I've not talked too much about my parents in this blog. A funny thing happened last night, so let me introduce you. My parents will have been married 50 years this May. Mom is 83 and dad is 77. They are both in relatively good health. Mom has arthritis and has had back surgery, and lives with daily pain in her back/legs. She also uses hearing aids. They both take their share of pills every day. Mom has been forgetting to take her pills and mentioned wanting some kind of alarm.
I have a Timex Ironman watch that I don't use so gave it to her last Sunday and set it up to sound an alarm three times during the day (twice for pills and once to call her friend Mary). I had dinner with them last night and she complained the alarm didn't work. After looking at the watch, I realized the time was set for a.m. instead of p.m. (my bad). I reset everything and we waited for 6 p.m. to strike (one of the alarm times). We sat at the table talking when the alarm (on her wrist) went off. She kept talking, seemingly oblivious to the sound. I told her it was going off and she said it wasn't. My dad didn't even hear it! It is a bit high-pitched, but I use my Ironman to wake me up in the morning and have never had trouble hearing it. It has a five-minute snooze, so when it went off again she held it up to her ear. Nothing. Dad did mention that she has lost all high-pitch hearing, and apparently he has too.
The really funny thing is we sat and talked about the alarm for a few minutes before my mom realized she'd forgotten (again) to take her pills!
The search is on for a louder alarm.
she needs a vibrating alarm. ok, minds out of the gutter!
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