i'm gonna have to do it. i'm gonna have to call in The Responsible Cousin. i'm gonna have to call in Jen. i love Jen to death but once that text has been sent nobody's gonna sleep for a week
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Jen's going to fucking have the flying squadron deployed by 11AM. by the time mama gets home there will be seven anabaptist teenagers churning butter in the yard
Jen is like... imagine me but instead of being industrious because my brain enjoys it, she's industrious because she believes jesus christ himself personally told her to, so she's like ten times more powerful
Jen is like the final boss you would have to defeat in some sort of video game where you play as the avatar of the concept of relaxation or selfishness but it's impossible because you can actually never defeat her
if jen had any amount of political power we would have world peace overnight. we'd all have to eat crockpot meals and spend a lot of time doing weird devotional shit involving gathering stones and writing bible verses on them with puff paint but we'd be too busy to have wars
alright we're gonna have a good old fashioned few hours of cheering up elizabeth on the ol' website! sorry folks the cheer squad needs cheering! particularly would love stories about other people who had mysterious atrial fibrillation and controlled it with meds easily and went on to be totally ok
My husband has had his heart doing some weird, apparently unexplainable acrobatics over the past several years, and he's still an obnoxiously long-distance runner! ❤️
My dad has had a similar heart condition for most of his life and has been doing fine with medication.
Though he has recently started watching TikToks at full blast on his laptop so “fine” might be an overstatement
i've got Finicky Gay Uncle and Responsible Cousin helping me with logistics but moral support is gonna come down to you all and my group chat, brian's at work and the lads can't talk for shit. let's hear them compliments and reassurances
yknow i've always heard "add water" like basically to mean "throw em in the bathtub" suggested as the solution when you're having a hard day with young kids, i was like "with 2 tho, get real" but i gave "recreational bath" a try today just to keep them occupied while i freak out and i'll be damned
they really will fart around with a bunch of bowls and whisks in a bubble bath for an unlimited amount of time while i sit here and type out their grandfather's meds schedule for my uncle to print out and post in the kitchen
I found shaving cream to be a fantastically successful bath time toy, but you will probably need to expand your grocery budget to accommodate weekly can purchases.
now the doctor has decided he wants an echocardiogram so he can double check there's not some sort of secret reason for this that they couldn't ascertain otherwise. it's gonna be normal tho i'm sure and they'll just be like "well. just one of those things?"
It’s amazing. My niece always loved playing in the bath. Sorry your mom doesn’t have a book; if she were in my hospital I would sell her on some of my limited donated materials, let her borrow my charger, and admire pics of the lads.
hospital time is always so staggeringly distressing for everybody involved but I'm completely confident that knowing that you're GCing the logistics is giving your mom comfort!
They had to check that your mom is still real - lots of holiday cheer sublimations this time of year. Routine as all get out.
Now you’re going to have a day full of deep conversations with the masters regarding the mechanics of kitchen cabinetry and play the game “can I eat this?”
get better soon and go home, mama! (she’s going to, it’s going to be perfect by this evening, Jen is on the job and papa will be glad to have something to do to fuss over her. it will all be fine 💕)
You’ll be fine and she’ll be fine - AF is surprisingly common and responds well to treatment 😊 You’ve got this - you’re like Hannibal in the A-Team, telling Face and Murdock what to do 👍
My dad just turned 90, he's had afib for like 10 years and the meds really work for him. (There was some drama few years back when he had a knee replaced and they fucked with all his heart meds. I can't be trusted on details, but he's still mad at the knee doc.)
My dad passed out at a farmer's market a couple years ago, refused to take an ambulance or stay in the hospital. Doctor made him wear a heart monitor for a while and never did figure out what was wrong. Best guess was 'stress' and it hasn't happened since. Parents 🤷♀️
my grandparents on both sides had all kinds of esoteric heart problems and lived very long lives despite not having anywhere near your mom's healthy lifestyle. my grandma was advised to exercise in her 80s and we learned she thought sweating meant there was something wrong with the exercising
and my dad has been dealing with afib on and off for about fifteen years and it's been fairly chill for a heart thing, he did stop drinking wine but sounds like you guys are ahead of the curve there
Grandpa had an episode of that in his mid-60s and he turned 94 earlier this month and once a week he goes and has lunch with his "surviving friends" as he calls them and last summer was playing golf weekly as well so I hope all of that will be true for your Mom too!
with her diet and lifestyle choices she will be just fine, i'm chalking this up to the holidays being a toss up and everyone's life getting briefly hallmarkified and dramatic until it settles down in january, at least that's how it's been in my family more years than not
lol i was actually thinking "damn i hope mark that medical stuff knower chimes in here and has some stories or knowledge about people who had this and were totally fine"
a fib can appear out of nowhere, esp with aging, bc the heart is a gigantic bundle of electrical tissue much of which can generate its own rhythms (and often: does)
in this same vein (lol?) my brother in law was having heart palpitations and he went to the hospital to be told he has a bicuspid heart valve ?? and they were like "stop smoking anything, and don't lift anything heavy" and he was like "...alright?" and it hasn't bothered him since, so
my neighbor actually had a heart attack too, like a BAD one, he was driving and happened to be right near an exit to an ER and suddenly felt like he had a 50lb weight on his chest so he was like "lemme just pull off here" and they had to do crazy surgery but now he's just... fine?
and wasn't it you Elizabeth whose pop had a dang old heart attack and the hospital was like "yeah that just happens sometimes 🤗 we checked you out, go home you're fine"
I see like 4 of these a day in my job! Idiopathic afib is becoming increasingly common since Covid was introduced to the world (to be clear I am not presuming anything about whether your mom has ever had Covid by saying this) and most of it is pretty easily controlled.
that's what they seem to be saying! there seems to be a lot of pretty reliable ways to treat this that are not particularly invasive. just so weird it happened at all, she's healthy as a dang horse. i guess it just goes to show ya
So so many older people have afib. It does mean that when they find medications that work, she'll need to actually take them, but it seems like your folks have the resources and personality to do that.
This happened to my mom a few years ago (she passed out at school and had to be carried away on a stretcher; it was very dramatic for all her kindergarteners) and she has been fine since!
ideas would actually be really helpful, they're both vegetarians and they don't eat. well, i can't think of a good way to put this. what we used to call "ethnic food" lol. they eat elderly irish-american farmer food. they've never eaten chinese in their life and they're not starting now
they like to eat bread and cheese based things with red sauce or other cheeses. they will eat a little salmon as a treat. they like whole grains and granola and fruit. like what a hobbit would eat, sort of?
OK You said they are ingredients people, but they also don't cook much. To me that says Charcuterie Board/grownup lunchables Time.
Pickles, olives, 3 types of cheese (one soft, one cheddar, one hard), whole grain crackers, pears, apples, grapes, baguette. Divide into portions in tupperwares.
Oh WAIT I just realized you said they were vegetarians. So scrap the pot roast idea, but maybe instead of the meat add different vegetables to make a vegetable stew? And vegetable broth? I didn’t delete just in case anyone else is watching and can use this list.
honestly yes their idea of vegetarianism is just making recipes that would have meat but omitting the meat, they're not big tofu people, veggie soups are very doable
I am sending good thoughts to you and mum and dad. I have no heart stories but she does seem not the candidate for this to get worse and I hope that remains the case.
This happened to my dad, and he does control it with meds and switching over to your mom’s diet. It’s still a sword hanging in the air over his head every time I think about, but there’s been no reason to think about for seven years so far.
I’m mentally wrapping you and your dear grouchy mom in the coziest fluffiest most comfortable imaginary blankets. Clouds of blankets, drifts of blankets. An absolutely dreamily comfortable horde of imaginary blankets.
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Though he has recently started watching TikToks at full blast on his laptop so “fine” might be an overstatement
Now you’re going to have a day full of deep conversations with the masters regarding the mechanics of kitchen cabinetry and play the game “can I eat this?”
I saw a kingfisher today look
Do you need ideas for what to add to their grocery order? Or do you have it covered?
Pickles, olives, 3 types of cheese (one soft, one cheddar, one hard), whole grain crackers, pears, apples, grapes, baguette. Divide into portions in tupperwares.
Add a smoked salmon if your store has one. That will last a few weeks and they can eat it a bit at a time, and it’s very healthy protein.
I was recovering from pneumonia for two months and DoorDash was so helpful.