Hey Sally!

I got a catalog today from DiBaggio Herbs in Chantilly and they have the Christmas rosemaries. I can't recommend DiBaggio highly enough. Their plants are wonderful - very, very healthy.

This is what they have:

6 inch pots wrapped in holiday red or gold foil $12.99
4.5 inch pots $6.50
2.5 inch pots $2.99
They have eight varieties, not all available in all sizes:
Arp
Herb Cottage
Hill Hardy
Mrs. Howard's Creeping
Mrs. Reed's Dark Blue
Prostrate
Salem
Tuscan

They also have poinsettias, bay trees, scented candles and soaps and mixed herb window pots. I think it would certainly be worth the drive. (Also pick up one of these free catalogs - it has care info for the rosemarys.)

Their address is 43494 Mountain View Drive, Chantilly 20152. They're located just off of Route 28 between Centreville and Dulles. BTW, they send out these catalogs but they don't do mail order, unfortunately.

Forgot, they're open Nov. 18- Dec. 23, seven days a week 10-4.

Thanks~~ now if only I could do some of your shopping for you!!

I think I gave you a bum steer. Off of 50 (but 50 just off of 28.) Anyway. it's an easy drive.

Ho-kay!

So coming from the Xmas shopping thread, I guess this is just us--
it seems like some docs want to just 'be' their specialty, as you said, he wanted to just give the chemo with apparantly, little or no regard for looking for other complication. I don't know how much a family member could do, except I now feel it's so important for a loved one to be involved in an elders care, if only to say--This is not normal for my father, something else is wrong. I think it's too easy for them to see an old person and assume dementia, sleeepiness, other mental problems have been ongoing. Maybe if I spent all day with demented old people I'd lose my perspective too. Well, it's very sad and frustrating to think that your dad may have suffered dueto lack of care by those who are supposed to be highly trained and highly paid to do it. I can't begin to tell you how to find peace with that.
I hope your mom is doing well and is healthy .

I don't think you understand just how bad this doctor was. I begged my father to switch to another doctor from the get go but he and my mom didn't want to drive to another town to see a doc.

He never saw my father after the second chemo. Never saw him after the first chemo until that one landed him in the hospital and even then, he did nothing but stop in for a minute. That was the only time he laid eyes on him until the second chemo.

Two days after the second chemo, he was back in the hospital again because it had so dangerously dropped his blood levels. My mom called the doctor's office when he started doing so badly and never talked to the doctor. A nurse told her to call the rescue squad. He had had a mild stroke too. He was in the process of getting a blood transfusion when he had the second stroke.

During months of a prior treatment, when my father had a horrible reaction that left him with raw, oozing open sores literally covering him from head to toe, this doctor never laid eyes on him despite numerous calls and visits to his office and told him via a nurse to treat it with Benedryl. He finally got some reaction from the doctor when he told him he was stopping all treatment. The doc then halved the dosage but still did nothing for the skin problems, which weren't quite as bad but continued. I finally got Daddy to see a dermatologist and he helped with the skin issues.

Now all of this is with a man who is 80 years old, has just had quadruple bypass surgery several months before and has other health issues. BTW, he was not demented. His mind was fine, even after the strokes.

The worst thing I can wish on this doctor is that if he is ever diagnosed with cancer that he has to treat himself.

The other half of the horror story is what we went through trying to get my father out of absolutely the worst hellhole of a nursing home. We finally got him out of there and into a decent one, essentially after three weeks of calling everyone we could find and telling the placement officials we were going to file charges with the state ombudsman, a week before he died. I think at that point, he'd suffered too much lousy care to recover. I absolutely blame the hospital officials and this doctor for his death.

Now this nursing home mess didn't happen to him because he was a low income patient, either. My father was pretty well off financially. But all the nursing home placements are done by a hospital employee. She lied to my mother and told her she had no choice but this awful home, that she had to decide immediately or would lose even that place and he was moved there within a very few hours. We were told later the normal procedure is to give the family a list of choices and to give them time to visit the various homes and make a choice.

My sister and I really want to follow through and file complaints on all this but Mom just wants to let it drop.

Mom, by the way, is in good health and is getting adjusted to living alone.

Gosh, I really need to stop talking about all this. I don't think I'm ever going to get to the point where it doesn't just tear me up.

no, I didn;t understand how awful he was. What a horrible, horrible ordeal. No wonder it still upsets you. My dealings with parents were a walk in the park compared to that. I don't think I could have dealt with that at all. I would have been totally, completely unprepared for that kind of mistreatment of your dad, and mistreatment of the family(bullying you into the bad nursing home) I can't understand how someone could be in that job(the social worker or whoever arranges that) and be so callous.
Of course, then you have to negotiate your mom's wishes with yours and your sister's . That would be very frustrating.
I don't mean to drag you through it again, but if it helps to write about it, please do.

This message was edited Nov 16, 2006 7:10 PM

It's okay, Sally. I'm still just a little raw about all this. And mad.

On the placement person - she wasn't a social worker I don't know what exactly - I'm absolutely convinced she was getting kickbacks from that nursing home.

Understandable.
I would have to think the same thing about that person.
Would it be inappropriate to say what hospital this was?( as a caution to others).
I am relieved this morning to see that I haven't offended you. I was worried that some of my writing may not have sounded the way I meant. I know you and your sister must have been there constantly through the whole thing. It must have been extremely, extremely difficult. I am glad that you have each other. I wouldn't say I was close to my sister when we were little, but we've gotten much closer as adults, and I'm so glad that I can share things with her.
Will you see your mom and sister on Thanksgiving?

Good heavens, no! You didn't offend me!

Mom is having her usual big family Thanksgiving dinner this year, which is going to be hard for her and all of us I think but also good for her, if you know what I mean.

My sister won't be able to attend but my brother and lots of other family will be there.

Yay! I think it's great that she'll be busy, and lots of people around. Yes, I know, hard and good both. Life's like that sometimes, huh?
I'm hosting for Mom, MIL, sister, BIL, and my own, not so big, big enough for me and my house without too much shuffling. Mom gracefully handed the turkey reins a couple years ago . Now she still does the P pie and is concerned that we better have another dessert too. Yes, I'm sure we'll starve without 500 more grams of fat and sugar ;-)
Have a great dinner! don't eat too much..HA!

Maybe when she's 100 my mom will hand off cooking the big holiday dinners. LOL She does at least let us bring side dishes and desserts now, although I don't think she makes one less thing.

You have a nice dinner too and don't work too hard. I know better than to tell anyone not to eat too much at Thanksgiving. LOL At least it's better than Christmas when we eat a huge dinner with my family and then drive back up here to the mountains and have another huge dinner with SO's family. Talk about being stuffed!