It’s happened again. Three months have elapsed since my last blahg. 
You might think it’s the same old story but believe me when I say it’s a completely unbelievable story this time around. I sometimes think my life would be a great movie, of course starring me, but then I also think that I wouldn’t want to watch it. Let’s bring you up to speed.
I mentioned in my last blahg that my father fell at the end of January and broke his hip. He was in the hospital for six week and came home in mid-March. While he was in the hospital they made a diagnosis that he had functional dementia which simply means he functions well in his home environment. This makes sense because he had some bad days in the hospital when he didn’t even know who I was. Part of this was due to the long stay and because he had become dehydrated. After they started getting fluids into him, he responded well but still had his off moments. Given the fact that they had made the functional dementia diagnosis, the Doctor said he would have to report it to the Ministry of Transportation and my father’s license would be suspended. That ended his driving. I’ll quickly add that my parents decided to give me their 2005 Ford Escape because I continue to take them to appointments. I’m working on transferring the ownership over before the end of this month. Last week, however, a police car followed me home and a police officer questioned me about the ownership of the vehicle. He said he had scanned the license plate and the registered owner had come back as having a suspended license. I knew they were going to pull his license but it’s been more than two months since I was told that by the Doctor and we never received a letter from the Ministry. I’m working a little harder now to get that vehicle transferred to my name.
The two months since my father came home have been fairly hectic. He had some incontinence issues which were not fun to deal with but he’s doing fine now for the most part. He walks with a walker because he’s still very unsteady on his feet. His mental capabilities are better now that he’s home and also able to to smoke. There was an incident this week that I will write about shortly though that has stopped his smoking for good. I need to first talk about my mother.
It has not been easy for my mother to have my father back at home. There have been many support workers coming into the house for my father and my mother wasn’t getting all of the attention. This has caused her to have many mood swings and to play up her normal daily ailments. I’ve been working to have her assessed for her mental health and her mental health nurse saw her two weeks ago and her preliminary assessment wasn’t all the favorable. I think however that the assessment came at a very bad time. My mother had been complaining a lot more about her arthritis and other ailments. She had already been to her Doctor a few weeks before and her pain medication had been increased so I knew we couldn’t get it increased again. Monday evening of last week, my mother called me and said she had the flu and wanted to go the hospital. I tried to explain to her that you don’t go the hospital for the flu. She decided to tough it out. The next morning I receive a call from my father’s home-care worker that my mother was very weak and almost fell. I drove in and decided to take her to the hospital. In fact, she was so weak that I couldn’t get her into my vehicle so she had to go by ambulance.
I’ll start a new paragraph on this saga because it will lead into the current situation. I followed in my vehicle thirty minutes later to the hospital; giving them a chance to take her in and assess her. When I got to the hospital she was siting in a wheel chair in the waiting area. It took another 4 hours before she was admitted to emergency triage and another 15 minutes after that before we saw a Doctor. He said Mom was not at all well and that her blood work showed that a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) had played havoc with her blood pressure and kidneys. I’ll shorten this part of the story by saying she was admitted to the hospital and put on a regimen of antibiotics. She responded very well and was doing well enough that she came home this past Sunday.
My mother continued to improve when at home but on Tuesday evening she called me because she had fallen and could not get up. My wife and I met my sister and her husband at the house. We managed to get her back on her feet. She had gotten up about 10 that night to get a drink and didn’t turn on any lights. When going through the dining room she tripped over a laundry basked by her chair and went down. She didn’t hurt herself and after examining her we determined she was a little shaky from the accident but had not injured herself. Wednesday morning I received a call from her nurse who has been checking on her since she came home. Mom had fallen again. She did not injure herself but her blood pressure was way up and she had a temperature of 103. She suggested Mom go back to the hospital because her UTI may be flaring up and Mom was pretty weak. I drove in and met my brother Dan and his wife at the house. I could see Mom was in rough shape so we called for an ambulance because we could not move her. Dan and I waited an hour after the ambulance took her up and then went to the hospital. We had to wait another half hour to see her in Emergency. She was hooked to an IV and was sound asleep. The Doctor had not seen her yet and they told us we should go home and they would call with an update.
I received a call from the Doctor in charge in Emergency that day at 5 pm. She told me my mother was in very bad shape and that the whole family should come up to the hospital because her blood pressure had dropped so low that they couldn’t get it back up and they thought she wasn’t going to make it. I called everybody and we all met at my parents’ house before going to the hospital. 
My brother Dan was the first one to arrive at the house and the smoke alarms were going off. My father had set fire to the table cloth and kitchen table while smoking. It completely ruined the table. See the photo for damage. Needless to say that all cigarettes have been confiscated.
We all went with my father to the hospital. When we saw my mother she was in rough shape. She knew something was wrong when we were all there. She began to rebound however, to some new medication and fluids and within an hour her blood pressure was back up and the prognosis was much better. There was a different Doctor by this time and he said she was miles better than when the previous Doctor had made the call an hour before. It looks like Mom picked up an influenza pneumonia strain from the her last stay in the hospital and it was dormant for a couple of days before hitting her hard. She is in an isolation room at the hospital but they expect her to make a full recovery. I saw her last night and she’s doing better but she’s still pretty weak.
That was pretty much the week that was. A quick note to end off this incident. I saw a very similar table to the damaged table at a local thrift store. They wanted $150 so all of my siblings and I each threw in some money and bought the table and installed it at my parents’ house. If my mother is home for Mother’s Day it will be a nice present for her. She’s aware of of the fire and damage to her old table and when she’s home and has enough strength, she’ll probably kill my father. That will be one less parent to deal with and the other will be in jail for his murder. I joke.
I didn’t want to make this blahg all sad news with nothing joyful to note. There has actually been some great news. Deb Talan of The Weepies has survived and beaten her cancer. In the interim, 
The Weepies released their first studio album in five years. For Record Store Day last month, there was a special purple vinyl LP release of the new album. I was lucky that my local record store, Sam The Record Man (there used to be a large chain of those in Canada but ours is the last one), had two copies. I was reading on The Weepies Facebook page that many fans drove for hours or stood in line for hours and came up empty. The picture on the right doesn’t do it justice. It’s a fantastic album.
The title track “Sirens” was released a few months ago and it started me salivating at the prospect of the new album. Give a listen to the title track:
I think the music on this album is great. Steve’s vocals are very appealing on his tracks and Deb shines just as equally on her own. I won’t post more from the album but encourage you to go out and buy your own. I also purchased an autographed CD from their online store but the autographed ones are sold out but you might be able to still purchase the vinyl record. Check out their store: http://theweepies.bigcartel.com/products
There was also another interesting release last month. 
There was a new Sinatra CD and it created some buzz among Sinatra collectors. The CD, Ultimate Sinatra, contains 25 tracks from across his career and numerous labels. The single CD contains 24 previously released tracks and one previously unreleased alternate take of “Just In Time”. If you bought the CD from Starbucks, the CD also had an extra track of “Chicago” which was also previously released. There was also a two CD deluxe set in North America where the second CD contained some, but not all, tracks of a concert that Sinatra performed at the Sidney Stadium in Australia in 1961. If you buy the same 2 CD deluxe set from an Australian retailer then the second CD contains the full concert. There is also a four CD set that contains 100 tracks (including the 25 on the single disk) and a previously unreleased rundown of Sinatra singing “Surrey With The Fringe On Top” in 1979. If you buy that same 4 CD set from the United Kingdom, you get the four CDs plus a code to download 4 previously unreleased alternate takes of Sinatra songs. If that isn’t enough, there’s a mega set out of Japan that includes an extra disk of Sinatra singing duets with Japanese artists. Of course the duets are digitally done since Sinatra has been dead since 1998. The set also contains a DVD of how they did the digital duets. I purchased the single CD, ordered the 2 CD Deluxe set from Australia, and ordered the 4 CD set with the digital downloads from the UK. I’ve drawn the line with the Japan release. I don’t need everything.
Well, I think I’ll close this blahg. It’s been a very busy and very complicated life these past few months. I’d rather have the simple life so I’m going to close this out and let Mel Tormé swing us out with “Give Me The Simple Life.” This comes from the album, “An Evening with George Shearing & Mel Tormé”. Enjoy!