Sustaining Elder Care – September 2026
/I started my drive at dawn and decided to think of a few Haiku…two were good reminders of moments during the 6+ hours driving from my house in Missouri to Lewisville TX.
Dark pink horizon
Driving into the morning
Dark chocolate treat
Adaptive cruising
Google navigation says
Object in road deer
I got to the memory care facility and located my dad in the activity room trying to rub him back on the chair. It eventually became apparent that he was itching and very uncomfortable….but that was after I got him back to his room and looked at his back. It had red splotches. The hospice staff had gotten zinc oxide to put on the rash and he seemed a lot more comfortable after I put some on the part that seemed to be bothering him the most.
I saw him two other times and he was uncomfortable every time I was there. There were other people that seemed to have the same itching problem. It didn’t look like bites but the facility was treating at as a mite problem for all the residents by the time I was heading home. I’m still concerned since it there might be allergic reactions to the treatment…or that it isn’t mites at all but some other issue (like a change in laundry detergent).
I hope whatever it is can be successfully treated before I go back in a month.
The stay at the hotel was odd. The Bradford Pear ree that was dead last time I was there had been cut down. That translates to less shade in the parking lot and the temperatures in the afternoons were still over 100 degrees.
The big oddity in the hotel – the same one I stay in every time I go – was that once the water in the shower got hot, there was no making it less hot…it was like all the water was coming straight from the hot water heater…and was very hot. I tried to take my shower with quick splashes rather than standing in the stream of water.
As I was leaving on the last morning I saw a small fluff of feather on the parking lot near my car…took a picture of it with a crack in the asphalt and a pine needle. It felt good to notice some small thing to appreciate when so many other things are not quite right.
