Thanks everyone for the sympathy on my last post! I'm happy to report that things are going better for AS. She talked to nurses, her mom and my sister, and those three voices were able to balance the scales against her aunt's hysteria. So she's still in NYC and having a good, guilt-free time with one of my old college buddies who has become her dear friend too.
Here's one funny anecdote that illustrates what was going on so perfectly: She talks to her aunt who says "They tried to have your mom sit in a chair, but she couldn't handle it! She got so exhausted that they had to move her back to the bed!" Then AS called the nurses to ask how it was going. "Your mom's doing great! She actually wanted to sit in a chair for a little while! When she got tired, we moved her back to her bed to rest." So, there you go. Two ways to look at one situation.
My sister confirmed after a visit (as did snafu from her own experience) that AS's mom didn't really want visitors. And AS's aunt went home, so she's less of an "authority" now that she's not hanging around the hospital.
AS's mom got moved to the "step-down" unit, which is halfway between ICU and a regular hospital room. She confirmed that AS's aunt was being a real pain with her attempts to raise alarms about every little thing. (She couldn't really say it before because the aunt was in the room. 
)
So that's all looking good. NT and I are hanging in there with the girls, although the housework has slipped a bit. (In our defense it was a really busy weekend and we were barely home.)
Saturday night I tried a new meal. It was going to be pasta with a spinach-garlic sauce. But then I saw that the CSA had given us a much smaller bunch of spinach than I'd expected, not nearly enough for the recipe. So instead I chopped the spinach really small and cooked it with some garlic and herbs. Then I tossed with spaghetti and sauteed broccoli.
It was basically a modified version of this garlic-toss pasta that we do, but it was a nice variation. Simple and healthy. The kids finished it no problem. So I'd do something similar in the future.
So that's 26 meals tried, 24 to go!
New meal tried and things looking up
June 26th, 2017 at 03:24 pm
June 26th, 2017 at 04:59 pm 1498496378
June 26th, 2017 at 09:15 pm 1498511756
Funny how some people can be so alarmist.
One of my oldest friends is like that. Everything is a crisis. It's like her fight or flight is constantly on and turned up to 11. It must be an exhausting way to live.
June 26th, 2017 at 09:48 pm 1498513721
June 27th, 2017 at 02:33 am 1498530827