Ever just want to tear your hair out, or someone else's? If you cannot restore a sense of balance, you will run away from home? Just want to say some things without the constraints of staying on topic? Well, this thread is for you! If you just need a short break to let it all hang out, be a brat, then come on, you can do it. No holding back! Go for it, you can do it.
Shangri-la?
Ms. Madge, How about "The Resort" for Memory Care facilities- more like what we wish they were for placing Moms.??
Arcadia peacocks (if they lived in the arboretum) now live on several streets in Arcadia, wandering around. Their call can be eerie, don't you think? But I did not see any this time. I should have parked in the arboretum lot to eat my lunch, and waited for "Da plane, Da plane" to arrive. Lol.
Instead, it's more like crazy in the Hotel California.
The past couple of days she lays with her hands clasped together
She seems awake but doesn't answer now - haven't seen
Any family with her yet either
Not sure what we should be expecting and not sure what to tell mom / she doesn't grasp
The concept that she has a roommate to begin with
I'm worried the next one will create upheaval- we need a couple of months of calm
I'm so tired
But seriously........you are right willie. There is a lot of compassion lacking sometimes in nursing homes. When I used to visit Mom I'd see these people all sitting in the lobby alone. I don't know if they were waiting for a visitor but I used to imagine that they were and I walked out in tears all the time.
One time my hubs and I were in Hawaii. We rented this little jeep type vehicle to roar around in and we got lost and ended up in the parking lot of this nursing home. This old man got up all excited and of course we just turned around and left cause we had no business being there but I kept turning around and looking at this man. He looked so sad. I cried for about a half hour while we drove away.
There was an incident in our local park last night. There is a regular rough sleeper who lives, really, under one particular clump of bushes. I exchange greetings with him when I see him but don't usually hang about. The dog usually stops to say hello and get his head patted. This man drinks a lot, and the other dog-walkers and park keepers tell me that he consistently refuses assistance with shelter or rehoming. Anyway, he called after me yesterday (yikes!), but fortunately I didn't pretend I hadn't heard him. He was rattling on about some problem in his - what do you call it? Shack? Tent? Sty? - and asking for help. Well I wasn't following him in there, are you kidding? But I put my Staffie on the lead, to help me feel a bit braver, not that this dog would do anything in a crisis except hide behind my legs, and tried to grasp what the man was saying.
I eventually gleaned that a woman, whom he was at pains to stress was not "his woman", was in his shelter coughing up blood. From his agitation and concern, my guess is that he had gone in there intending to evict this interloper forcefully, and then discovered that she was in a bad way and repented. I peeked round the back of the bushes, and under a sheet of plastic could see a kneeling figure who alternated between retching terribly and swigging from a can. She wasn't coughing up blood, she was vomiting blood; and then she managed to croak 'it's only 'cos of me peptic ulcer, I'm fine.'
I heard myself say automatically "I won't come in if you don't want me to, but if you have an ulcer and you're vomiting blood the ulcer could perforate and that could kill you. I am going to call for help."
The man seemed to agree with this idea (at least it'd get her out of his shelter?). I didn't have my phone, but fortunately the Westie owner we meet most days did.
I started to explain: "There's a lady behind the hedges - "
"A lady?" she interrupted me, quite sharply.
I goggled at her briefly, not sure what she didn't get, then corrected myself: "well. Um. A woman, then? Her name's Dawn. She says she has a peptic ulcer and she's vomiting blood."
No further delay - she dialled straight away, we gave the details, the ambulance was there in no time at all, and one of the paramedics gave me his word "Dawn" would be taken to ER and looked after.
Once we'd seen everything under way, the Westie owner caught up with me and said "I didn't mean, I hope you didn't think, I didn't mean she wasn't a lady. In that way. It's just I thought it was a man who lived there..."
I burst out laughing at us both, and said "I did think you were being a bit harsh!"
Later in the evening I called the hospital but of course there was nothing they could tell me; so I just left a message to wish her well and hoped they'd pass it on. Now, too late, I realise that more to the point we left the man alone with no one to talk to about what had happened. That woman could have died in what is his home. That woman could be him if he stops being able to manage even the basic tasks he's dealt with so far. Or if he gets ill. Or if it gets cold. He must be very frightened, sometimes.
The really Good Samaritan would have thought of that before. But my point is that it's not reasonable to expect ourselves always to be shiningly Good - average, not bad, do what you can, is going to have to do. If we expect too much we end up either in pieces emotionally, or making the best the enemy of the good and doing nothing at all because we can't achieve perfect.
I will make a point of going to the park at roughly the same time tonight and seeing if he's there and wants to talk; but I refuse to feel responsible for him.
But if it were that simple neither of them would be in their present positions anyway, would they? I don't know what compromises each of them respectively is not prepared to make with the world so that they can live ordinarily decent lives. Maybe they have a point, who knows? People who won't conform make life hard for themselves, I think, and that makes it harder for anyone else to sympathise and harder not just to give up on them. But they're still people, and their lives are still hard.
Aug 8, 2016
First thing tomorrow morning, I am going to leave the toilet seat up, and the toilet unflushed. I am old enough to just say: "I forgot".
Like this (6) Report this Post
Sendme2help
Aug 8, 2016
Welcome to the brat thread, Gershun!
You are right, we will need more brat buddies .
What, do you think they will be needing a written invitation?
Caregivers behaving badly.
Ever just want to tear your hair out, or someone else's? If you cannot restore a sense of balance, you will run away from home? Just want to say some things without the constraints of staying on topic? Well, this thread is for you! If you just need a short break to let it all hang out, be a brat, then come on, you can do it. No holding back! Go for it, you can do it.
10/13/2016:
It is just before the full moon on Oct. 15th coming up. I am going to sleep tonight at 9 p.m.
Why is that behaving badly?
Because after not hearing from dH for 15 hours, not knowing when he will be off work, I am burnt out. Don't get me wrong, I still want to support his efforts, but cannot make myself sick over it. He will call?
You may know it as Tea Tree Oil?
No better yet...hide all the batteries in the house! Anybody got a U-Haul truck?
We know what a full moon brings
You wouldn't look that good in a bark collar,
Because of your hair color.
So can you just stop calling, calling, calling, incessantly,
For no reason.?