This seems to be a question that is not asked enough or we think what we are feeling is not as important as what our loved one is going through. This job we have taken on is a tough one and there are days when I think my "stress rope" cannot be pulled any tighter. Then there are other times that make those bad days just a memory. Do you feel like banging your head against a wall one day? And then the next day your loved one is attentive and loving and comprehends whatever you say? There are some who keep those feelings bottled up within themselves; others take the time for outside resources and others who look at sites such as this for some understanding. I do better when I have someone else to bounce my feelings off of. Let's face it....we aren't superhuman and besides ourselves and perhaps a family to take care of we now have taken on the responsibility of another human who is incapable of taking care of themselves. Do you breeze through the care giving without a problem? If so, I would like to know how you do it, maybe you can offer some new ideas; do you have feelings of frustration and need to talk about those? Come and talk and know that you can speak freely and without judgement and without finger pointing.
I am caring for my mother-in-law and have been for about 1 1/2 years. She has moderate dementia and incontinence. Other than that she is very healthy. Sometimes that short amount of time feels like 10 years and I wonder how long I will be able to do this job. I get so very tired of hearing the same thing day in and day out, but I have to remind myself that to her, each time she sees me, she is offering new information. At times I have no problems communicating with her, but it seems like more and more she cannot retain a thought longer than 5 minutes. We have had to make signs for her so she will know what she can and cannot do. So far it's working, but for how long? Maybe I will have to end up making her a "Book of Do Nots". She is on memory drugs, which don't seem to make a difference. So why do I continue to dole them out to her? I guess I'm afraid of what might happen or how she might act without them. I might have to rent a boat or buy a helmet! Sometimes I see something in her that leads me to believe that she could get aggressive and what would be my reaction to that? At the end of each and every day, after she is tucked into bed, I breathe such a sigh of relief. The "inner beast" is quiet at last, or at least for a few hours.
Pull up a chair and visit........I would like to know how you are coping everyday..be it good or with handfuls of stress.
And she is 91 ! We are seeing more and more dil's doing what you are doing... and how awesome hubby helps....you have your hands full lady!!! And good on you for house training Muttly!!! You have a lot more patience than I do.... and doing your chairs too.... guess keeping busy keeps you from letting it all overwhelm you.... and thank you for filling me in on Parkinson's . Will do more reading on this.
Well, job search not getting any results yet... so I may be at some of your doorsteps with a sign... 'Will work for food'.....get so tired of starting over again....but it is what it is....
Hope everyone finds one thing to be grateful for today....lots of hugs and chocolate...
And on that note... I am giving myself permission to feel sorry for myself today.... so as a group now.... 1......2.....3..... POOR LADEE !!!!!!
Thank you all in advance...love and hugs
Just done alot of research on the dementias and with parkinsons it happens wuite late in the disease. it affects, memory,attention, judgement and the ability to complete a task. if an autopsy is done change similar to ALZ may be found including Lewy bodies.
Just for you Ladee when you do your reading you will find the ALZ society identifies 12 different dementias. The only real differences are in the age at which they start, the underlying disease, the length of time between first symptom and death and possible treatment. the only possibly treateble one is that cauzed by alcohism which can be treated by the administration of Thiamine. i think with your specialize experienced Ladee you could take on the care of any demented patient. the only difference would be for the care of the underlying disease which again would be similar. My only advice would be with your infirmaties to avoid an overweight patient. I found it all very interesting and very informative. i guess i have been exposed to such patients but certainly had never had that included in any kind of training. I was also certified as a hospice and palliative care nurse and the exams for that did not address it either. Anyone else who is interested in more research will find that if Drs do their homework they should be able to recognize changes in their patients earlier than they do and be able better to support the care givers. the thing I took away from all this is that all seniors show some of these signs at times, like leaving the stove on, forgetting some one's name, not remembering if the black or green wire is the ground and forgetting the way somewhere. It is only when grandma frequently takes the same route and gets half way there and calls you every time to ask which street the Dr's office on that there is cause for concern. Ocassionaly you don't have dementia, everytime get thee to the Dr. but first read up on it so he does not blow you off.
Book, my dad has issues with getting frequent bladder infections, too. What I learned is that when they are really sedentary, and they have catheter, the urine can't flow away out of organs like its supposed to. So the urine stays inside them and pools since the catheter isn't aiming directly down… because they're laying down… make sense? My dad's docs just told me (and him) to expect frequent infections if he's sedentary. My dad COULD at least get up more, he just likes to spend every single day in bed. Sigh. But sorry to hear your dad is having these other issues, too, and being bullheaded about it. Sounds very much like my dad. Except my dad won't swing on me. He knows better. : ) I'm not a hitter, but I have hit my father after he's thrown things at me or hit me, and for better or worse, he's stopped coming at me like that… so in my case (definitely NOT advising for everyone), teaching my father that I will retaliate if he gets physical with me has totally changed how combative he gets with me these days. He avoids altercation with me and I'm grateful for that at least.
LadeeM, I might be on the street with you with the "work for food" sign. Yes, I'm job/apartment hunting in Chicago, but I'm selecting location by default. I'm already here. Its only choice I can make to start, I think, financially speaking. And if I don't really make serious moves to extract myself from living/caregiving to dad, nothing will change here. I've also ran into overload of old hurts, old resentment issues that you and others warned me I would. I think I dealt with it all pretty well but like I said on DYS thread, it came to a point in past few months where I was having thoughts of hurting my dad… or me… so something, somewhere has to change. I cannot stay in a situation where I'm acting, basically, as slave to/for a father that abandoned me and molested me. It just hurts too much. Time to go. But the reality is I have no freaking clue where I'm going to go to in any "longterm" way. Just have to start somewhere. Good luck with your own job search, hope you find a really great situation.
Snow is melting here today. : ) That's nice to see. My bday is Friday, supposed to be above freezing all week. I like to think Mother Nature sent me a little bday gift. (((hugs)))
Thats not really accurate. It would be more accurate to say that there were 2 distinct occasions in past several years where my father, who has no form of dementia, has threatened to "hurt me" (his words) and he has physically come after me. I responded on 2 occasions with over the top physical action towards him… not so much actually physically hitting him.
The best way I can describe it is a scenario of 2 dogs - the bigger dog growls at the smaller dog, expecting to get its way. The small dog becomes more aggressive and says, in so many words, "bring it on, I'm not backing down here, and I'm ready if you want to fight." I don't know… this approach seems to have gotten through to my father that I won't tolerate his little tantrums that are physical against me. If he wants to go in his room, slam some doors, that's all fine. I won't be physically abused.
Ok, just wanted to add some words. I felt like I somehow advocated using physical violence against elders, and I don't care how ornery they are, I would never advocate that. I guess somehow I knew instinctively I needed to shut down that tendency my father has to flare out of control on certain occasion when he's huffy. And for me, in my situation, I do seem to have gained a handle on it.
I hope everyone has a better tomorrow if today was just so-so.
ABB, my eyes actually widened when I read your earlier post. Then when you followed with a detailed express, I giggled. Giggled in that I always TRY to re-read my words to make sure that when others read it, there's no mistaken impression. Proofread. I know what you mean. That's how I am with father. He dishes it to me, and I am very disrespectful back to him. Whereas oldest sis - she takes his abuse without fighting back. So, I guess that's why he's verbally worse to her than to me.
Backtrack. Yesterday morning, I told father that he needs to call the doctor or the nurse about his bleeding bedsore and the blood in his urine. I also told oldest sis before I left for work in the morning. Sis just shrugged me off as I tried to tell her what to do. So, I left a bit angry. I came home after work, at 7pm. I asked Dad if he spoke to the nurse and/or the doctor. THEY didn't.
So, today, I see his bedsore worsening. This time, the pus. I was angry, and while changing his pamper, my mouth went on and on. I figured Dad's desire to NOT have any medical intervention needed a bit of a scare. He says he's not afraid of dying but his actions (herbal pills) contradict this. So, I Described to him how his sore is bleeding and now pus. And that it's widening, etc... I then took the gauze out of the trash to show him the filthy gross thick brownish pus on it. He just stared at the gauze. I then proceeded to tell him that if we don't treat this sore, it will become Infected and Might turn Gangrene. If it turns gangrene, they will have to cut part of his butt - like they do with the diabetics here on island. (My father insists that our doctors like to cut off diabetic people's limbs instead of trying to save it.) I went on and on.
By the time I was done changing his pamper, he wanted to call the doctor. He wanted me to prepare the lifter blanket so that when the medical transport comes, all they have to do is use the lifter to transfer him from the bed to the gurney. Whew!!!
I came home today at 6pm. He is very angry and verbally abusive to oldest sis. I kept telling him "Enough!" And then he kept telling me that sis did not feed the 2 girls. He kept pointing to the wall where the 2 girls are. I looked at the wall and ther is nobody there. For about 15 minutes, he kept insisting that I feed the 2 girls because they haven't eat since this morning. I tried telling him that they're not hungry, etc.. After a while, he asked me where did they go? I said that they went to eat in the kitchen. (Just in case he sees them again, he will not try to get me to feed them.) He's hallucinating. He has UTI. His appointment is tomorrow at 2pm. and we will be paying the medical transport $400.00 for this trip to the clinic. Medicare did not pay for his ambulance to the the hospital last year when he ended up staying 2 weeks with pneumonia. His secondary insurance did not pay for it, either. So, father will be paying the $400.00 ambulance service..... Time to go and change his pampers.
Good luck with your job/house hunt..... try to look at is as a new beginning.. try to have some adventure in your soul as you start on this next step in your journey.... so much of our lives is spent 'between our ears', and how we perceive it and what we choose to hold on to..... you are worth the energy to have a new beginning.... let us know what you find..hugs to you 'adopted daughter'.....
welcome Taheil..... hope you come back and join us.... this place is a life saver and we actually laugh here too...
May have a job working nights.... that's ok, I am tired of the daily drama.... seems my pay is shrinking, but that's ok too.... as long as my needs are met.... I'm ok.... so hope this is not a long drawn out job search and this will work out....
So, need to get going and see what adventures I can find today..... I have put off going to the Laundromat for so long, well, last pair of panties and all that.... so will get that over with this morning..... will call the lady back and about the job and will hope this is the one... if not, then something else.....
Love and hugs, ttyl
PC, get on the ball about that Vicodin...and let the family know by all means, what is going on.... drugs laying around is not a good thing... and even the family knows that..... are you going to talk to her yourself about leaving things undone????? I'd have to tell her all that stuff would be waiting for her next shift...I'm so tired of being a paid caregiver!!!!!!! so much damned work and no voice...... sure hope the family lets you know they value your concerns about the drug...... that is not a good sign..... let us know what happens.... sending you hugs...