The week before the semester begins...

Always turns out much busier than you plan for. My schedule has filled up with last-minute meetings, etc. I was looking forward to getting back to some real work- moving offices for myself and everyone else in the Library pretty much shot 12/17- 1/4. Oh well.
I have had the killer "creeping crud" since the weekend- enough to drown me, it would seem. A friend who is a nurse advocates not using decongestants and other symptom relievers, and letting the virus run it's course. This should lead to a quicker recovery since, theoretically, you are not prolonging the cold by repressing the symptoms. I must say, I think it is working. But if I hadn't had a compelling reason to want to recover quick, I would have gone the "repress the symptoms" route!
I have also been working hard, since it may be that I need to make a quick trip to CA. My step-dad was sent home from the hospital on Monday, and my Mom seems pretty overwhelmed with caring for him. They sent an almost 80 year old man home with a trachia and a feeding tube, with an inexperienced 70 year old caregiver. He is also malnourished (115 pounds- down from his usual 135), and cannot digest the liquid meals that he has to have, since he cannot eat or swallow. Basically, my mother says that it takes 3-4 hours for him to be able to digest 2 tablespoons of liquid, so that he can have some more. And no one showed her how to administer plastic coated capsule-type pills, so she got it clogged in the feeding tube (you are supposed to open these and drop the granuals down the tube, since the tube cannot dissolve the plastic). Major incident, requiring her to dig it out (don't ask me how) after an emergency call to the hospital. Also, no home-health care nurse, the bed that was delivered was awful, the wrong food was delivered, etc. Mom is pretty sure that she is going to do something that is gonna kill him.
Still, I have made up my mind that they need to struggle with this on their own for awhile, so that they can see the changes they need to make, regarding downsizing their home and possessions to something manageable, getting rid of stuff, and arranging for help (be that a visiting nurse, a support group, a cleaning lady, meals on wheels or whatever). I saw so often with my Grandma and Aunt Julia that family would fly to help them when there was a crisis, then everything would stabilize, and the old folks would just go back to their old situation and way of living, regardless of how much they agreed that they needed to move, or get some help, or whatever. I am not at all unsympathetic, but I can't enable this either. I don't have the time, the vacation, the money or the patience to coddle them along for the next 20 years. Insistence on continuing to live the way they always have, despite clear evidence that that is no longer possible is the height of selfishness and not caring about their partner or other people. And the good news is that the mass they biopsied was non-cancerous...
So, I am willing and available to help them move, sort and pack, etc. Help find assisted living or nursing facilities. Research how this can be paid for, or what Medicare and their insurance supplement will pay for. Come for a visit more often. But I will not be an unpaid nursing attendent and enable this to continue.