Mom has been diagnosed with a syndrome called, Failure to Thrive.  It is common in the elderly with chronic disease, limited physical and mental function and the loss of independence, as well as the loss of familiar surroundings due to the need for nursing home care.  The manifestation of this syndrome is the refusal to eat and drink a sufficient amount to nourish the body.  According to the director at the nursing home and her doctor at the hospital,  I will be asked to decide what, if any measures to take to try to alleviate her condition.

Mom is currently back in the hospital.  She was transported by ambulance on Tuesday with severe dehydration, mal-nourishment and extreme physical weakness.  The nursing home has made every effort to get her to eat but over the last few days she refuses to even drink more than a couple of sips of water.  Most likely a feeding tube along with hospice care will be recommended.  I have heard lots of horror stories of massive infection and pain associated with it.  As an only child, I along with my DH and our children will have to consider and decide on the options, none of which are good.  I know what I would want in this situation but having to decide for Mom is breaking my heart.  At this point there is not much of an option for quality of life, it comes down to quantity.  At what point does ‘helping’ become torture?  I am praying for the right answer.

Grace and Mercy to be able to deal with the hard stuff!

The following link describes the Failure to Thrive syndrome.

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2004/0715/p343.html

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Grace and Mercy to smile a lot!

¹The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

²He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

³He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

⁴Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

⁵Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

OUR GOD HE IS ALIVE!

There is beyond the azure blue

A God concealed from human sight.

He tinted skies with heavenly hue,

and framed the world with His great might.

There is a God

He is Alive.

In Him we live,

and we survive.

From dust our God created man.

He is our God, the great I AM.

Grace and Mercy on this beautiful Lord’s Day to ponder His majesty!

When I look at all the things that are happening here at home and around the world I cannot help but be sad.  Karl Marx, Saul Alinsky, Stalin, Hitler, and all the evil dictators who have ever lived must be jumping for joy feeling vindicated in their belief that mankind is incapable of self governance.

Our founders gave us the best shot at self governance ever experienced and for over 200 years America has been that shining city on the hill.  The lights of liberty are going dim as our government has regulated us to the point that we are not even free to make our personal choices in our own homes, our property rights severely limited our access to products (energy sources, affordable food, etc.) and services (medical, educational, etc.) needed to provide for the needs of our families being put farther and farther out of reach.

It makes me angry as I reach those golden years to now be faced with the reality that some bureaucrat in DC will decide my fate should I become ill, based on my lifestyle and my usefulness to society through the mandates of Obamacare.  It makes me angry that this administration has gutted Medicare to the tune of $500Million and that the only funding source of Social Security, the payroll tax is being cut making its sustainability unsustainable.  Although I wish that these programs had never been put in place, they were and most Americans rely heavily on them.  Those of us just reaching eligibility will be up a creek and those people 55 and under will be even farther up a creek.  Can you imagine being 55 years old having paid into these programs for 30 plus years and being told you won’t be getting that money back, that isn’t just falling through a crack, it’s like being sucked into a black hole.  The rug is literally being pulled out from under us and it is deliberate.

I don’t worry for myself much but I do worry for our babies.  What kind of life will they have?  Makes me want to find a rock to crawl under it but I don’t think there will be a stone left unturned.  Maybe I am wrong and I hope that I am.  I have heard it said over many years at election times that the American people will always get it right.  We didn’t in 2008, although the choices weren’t good on either side and 2012 is looking like a re-run.   George Soros champion of Progressivism said the there isn’t much difference between Obama and Romney, meaning he and his minions will have control of either one.  My trust in the political process and the reliability of elections is iffy at best…..or is it all a charade being played out on the Left and the Right.  If it is, why and for what purpose?  Makes me feel like a mouse in a maze being watched and laughed at as I try frantically to find the exit……..whether or not my worries are real the effects are still the same.

Do you identify with me or not and why?  Tag! You’re It!

Grace and Mercy that America will return to its founding principle, Liberty!

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Sometimes being a good citizen has nothing to do with being obedient, con-formative or placid.  There are good rules that most follow not because they are ‘the law’ but because they make sense.  Things like not shouting ‘FIRE’ in a crowded theater are ‘no brainers’. Then there are laws that have nothing to do with the general welfare and serve only to fill the coffers of government.  Fines and fees assessed for going against the status quo are nothing more than taxes.  Government under the guise of protecting us not from others but from ourselves is my biggest pet peeve.  This is where ‘Sin’ taxes come in.  By assessing excessively high taxes on stuff that government ‘says’ is to curb the purchase of things like tobacco, sodas, candy, booze and even gasoline.  If these and other things are so bad then why not just make them illegal?  Sometimes it feels like I have been transported against my will to Communist China.

Now here is where I will probably lose some of you.  I am a smoker and no I don’t have a death wish for myself or for you.  Tobacco was one of the first targets government took aim at and smokers were easy to malign.  First, they made ‘smoking sections’ mandatory in public places, smokers complied and the non-smokers cheered.  Gradually the anti-tobacco laws forced smokers to go outside but most places provided an area that was at least partially sheltered, smokers complied and the non-smokers cheered.  Now much of the outdoors is off-limits, like hospitals.  Let me tell you that when I can be fined for going to the parking lot at the hospital to smoke in my car, I get really PO’d!  Expecting people who smoke to all of a sudden become non-smokers in situations that are often extremely tense due to the injury or illness of a loved one is like expecting a dog not to bite when you try to take his bone away.  It is rude, illogical and oppressive and non-smokers cheer.  It makes me want to blow smoke up you know where!

Many years ago a study was done to see whether or not second-hand smoke actually had any bad health effects.  I first heard about it from Rush Limbaugh many years ago.  The study was done by the World Health Organization (WHO) and found that second-hand smoke did not cause things like asthma and other respiratory illnesses.  Since the anticipated results of the study was contrary to what was desired, they did another study skewed to produce the desired outcome and it was published.  Limbaugh found the actual results (unpublished) and reported on it.  There used to be a link on his website and at one time I downloaded and printed it.  Wish I had kept it because all evidence has now been scrubbed from cyberspace.  I have listed several links below that refer to that study.  I don’t do this to justify my habit but to justify my doubts about studies done to convince us that something is either desirable (green initiatives to save the planet from fossil fuel) or undesirable (like smoking or eating a Big Mac).

My point is that by taking aim at an easy target government began the systematic oppression of personal choice.  No one cared that a smoker’s right to choose was oppressed or that private business owners were forced to comply with anti-smoking laws even in their own offices within a non-public building because there might be employees exposed to second-hand smoke.  It’s like the employees were indentured servants unable to go find a job where the boss didn’t smoke.  Entering a particular restaurant is not mandatory but government convinced the public that it was protecting them by oppressing others and they cheered.

Over the years we have been told by government that many things are bad for us only to find out later that no, they weren’t bad for us, like coffee, eggs, cheese, etc.  and today we are being told that even whole milk is bad.  I was taught that milk was the perfect food back in elementary school.  Salt, sugar and trans-fats, all bad.  Back in the seventies global cooling was the big fear, we were all going to freeze to death in another ice age, today we have global warming.  Government always needs a boogie-man that can be used to control the unwashed masses and the people cheer.  Just this week the food police at an elementary school deemed a little girl’s lunch of a turkey sandwich, chips, apple juice and a banana, packed by her Mom, didn’t meet government guidelines and gave her some chicken nuggets instead and sent a bill home to her Mom for $1.25 to pay for the nuggets.  Are you cheering?

In November this year the wolves and the sheep will be voting on what to have for dinner and the wolves really like lamb chops.  We need some good sheep dogs in Washington and in our state houses and out here in flyover country who will defend liberty.  Unfortunately they are a rare breed and evidently the sheep are willing to be eaten as long as they don’t have to feel the pain or smell the smoke…..first they came for the Jews.

All comments welcome!

Grace and Mercy to stand up for the right to make personal choices.

http://www.killology.com/sheep_dog.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7530949/Fiddling-those-smoking-figures-again.html

http://www.nycclash.com/ArticlesFolder/rush.html   (the link in this article no longer connects to the WHO study)

http://www.davehitt.com/facts/who.html   (this is a summary of the original study done the WHO)

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The government is not doing the Lord’s work and those who believe that it is a charitable institution have a rude awakening coming.  Our government hasn’t adopted an annual budget since 2009, the first year of Obama’s reign.  Over 1000 days, massive deficit and debt and a President with over 30 Czars skirting Congress on every level.  Obama has proposed a budget for fiscal year 2012 that includes $1.3Trillion in new spending and $1.9Trillion in new taxes.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected that this budget will increase the national debt by over $11Trillion over the next ten years.  Today it stands at almost $16Trillion.  We know from experience that whatever government projects will be far below what actually happens.

The problem isn’t hard to identify but correcting it is.  We have a nation where over half its citizens are addicted to OPM (other people’s money).  Once addicted, the cure is painful.  Do you know what the Progressive movement is?  Do you know that both the Democrat and Republican Parties are inhabited with members who embrace it?  Do you realize that the Communist Party is alive and well right here in the good ol’ US of A?  Out of 535 folks serving us in Washington DC, over 70 of our Congress Critters are card-carrying members of The Communist Party USA.  Now that is scary to me!

Government is ‘helping’ us right out of Liberty and into Slavery.  When you make statements like this one people look at you like you have two heads.  The Norman Thomas, a leading American socialist, pacifist and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, quote used by Ronald Reagan said that the American people would never adopt the Socialist program willingly but that under the guise of Liberalism they would adopt all of it and become a Socialist nation without realizing how it happened.  Snopes says that there is no evidence in any of the writings or speeches that Thomas ever said those words, but that Upton Sinclair, also a prominent socialist and unsuccessful two-time congressional candidate and one of Thomas’s cohorts wrote a letter to Thomas that said something very similar.  I don’t care whether the quote was actually ever uttered or written by Thomas or anyone else, the evidence is clear.  We are becoming a Social Democracy and we as a nation are committing suicide just like we see in Greece and all over Europe today.  Our founders did their best to prevent this from happening by giving us a representative republic, with the states and the people to keep government in check and the balance of powers to aid in that endeavor.

Over time, politicians, public schools, special interest groups, and judges from the supreme court on down aided by people of good intentions have skirted, evaded, and denigrated the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Rights have been created that do not exist anywhere in the Constitution.  Now, we all do have the right to breathe and we do have the right to breathe where ever we find the air suitable to our liking, but we do not have an inherent right to define air quality for anyone but ourselves.  Why, because the definition of ‘clean air’ is ambiguous according to who is defining it.  This is just one example but there are many others if you start thinking about it.

I have heard politician after politician from both parties use the ‘general welfare clause’ as their excuse for picking winners and losers.  To me the term ‘general welfare’ means whatever is good for ALL citizens.  Things like defining, protecting and defending national borders to insure national sovereignty, maintaining a military capable to doing the job and providing for interstate transportation routes, which falls under the ‘commerce clause’, another much misused authority.

Yet we have politicians and judges and presidents (535 people at any given time) who decide when we become human beings worthy to be considered as having the right to life.  Then there is the imagined right to OWN a home.  Home ownership is not a right, it is a privilege earned through the practice of personal responsibility and the willingness to risk capital for the privilege of living in a house we own.  Now, government has decided that if we invest in a home, an asset directly affected by market value just like any other investment, that taxpayers must insure the value never goes under what was paid for that home!  What?  Are they now going to insure we never lose principal when we invest in the stock market, don’t think so.

Then government, after establishing home ownership as a right, now wants to tell us what we can or cannot do in our homes.  Isn’t the purpose of property ownership to decide for ourselves how it can best be used for our own benefit?  Yet, we are allowing government to tell us what foods we can eat in our homes, what temperature our home should be according to their determination of what we are comfortable with and what cars should be parked in the driveway?

The reduction in personal liberty in my lifetime is astounding.  I never thought it could happen…….shoulda read the signs.  Ponder on these thoughts and the evidence you have observed between now and November and decide if you really want to trust government to take care of you or whether you should get to decide what is best for you and your family.  The wolves and the sheep are going to vote on what to have for lunch.

Grace and Mercy to defend the ‘free will’ granted to each of us by our Creator!  Freedom isn’t inherited…..

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Someday I will write ‘our love story’ but it’s too good and too important (to me) to just do it on the ‘fly’.  One thing I will say though is that if everyone could experience so much peace, joy and love there would be no more need for jealousy, gender competition, abuse and who knows it might even lead to world peace!  Too ambitious, maybe, but what a wonderful thought!

Happy Valentine’s Day to ALL!  I leave you with ‘our song’…..

Grace and Mercy to love like no one has ever loved before!

My Dad passed away 12 years ago and Mom got rid of most of his things a long time ago.  At the time I didn’t want to start asking for anything until she was ready.  She gave us a few things but a lot of it was gone before I knew that she was getting rid of it.  I think there are two of his Stetson‘s that she kept.  I have Dad’s .22 rifle that he taught me how to shoot with but I had to track down who she sold it to and buy it back.  It meant a lot to me because I had so much fun with my Daddy learning to shoot and take care of it.  He had given me his Gal Leg spurs several years before he died and I am so glad that he did. He had traded his boots for the spurs when he was 12 years old.  They are handmade by a famous spur maker and they were probably his most prized possession.

As was his habit, he personalized everything he owned from tools to clothing.  All of his possessions had his initials carved, stamped or engraved on them.  He loved horses and dogs and all of his animals including cattle were his ‘pets’.  I never saw him being unnecessarily rough with any of them, yet they knew he was the boss, as did I and yes I did get spanked but probably not enough…..

I am an only child and for the first six years of my life I was Daddy’s son (except for my long hair).  I wore Levis and boots (except on Sunday), rode horses, climbed trees as well as the windmill tower, fences and any other obstacle in my path.  Then I started to school and my Mom had spent the whole summer sewing my new wardrobe, frilly dresses (sigh).  On my first day I got on the school bus wearing a frilly dress, ruffled can-can, ruffled socks and black patent shoes, my hair pulled up tight in a pony tail with a ribbon.  I got off the bus that afternoon with hair flying, no ribbon, the can-can ruffles ripped, barefooted carrying my dirty ripped socks and scuffed up shoes.  Daddy asked what I did on my first day at school.  I told him that I played Calvary with the boys……it took awhile to turn the tomboy into a lady at least in appearance.

I always wanted to live up to Daddy’s expectations.  I always knew he was on my side and that I was the apple of his eye and I never doubted his love and devotion to me.  I think Daddy’s reputation and his double barrel shotgun might have had something to do with the fact that although I had lots of friends who were boys, I had no boyfriend.  Thankfully my DH came along and turned out to be my knight in shining armor.  Daddy approved of him but not the condition of the tires on his car.  Daddy was forever gifting him some tires from one of his cotton trailers that had more tread.  My KISA didn’t mind because he liked to drag race his hot car, but never before getting me home by curfew.  He should have been racing for pink slips because he would have had quite a fleet.  I did wind up disappointing Daddy when my new hero and KISA eloped, after my KISA had asked for my hand which was promptly denied because I was too young, but Daddy got over it, he and my new DH became friends and Daddy grew to love him and he replaced me as Daddy’s boy.

I am about to embark on the task of going through my parent’s house.  I have to decide what to keep, what to sell and what to throw away.  Growing up I was taught that Momma‘s purse was sacred.  If I thought there was something in it that I needed I was to bring the purse to her and let her get it.  Now I feel like that little girl going through Momma’s purse without permission…….I am sad that there isn’t much of my first hero left there…..

Grace and Mercy to cherish the memories and let go of the stuff.

Every time I get that skillet out of the cupboard I can see Memaw in her kitchen doing what she did better than anyone ever, frying chicken.  I was probably around 6 years old when I first learned the secret of the skillet.  I was watching her cook the noon meal, which we called dinner, not lunch.

Let me back up here a bit….before she could fry the chicken we went out to the chicken house to get one.  She handed me a long piece of heavy gauge wire that had a crook on the end of it and told me which chicken to snag.  I got it and grabbed it by the feet and handed it to Memaw.  She handed me the butcher knife to hold,  reached into her apron pocket (that apron pocket always had whatever she needed in it) and pulled out a small piece of thin rope, in about 2 seconds she made a loop which she slipped around the chicken’s feet and tied it to the clothesline.  Then she took the finely honed butcher knife and whacked off the chicken’s head in one stroke, we both stood back a bit and waited till it was still.  After that the chicken had to be scalded by dipping in a pot of boiling water so that the feathers could be removed, then singed to remove the pin feathers, then gutted, washed, and cut up.  I had already been taught the proper way to cut up a chicken.  If you do it right you end up with two wings, two breast pieces, a pulley bone, two legs, two thighs, the back and the push back, gizzard, heart and liver.  I still cut up my own chickens today because the pre-cut ones aren’t done properly and they are also too large for optimal frying.  A fryer should weigh no more than about 3 lbs.  Then we were ready to fry.

After washing the cut up chicken again, Memaw then reached into her salt crock and sprinkled the chicken, then rolled the pieces in flour.  She put some Crisco in the skillet and heated it till a bit of flour sizzled just right and then she placed the chicken in the skillet, the legs and the breast pieces were placed on the outside edges of the skillet, the thighs and pulley bone in the center, along with the back and push back.  The wings, gizzard and liver were placed wherever you could find a spot to scrunch them in.  By this time the Crisco was bubbling gently around the pieces and that’s when the magic began.  I asked her how she would know when it was ready to turn and she told me to listen to it.  Memaw went about preparing the rest of our meal.  She made biscuits from scratch, popped them in the oven and I ate the small pieces of dough that were left and no it didn’t make me sick.  She usually had already prepared a vegetable from the garden ahead of time like green pinto beans cooked with some bacon.  All this time she seemed to pay no attention to the chicken which I was watching and listening to, like a hawk.   Then right in the middle of doing something else she went to the stove and began turning the pieces in the skillet.  She asked me if I had heard the chicken tell me it was ready to turn but of course, I hadn’t heard it say a word!  It took me some time before I was able to hear the subtle difference in the sound   emanating from the skillet, but once you hear it, you always know when to turn the chicken.  After turning the pieces the Crisco once again goes wild for a couple of minutes before settling down and once again will tell you when it’s done.

After that the biscuits were done and the gravy was quickly made, that’s another bit of magic I’ll save for another time.  Papaw and my Dad would arrive at straight up noon from the field, wash up and sit down at the table.  The food was blessed and eaten over conversations about the weather, the crop, the price of pigs or cattle and whatever was going on in town…….then the men went back to the field after taking a nap of exactly 15 minutes on the floor of the living room, while Memaw and I watched As the World Turns.  After that we went back to clean up in the kitchen.  The last thing to do was clean the skillet which required a fresh pan of hot dish water and a gentle scrubbing with just the dish rag made from  one of Papaw’s worn out undershirts, rinsed in hot water and put on a low burner till it was dry, and it was ready to fry the next bird.

Then I got to lay on the green couch and nap while Memaw watched her shows and ironed Papaw’s kachies……..want to know what I had for an afternoon snack?

The skillet is in my cupboard ready to go!

Grace and Mercy to remember the good times……

I have run head on into something I cannot fix.  My Mom, after being content for 7 days at the nursing home, did an about-face.  Knowing that she can’t help how she is behaving because of the changes in her brain doesn’t really help.  I don’t recognize her as the person who raised me.  The words that come out of her mouth directed at me hurt because she still looks like my Mom but someone else seems to be using her body and her tongue.  She recognizes my face but it is like she doesn’t recognize me as her only child.  Logic and reason don’t work, smiles and kindness don’t work and neither would anger.  Accepting that there is nothing that I can say or do to relieve the fear, anger and anxiety that she feels hurts more than words can convey.

Since I can’t reason with Mom I have turned to reasoning with myself by stepping back and finding my objectivity.  I have made sure that Mom has everything she needs, that she is safe.  The hardest part is going to visit her.  I have to force myself to go there because I know that it won’t be pleasant.  Gentle words won’t turn away wrath because there is a stranger living in my Mom’s body who doesn’t know how much I love her and want her to be happy.

Yesterday she told me that she would try to hurry up and rot so that she wouldn’t bother me anymore.  Is that why she refuses to eat?  I have that ‘what if’ thing going through my mind.  She began refusing to eat about midway through the cancer treatments and no amount of reasoning or begging her to, made any difference.  She would just say that she knew her body needed food but she wasn’t hungry.  This ‘fixer’ can’t fix this but I know that it will be fixed by God in His time.  I pray for the courage, the strength and the patience to trust that He will provide all that is needed at the time that is right.

I make this post in the hope that what I am experiencing might be of some help or comfort for someone dealing with a problem that they can’t fix and in the process convince myself that some things just have to be accepted and endured…..this will hopefully be my last post on this subject for a while.

Grace and Mercy to give the unfixable to Him….