wheel chair brigade. I'm not sure how many there were on this trip, the Vacations Hawaii record was something like 50! You would think with this many elders needing wheelchairs they would get a more elder-friendly bus.


Recently Mom is almost always cold. Lori gave Mom a new jacket which she was wearing today. In the hotel she was warm enough in the new jacket. But on the plane it was still too cold for her. Here she is bundled up in 3 blankets as we got on to the plane. She's got 1 blanket on her legs, 1 draped over her head and around her shoulders, and the last wrapped around her torso. It kept her warm & toasty, she slept for most of the trip.

Mom looking like a red-robed Jedi warrior!

Except, that is, for the 2 trips to the bathroom. Since Mom is having trouble standing up someone needed to stay in the bathroom and help her get up and down. Fortunately for Curt, I can fit in the airplane bathroom with Mom. (And I am strong enough to lift her.) We were only 4 rows from the aft bathroom which was near the galley. Being near the galley also meant we were near the flight attendants. I would walk backwards ahead of Mom with my arm partially around her to keep her from falling while she used the tops of the seats as hand holds. One of the stewards would give her priority and hold the door open. When she was finished we would make the the trip back to our seats. This evening she is still having trouble standing & walking.

The Omni Air planes have a monitor built in to seat in front of each passenger. Besides movies, TV episodes, and music, they also have games. And one of them, of course, is video poker. I decided to see how I would do on their video poker. They start you with 990 points, on one of the times I tried it I was able to get up to 2600 points before I got bored. Here's one of the straight flushes I got; its a lot friendlier than the machines in Las Vegas.

Straight flush on the airplane is worth 500 points!

Lunch on this trip was a slight bit better than going to Las Vegas. They provided mayonnaise and mustard this time; last time there were no condiments. They also gave us a Kit Kat bar. This lunch reminded me of the lunch I had on Reeve Aleutian Airways on a flight from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor about 35 years ago. The flight was on an old DC-3, there was a canvas tarp between the passenger compartment and the cargo hold, and the flight attendant (yes, there was a flight attendant) handed out cold bologna sandwiches in waxed paper bags.


The monitor also shows a conventional Mercator projection map of the world with a graphic of a plane flying between the departure point to the arrival point. It's sort of like a GPS map but with a plane. The Arctic ice cap looked like climate change is really taking its toll on the Arctic sea ice. I'm not sure if the map is up to date or whether this is a side effect of using the conventional Mercator projection. (The best seems to be an azimuthal polar equidistant projection.)


Before we got on the plane in Las Vegas I tried calling Kaiser to get an appointment for Mom with Dr. Pham to check out the hives. I also called Safe Harbor to get do an assessment so that we can get a health care provider beginning on Thursday for the week I will be in Kohala. But no luck, I could not reach anyone. I tried again once we reached Hawai'i and was successful! Mom has a 9 am appointment with Dr. Pham to take a look at her hives. Then at 10:40 she goes to the Primary Care clinic to have her thumb looked at again (they set this up before we went to Las Vegas). And in the afternoon we have an assessment evaluation by Safe Harbor; you need an assessment done before a care provider can be assigned. Curtis & I feel that Mom can't be left alone when he goes to work during the period I am on the Big Island. This is a major difference between my trip in October and now. Mom doesn't like it and says she & Dad can handle it by themselves. Dad says get someone to come in and help because he can't do it. He says if Mom falls, he won't be able to help her up; and if he falls, Mom won't be able to help him up. The dementia does not allow Mom to understand this.

Once we got home Mom decided she needed a nap again. She was still a little unsteady on her feet so I was glad she decided to rest. The cats were also glad to have Mom back and taking naps.


Dad, on the other hand, was ready for dinner. So we had breakfast for dinner! And it was the same thing we had for breakfast - waffles! In fact, the breakfast we had on the day we left to go to Las Vegas was waffles. This family likes waffles! (I was going to make fish sandwiches but Dad didn't want that much. He wanted waffles.)





Happy Birthday to Mr. Bobo, Maria, Linda, Darryl, & Naomi!