Monday, August 8, 2011

It finally happened

As I've mentioned, my husband's grandmother lives with us.  She's lived with us for over two years now.  As you can imagine, there have been ups and downs along the way.  I'm happy to say that when she moved in with us she was on 8 prescription medications as well as several OTC meds.  Today she's on two prescriptions meds and one OTC as needed.  It's amazing what having someone (me) make you eat regularly and take your meds on schedule (and without overdosing, which is what she was doing) can do for your health.  We've been very happy seeing her physical improvements since moving in.  It's a battle as she doesn't want to eat unless it's sweets and I have to tell her to bathe every few days, getting her to get up and walk around (she's VERY stable, no walker or cane) to keep her strength up is another battle, but there are plenty of laughs to counter balance those issues.

When we moved her in with us, she had been living in low income housing.  We moved her stuff to our house one truck and carload at a time, cleaning out obvious trash as we went.  She had a very hard time turning loose of things, as older people sometimes do, but we were able to convince her that she didn't need the clothing she wore 20 years ago when she was 100 pounds heavier and other things like that.

I wish I had thought to take a picture, but she had what I deemed the closet of coffee.  For some reason, she had bought can and after can after can of coffee.  The big cans, the ones that are like 30-35 ounces.  I have no idea how many cans were in there, but there were a LOT.  We gave a few to her neighbors, we gave some to family members, we gave some to family to take to work, we gave some to our neighbors, we gave one to the mail lady, we put them in unlocked cars in random parking lots, and we kept some.  We moved to a new state and some came with us.

I should say, she's the only one in this house that drinks coffee.  She drinks one to two pots worth of coffee a day which sounds like a HUGE amount, except you have to realize that she brews it SUPER strong.  The smell will knock you out.  She puts enough scoops of coffee to brew 10-12 cups but then only puts enough water for 2-4 cups.   She uses quite a bit of coffee daily, as you can see.

Well, it's been over two years, with tons given away, and she FINALLY ran out of coffee from the closet of coffee.  I saw that she was out and knew she'd have withdrawals, so I bought her some more the day after she ran out.

A few days later she tells me she thinks she's getting a cold because she's had a horrible headache the last few days.

*DING* goes the light bulb over my head.

Mawmaw, why didn't you make you some coffee?  You're having headaches because you haven't had any caffeine and you're addicted to it.

How would I make any coffee?  I'm all out.

I bought you more the next day!

I never saw it, honey.

That's because I hid it so well.


1 comment:

Heather Lynn said...

That is so cute! Love it. Thank you for sharing. I want to move my grandma in with us, but we don't have the space right now, plus we live upstairs. Maybe soon.