Monday, July 16, 2007

Taking Care of Mom & Bringing Up Tweens: The Meaning of Sandwich Generation is Sinking In

Just as I thought I can start blogging early (like 9PM) because my husband went to the movie with our friend Eric, and I have already done my motherly love and duties with my kids (they are in bed reading at 9PM)...; just as I thought I have plenty of time to blog before hubby comes home ... I discovered a disaster in our house! Our refrigerator has been leaking in the back for quite a while without us noticing it until tonight :( I went to the garage to look for something when I noticed that my hubby's work bench is flooded. I looked up and the ceiling has bubbles couple with some dripping spots. I called Tatay and he helped me explore. He asked "Isn't that ceiling where your refrigerator is?". Yeah. So I went upstairs to check. Not good. There were some black spots on the floor side of the refrigerator. I asked Tatay's help to pull the refrigerator out - and lo and behold - it's flooded in the back! Actually it's not flooded but the semi-wooden floor is swollen and moldy. Yikes! I don't know how long there was leak back there. I had no choice but to clean both the back of the refrigerator and the work bench in the garage. We just got done (9:48 PM) and I am so itching to blog. So on to what I intended to blog about:

TAKING CARE OF MY MOM
. I guess the "honeymoon" is over. Remember when I told you that my mom is happy therefore is not getting sick? Well, last night she wasn't feeling well. You see, my hubby, our two kids and I went to Costco and Borders. Because we really can't fit in my hubby's truck, and I really didn't want to use 2 cars to do the Costco errand, we just left Tatay and Nanay at home. When we got back, Tatay told me that Nanay wasn't feeling well. She was experiencing severe headache and chest pain. He asked if we can bring her to the doctor. Couple of difficulties in the situation: it's Sunday past 6 clinics are closed, our family doctor is away on vacation and Nanay is not covered with any medical insurance.

And so I had to make sure that Nanay is not having a "heart attack" of some sort....because if she was, then we'll bring her to the hospital emergency even if we have to pay $1,600 on emergency call. But you see, my mom has a background of being "hypochondriac" so I wanted to make sure she's just not having one of her psychosomatic attacks. This really is a struggle. You see, on one hand I don't want to assume it's just on her mind when she's really having a heart attack; on the other hand I don't want to give in to "nervousness" and pay $1,600 just because she thought she's having chest pains when she's not.

Thankfully, we were able to contact our former doctor and friend, Dr. B and he graciously helped us out. We talked on the phone for a very long time and after both of us agreeing to wait and see, I gave my mom Ibuprofin and promised to take her to the doctor the next day. The next day is Monday so that meant I had to take off from work too.

We saw our doctor and good friend Doctor K today. After examination, he confirmed that the chest pain is not due to the heart pain; and we also were able to confirm that her blood pressure is normal (on the high side of normal but still within normal range). Nanay felt better after that. She was given some maintenance pill (for cholesterol) and was told to take baby aspirin everyday. And remember she didn't have medical insurance so this visit could have caused us about $160 without meds? Well, Dr. K wrote FREE on the form so it was free. Thanks Dr. K. We'll scheduled to do blood test, etc. in a couple of months.

I think I blogged long enough for. I'd do my tween blog tomorrow morning.

3 comments:

The Morgan Family said...

Thank you so much for stopping by my site and commenting. I added your site link to my page if that's alright with you. I enjoy reading your posts and look forward to checking in daily. Thanks again for stopping by. -Angie (Kristen's sister-in-law)

Happy Working Mom said...

Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry about your refrigerator! The exact same thing happened to us just recently, although thankfully we got it before it leaked down to the basement. But our wood floors were all warped and we had to have them replaced. I hope everything is alright now and it's stopped leaking!

I'm glad that your mom wasn't having any heart problems and that you were able to wait and not spend a ton of money un-necessarily!

Gretchen said...

Hang in there, Liza. I know this is tough for you. You are a wonderful blessing to those kids and to Mom. ((((hugs))))