Tag: elder care

Clueless

I don’t know what to write about today. It’s Labor day, so have a good one.

Clean up in the cellar has been taken care of for now. All of Harry’s left over laundry is done, though I still need to put his sheets back onto his bed. There is a mountain of laundry in Bellana’s room that I’ll probably start today. I set up a new music nook for quarantine in the cellar last night and am hoping I’ll get a chance to use it today. Maybe.

No cookouts for me today. Just isolation and stress and work and guilt and the usual. It’s hard to explain what is going through my head at this point. I am sad about how my mother is handling the change (did I ever post what the change was? I’ll get to it), I am guilty because I am not there to help, I am pissed off because I have to isolate for Covid (even though I’m positive this whole thing is an overreaction, even if the overreaction is still the smart move) and I don’t get to hug my wife, and I am filled with relief that my parents are finally in a place where they can get the help and care that they need rather than have my idiot ass pretending like I know what I am doing.

I don’t know.

Here’s the Covid music nook:

Hopefully I won’t have to use it long and can go back to the bedroom. I haven’t received a call from the urgent care place telling me I have a positive result so that’s good. I have an appointment for another test on Wednesday. If that comes back negative then it’s back to reality for me. I know it will because I was barely exposed and people who had much closer exposure are all testing negative. Whatever, isolating is the right thing to do, I just want it to be over.

I want isolation to be over, I want Covid to be over. I want my parents’ difficulties to be over. I want being guilty to be over. I want to be able to get a good night’s sleep again. I want to be able to work without having to think about all of this other stuff. I want my wife to not have to worry about me. I want my kids to not have to worry about anything except their educations. I want my band to get back together.

Call me selfish, but I just want normal back.

Shit. I had nothing to write about when I started and then I turned it into another downer. Sorry about that. Next time I post I’ll try to include some jokes or something.

That Sucked

I called my parents today just to say hello. My mother gave me both barrels, right in the face. Boy is she unhappy about moving into an assisted living place. Boy did she let me have it. My favorite was when she said you’re not going to help me get out of here, are you. Yeah, that was the best. Honorable mention goes to the time she said if she had to live there the rest of her life then the rest of her life is going to be really short. No, I am not going to get you out of the place that will take care of you better than anyone you have ever met before can take care of you.

Yeah, that was fun. It was easy to pay attention to work after that. Sure it was.

Was I Wrong?

This whole time I thought that getting them into a safe place where they can get the care they need 24/7 would make me feel better. I don’t know if it’s some sort of adjustment period that I didn’t factor into the equation, but I really don’t feel better today.

Maybe it would feel different if we hadn’t hit the snags we hit yesterday. I knew my parents would need time to adjust to their new normal but I didn’t expect I’d need so much time too.

It’s only day two. I doubt day three will be better. Maybe day four?

Screaming

I’ll probably write up the events of the last three days at some point. Maybe later today.

I just wanted to take a second to mention this one tidbit. Over the last few months there have been a bunch of times when I wrote something along the lines of, I am going to start screaming and when I start I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop. You all ‘member that? Yeah, I ‘member!*

Well you’ll be pleased to know that there did in fact come a time when I did in fact start to scream. It was yesterday afternoon while sitting in the car. Fortunately I was able to stop.

So… win. Yay for me.

*Thats a South Park joke. FYI.

Home

I’m home. I’ve been home for an hour or so.

Without saying anything that might jinx things, or giving specifics, last night was most likely my last parent sitting shift. There has been a plan in the works to resolve their health care needs for a while now and those plans should be reaching their conclusion in the morning. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, insert your please don’t jinx anything spell or hex or whatever it is here.

I’ll give more precise details after it’s all done, but suffice to say that it should be over tomorrow, and last night was my last overnight. My sister is there now so she gets the last shift overall. We’ll all be at the house in the morning to carry it through the next step, but then that should be the end of the overnight stuff. It won’t be the end of everything, just the regularly scheduled overnights.

I’m so tired right now that I am not sure if anything I’m writing is making any sense, I just know that I need it to be over and we’re so close I can smell it and I am absolutely terrified that something is going to go wrong and fuck it all up.

Please please please don’t let anything go wrong and fuck it all up.

Wrapping Up

My parent sitting shift is coming to an end soon. It’s going to run a smidge late tonight, I think but that’s okay. I still don’t feel comfortable (or confident) in sharing what’s been happening, though the images from the last 24 hours probably paint a pretty good picture.

After my three hours and 20 minutes of sleep overnight last night, I have been more or less taking Diet Pepsi via an IV directly into my veins. Anything to keep my system as caffeinated as humanly possible. Give me that caramel colored, carbonated, caffeinated, gold.

Further proof that things are changing on the parent sitting front, I am going home tonight and coming back in the morning. Current theory is I’ll get here at some time between 8:00 and 9:00. I’m sure there will be further discussion between the siblings tonight. I might be asleep though. I’ll likely be sleep-texting or something 21st century like that.

I was off work today and most of the goings on were wrapped up before noon. That means I had a lot of time to mess around with 50/90. I got some work done, but not as much as I should have. The whole no-sleep thing held me back a little, I think.

I’m sure there are other things I would normally write about at this point, but I think I am going to wrap it up and put my computer away. Jen and I are going to have a simple dinner tonight. I miss her like crazy after being away for 24 hours. I wanna go home. I wanna see her. I need to give my sweetie a hug (or two).

Right then, clicking Publish now. Until next time….

Example

Dad wanted some leftovers for lunch. He and mom were looking in the fridge but couldn’t find it.

Rob: Someone might have thrown it out.
Mom: What?
Rob: (louder) Someone might have thrown it out.
Mom: Someone might have thrown it out.
Dad: What?
Mom: (louder) Someone might have thrown it out.
Dad: I know.
Rob: (pulls a little more hair out of his head)

Baby Step

Looking toward the future, my father just sat my mother down and had a talk about some next steps. The response was positive. Not perfect, but good. Let’s call it progress of the baby steps variety. Another, slightly more impressive, step will happen tomorrow while I’m at work.

Raise a glass to forward momentum. May a wave of good news wash us away to a newer, better, safer place because I really need this to end. I can handle a lot, and I don’t think I am quite to the snapping point yet, but it’s getting close. Way to close for comfort.

Oh, gentle readers, could you do your humble narrator a solid and cross those fingers and keep ’em crossed? We need all the help we can get.

Misery

I’ve had exactly one day at the house since my father came home. I had one full blown break down while I was there, and then had another one when I got home. If I were cut out for being a home care nurse, I would have been a home care nurse. I haven’t asked my brother and sister if they feel the same way, but I’m willing to bet a pretty large sum that they do. I don’t think I can do this. I will for as long as I have to, but “have to” has to be a short time. It wasn’t the worst day of my life, that was Harry’s diabetes diagnosis day when the ER doctor at Boston Medical Center couldn’t tell us that he was going to be all right. Do you have any idea how scary it is to have a doctor give you a look that says, “your kid might not make it?” This is a Caribbean vacation compared to that day. Still… I don’t know what I’m going to do.

What I do know is that home care nurses are friggin’ super heroes.