Author Topic: On Caregiving  (Read 270965 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #290 on: September 19, 2017, 10:00:22 pm »
That's a good idea, Chuck.

My good idea was to arrange for the entire family to have a gathering on the patio of mom's nursing home. I made some fruit salad and picked up a couple of rotisserie chickens. Then, because it is Mom's great granddaughter's 2nd birthday in a few days, I made a birthday cake.

The attendants got mom out of bed, dressed her and combed her hair, which annoyed her. I then wheeled her out onto the patio. She gradually gained more and more consciousness while we ate and seemed to like the sound of the children playing on the lawn. We opened a few presents, had birthday cake and then, for the grand finale, my son and daughter performed a concert of gospel songs for her. She really perked up at that and even opened and focused her eyes. She tried to clap at the end of all but the last song. I wheeled her back to her room at about 7 pm and the attendants were all saying wonderful things about our little gathering. I think they are going to be more gentle and compassionate with her now that they know she has a loving family.

I'm home and the cat is eating from a rotisserie chicken carcass. She's happy too. I've made all the loved ones in my life happy so I'm happy.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline serious crayons

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #291 on: September 21, 2017, 09:26:31 am »
That's a good idea, Chuck.

My good idea was to arrange for the entire family to have a gathering on the patio of mom's nursing home. I made some fruit salad and picked up a couple of rotisserie chickens. Then, because it is Mom's great granddaughter's 2nd birthday in a few days, I made a birthday cake.

The attendants got mom out of bed, dressed her and combed her hair, which annoyed her. I then wheeled her out onto the patio. She gradually gained more and more consciousness while we ate and seemed to like the sound of the children playing on the lawn.

That sounds really nice. What a great idea.  :D

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We opened a few presents, had birthday cake and then, for the grand finale, my son and daughter performed a concert of gospel songs for her.

Wow, it's very impressive that they're able to do that!

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the attendants were all saying wonderful things about our little gathering. I think they are going to be more gentle and compassionate with her now that they know she has a loving family.


I hope they are nice to your mom but it would be really sad if that's their criterion. If anything, it should be the other way around. (Not that they should be meaner now, but that they should be the most gentle and compassionate with those who don't have loved ones.)

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I'm home and the cat is eating from a rotisserie chicken carcass. She's happy too. I've made all the loved ones in my life happy so I'm happy.

Then we're happy for you!  :D




Offline CellarDweller

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #292 on: September 28, 2017, 07:11:51 pm »
I'm home and the cat is eating from a rotisserie chicken carcass. She's happy too. I've made all the loved ones in my life happy so I'm happy.

Job well done, Lee!


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #293 on: October 25, 2017, 10:53:31 am »
One of the biggest disappointments to me as a caregiver was hospice. So, here's a little information about them.

Hospices are not delivering on their promises: http://time.com/4995043/no-one-is-coming-investigation-reveals-hospices-abandon-patients-at-deaths-door/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2017102511am&xid=newsletter-brief
The 4 levels of care hospices must provide are “routine care, which is by far the most common; respite care to give family caregivers a break for short time periods; and two levels of so-called "crisis care," continuous care and general inpatient care, when patients suffer acutely. But 21% of hospices, which together served over 84,000 patients, failed to provide either form of crisis care in 2015”

https://hospicefoundation.org/End-of-Life-Support-and-Resources/Coping-with-terminal-illness/how-to-choose/questions-to-ask
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #294 on: October 25, 2017, 07:42:08 pm »
I'm not surprised that in our country, hospice care is lacking.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #295 on: January 18, 2018, 07:20:14 pm »
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline serious crayons

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #296 on: January 19, 2018, 11:09:38 am »
It seems that the House and Senate have passed a bill to begin to talk about offering services to caregivers:

http://www.nextavenue.org/raise-family-caregivers-act-will-help-family-caregivers/?hide_newsletter=true&utm_source=Next+Avenue+Email+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f1b0383610-01.16.2018_Tuesday_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_056a405b5a-f1b0383610-165235473&mc_cid=f1b0383610&mc_eid=a194ac8bb9

Don't hold your breath, though. They're just going to study it for about 18 months.

I saw that. But I thought it was encouraging that both parties supported it and recognize it as a problem.

Now if only both parties would recognize the need for parental leave, sick pay, health care ...  ::)




Offline CellarDweller

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #297 on: January 19, 2018, 07:39:27 pm »
Don't hold your breath, though. They're just going to study it for about 18 months.

Now if only both parties would recognize the need for parental leave, sick pay, health care ...  ::)


dare to dream......


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline serious crayons

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #298 on: January 21, 2018, 10:35:42 am »
So last night I went out with my friend who has psychiatric issues, mostly depression and supposedly PTSD. It's her birthday today, so I took her out for a drink and appetizers and then we went to a movie (The Shape of Water -- pretty good!). When I picked her up, I waited downstairs in the car -- she knew I was coming -- called both her cell phone and landline, no answer, finally left the car running and climbed the stairs to her apartment. Her son let me in and I barely caught a glimpse of him before he dashed back in his room (he's 18). She was in the bathroom, so I stood in her small living room and thought, OMG, this is becoming a garbage house. The room was crammed with boxes and bins and stacks of papers and other stuff four feet off the floor in places. It opens to the kitchen and the kitchen was the same way, except there was food involved. On the couch were a bunch of bed pillows, indicating someone spends a lot of time on it. My friend has no job or any other reason to leave the house except to go to her son's hockey games and occasionally out with me (I live about 15-20 miles away). She has no local relatives or other close friends.

Then when we went out she kept talking about her son: Whether he would play hockey in college, all the stuff she's been doing about the autism he just got diagnosed with because he'd started doing poorly in school, etc. etc. I told her I thought her son would be fine, but I am worried about her. She's 60 and hasn't worked at any job in almost 20 years. She gets various forms of public assistance, but is mainly living off money her son gets because his dad died: Social Security and money from the dad's family. When he leaves, she'll have almost nothing. So I keep telling her she needs to find a job. She said she knows, but she can't figure out what would "inspire" her.

I said she can't wait until she gets "inspired." She needs to go door to door at the retail shops near where she lives, or sign up with a temp agency or something. She needs to start getting a paycheck, even if it's a crappy job, and then wait to get inspired. She kind of reluctantly agreed, but I don't think she'll do anything. If someone who is home all day every day can't even keep their house even sort of organized ...

She keeps using her so-called PTSD as an excuse for why she can't do things -- because she has researched on the internet and found what PTSD studies say. So far I have resisted shaking her by the shoulders and saying, yes, but those studies include vets from Iraq who've seen their buddies blow up five feet away or killed children or who knows what, so they skew the statistics.

Now she's doing the same with her son's autism, diagnosed just a few months ago, at age 17 or 18. Her son is ki d of weird, but he does OK in school, apparently has some friends, and is goalie on the high school team that won a state championship. (She lives through his hockey achievements.) In this case, I did tell her I have a friend who struggled with her son's autism all his life. At one point my other friend's son threw her across a room and broke two ribs. She had to call the police and have him put in jail. And so on -- nightmarish trauma for more than 20 years. For the past few, he'd been doing OK but then he mysteriously died at 28.

Deb said, maybe he didn't get the right therapy. I said, oh, he definitely did, she worked with him and lots of professionals all his life. It was a huge and constant struggle. Again, kids like that skew the autism statistics compared to kids like her son, whose weirdness is so mild he didn't even get diagnosed until now.

I've gotten to the point that when Deb says something unrealistic, I cut her off with stark honesty. Josh will be fine. She needs a job. She has no money. She's 60, she can't really wait until she's "inspired." Etc. I know you can't just tell a depressed person to pull themselves together and take some action -- it's hard for them. But she really needs to pull herself together and take action, partly because the accomplishment (even cleaning the living room!) would help her depression. But to some extent she's using the depression as an excuse not to.

Meanwhile, she wants to rent her apartment out for the Super Bowl (her mom owns the building). I said, clearly you're not going to be able to do that. I'm thinking of doing the same but worried I'd have to do too much to prepare for it, and my house is relatively tidy and clean! Apparently there are 41,500 hotel rooms in Minneapolis and they're expecting one million visitors. Houses the same size and distance from the arena as mine are reportedly going for $5,000+ a night.





Offline serious crayons

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Re: On Caregiving
« Reply #299 on: January 21, 2018, 10:46:15 am »
Sorry to ramble on so long.

Oh, one other thing about Deb that I thought was kind of weird. She said she's thinking of tearing down a wall to enlarge her bathroom (she's pretty handy with home-construction stuff) because when she and her son are in it at the same time they're always fighting for space at the mirror and sink. Apparently they share the bathroom -- even when one of them is bathing. She said she doesn't really like it (the bathing part) but he's fine with it. I'm not one to judge other people's private lives, but that seemed a little off to me -- a mom and an 18-yo. Do you think so?

I said, couldn't you just go in at different times? My son has been living with me, we only have one full bath (and a quarter bath), but we're never in it at the same time. My son would get upset if I was in there when he was so much as combing his hair.

She said, you'd think so, but inevitably they wind up having to shower at the same time. I told her that that very day, in fact, I knew my son had to be at work at 5 and therefore that he'd come back from the gym and shower at about 4:15, so I made a point to take my own shower an hour or so before that. Pretty simple! She just looked at me like, well, we could never do that.