I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
my son and i make as good of chilidogs as you can get but then theres still the issue of the apple core hor . oughtta pull a gallagher on her -- sit her down to a big old turnip or something then dissipate it with a 10 lb wooden mallet .
then theres her son who doesnt like cheese . i call BS on that one . you dont feed that sob for about ten days and hed eat cheese plastic wrapping and all ..
To get real benefit from irrigaating a catheter it does need to be done once or twice daily and the proper cleanliness proceedures followed. But ask the nurse when she comes. She may just have thought you would not want to do it. It is no more difficult than emptying the bag. If the urine is thick or bloody irrigating helps keep the catheter clear so it does not need changing more than the usual 6 weeks which Mom may appreciate. Some older (and younger) women do find the process distressing.
Then I thought - how did the delivery driver know he'd got the right house? And what if he hadn't, and he'd just left them? Imagine getting home to that lot unawares… :D
Captain, if you do go to Chicago and get sick of the vegetarian food, you can always go to the Billy Goat Cafe and fill up on cheeseburgers...or some Chicago Dogs.
I hope everyone has a better day today. Day at a time....
Yes Jessie, this is the "funner" side of caregiving. She has kicked my a** this week though. She had her monthly doc apt on Friday. He suggested doubling her Resperidone on the nights she walks for hours. Really? Waahhh... the other night during her marathon I made her watch hours of youtube... my favorite songs!! LOL. Much to my distress it didn't work. haha, I went to tickle her ribs yesterday... way down.... grabbed a tiny handful of a boobie and about fell over laughing.
Least her teeth are back in and she's eating like a mule. I've about run out of things to put in the damn blender!
Jessie... sorry but you do know she will only get worse (crazier) right? Don't be alarmed when she starts talking to the wall, tv, mirror reflection and of course NO ONE... oh wait, when she shuffles so close to you and stands in place shuffling, just looking at you. My mind goes numb and I have zero clue what to say....
If you really think about it, being on here is still caregiving. It is just the more fun side of it. I just thought about this. You guys are a definite benefit of caregiving.
getting easier every day to see why im single , eh ?
i aint goin to chicago nohow . it was colder up there 3 weeks ago than it was on the surface of mars .
Me thinks I need a very long stay somewhere nice and quiet.
It is so cold here tonight and I am going to put my feet up and get me a good hot cup of coffee. maybe have a bite of my aunts homemade fruit cake... :)
looloo, wonder when will it be our turn to once again live *independently*? I know if my parent had moved to that wonderful retirement village they would have MORE freedom because they wouldn't be needing to wait for my schedule to open up to take them here or there... we would actually have MORE us time as a family, instead of running errands.
I too am having a rough day but it is with persistent bladder spasms and leaks into the briefs despite the catheter. I have heard that catheters can sometimes cause bladder spazms. Doctor won't prescribe anything for the spasms as he says it could mess with the fluid retention, and if it keeps up I should take Mom to a urologist....that is so very hard to do with a bedridden person. More specialists...really!!??? Ugh. Tired.
sorry , i cant comment much on the superbowl game . i have no idea what those maniacs are screaming about , i just wish i had a fraction of that kind of energy .
id swim to turkey and get me some medicinal skag ..
The whine is that some people keep comming back asking the same questions day after day and then they are gone in a puff of smoke and people are left with the feeling they have wasted their time and energy trying to help people who never wanted it in the first place. the other problem is there are what are called 'Trolls' these are people who come on with a story about an imaginary situation and just sit home adding more and more details to amuse themselves. eventually they trip themselves up and get called out and they too leave but again they may return with another identity. one one ocassion someone came on pretending her father had married her late mother's best friend to get their money. this woman was very close to the wife and even took the ife to all her treatments.I think she was actually a cousin. Some months later the same story appeared from Australia and I wrote and asked if this was the same cousin who had taken Mom for her treatments. Instane disappearance! None of the regulars will call anyone out for wasting time, it is just that everyone learns from all the questions and comments and it is very satisfying to know how something worked out for another poster. This is a very caring site and many good friends are made. people do sincerely worry about someone who is in great distress and we have no way of contacting others directly.
Jessie helmets are now available in custom colors and patterns so you should trade in your original with the zigzag patterns because they are said to promote further disorientation in the parent with dementia.
The short time I've been here, I've seen that happen. Sometimes, "regulars" call them to the carpet for that.
This site is a sanctuary of sorts - a place to vent and express frustrations. I would like to think that even though some don't give us an update or do things members have suggested...it still is a seed that gets planted and perhaps later, they will act upon the exceptionally good advice found here. If nothing else, this site gave them a brief and safe respite.
I started keeping a timesheet several months ago, tracking everything that I do for my mother. At the very least, I handle her mail 6 days a week. But there's always several more items that need to be addressed most days, and there is always a "fire" or two that needs to be put out. This is all so that she can continue to live "independently." If she were in an AL facility, it would cost much more, but she and my father saved and she has long term care insurance, and I was under the impression that this was what the money should be used for--her care. I'm going to a heck of a lot of effort handling everything for her, and she had the nerve to say to me that I'm only interested in her money. Ex-CUSE ME?????? Yes, she has dementia, but she's still a mean person.
Mom is going to visit a new doctor -- an ENT -- tomorrow. I had to fill out all the paperwork this afternoon. Page after page after page of it. Then I had to get her to sign in all the right places. THAT was a challenge. The bad part is it asked her why she made the appointment and she didn't know. She asked me why she made it, and I certainly didn't know. Really, I think it's just the wintertime hypochondria thing she goes through. She calls my doctor cousin so he'll make her an appointment with someone. That way she gets around me.
Then Dad and I talked about Mom's hearing aids. Dad said "why didn't the previous hearing aid doctor give Mom two hearing aids, Mom wanted one for both ears". I said: "Dad, that doctor tried two hearing aids on Mom and Mom didn't like it"..... Right there is the reason why I need to go to the appts with them, Dad didn't recall that happening.... [sigh]
I tell her prior to her nap that when she gets up, she needs to get in the shower. Result? She sleeps like a rock for about 2 hours, giving me some much needed quiet time to work, listen to music or whatever I want on TV, do housework without interruption, etc.
Funny. Must be some sort of subconscious things - she knows subconsciously that she has to take a shower when she gets up from her nap, and she doesn't want to, so she just stays asleep as long as possible. LOL
gotta figure it out on my own . docs are half my age and often just hark jibberish . maybe i need a japanese bucket seat . they are lumbar adjustable . this chevy seat is dinosaur crap by comparison .
Now next week I am going to have something called a Transforaminal epidural steroid injection. they can also use an electric shock machine that temporally kills the nerve although it will regenerate over time. It is done in a specialty pain clinic just with sedation. It may be the same sedation they use for colonoscopy so you may choose to forgo that. Personally I think it is the colonoscopy prep that poisons you . That PEG is the same stuff they use in anti freeze and whatever they tell you a small amount is absorbed from the gut. There is actually an FDA watch on the stuff at present. Anyway back to the injections they have you lie face down on an x-ray table and then they take a guess at which nerves are causing your pain and insert a needle under X-ray then insert a little die to again check the position. Then they stimulate the nerve just for a second if they have hit your nerve they then numb the area and then inject local anesthetic and a steroid. The idea is to reduce the inflamation on the nerve where it comes out of the vertibrae which it does through a small hole in the side. I am told there may be some discomfort for several days then the pain will go away. It can last for weeks months years or forever but they can repeat the treatment as often as needed. If you fancy this maybe the VA will do it. They must have to deal with a lot of pain.
I am haveing my first one on Feb 11th so will let you know what I think. I do have a fairly high pain threshold so I am sure you do too.
There are lidocain patches you can put on the painful site. They are prescription but not havit forming as the local is just absorbed through the skin. You are right to be wary of pain meds with your liver. I am sure you have put heat and cold pads on it. If you don't have a heat pad you can nuke a bag of rice and this stay hot for quite a while. Doubt you have the option of a long hot bath in the bunker. I don't know if you can still buy Kaolin but spreading that on a cloth and heating it up can help too. In the good old days we used to heat up what was called a Kaolin poltice and put it on the chests of patients with pneumonia. Antibiotics in those days were limited to injectible pennicillin so you see it was in the dark ages. We heated the wards in those days with coal fires before they were banned in london because of the smog. I remember one night sitting in front of the fire with a child on my knee who had just had her tonsills removed and had a dreadful earache. I had a pad of cotton wool and kept heating by the fire and holding it to her ear. Long time ago now but sometimes the old ways work along with the new.