B-Rad/Gramma update

I've decided to write about Brad and Gramma today, in lieu of having tons of family pictures and lots of family activities.  (Those of you on Facebook, know that most of the peeps went camping over the weekend).  I was looking back at some previous posts and noted that Brad has certainly lost some ground over the past year. As Emma can contest, (on our trip to Ft. Collins Friday to get Gramma her big box of Depends) as we were driving out of town, Brad noticed that the fields were looking good and that the ???? was getting taller.  I asked him, "What is that?" and it literally took from Greeley to Loveland, with prompting, to think of the word, CORN, throwing in "rhubarb" when trying to guess. Tonight I am trying to get a grip! Both he and Gramma are making me NUTZ!!!!!!  Between her lack of hearing, and his lack of language, it's quite a roller coaster......So,over the weekend, he drew a picture (unable to write many words) of some things he needed and asked me to take him to that store.....Hmmm, wonder which one.....Anyway, we went to Home Depot with his little drawings, where I headed off to get the only thing I knew for sure that he needed, (a cartridge for his weed eater), found a clerk to help, then went round and round looking for Brad. Discovered him in the sprinkler parts area,asking an employee to help him find one of the items he had drawn on a scrap of paper....Yikes!  Ends up he finds said item, which BTW, looks nothing like his drawing, and then we look for a 50' cord (you cannot have enough cords), which is still laying on the garage floor in it's original wrapping at this post...All in all, I'm not sure what the rush was as none of the purchases have been used. So, back to tonight....At dinner, Gramma tells Brad that she has an appointment to get her pacemaker checked on Monday and that they used to check it over the phone, but now they can't. I tell Brad, "Ask her why not?" and instead of just asking, he says "Sue wants to know why not?"  She says, "I don't know but I have to have it checked every month now" and I, foolishly ask, "why?" and her reply is, "because I have to have it replaced when it goes out".  I ask, "do you know what happens when it stops working?  Your heart rate will just go back to the way it was before you got a pacemaker"."oh, I don't think so.." she says. She honestly thinks that the day the pacemaker goes out, she goes as well. I give up!
Currently we are trying to wean Brad off of the $180/month medicine onto the $10 a month meds.  The downside is that he has to take both drugs simultaneously until the weaning process is completed.  The result is that he is more tired than usual.  Tired, as in he slept from 10 last night til noon today, then had a nap at 3....Yikes to the second power....
Over the weekend, Gramma got a phone call from a former classmate (although "lots younger"-89) who was just lonely... Good old Shorty Hopkins...from Fleming, Co.,Good to know that his sister passed away 3 years ago... We wondered if they were on Super Senior Match.Com.....
So, can I interrupt with the latest?  Gramma just called me into her room, panic stricken that there was "water gushing out of her cable outlet and the cord was moving around".  I jumped out of my chair to check it out...NADA....but I was able to dust under her TV. No water, no moving cables....OY...Do you wonder that I'm not loony....?
Anyway, back to the evening.....after dinner, and after I'd left the table,  there was a conversation that started with a washing machine evaluation and advanced to Gramma's life, when she lived in
Sheridan Lake (Wyoming...near Cheyenne, she said). " Grandma and Grandpa Weibers had a farm there. My dad didn't take care of us and left us.  We moved to Fleming and lived in several houses, 2 that held grain that we cleaned out, and lived in 5 different houses in Fleming, one of which was an old school house.  We lived in a big barn and just shut the doors during the Dust Bowl days.  Mom taught me to lay paper on the walls.  We lived off the county. They bought our groceries,   Dad left because he didn't like me and didn't like me being around his wife.  My Mom was 10 years older than he was. His family never liked him for the way he treated my Mom and me,  My cousin Marie and I used to play together at Gramma's house and she used to tease me saying, "You don't have a mother".  My Mom said to tell her that I had more mothers than most kids.   I sure got taught a lot of things." And there you have it, a quick summary of her life!
Brad called me today at work to ask "how you get on that thing I play with" (that would be the computer), and he needed a password that had an underscore in it.  Now, try explaining how to accomplish THAT to someone who is impaired.
Hugs from the Simmons Nursing Home!