Wednesday, March 9

Got up at 6 a.m. on this nippy but sunshiny Ash Wednesday morning, but skipped my exercises so I could get ready to go to a home medical services advisory board meeting at 8 a.m.



The meeting was held in a conference room of the hospital, where a staff member brought us up to date on the activities of both the home health service and Caring Hands Hospice. The board is made up of a couple of doctors, a bank president, a person who has had experience with hospice (for her mother-in-law), a representative of the disabled community, and volunteers like myself and another woman.



Our task is to make suggestions on how services can be improved, and then offer our assistance in implementing those improvements. Today's focus was how to better disseminate information about the importance of getting families to engage hospice care early on for a terminally ill patient. Hospice would like to become involved as quickly after diagnosis as possible...six months, even a year out, because there are many services available to make a patient more comfortable, and to give strong support to family.



The meeting ran longer than usual, and it was 10 a.m. before it ended. A "breakfast" of scones and coffee was available. I had breakfast before I went to the meeting, but I pinched off a taste of both a chocolate chip scone and a blueberry scone, and then brought the rest home for Mother and Hubbie. I could tell by the oil on the napkin where the scones sat that the pastries were high fat, so I didn't want to eat a whole one.



Seems like it would have been more appropriate for a health service holding a meeting in a hospital to offer fruits or some other healthy breakfast option over pastries.

We were all surprised when we left the hospital that in just two hours it had become cloudy, windy, and quite cold outside. Winter isn't quite over yet.


Back home, Mother came over and relaxed while Hubbie and I ran errands...to the newspaper office, to one of the stores that has a sale every weekend to pick up the jeans that I'd ordered for Mother, and to the home improvement store to return a fixture and bulbs that we didn't need.



Since we didn't have plans for the afternoon, Hubbie watched college basketball games on TV, Mother started another jigsaw puzzle, and I read my novel.



Supper tonight was leftover spaghetti, with salad. Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I did our usual...watched TV.

We saw the 2009, R-rated movie, "Staten Island," starring Vincent D'Onofrio and Ethan Hawke. The lives of a septic tank cleaner who wants a better life for his unborn son, a deli worker who wants to escape mob infiltration, and a mob boss who wants to get rid of his competition, intertwine in unexpected ways.