My "whine moment today." What's yours?

Quiet on whine moment tonight. So I'll just whine by myself. Lets see. What should I whine about. Don't you hate it when you are in the shower and you get one of your hairs caught on your hand and you have to keep shaking your hand out to get rid of it.

Or how about when you've done your hair and makeup, your looking as good as you can look then realize that the shirt you are wearing sucks and it can only be taken off if you pull it over your head. There goes hair and makeup.

Two of my pet peeves.

Anyhow, nothing like all you wonderful caregivers are going through. I am just trying to provide comedy relief. Good Night!

Oh, Gershen, were you one of us who were dying our hair red and then wanted to go back to being blonde? If so, your hair is falling out, and has become more porous, that is why it sticks to your hand, arm, between your fingers, and have you checked a few other places for loose hair?

The caregiving whine that I have is so awful for me, I cannot talk about it. Better to distract myself with dyeing.

Gershen, you will never be wineing by yourself as long as you've got all of us here!

Sendme2help no I never dyed my hair red. I was thinking of getting a tattoo but changed my mind about that. I was trying to be funny. Didn't try hard enough I guess.

Any whine you have could never be too awful for this forum Send. So don't hold it in.

Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't even be posting any more since my Mom has left this world and gone on to a better one. I have been second guessing my whole care giving history with her and sometimes I think I made wrong choices when trying to be there for her. Its funny when you do things out of love you think there couldn't be any wrong decisions. But with any strong emotions just like hate I guess you can let your heart overrule whats best.

My mom nearly died a year ago and it wasn't till just after she died in May that we went through her things and found a Living Will. In it she had voiced what she did and did not want when it came to her care. It wasn't just a DNR. It went even further than that. If I had read it last year I think we would of asked them to not over treat her and she most likely would of died then. I think, well actually I know now that is what she wanted.

Even though it was so wonderful having that extra year with her I feel guilty cause most of her time in the nursing home this last year I know she was not happy. I feel somewhat to blame for that.

I know there is no point playing that if I, should of, would of game but thats what I do. Anyhow.........

I think we rehash things in our minds to try to learn from them sometimes.It is when you can't let go and ruminate over and over again that it is not healthy. I tend to do this and have to force myself to let the matter go if it is in the past, yet know what or if I would do anything differently or better if put in a similar situation again. Often I wish I could relive my life knowing what I know now...but of course it is impossible to do that so I think I should learn, and then move forward...Easier said than done though.
My whine starts early...I am lately waking up and feeling like the waking moments are a bad dream. I also had a dream where a friend, (one of those who has all but disappeared now), gave me a gift which was a box containing all things I cannot do now....tickets to plays,movies, concerts, ballgames that I cannot now attend, clothing I cannot wear to these events, sunblock, bathing suits for the beach, hats and dresses for cruises, etc. Ugh. I felt in the dream that she was taunting me for not having a life. I have to shake that one off and get started with the day.

Gershun....I hate falling out hair...seriously. Lately I have been losing a lot of hair and my hairdresser says it is from stress. This happened last year when I was stressed out about Mom being in that awful nursing home for rehab. It is happening again though not as bad. Luckily the hair loss isn't showing but I notice it in my brush and when I shampoo.

Gershun YES! I have longish blonde hair, very vry thick, highlighted twice a year,but I loose SO Much hair, every time I shower, and I Hate having hair stuck on my body and stuck in my fingers the whole time I'm in there! My husband hates this but as im pulling those hairs, I stick them onto the shower wall, and try to scrape them off after, but sometimes I forget, lol. He would love to paste them all on to the top of his head, but that's not feasible! I generally use a shower brush, at the and brush my whole body to get every strand off of me, it's so sick! The older I've become, the more sensitive I've become to tiny hairs or anything on my skin, my Dad's brother was like that too. Weird! Huh??certainly. My Whine about getting all ready, hair and makeup, is on hot days, and after 20 minutes blow drying, I'm drenched and need to shower all over again, but I don't, but then my thick hair starts to swell from all the humidity comming from my own body,! Hahaha,! This confession blog is just terrible!!!
JUDE, YES! I would Love your Sausage Roll recipe, and my Mom used to make what my Mom and her three sister's iced Squares, they are what I found on my UK trip, VANILLA SLICES, Oohh God, we found them in the Bakery's, so Scrummy! Do you do those? Also everybody would probably love to know how you make a good Shepherd's Pie, and a good Rice Pudding! Yumm, But is this the best blog to share on, or the other WHAT S EVERYBODY MAKING FOR DINNER" Blog on the AG forum? I would absolutely Love you for it! My mouth is watering, and I'm missing my Mom like Crazy, oh to have her back for three days of British cooking classes, would be Heaven! Like I mentioned on the cooking forum, my Mom kept all her recipes in her head, and she cooked more with my 3 older sisters, as I'm#5 of 6. He was probably pretty tuckered out when it came to my turn, and I probably wasn't all that interested at the time, either, I was All About The BOYS! LOL.
Well allrighty everyone, its 4 AM, and I'm gonna try to go back to sleep now, which is my last whine, I wake up in the middle of the night, every night, and can't sleep for 1-2 hours, So Frustrating! Love ya, Stacey B

Gershun, yes, everything Katie just said, GERSHUN NO! You did everything Right, you didn't find that DNR, Til after, for a reason! Andchey, can't we cargivers be a little selfish once and a while? You wanted her to live! Every daughter does at the time, look backs are just that, we can't change the past. Gershun, never leave, you bring So Much to this forum, and I would miss you So! OK, nite All, Stacey B

Gershun, you did everything you could with the information you had for your Mom. Don't beat yourself up over something you can't change now. Mom understands, trust me.

My mom is 75 - which seems very young for all this to be happening, but the hard part is that this is the exact same road we went down with my Dad - kidney failed (he only had 1 kidney), dialysis started, then a series of post-surgical infections, which were all antibiotic resistant and that's what ended his life. He was 75 - Mom is 75 - now Mom's kidneys are failing too. The only difference is that she hasn't had surgery.

Gershun, hugs - I feel like that too, what am I doing here when I'm not looking after anyone now… But there is the aftermath, after all, and that's something that everyone here will also have to go through. I think we still count, don't you? We still have things we need to share, and valid things to say that might be useful for other people who haven't got to this stage yet.

You know what, when it comes to living wills and medical directives and DNRs and all that kind of thing - what's always at the back of my mind is that people give these instructions when they are still comparatively well, and they are trying to predict how they will feel about things if and when they happen. Well, now. I'm not at all saying that we shouldn't respect advance directives, of course; but they have to be applied in contexts that might be radically different from what the person had envisaged. It's all very well to be sitting up, breathing normally and completely lucid, and make a firm resolution that if you become demented you don't want to be treated for pneumonia, for example, because you'd rather die. Sure, who wouldn't. But then you're writing that before you have experienced what it is like to have pneumonia and lack the mental capacity to understand what is happening to your body. Fast forward to - God forbid - that event, and the reality caregivers then have to face is that a petrified woman is struggling to breathe, clinging on in desperation and completely unable to understand why no one is assisting her - and we're supposed to point calmly to the medical directive and say no, no treatment thanks? What kind of person would you have to be to take that in your stride?

We have to balance respect for the person's compos mentis wishes with humanity in our treatment of the non compos mentis version of that person. And we can only do our best. Don't forget, whole committees of learned experts debate these ethical points endlessly and come to no firm, fixed, applicable conclusions. We will beat ourselves up for not being certain that we always made the right decision, because we can't help doing it; but after that remember that you did the best you could, and that you did it for the best possible reasons, and then ask yourself if anyone could have done it better. In the end you're blaming yourself for not being as all-knowing as God. Not fair.

My sister from time to time reminded me that in 2012 my mother had sat up in bed and looked round the stroke ward at the other patients and said "I don't want to get like that." Perfectly true. That's exactly what she said, and I didn't need to be reminded of it. But my sister's interpretation of what my mother meant was not based on experience of what quality of life did remain to her once she had got "like that." And what my mother felt about being disabled when she wasn't yet, and what she felt about it when she was disabled two years later, may have changed enormously. In the end, you have to let people die when they're good and ready, and not hold them to something they said years before in entirely different circumstances long before they knew what the reality would be.

Stacey1960 I make shepherds pie all the time.
I started with making a kettle of mashed potatoes with butter and sour cream.
I sauté hamburger with onions. Add a little tomato paste and some Worcestershire sauce. You need to make a gravy and I use Bisto which is from the UK as its low in sodium. I add to hamburger then add some frozen peas and carrots. I have used corn as well.
Place meat/veg mix bottom of casserole dish and spoon potatoes on top. I sprinkle with shredded cheddar and bake 350 for maybe 30 min until you see gravy bubbling up around edges.
If you want to cheat look in foreign food section for Colemans Shepherds pie seasoning packet and follow directions.
I also make some variations of this if you would like to know as well.

Better get cleaned up dads dentist apt in an hour.

GERSHUN.....there's a reason you didn't find that Living Will until now...you weren't supposed to. It was meant for you to be able to spend that time with your Mom, I believe.. Hugs dear one.

JUDE....Ok, I got all my stuff for the scones and because I got a later start to the grocery was too tired ( or too lazy) to cook anything so decided I'd make them today...and NOW you give me this other exquisite sounding recipe....Am jotting that one down too..you need to write a cookbook girl!!!

Re the hair thing...when I get my hair cut substantially, it always goes through a "shock" thing where it takes me a while to figure out what it wants to do...this one is no exception. Yesterday I decided I would use a small curling iron, the one I use for Mama's hair...I decided I'd make it kind of curly as no one ever seems me with curls like this.....and theres a good reason for that I decided...no one ever will again....I look like I glued brillo pads to my head....I get really frustrated with our hair folks in this town. I had an excellent one where i used to live, I could show them a picture and as long as my hair was long enough to do it, would come out looking exactly like the picture...I don't care what picture I carry in there, I seem to come out with the same exact hairdo....oh well, my Mama's famous words...it'll grow out....at least the color is great....

I did end up buying myself a couple of really nicely marbled angus beef ribeyes last night. It dawned on me I had not had one in probably three years...It was pricier than I ever pay for myself...but I decided I would treat myself...I've also got a nice bottle of wine stowed away in the cupboard and I'm guessing today's the day...I have not had anything alcoholic in a while...other than one bottle of wine I splash on to what I might be cooking and I always get a sip for good measure but to just sit down and have a glass....probably four years for that....

OK, this makes me sound like I have a problem...I don't ....promise, I guess I"m always afraid I will have a glass now and because I've gotten unaccustomed to drinking now I will pass out and Mama will need me...so I just avoid it....

CM, you are exactly right! And you definitely MATTER, in fact, it's often the after part when we need people the very most, and then you start getting to the helping others phase, where you are inspirational to others and in this phase is when you are comming out the other side and getting healthy and back to your normal self and figuring out just what you want for the next phase of your life, but then there are those of us who still need you, as you are just steps ahead of us, and still learning how to deal with it all. Caregiving changes you, and when all is said and done, to those of us who have really been in the trenches, you can't help to look back as you are looking forward. If all that gobbildy goo made any sense, well good on you! Lol, I'm rambling again! Sorry!
57tein, yes, your Shepherd's Pie sounds really yummy,! I do know how to make it, but hearing others versions of those recipes, helps to Change things up a bit! Keep them comming! Good luck with Pop's today! I have a cracked tooth too, but I hate the dentist! Someday soon!
Ah Hope, your killing me with the brillo hair story, my hair Always looks best 2-3 days after I wash it, where it goes back into its normal wave. I can go 5-6 days betrayed shampoos, and it never looks yucky, thank God I was blessed with good hair! But the 1st day always looks crummy. I guess I haven't read far enough ahead to read JUDE ' S recipes yet, but I can't wait! Love you all, chat soon!

Sendhelp, never hold back, we All learn from your situations and are all here to try to help one another!
Susan, I lost my Mom at age 74, way too young, and she Loved Life! The very best person I ever knew! I Love ya Mom! I pray your Mom's kidney situation improves quickly! I know how hard this is for you! SMOOCHIES!

Ack back to the dentist in 3 weeks. Needs more fillings and dentist wants a look at a third one. his teeth have been deteriorating quite a bit in the past year either cavities, breaking off. Will have to monitor but he says they do not bother him.
The the nurse talked with me as dads hand tremors are getting worse. I do notice spots on his shirts sometimes. She said hand really shakes when drinking plus his perception is off as he grabs for the glass but doesn't actually grab the glass.
I know he was doing a straw in his glass but still wants to pick up. So another prescription. Then driving back to AL a deer ran out of a cornfield to a cornfield on the other side of the road. Yikes!
Well off to watering and housecleaning. Good thing I have cold wine for later.

Stacey...there is just no other way to describe it. I have seen lots of ads in magazines where ladies have these shortish, curly locks that just look so feminine and soft and flattering, so I went for it....I guess my mistake was I put a LOT of prodoct on there and dried it and then curled it so the curls were really tight and so then I decided to run a brush through it.. BIG mistake....I then needed a pic for it...so finally tweak it to where I could go to the grocery at least and decided, hey...I'll get a new pic for my FB profile...."click"...uh....ok..maybe not........good grief...nope that one won't be seen anytime soon....

Our hospice provider failed to tell me Mama's doctor was coming this morning to check on her...ok, that's just fine...I have been out in the yard again, sweeping the walkways and raking again...on what is supposed to be the hottest day so far this summer....so I wanted all that done...so I come back in, took off my bra, semi melted brillo hairstyle....my eye makeup is running......oh...hello Dr....come right on in....thought maybe I'd missed the call...look at phone..nope, no phone call....ah well, such is the life of a caregiver....

Hope, now that I'm retired and home all day, I usually run around in tights/leggings, and a thin long sleeved T-shirt, my uniform, and is also my "jammies,", but when I do get dressed in jeans and such to go out, my little Charlie-girl really watches me as that is a clue that We as in She too, or rarely, me alone, and leaving her behind, are leaving the house. If I take my slippers off, she watches me like a hawk. Well anyways she usually comes too. She loves to go in the car or truck, with hubby to bank, drive through, oe grocery store. But if I go out alone there is always someone home. When I do come home she jumps and wiggles and her little heart is running so fast, and she can hardly breath she is so excited to see me, she licks my face off and the only way to calm her down is to say repeatedly, I GOTTA GO GET MY JAMMIES ON, AND TAKE OFF MY SHOES, WHERE S MOMA's SLIPPERS. And I may have only been gone 20 minutes! I fear she will have a heary attack, and she isn't even 2 years old yet, but she is so very attached to me. I Love her to death but this is gonna be hard to find someone to watch her if ever I take a vacation! And if I'm outside without her, the first thing she does is literally bite/pulls off my slippers as if to say, your done now, your in! She's a funny little thing, and is so darn smart. But so tiny. As you can tell, I love this little pup! Gheez, I started all this to say, NOW HOLD YOUR EARS BOY's, I Never wear a Bra, unless I'm going out, and its always the 1st to come off! Lol. In relating to your bra comment. Sorry to ramble on so!

I really want to cut my hair short, like Lady Di short, but hubby hates short hair! But one of these days!

You know... since mom passed I have a huge emptiness I've been trying to fill. Thus all this house renovating and outside sculpting. The problem with all this is no matter how much I try and make things look lovely it all seems to end up one giant mess. Yes, the crown molding looks fabulous but everything else is a MESS. Sh*t everywhere.... tools, ladders, crown molding remnants... then there's the outside mess. sigh me thinks my head is still a giant mess from the last 3 years and it's showing in the house.... all jumbled up. I can't seem to get the vision of mom dying out of my head nor dad... neither can I get the ugliness of my brothers out of my thoughts. All I really want is a hug from my dad and mom and I want so badly to tattle on my brother's...then I see them laying there motionless and it rips me apart. Some days it's just too hard to be strong.

Mom's nurse, you know, the one that said they can't be friendly with their patients family after they pass.... well, she invited me to lunch today. Hmmm...
funny how now I don't really feel like going and don't care.

57, cold wine? Yum!! Is it too early? Nah...

I know that I don't always have a lot to whine about, but I have been in the trenches for a long time, and have cared for and burried 3 parents. Most of my Whines are about having and old man (FIL), living in my home, cranky helpless, thankless, Narcissistic, for 11 year's now, lack of privacy, giving up our best years of our lives, and him aging and declining, and us declining right along with him. I truly know that most of you are really doing the hardest part of Caregiving and I applaud and respect you all so very much! I do love and care about you all, and I'm growing very attached to you as well, but mostly I just appreciate being able to come to a place to b*tch and whine, and share silly stories, and some of you are down right hysterical, and it took me a long time to step my toes in the water here as I used to just read your posts, and sometimes "like" them, but now that I have, I'm so glad and thankful to you all! Have an Awesome Day everybody!

JeanetteB, Cheers! Drink up girl, the mess can wait, you know that well! Just don't wallow if you're that kind of drunk, lol. Really, really all your feelings are valid, it hasn't been that long at all. I think that you are doing amazing, tackling these big projects and keeping busy, that's what it's all about! I never got any time to grieve, as our 3 parents were ill, very ill, and died one after another, all in a 14 months span of time, then I had to push my youngest child, my only daughter, out of the nest, too soon, as she was grieving too and had been so close and instrumental in my Mom's care, so that my FIL could move right in, and there you have it, PASS THE BOTTLE , LOVE! It's what needs to be done! You'll be all right!

haha, no Stace, I'm not a wallower. I am mouthy!!

Women who are as strong as you are give me encouragement to buck up and just keep on keep'n on. 3 parent's lost within that time...then your only daughter... I'd be a flippin mess! Wait... I am a flippin mess, no wait, according to my brother I'm a nut job. meh, I love my nuttiness so there!

Awww Jeannette..I feel for you..and all of you who are still in the throes of having just recently lost someone ....I admire you a lot Jeanette. I can't picture me getting a move on like you are doing..Sometimes I feel like I will just crumple up somewhere for a few months and go into hiding...I can't even imagine.....I know the two days Mama was in respite it kind of reminded me of what is coming one day and it hit me like a ton of bricks....

Maybe you are overdoing it this quickly??? Maybe you're trying so hard to cram "something" into every waking moment that you are wearing yourself out emotionally and physically and as you and I know you will still have to deal with it one day...I am probably not wording this well at all...I just think you have to let yourself feel it, and move and work your way through it...and if you have days where you don't want to do anything..that's what you do..there will be other days where you will feel bouncy and energetic, and on and on...but it is a process for most of us I think...and not the same for anyone....probably the only similarity is that none of it is similar.....Hugs to you...

After dad moved into assisted living I unwound for a month. The unexpected loss of mom, have to sell/give away a household worth of possessions, deal with the worse landlord known to man and all the other stuff you have to handle after a death. Taking dad to day care, getting up twice a night watching when he went to bathroom, then trying respite trying to keep up with the yard and keep up with my landscape clients and then deal with vision problems.
I needed that time just for me. You just have to decompress.

JeanetteB, no, I'm not strong, I'm a big softie, and a very emotional person. What I did/do have, that many don't, is a great husband, 5 fantastic siblings, and 4 great kids, the youngest at the time was 21, my daughter, who I didn't lose, but we, in hindsight nudged her out and into a nearby apartment, too soon after my Mom passed, because my FIL was pushing to move in. We lost my Dad just the year before in May, my MIL the end of July, My Mom was living with my eldest sister, on hospice, and she died the first of September, and October he moved in. In my grief, and having been on autopilot for so long, I wasn't really thinking clearly as to the feelings and the grief my own daughter was dealing with. My Mom and Hailey, my daughter were very close, so I screwed up. Flat out, and she suffered greatly. Hailey and I are extremely close, But she really felt hurt by the way in which we handled it back then. Granted she was 21, had a great paying job with a tech company, she owned a nice car, and we saw to it she had a nice, well furnished Apartment she could afford and at the time, she was excited about moving out, until 3 mo after the fact, she crumbled emotionally and blamed me, and then I fell apart, all the while, holding down my job. We did counseling together and worked our issues pretty quickly as the counselor pointed out, we we all grieving and burying it, and moving many parts and people, way too quickly without dealing with the grief. But that is what so many people do. So that's sorted, and eleven years later, here we are. I am finding, trolling on the AC forums, that I am still, very much Dealing with my grief, but when you Love someone so much, it will always be there me thinks. As 57twin said, you Must take the time to Decompress, and we all do that differently. JeanetteB you take things as they come, understanding that you have suffered a great loss, you miss your parents, and you feel emotionally drained, it all takes time. Do you work outside the home? Are you planning to? Do you have the luxury to stay out of work 8r a period of time? If so, thank goodness! It sounds like you get to retain your parents home? That's cool! So many loose everything taking care of their parents and that sucks. We have been going around and around explaining to my FIL, that he must be so careful not to fall, to use his walker, the hand holds in the bathroom, for if he falls and breaks his hip or shoulder, it's most likely he will end up in a nursing home as we wouldn't be able to care for him. Or many different scenarios, what if his Son, my husband should die before him, then what? I can see his cognitive skills are diminishing, and he is more argumentative, with every conversation. We do have all the nessasary paperwork in order, so that is good. Allrighty kids, I'm off for now, you all take care and be kind to yourselves! SB

After 5 years of being without A CAR, having A CAR has been great for me. The someone in my household is always correcting what I say, or, according to him, I have used the WRONG word. For example, this morning it was: my New Car.
NO NO NO NO, it is not a New Car, it is ten years old! It is new to me! But it is a used car! Instead of walking away, or getting into MY PREVIOUSLY OWNED VEHICLE, mistakenly engaged the enemy in his game of semantics. Ending up singing: Leslie Gore: don't tell me what to do, don't tell me what to say!!!!
Guess I should stop trying to have a better day, or be so wise as to understand his illness makes him that way. Sorry, I have my own issues with communication, after some T.I.A.'s, I block words, sometimes it is worse. Usually, not bragging, but I can do 'interpretive communication' which means sometimes with enough information, I can figure out what 'someone' means.
If a person has a diagnosis, but mimics the exact sx. of schizophrenia at times, then I confess, I get concerned for him. If he went to a psychiatrist as before, he would end up on an antipsychotic and literally "disappear" as a person. I make adjustments, try to decrease stress in the home, understand that he too gets overwhelmed. But, please, please, don't make me use your words!!! I am truly struggling here with no one to talk to. But, I do find all of you so very supportive.

So, then, it is time to step back. Fortunately, it is ok to leave him home for awhile, and try to understand I am not a part of his life.

Sendhelp, bring it sweetie, that's what we are here for! I'm so sorry that things are rough right now, it is so difficult when they get all riled up! Yes, drive away for a while in your NEW Previously Owned Vehicle! Yea! You got a car, that's Awesome! I'm sure that it will make your life so much easier! Old F'ers really suck sometimes! I've been dealing with the old fart today, all about ALL THAT MONEY, he's gonna leave his son, my hubby. But it's not that much, and will be gone in a snap, should something happen to him, it's very hard to get through to him sometimes! He just loves to dangled that carrot! Can you zay Narcissist? I hope your day improves with a spin around he block! Drive safe though! Sincerely, Stacey B

Send help.. it IS your new car, it;s new to you and maybe he is just jealous!
Stacy I love your profile pix! Is that a chi? I have a 5 lb grand dog that I adore, and have half the week.. my mom loves her to death also. Thank goodness my daughter shares her or I would have to steal her.
.. My whine today is sort of funny.. or not.. I went to the Dr to have some "interesting" spots looked at, and frozen off as it turned out. While I was sitting and waiting in the exam room I looked at the posters... Ostioarthritis... yep. Nasal alergies... yep on that too... COPD.. pretty sure I have Chronic Bronchitis.. body mass index.. yep, I am officaily obese according to that ( pleasantly plump I say) and THEN.. type 2 diabetes... Not looking at that one.. it may be next! I am officially OLD!!!

Pam you are only as old as you feel not 'cause some fresh faced doc say" these things happen as we age"

To all those who are still here after your loved one has passed you are all great friends and would be really missed if you left. love to hear how everyone is getting on. Some people just do not want to be reminded of their darkest hour and others want to continue the friendship they made.

Jeanette the nurses grieve too and need time to get their feelings in order. That nurse is now ready to see you and really does want you to go to lunch so just go.
Many times I have cried all the way home after a death but quickly have to wash my face and be ready to go out again.

Jude sausage rolls sound wonderful but we can't get real English bangers and Italian sausage is not the same. The other problem is the flour, it does not like English recipes. I have always been a good cook and early on invited a neighbor for tea with her little ones to play with mine. The scones did not rise and the pastry on the jam tarts was just horrible. Total disaster. Anything with yeast works well and the girls at work always looked forward to my treat day.

I sometimes mix a can of baked beans in with the ground beef for Sheperd's pie to make it go further.. I still can do the rich fruit cake for Christmas and the plum pudding which we ceremoniasly set lite with brandy.