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dredk and tiredpixie, I'm sorry for your situations. The future can look bleak. It's hard to understand why life lingers, and why there aren't better resources for the increasing population of elders.

A little humour here. On the weekend, R and I went to a Bluegrass Festival in the city. We enjoyed the performances from the little kids who played, to the award winning band. it's not my favourite type of music but I think that any music played well is worth listening to. And the festival had a good family atmosphere.

Having never been to a bluegrass event, a few days before I asked R what I should wear, and he said what you have on now is fine. There will be people there dressed very casually to others dressed up.

OK!

I was a little mortified once we were settled in our seats to see that people were universally very casually dressed, is mured shades of light grey and beige to dark blues and black. R was the best dressed man is a dress shirt and slacks but at least he followed the general colour scheme - blue and beige. I, on the other hand, stood out like lava flowing from a volcano at night. Yes, I was dressed in orange, not a dark dignified autumnal orange, but an almost fluorescent spring orange reminiscent of the colour of some african daisies I have grown.

R said, "There's nothing wrong with standing out."

I guess there isn't if you plan to, but I hadn't.
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Tired Pixie, you might like the ‘New Decalogue’ by a lesser poet at the time of the potato famine in Ireland, Arthur Clough. “Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive Officiously to keep alive”.

Sarcastic then, but now it can be applied literally to many in the medical professions.
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Welcome TiredPixie,
The slow decline is so hard for Mom and for you . (((Hugs)))
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My whine today. I’m 66, working fulltime, and caregiver fulltime too. Nothing makes me more atheistic than watching my mother slowly deteriorate, day-by-day, without the mercy of an easy death, after years of being a “faithful servant.” On the pastoral trauma team in Shanksville 2001. Medical missions work. Served a congregation for years. Watching her inexorably slip into confusion and helplessness. Her church doesn’t visit or call or text. It’s me, her atheist daughter who is here for her, not her god, not her church, not her “brothers & sisters in Christ.” She doesn’t deserve this indignity.
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dredk,
The waking thing is normal to everyone. Mothers with little babies, people with jobs, teachers, school kids. Once Mom is gone you will worry about what may happen to you. The darkness scares us all.
Divert yourself. Whether white noise, soothing music, of whatever, divert you mind. Hey, I do true crime podcasts when/if I wake up. One therapist's book suggests you change that night monster into a real monster, acknowledge and welcome it with its boring and repetitive nonsense. Let it go on and on and tell it "But you already SAID all this". Decorate it, tell it it looks silly, whatever.

WE ARE ALL AFRAID sometimes. We are ALL WORRIED sometimes. And you have circular thought out this thing about Mom over and over.
As Dr Laura says, not everything can be fixed.
As the Serenity Prayer says "Serenity to accept what you can't change, courage to change what you can, wisdom to know the difference."
Happy dreams.
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But I'm 67. My mother is 90. Husband 69. Four years from now we will be flabbergasted at the harm that's been done. I would like to retire in a rural area but the health care there is incredibly bad. And its likely to get far worse.
That truly haunts me.
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I am tired of waking up at 3 am thinking. About my 90 year old mother. Tired of the lousy health care she is receiving. I'm not a physician. But it makes me whiney and pissy.
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I think we all need to be cautious of high pressure sales tactics these scammers use, we've gotten fairly savvy about door to door sales and this is just more of the same - it doesn't matter whether it's about your family member in jail, your bank account being compromised or some great new product that can make you money, anything that is so urgent that you can't take the time to verify is likely a scam.
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To add to venting is back, I highly recommend using a Malwarebytes type product. They are on the front line of all the scams and send out emails to notify customers of the newest threats, usually months before we hear about it from MSM.

Logos are hijacked as well making the email or text look legitimate.

Good rule to follow, never open links on text or email, never call back a different number from the paperwork/cards you receive from your providers of any type and NEVER give anyone remote access to a tech device.

I am sure there are lots more "do nots" but, these are the ones we see causing problems repeatedly.

Venting, I hope that you get some satisfaction with your situation.
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Warning about SCAMS:

I just want to warn everyone again, since I knew nothing about such scams before:

It’s possible for criminals/scammers to impersonate another email address, which looks almost identical to the original one. Sometimes there’s only one letter difference. One really must watch out. It’s also possible for hackers to completely take over an email account.

Sometimes the scammers stalk an email account for a long time, reading all the emails, learning all the details. Then they pounce at the right time and try to grab the money, by re-directing you to another bank account. They can even reply to a whole real past email thread (that’s what happened to me), which is why I suspected nothing. It looked very real, because otherwise how would they have access to the past email thread? The answer: because the email account was hacked.

What I learned:
before making any big money transaction, CALL the person you know so you can verify the details.
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Oh no!!! I'd be gnawing that pod open and attempting pour over coffee. 😱
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Casole,

You wrote: “In my financial job they'd hack a client email and based on prior exchanges mention a detail or two from those etc, mimicking style. Then they'd make a cash request and oh btw they've changed banks and here's the new banking info.”

This is basically identical to what happened to me. But it wasn’t my email that was hacked.
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Venting is back... Ugh I'm so sorry! Yes they are tricky. In my financial job they'd hack a client email and based on prior exchanges mention a detail or two from those etc, mimicking style. Then they'd make a cash request and oh btw they've changed banks and here's the new banking info. So any cash request we were required to make a call to phone number of record only to verify.

Several employees who are smart smart smart got ensnared. It's easy to let our guard down when all the seeming "boxes" are checked esp when they drop info that only that person would generally know it seems soooo much to be the person who has been hacked.

A good practice for any of us trying to vet any type of request to pay a bill or for funds....

Again I'm sorry this happened. 🥺
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Sometimes, we can't even trust something or someone standing right in front of us.
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Thanks so much for your empathy! I had a terrible day, so stressed. A lot of money. Thanks for comforting words!

Do not trust @dr.com
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Venting:
Thanks so much for this information on the scam.
They will always find a new way and this IS a new way.
Somehow this hacker managed to get into this legitimate plea for help and get funds put into HIS thing.

I am so suspicious anymore I am quite paralyzed with the whole giving thing. It pretty much has to be hand to hand for me now if it isn't some massive organization I trust. And how many of those are there?
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vib, thank you for sharing your story. Thanks to AI, I still believe that means artificial insemination, these types of scams will become more prolific. We truly live in a world that we can no longer trust anything not standing right in front of us. I am so sorry you got caught by an unscrupulous scumbag.

Happy New Year to you too!
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Wishing all a Happy New Year!

I also want to warn you about scammers. It never happened to me before. But I’ve been email-scammed.

This is just to warn you, since it happened to me. I got an email-reply that was part of a whole valid email thread between someone (X) and I. X needed money I was willing to give to X. X is innocent in this story.

That email-reply (X@dr.com) had X’s name in it. I totally believed it was X writing to me. I never suspected anything.

Actually that email (X@dr.com) was a scammer and I transferred money to him. I’m a victim of crime. I reported it to the police.

X@dr.com wrote to me in the same style as X. The scammers are very tricky.

Do not trust emails from @dr.com
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43 degrees Centigrade or Celsius is 109 degrees Farenheit?
So, it's very hot Margaret?

Llama, Yes, beware the little blue man.
I could not post on Aging Care for weeks awhile back.
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The little blue man got me - ugh. Had to go to phone carrier and they got the accessibility menu off.
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Our forecast here for tonight is 43 degrees, but Centigrade not Fahrenheit! Thank God we have no fires close to us.
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I've just been reading about the difficult weather and appalling fires in LA. I am so sorry for those poor people, and for the fire fighters. And indeed for all of us, in view of the impact that major disasters have on home insurance premiums. I don't know if any of our posters are affected, but all those affected have my hopes and best wishes.
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Quite nice here - above freezing (35F today) these few days, but a wind sometimes. i was thinking of walking in the parkade. It's relatively safe and warm. But outside you do get the sun. Yeah, I might have a bit of cabin fever. Should wrap up and sit out on the balcony in the sun for a while. This is so much better than it was in the north.
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My whine is my weird sleep habits. I was up in the night as usual then slept in till after 11 am. That is good. But waking up after a sleep like that gives me a degree of brain fog. It's after 2 pm and I am still not fully with it. I'll try some caffeine which I usually avoid. Going for a walk would be good too. Meanwhile it's playing around on the computer because I'm not good for much else.
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ali - I think you will do fine. I suspect you are your own worst critic.

jenny10 - Good ideas. This thread started many years ago and the OP (original Poster) left some years ago. Generally this thread is used to let off steam, vent, whatever. It has become very useful for that and covers a wide range of topics.
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cook one bigger portion and freeze it so you dont have to cook gain some days.
fast food is ok now and again. I think you need to cook and freeze and maybe some meals dont have be be elaborate - an omelette for example - break a couple eggs - whisk - a pinch salt/pepper in a small frying pan - put under grill to cook the top and sprinkle a little cheese on top - 10minutes. Serve with toast or salad. Who doesnt like some beans on toast at times - sprinkle cheese on top and you have a filling meal. Soup for lunch and a roll - boil your own veg with a stock cube or buy if money ok and just heat up. yogurt and banana for breakfast ? bran cereal? - 5 minutes? Serve a drink before dinner - that may regulate the appetite?
Yogurt after meals helps full up.
As for you - maybe time for a switch in meals - and include some healthier options which may be quicker to prepare - you'll have more energy end of day. Good luck. Its not easy but rewarding when you get a good system in place and the benefits to your health - even if its just for less work
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Not recently but I have had days when it seems as though my post hasn't loaded, but it's just slow to show up - part of the bugs I mentioned on the thread pinned to the top of our news feed.
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*I've noticed the past couple of days that everything is double posting, and I have to be careful not to hit "Enter" again and instead check and see if the comment is posted. That's a new bug for me. Anyone else? It could be my choice of browser, maybe.
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Thank you, CW and Margaret.

If I'm posting about a paper on the whine thread late at night, that means I have two working brain cells, and the rest of my bandwidth is fried. I'm not thinking straight; my brain is on overload.

Great suggestion to check through the Parkinson's posts -- thank you! My goal is to get a more personalized feel for what neuroimaging means to patients. I'm not going to become a radiologist so for me, it's more about how imaging helps or doesn't help folks with PD.

I'm glad to be learning this stuff, indeed. It's just a bit to take in. And some of you are right nerds (i.e., very intelligent and have been around elder care and this forum for a long time).

My fritz-out level is down today. The paper is late; oh well. Thanks again.
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Hi ABB, if you can't figure out this imaging stuff I doubt that any of us who would have been given the dumbed down version of a scan could be much help. I'm sure it's your perfectionism that is is stressing you out, trust yourself!
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