For those of you who have been patiently waiting for an update, here it is. I am still at Mom & Dad's, taking care of them until we can decide, as a family, what the heck we're going to do. Even my parents reluctantly agree that they cannot continue living by themselves any longer, given the physical limitations of both of them coupled with the mental confusion/dementia (?) that my mother has been exhibiting to a marked degree since the surgery. Her doctor ordered a CT-scan last week to determine whether the surgery triggered a stroke — he said that was a very real possibility, and isn't unmusual in older persons who have surgery. We are waiting for the results of the scan and the follow-up appointment with her doctor in a few days.Mom is doing much better on the physical level. She is finally eating and drinking again as she should be, and is able to move about the house on her own. The fecal incontinence has come to an end, thank goodness, but we still have small incidents of urinary incontinence. She isn't doing too well on the mental level, though. She is able to carry on conversations, but gets confused easily about where she is and what is happening around her. She can't usually follow even the briefest of new stories on the television without scrambling some of the details or becoming completely lost. Sometimes she thinks we're in another city or state, and seldom has any true concept of what time of day it is (even if she is looking at a clock). She also has no memory of anything that happened in the month or so after her surgery and remembers nothing about her behavior, refusal to eat/drink, and so forth. This is what led the doctor to suspect a stroke.
So, I am here, doing the cooking, dish-washing, laundry, grocery shopping, appointment keeping, and other daily tasks to keep the household running. While here, I have no Internet connection unless I schlep the laptop to McDonald's, the library, or some other location. McDonald's is the closest, even though I have to pay $3 for a 2-hour block of time. To get a FREE connection, I have to drive to the next town over which takes more time and gas, so it's a toss-up as to which is the best option. When I hit
McDonald's to 
WiFi, as I am doing tonight, I call it McWebbing. 
So, that is the reason for the spotty blog posts lately, the lack of my presence online, and my failure to keep up with the blogs of all you good peeps. I am anxious for this nightmare to be over and to return to my own home, my darling husband, my own bed, my job, and my life!
A sticker on my car. And, yes, we do.
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It is simply impossible to continue blogging the highlights of every single day, especially when some days leave me so little free time or so exhausted.
Last night, I washed a few dishes in the sink and setup the coffee pot before going to bed. When I pulled the handle downwards on the kitchen faucet to turn the stream of water off, it would not stop. I played with it for a bit, but there was always a steady stream of water coming out of the nozzle regardless of how the handle was positioned. I finally discovered that if the handle were pushed downwards and held very firmly, the stream of water reduced to a rather steady drip. Being that I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Jury Rigging (courtesy of my father's genes), I took a piece of sewing elastic from my mother's stash, inserted a couple of safety pins to make a tight band, and wrapped it around the faucet's nozzle and handle, making as tight a seal as I could to keep it from running all night.
There once was a boy from Quebec
Went to Wal-Mart in the evening to get BOOST® for Mom, EQUAL® for Dad and me, and duct tape for Dad. Duct tape used to be available only in silver, but nowadays they have blue, red, yellow, green even hot pink! A couple of extra dollars would even give you a roll with a floral print on it! The mind staggers...