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Post by GroundSquirrel on Apr 8, 2023 16:47:51 GMT
Thanks. The progress that was made and the trust that was regained since 2021 is gone again. It is mildly infuriating to say the least. But it's still my dad.
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Post by ladyaly on Jun 15, 2023 9:04:10 GMT
I hope you are okay.
Here is the same stuff as always.
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Post by GroundSquirrel on Jun 16, 2023 22:30:38 GMT
Still alive... My dad was rushed to the Emergency Room again last Wednesday. He was confused when he woke up in the morning and said he’d been drinking again, even thought he was 89 years old (he's 76). In the afternoon he couldn't even recognise my sis or me and after having to help him go to the toilet we ended up calling his physician again who decided to call an ambulance after his visit. Later that evening my dad was released from the hospital again, because there was nothing physically wrong with him. My dad has now at least agreed to go to group therapy sessions starting next month. Fingers crossed this will actually help him, because I'm not sure my mom, sis and myself can deal with this any longer Things aren’t smooth sailing for my aunt either. After the checkup they did before starting chemo therapy she was told they saw metastases again and told her there was nothing they could do for her anymore. After a biopsy it turned out that what they saw were cysts, but they were benign. Couldn’t they just have said that they saw something on the scan and not know what it was until they did a proper biopsy, before saying that there’s nothing they can do anymore??? My aunt has started her chemo therapy last week.
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Post by ladyaly on Jun 20, 2023 8:09:53 GMT
I cross my fingers for both - and for you. I know it weighs heavily on you. So take good care of you and cuddle your cats
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Post by GroundSquirrel on Jun 23, 2023 20:57:24 GMT
My dad now has an appointment with his case manager and an addiction specialist on Monday. And on Tuesday he has another appointment with a psychologist. His case manager visited him yesterday and, according to my mom, he once again wasn't honest when he was asked about his drinking habits... When asking him he says he wants help, but somehow I don't think it's what he really wants. Seems more like he is saying that because it's what people want to hear. The cats haven't been very cuddly lol I let them outside in the backyard now that the weather's been better. But of course there comes a time when they need to come back inside, which can be a pain in the behind when they don't want to. It doesn't help that I get frogs in my backyard either at night??? And my cats are really taking an interest to them. Thankfully they seem to be leaving the frogs alone and are just watching them. Last night I tried to take the cats after sunset. Shep is the easiest as he doesn't always run away. Trying to get Shona to come in is a pain in the behind! The frogs are more interesting than the treats I'm trying to bait her with. So last night I managed to get Shep inside by picking him up. And for the first time he really scratched my arm bad while struggling :/ I finally managed to get Shona inside too. Later on they chased a grasshopper that made it inside the house lol Managed to catch the grasshopper and put it outside, where it stayed a while lounging on my window:
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Post by ladyaly on Jun 24, 2023 8:43:07 GMT
I cross my fingers for your Dad. I hope he finds his way *back* Yout catsies - as cute as they are - little devils ? I can imagine your struggle. Once I had one with the same problem - but she was a clever one. She came run to get the treats, went into the house and straight to the front door. Hopped up and opened it to get out again. Sometimes I forgot to lock the door - and I swear she did know it Grasshoppers with this size are a rare sight, glad you could get him out alive
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Post by GroundSquirrel on Jul 3, 2023 19:56:51 GMT
My dad went to a group therapy introduction session today. Hopefully he’s going to stick with it. Once in a while the cats have their moments. They’re almost three years old now and much more balanced these days. It was worse when I just got them, but then, of course, everything was new for them. Thankfully they mostly left the furniture alone at the time. And still do. The only things that weren’t left alone were the curtains and the duvet covers. Now the curtains weren’t new, so it doesn’t feel like a big loss, but the duvet covers were new and I really liked them. Now that they’re a bit older the duvet covers are left alone at least, but the curtains still have to suffer when they’re in a playful mood and chasing each other. Although the other day while I was trying to change the bed linen Shona managed to crawl under the fitted sheet Heh. I’ve seen a couple of videos of cats who were able to open doors lol. Must have been really funny seeing your cat open the front door. Unless she wasn't allowed outside. Oops! Shep is usually waiting near the front door when I get home. He seems really interested in going outside, but has never tried to make a run for it.
So it seems my cats aren’t that clever. Or maybe they are, but they’re just not showing it yet. Although Shona was rather quick to solve the food puzzle I got for them. And it was super easy to get Shep to shake paws. I didn’t even need to bribe him with treats at the time. Most of the times I just have to hold out my hand and he’ll already lift his paw for me to shake it. Unless he doesn’t feel like it, so I guess it’s not some sort of automatic thing. The food puzzle is too easy for Shona now. She now just scoops the kibbles/treats from the top of the puzzle and onto the floor. Need to find some other interactive thing for them.
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Post by GroundSquirrel on Jul 14, 2023 22:16:13 GMT
My dad went to the 2nd group therapy session last Monday and will be going back next week. He seems to do a bit better again, going out and doing stuff at least. Work is getting busier with the holiday period in full swing now. It also doesn’t help that some colleagues were pulled away from the lab to work on other projects. And right in this period they want to start up the plant that’s been down for nearly 9 months because of the absurd gas and electricity prices. It’s gonna be a real challenge the next couple of weeks!
Om another note: I seem to have a lot of bad luck with things I order online these days lol Ordered something from amazon.de last month. Five days later, on a Saturday, DHL failed to deliver the package, because I was at work. Package was going to be forwarded to a Service Point nearby and I had to check for the time when I could pick it. On Monday I found an notification in the mail about another package that I would be able to pick up after 13:00 on Tuesday. Went to pick up the other package around 14:00 on Tuesday and inquired about the amazon.de package (the track and trace still didn’t show a time when I could pick it up), but they didn’t have it. Later that same day I checked the track and trace and it showed that the package was available for pickup at 10:46 that same morning. And the package was returned to the sender at 14:30 O_o Contacted the seller through Amazon’s customer service. In English, because my German is pretty crappy. Of course the seller’s reply was in German. Now that’s not a real issue, because I can understand a fair bit of it at least. Just don’t ask me speak or write it lol I did learn a bit of German in school last century, but the grammar always did my head in! Either way, I attempted to reply to the seller in German. Not sure how well Google Translate is functioning when it comes to German, but it my replies seemed half decent to me at least heh. And at least the seller seemed to understand what I wrote. He may have had a good laugh about my replies in that conversation though In the end it was fun to try and brush up on the language again. It is really hard to learn a language that you hardly ever use.
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Post by ladyaly on Jul 15, 2023 8:55:15 GMT
I sincerely hope that your father's health/mental health continues to improve. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I'm glad that I can work from home most of the time and split my working hours. I remember the stress of the holiday season very well. Afterwards I was always totally exhausted and ready for a holiday.
Fortunately, translation programmes are quite sophisticated nowadays. If you wrote to them in English, they could have taken the trouble to reply in English - I mean, they read it.
It's just too hot here at the moment <.< Otherwise, everything is fine.
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Post by GroundSquirrel on Aug 10, 2023 18:47:32 GMT
Been a while… Work’s been awfully busy and I was supposed to work with one of the temp workers, while my colleague’s on vacation. All this in the middle of starting up the plant that has been shut down since last October, because of the energy prices. When it is extremely busy it doesn’t really help if the temp does not speak Dutch very well and you have to explain things at least 3 times to make it clear… (and then you are still not clear if the message really came across)... Then the temp managed to drop a 1.5+ kg mould on her hand, which resulted in a swollen hand. What’s bad is that she didn’t tell me about it right after it happened. Only shortly before the end of the shift O_o Two days later there was also another incident she didn't tell us about and since then she’s been at home. And now we've been told that the plant they started up again last month will be shut down again next month... My dad’s been going to his meetings at least. Seems a bit more positive and he started working on the viking ship model my sis and I bought for him for Xmas last year It’s something at least! The chemo for my aunt seems to be going well too. It’s very tiring, but she and my uncle did drop by for a short visit when it was my mom’s Birthday! And they managed to make a small trip to Belgium between the chemo sessions. On another note: I finally finished the main story of The Witcher 3! And on yet another note: someone contacted me out of the blue on Facebook. A friend of a former Dutch friend of mine and I briefly met her during the trip to England my Dutch friend and I made back in 2009. She hasn’t seen him since he last visited her in the U.K., which was about a year ago. I haven’t seen or heard from him since 2015 when I had my burnout… So I fear I’m not of much help to her. Having mixed feelings about this too, but at least I know he was still alive 1 year ago.
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Post by ladyaly on Aug 12, 2023 22:16:14 GMT
Good to hear from you. Have a lot to do myself, so not so much free time. I wonder why your company even startet the plant anew if it get shut down again. Looks pretty expensive and not logic to me. Glad to hear your dad and aunt doing both a bit better. i'm still working on Hogwarts - if I have time. I hope you enjoyed the Witcher 3 I did so much FB contacts are ... strange sometimes. I narrowed mine down to a douzen. And I lost contact to a lot of former really close people, guess this is the way of the Internet.
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Post by GroundSquirrel on Aug 16, 2023 15:23:41 GMT
Well, definitely will try to get some time off in the next couple of weeks as my colleague will be back from his vacation soon.
We all thought that starting up the plant again would be permanent, but now it turns out they started everything up again just to make one specific product. The company has another plant that can make that specific product in Spain, but even with the costs of starting up the plant and the production of off-class product it was still profitable. Definitely strange times.
Almost finished the Hearts of Stone expansion, but my GPU keeps crashing? Then there’s the Blood and Wine expansion left. If the crashing keeps up then I might have to reinstall the old RTX1070 Nah, losing contact with people is not just the way of the Internet...
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Post by GroundSquirrel on Oct 14, 2023 23:00:36 GMT
A slightly belated Happy Birthday, ladyaly. I hope you had a great day. I meant to post it a bit earlier, but I didn’t get home in time from work Work’s still busy, but I finally had a couple of days off last week and I also celebrated 25 years of service at work
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Post by ladyaly on Oct 15, 2023 14:11:26 GMT
Not sure if I should send condolences or gratulations to your 25 years at work. Thanks a lot for the birthday wishes. Just came home from a week vacation - visit in Munich. Nice weather, and had some fun so yes I had a great day
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Post by GroundSquirrel on Oct 16, 2023 19:54:08 GMT
Glad you had a nice vacation/trip and nice weather to boot!
Ha ha! It’s congratulations I suppose. I know I can be quite critical, but overall it’s been good working there.
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