2026 Life Logs, Day 225: Little Successes
Date: Thursday, August 13, 2026
Weather: Mix of a Little Rain, Clouds, Sunshine; High Temp 80, Low 64 degrees F
Location: At Home with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I don’t keep track of the humidity, but it has been hot and humid recently. This morning was a bit of a reprieve. It rained a little before I got up, a nice breeze blew in, and Shadow and I had a lovely walk in the coolness of the morning. Then I got to work.
My first job this morning was going to Bridges to replace Patsy’s Dexcom sensor which is ‘applied’ to her upper arm. This has to be replaced every 15 days and today was the 4th sensor application since she arrived here. It is through that sensor which sends a signal to her phone that has to be near to her 24 hours a day that I receive her constant blood sugar numbers on my phone. Plus, she has a back-up monitor that stays in her room and only reads her numbers only when she is close to it. I’ve mentioned before that the one thing I never, ever wanted to be in life was a nurse. So, taking over this duty of replacing the sensor from the diabetic nurse we hired when she arrived was my first real ‘nursing’ duty. I got the job done with the help of YouTube video and then I had to wait for it to ‘warm up’ to her body temperature which takes about an hour. I had paired the two phones with the new sensor information, and they both kept saying “warming up”, but the little monitor said the sensor had failed. I called Dexcom, the company that manufactures the sensor, and they were able to lead me through the process to get the monitor paired. Success. The whole process worked and I now know that I can do this. Also, her new diabetic shoes that I ordered from Amazon arrived and I was able to try those on her and come up with the right size. She is definitely a size 7, not a 6 ½. Another job done successfully.
My afternoon at home was a mix of Board of Library Trustee treasurer work and Patsy ‘treasurer’ work. For Patsy ‘treasurer’ work, I had to compile all of the receipts for Patsy ‘things’ I have paid for this month—everything from new lipstick to paying for her supplemental healthcare insurance. I had just thrown all of the receipts/invoices in a pile and needed to go through them to figure out which ones I paid for with her credit card and which ones I paid for with my credit cards. This took me until 8 pm tonight and I still don’t have it put into a spreadsheet to send to her Power of Attorney who controls the money. Since Patsy did not have a credit card until a week or so ago, and since I can’t write checks for her, I had charged things to my credit cards, and then to hers once it arrived, while other things came straight out of her bank account. It was a mess because I have bought so many things, switched her medical insurance to Massachusetts, etc., etc. But at least I am now ready to enter everything into a spreadsheet and figure out how much money her Power of Attorney owes me. Last month it was almost $7,000. I think this month will be half of that. And going forward, I think it will be very little as long as I don’t have to write big weekly checks for diabetic nursing care. Right now I am able to deal with that. Going forward, all I will need to do is compile all of the receipts for tax purposes. I am going to count the progress made on this today as another success even though it took way too many hours.
