Layers

Just got through taking Mom to her dermatologist. We had a good session. Overall, the doctor was happy. He took scrapings of pre-cancerous bits from her face and head and something from her ankle to biopsy and scheduled another visit for six months from now.

The best result from my point of view is that I was finally able to convince Mom to stop wearing the blue fuzzy pullover she's had on for the past week. I laid out a complete set of clean clothes for her and gave her specific instructions on how to put them on (she's been known to wear her underwear on the outside occasionally) and she still managed to put on a pair of shorts before trying to get her pants on, too. I managed to catch her at that and then had to re-give step-by-step instructions for removing the two shirts she was wearing in order to put on the clean one I had set out. Fortunately, I had started her early so, even with the detours and restarts, we got to the appointment on time.

A couple of nights ago I tried to change her Exelon patch and couldn't manage to roll up her sleeve. (She gets a new patch daily on alternating shoulders.) Turns out she was wearing five shirts, all pullovers, at the same time. She claimed it was unintentional and didn't recall doing it. I don't know whether she put them on all at once or incrementally over the course of the day. I made her remove three of them before replacing the patch. She spent the next two hours folding and refolding the extra shirts, laying them out singly and in a pile, and rolling them all together as if to fit in a backpack before I convinced her to go to bed.

This appointment was at 1:00 in the afternoon. She has another tomorrow at 10:00 A.M. Getting there on time will be an interesting challenge.