The temps are cooling off here - instead of triple digits, we're down in the mid-90s during the day but 70s at night.   The water in pool is staying around 75-80 degrees, so most of the time too chilly to swim unless I try mid-day when the sun is really hot.   Can't complain since my friends in ND are dealing with 2-3 ft. of snow right now and much colder weather.   🙂

Trying to find placement for Gary has not worked out well.   All of the suggestions from "A Place for Mom" were for places that either didn't have opening or one that had two older gals who would not have been strong enough to handle him.   He's 6'2" and weighs between 210-225, so a caregiver that is under 5' ft. tall and barely weighs 100 lb. dripping wet would be a problem.  We looked at a memory care facility and at group homes, none of them worked for Gary's needs.   I finally put a call in to Hospice of the Valley to see what options they had available, and they got him signed up for Palliative Care - providing a social worker once a month to assist us with resources.    She put me in touch with local facilities and agencies and I contacted a private home health agency in Casa Grande.   Since our other caregiver, who we've had for nearly 3 years, took off for two weeks and didn't really want to come back, I was without a caregiver for nearly a month.   I had to do something soon.   The new gal came last week Tues. and Thursday and she seems to be good with Gary and caught on to his routine very quickly.     She's sending a different gal this week Tues. but she will be back on Friday, so we'll be getting 6 hours a week at much less than I was paying Carmen (because of paying 2 hours travel time each day).    It's not as much time as I would like, but better than nothing.

They say "when it rains, it pours" and  that expression surely fits the past few months.    Our daughter-in-law was recovering for several months from her initial surgery for cancer, followed by septic shock, failing kidneys, dialysis, etc.   She was finally able to go back to work full-time last week.  I heard this from our Colorado son when he informed me that he had been off work for neurological testing to find out why he couldn't feel his feet and was losing feeling in hands and having trouble focusing.  He had surgery last winter that initially was supposed to help nerves in spine for the problem with his feet, but it turns out the recent testing revealed that he has CIDP - something like Guillain Barre syndrome.   He went through four sessions of infusions this week to see if that would help, but will have a wait and see before trying other options.    He is on short-term disability (from his new job) now but may have to go on long-term disability.  He mentioned that if the treatments didn't work, he may be coming to Phoenix for treatment at the Mayo Clinic.   I had hoped we could get to Colorado before colder weather set in, but found out last week when I got oil change and tires rotated that I needed new tires - which I hadn't anticipated this soon, so trips are out for now.  

Some days it feels like life really sucks - other days, I toss up my hands and say "it is what it is" and go on!    

Sarah