Wow, I have been slacking. Shamefully so! So here’s a re-cap of the past week. Tuesday, January 8 (Elvis’ birthday btw, thanks years of working at Chuy’s for that useless trivia forever stored in my brain) I dedicated to organizing and simplifying the new day-to-day responsibilities of a family fighting cancer. So seeing as cancer is a complete drag, I figured this was an opportunity to take pleasure in the little things and in this case it was a trip to Hobby Lobby and an afternoon of crafting.
The most important things on the agenda were improving the system for documenting Abha’s meds and treatment related notes and creating a way to track her daily liquid intake. So after a few clicks around my favorite website, Pinterest, I found an idea for a medicine chart that inspired me into creating a “care binder” and a to-do list I modified to be a liquid-intake… tracker? That’s a working title.
Hobby Lobby was fraught with bright colors, glitter and shine, arts and crafts, semi-useless gadgets and lots of tacky decor… Heaven? Close enough.
Lee made a guest appearance and joined me on my crafty splurge and as per usual, we enjoyed our surroundings thoroughly.
So after that eventful shopping trip, I went home to spend the afternoon drawing, cutting, gluing, laminating, hole-punching, etc. The first project was a cutesy water pitcher magnet with individual water glass magnets that Velcro to the pitcher as well as stick to the fridge. I used a foam board and drew a water pitcher that I cut out and outlined with a Sharpie. I stuck a few craft magnets on the back and eight Velcro-stratchy pieces (of the two kinds) on the front of the pitcher. Then, I cut out eight identical water-glasses on blue card stock and also outlined those with a Sharpie and wrote “8 oz.” on the front. I laminated these and stuck the other side of the Velcro piece on the back of each glass, along with a small craft magnet. Ta – Da! What a cute and easy way for everyone to keep track of Abha’s daily liquid intake.
The docs recommend she drink 64 oz. of “acceptable” liquids (no caffeine – sodas, tea, coffee, etc.) every day. It’s hard enough for me to keep track of what I’ve been drinking all day, let alone what someone else has been drinking. That being said, I didn’t want to leave it to Abha, who sometimes exists in a dopey stupor for periods of the day. Speaking of, we had a good laugh while constructing this when Abha put the foam board through the laminator and it melted and ate the handle. Luckily, we managed to recover it fairly unscathed.
The next project was started as a way to organize Abha’s meds in-take, as she has a handful of pills and mouthwashes to take multiple times throughout the day as part of her radiation and chemotherapy treatment. I used a large piece of card stock to create a chart with the times, medicine, dosage and notes for Abha’s daily medications. An hour every line starting at 8AM going all the way down to 7AM as the last line.
I used paint pens and stickers to write with, and a sharpie and ruler to draw lines. After I let it dry out, I put it through the scanner, saved it on the desktop and printed a month’s supply of black and white copies. I hole-punched these and threw them in a binder I labeled, “Abha’s Medicine Binder.”
I laminated the original copy, put some craft magnets on the back, and stuck a piece of Velcro at the top with a fine-tipped dry-erase marker attached to the other side. With a space cleared on the fridge, I stuck the crafts up there and called it a day.
1/15/2013 UPDATE** – The system works well! Everyone is able to write down any appointments/notes about how Abha feels (ex. nausea, dizziness, pain, etc.) on the fridge as they happen, stay on top of the medications she needs to take every day at certain times and easily keep track of the pain medication schedule. At the beginning of the next day, I transcribe the fridge notes onto a copy in the binder and keep them in chronological order. It’s been much easier to keep track of for sure!
Life on The Lane 