Things are......ok

Thankfully my daughter seems to have reached somewhat of an even keel. She is not sneaking food; she is not being secretive or withdrawn; she is trying to make healthy eating choices. I do worry a bit because she seems to be trying to find ways not to have to eat dinner ~ either decide for herself what she'll eat or just say she's not hungry. But it hasn't worked lately and she's done a decent job of eating well. She's even being careful about her portion sizes with snacks. It's pretty good right now.

I went back to the house of the elderly woman (E) and found that the living conditions were much much worse than I imagined. I literally shoveled (w/a small hand held shovel) poop by the bagful off of her floor, scraping it off of the stone in front of the fireplace, banging on it to loosen it from the carpet. There was a room with numerous overflowing litter boxes where the floor and newspapers were saturated with waste. I could barely control the gag reflex and had to leave one box which was half liquid.

The room in which she sleeps has one dresser coated with cat spray. Her bed is covered in cat hair and the floor is littered with cat food and waste. The cat food and waste is everywhere ~ throughout the house. One room has much of its contents partially chewed up by a litter of surprise kittens that "appeared" one day last year after they'd be living in the room unknown for some time.

I tried to remove accumulated newspapers, empty bags, empty cat food cans, etc. and that was about her limit. She just couldn't cope with what I was doing in her home by that point. It was difficult.

It was so overwhelming. At some point I realized it was too big of a job for me alone and she needed to move out of there. She understood and, for the moment, agreed. We'll see if that turns to action. I have a social worker meeting with her and I on Wed. to help her sort out her finances and see what housing options are out there for her.

Thankfully the social worker thinks she could get a church crew out there, once E is not on site, to help clear the place out. Even my boss volunteered church workers and his own family ~ despite my warnings about the health conditions.

H is mad at me for not whisking the woman off to better housing. This is my first forray into such a tangled web and I'm learning as I go. As much as I would love to pick her up and move her somewhere, I don't have the authority to forcibly move her and I don't even know what she could afford. Plus I don't want to move her twice although I think I will broach the subject of settling in a temporary furnished place for a month or so just to get her out of the conditions.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.... I feel a little more peaceful about it but still relatively helpless.