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.
Wow who'd have thought Dad was wearing a snake skin!!!!!
I'm feeling guilty for having my little pity party. It's nothing, compared to what you deal with.
My brother pretty much dissed me in an email for having the audacity to complain about caring for my mom for three years without any help from him.
I'm glad it's just him I'm dealing with and not yucky bedsores. I know your sibs have left all this on your plate alone. I just want to kick their butts for you. And my brother's. They just don't get it, or get away with it by burying their heads in the sand. That's not honorable or fair. Not at all. Hugs to you.
Yesterday, the antibiotic wouldn't flow. So, the nurse disconnected it, pulled out the IV needle in his arm, and brought the tech who does this is a living - sticking needles into you. The tech took a while trying to find a good vein on both of my dad's hands. She finally found one. Inserted it in. And now the antibiotic is flowing. Thank goodness tomorrow is Monday. Let oldest sis get the darn lectures!!!
She mentioned his fingernails needs to be cut. I looked at her and said let oldest sis do that. I'm already doing all the gross stuff -changing pampers, cleaning off his dead skin and now digging into his sore. It's just too much to now add cutting fingernails to MY duties. Thank goodness tomorrow is work!!!!
Book, maybe it is time for a break for you. Do they know what kind of infection it is? MRSA is gown and glove stuff even for visitors at the hospital.
Oh, by the way, the nurse decided not to scrape his skin with peroxide. I'M to do it tonight, also. sigh..... I do believe she is slowly Training me to do the yucky stuff. So in the end, I'm doing it without their help. sigh.... big girl panty stuff and all that. Except if I wore a big girl panty, it would just fall down to the ground. It's 330pm. I'm going to take a nap. Just the thought of all that stuff to do tonight. I'd much rather clean his dead skin than to clean his hole. {whispering....Glad... his hole IS going in deep. really really gross to even just LOOK at it. And now, I'm going to clean the inside???? Been getting chest pains and heart palps. Too much stress hitting me everywhere.}
So, yah .. I do this caregiving thing as my vocation .. and I'm ***SO*** not doing deep wound care (just reading about it is making me nauseous .. ugh). Thank god for home health care visits.
Have you considered getting a variable pressure air mattress topper for your dad's bed? Cost is considerably less expensive than a doctor's visit at around $60-70 on amazon. SO worth it. Edna can't stand sleeping on her side, at all. Would call me every 5 minutes to roll her, if I tried. It's been a godsend to us.
I will go search Amazon now. Tomorrow, when I go back to work, I will be looking for the cheapest airline ticket for baby bro to fly from VA back home for about a month stay. He wants to be here for mom's 1st anniversary of her death. The airline quoted him a $2300-some airfare. I'm going to check Amazon for the air mattress and just mail it to him. He can either mail it to us or handcarry here.
FYI, father does have an air mattress. The only seller here on island sells lousy ones. Mom's original air mattress was perfect. Then when I bought her 2nd one and dad's - the air mattress inflates this bubble on all the surfaces. It does NOT deflate. It just stays inflated. So, mom had these ball shape marks all over back. What I did was poked some safety pin holes on her air mattress to Soften the bubble. Father has the same one, and his back had those markings too. So, he turned it off. I will go shopping online. Thanks for reminding me - and such perfect timing. =)
I wouldn't be a nurse for millions. Bleh!
Our neighbors, Rhonda and Bobby are great. Atm, their daughter, Sarah, her husband and their 3 kids are staying with them. Unfortunately, their damn cat is staying, too. He isn't allowed in R & B's house unless he's in a crate, so he's mostly out 24/7...and when he's out, he's over here. **SCREAMS**
We have 3 cats. Our fat cat, Fuzz, who's a house cat, and our two indoor/outdoor cats Willy and Wisp. Ming, Sarah's cat, is also a male and very vocal. The little bastard never shuts up. He meows and yowls almost constantly, which is a royal pain in the ass since he's at our house all the time and we get to listen to it all day every day. He's getting along better with Willy now, but I've had to break up many a cat fight where it sounded like someone was freaking getting murdered right outside our window. It's like there's no peace around here with this cat hanging around all the time. He's never at home.
I keep cat food and water inside our sun room, right up against the wall close to the house. Ming comes and eats our cats food every day. The yowling, the cat fights, eating our cats food is bad enough, but now he's started to SPRAY the inside of our sun room! The stench is ungodly. I know it's not Willy because Willy is totally dominated by Fuzz and won't spray in an alpha cats territory. Ming has no such hesitations. I'm frankly sick of the sight of this cat at our house every damn day. The spraying was the last straw. I now throw glasses of water at the little shit every single time I see him, which is at least a couple dozen times a day. I'm not even kidding. Nothing works. He just keeps coming back here. I can't stay up 24/7 either. I keep the sun room door cracked for our two cats so they can have shelter out there. Having Ming in our sun room all the time is like having him in our HOUSE. He's not just spraying the sun room, he's spraying the front porch, too. It sucks because I have to deal with that ungodly stench every time I want to sit on the porch. I don't want this damn cat over here anymore, but I have no clue how to broach this subject. All of the family next door is really nice and I feel like a b**** even thinking about mentioning it. I did tell Rhonda some of it, but not sure what she can do. They can't keep the little bastard in a crate all day every day, but when they let him out he makes a bee line for our house. He hangs our here all day, every day and just won't LEAVE no matter what the hell we do, or how many times we chase him off. I'm thinking fire crackers next to scare the shit out of him. Other than killing him I am clueless how to get rid of him.
Can anyone give me any ideas? Is there something else I can do to discourage this devil cat from treating our house as his own?
Sorry, I know this has nothing to do with care giving, but I'm at a total loss and this has become a HUGE problem. I get tired of waking up in the morning to this cat yowling outside my window. He even sits on our window sills yowling. All 3 of us, Sean and Dylan included, spend half our damn days and nights chasing this cat off! I get up sometimes at 2-3 a.m, and there's Ming, asleep in the sun room in our cats bed while they sleep on the floor! It's like this horrible cat has completely taken over around here. What the hell can I do about it?
Ming has marked his territory. Your place is now HIS territory. Splaying is marking HIS territory. You will need to take it back from him. The question is, can your 2 in/outdoor cats handle being inside the house for a while? While they're kept inside, you can then concentrate on getting rid of Ming.
1. Don't let him get your cats' food. When they're not around, keep the dish empty. Stop Providing Food for Him to Eat.
2. Lock up the Sun room, or seal it up so that he can't come in and make it his other home.
3. My niece, who works in a pet shop, mentioned this to me - Cat repellent. We have lots of strays around our house.
4. Add citrus - Most cats don't like the scent of citrus fruit and will avoid it. Try placing orange and lemon peels around the outside of your home. There are also cat sprays that are infused with citrus oils, which can help to keep cats away from your house. Others say that Coffee grounds work to repel cats. Some also suggested lavender oil, lemon grass oil, citronella oil, eucalyptus oil and mustard oil. If the normal citrus smells don't work, then try the lemon-scented Mr. Clean.
5. Eliminate urine scent - or the cats will return to refresh the scent. The scent of cat urine is horrid. Stop them from spraying by cleaning up their scent as soon as possible. Wash the surface down with bleach water and then cover it with an enzyme-based urine odor remover.
6. Spay your female cats.
And yeah, Willy and Wisp are going to be fixed as soon as the land deal closes, which should be around the 28th of this month. They're brother and sister and are still very young cats, about 6-7 months old. I don't think Wisp has gone into heat yet, at least she isn't showing signs of it at all. I hope she doesn't either. Maybe it's too cold yet, I don't know...
I've decided to feed our cats canned food twice a day and only put down enough dry food that they can eat within a half hour. After that, it comes up. Maybe that will help. Sarah did mention the other day that they've cut Ming's food since he was getting too fat.
And V, I agree. We've always spayed/neutered all our pets. Ming needs to be snipped, too, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, there is some good news! Just found out Sarah and her husband have now closed on a new house! They'll be moving sometime in March! :D That means the little pain in the ass goes with them! Yay! That made my day. Good riddance! I just hope they have understanding neighbors... They'll need them. lol
Thanks you guys! :)
book, I could do the wound care... have had to do some pretty disgusting wound care... it's your dad running his mouth all the time that would send me over the edge...just such a shame that he is so stubborn and selfish that he makes thing ten times harder than it needs to be...so ya, delegate some of that mess to others... glad to hear your fav bro will be there soon..... a good break for you..... just to get to visit with him.....
I'm going to go set outside and have a cup of coffee and pretend I am normal... hugs to everyone..
Tell next door family what he's doing. I realise this is temporary but even so they shouldn't expect you to put up with it and if they're good cat owners they won't. Ming will have to go to a cattery for the duration of their stay if they can't make him behave.
Or you could get a dog. Of your own, I mean. You buy a puppy who is small enough for the resident cats to boss around. They will bond. The cats, before long, will discover how useful a dog can be (taking the blame, providing squidgy warm tummy for kneading, chasing alien cats from the garden) and forgive their regrettable but minor drawbacks (noise, especially when eating; pathetic tail control skills; cold wet nose up the bottom never what you want first thing in the morning before breakfast). On the other hand, Orientals and dogs get on just fine - this may not have the result you want.
If you're wondering how to broach this again with the daughter, next time Ming appears, keep him (in your own roomy cat carrier, if you have one, otherwise nip round and borrow theirs). Let them know you've got him. DON'T feed him, just water. Tell them to come and collect him. Repeat. They'll get the message.