I would love for things to slow down to normal. Yesterday morning Mom's pharmacist called. Mom was there picking up meds and asked her to call an ambulance because her ongoing abdominal/chest pain had gotten so bad. A slew of tests revealed nothing (as usual), the doctors think it's related to her fibromyalgia, but she's also depressed because of the chronic pain, so she was transferred to the psych unit today. She and her shrink agreed that living alone is not the best plan (again, something we've hashed out before) and she's going to look for an affordable assisted living facility once she's released. I'll remind her again to get help from the social workers so she doesn't end up back in the place she went to before. It was a dive, but the only one her disability check could cover. And it was recommended by the less-than-stellar social worker she was assigned. (I later contacted the social worker and suggested she rethink referring people to that facility) Maybe the social worker can get medicare or some sort of state assistance so she can go someplace that doesn't have chronically broken bathrooms, sinks backing up in the kitchen, roof leaks, questionable practices when doling out meds, nary a fresh fruit or vegetablein sight, and that doesn't serve leftovers (spaghetti)multiple times per week. I called the state on them while she was there, and they had multiple violations.

Peanut is back on nebulizer treatments. His cold and cough developed into a wheeze, but thankfully not pneumonia. The little stinker has been acting fine, so we waited until he had a cough for at least a week before taking him to the ped. Our only clue that something might be up was a couple days of crappy eating. He's been a doll about the neb and likes to hold the mask up to his face during treatments.
And carries it around exclaiming "mine!" in between. I'm so glad we don't have to wrestle him down anymore. I didn't get his chest X-ray results until late this morning, so we stayed home. After a trip to the park to feed the ducks and play on the big slide we came home and he zonked during the noontime neb session. He slept 3 1/2 hours and had a very late lunch. It was a beautiful day to be home. The temps started dropping this afternoon and we had a pleasant walk around the neighborhood with one very excited Lily. I finally got her a new pinch collar and what a difference it makes. Maybe I'll start taking her for regular walks again.

My good friend at work is going through her own pile of shit. Her brother passed away 2 weeks ago and no one from work, other than Hubby and I, did anything for her. Her boss never put out a notice, so most people didn't even know what happened and thought she was away on vacation. She's from a huge family and was the only sibling whose work didn't send flowers or any sort of recognition. She felt completely let down. On our way to lunch Wednesday we stopped by her house and it had been ransacked. The thieves took her laptop, a custom-made pendant her husband just gave her for their 30th anniversary, and other easy to pawn stuff. She's taking a distance-learning grad-level course and will probably have to drop it. She doesn't have reliable access to any other good computers and had homework and notes saved on it. On a lark they decided to check to local pawn shop later that afternoon and did recover her husband's dvd's. Funny that the local PD didn't do it first. The dvd's are of an uncommon genre and were in a distinct crate which the shop owner remembered. She has gotten in touch with the person in charge of pawn fraud, so all the local shops are on notice for her stuff as well as the suspect. Anyone pawning goods has to give photo id, a thumbprint, and an address, so the police know who at least one of the suspects is. Thank g-d for stupid criminals. As Hubby says, if they were smart they'd be in another line of work.

Hubby's got 45 or so hours of overtime in this pay period so far. 2006 has already seen twice as many homicides as '05 and the trend doesn't seem to be dwindling. Who knows if he'll even be home this weekend. We were planning a trip to visit his family next weekend, but now it may be cancelled. I hate having my life controlled by his job. It truly bites ass.

I'm trying to see the positives. Mom is in a safe place. Peanut is getting better. The overtime money will be nice. Hubby managed to be home for Halloween and he and Peanut had a great time trick or treating (more on that later.)