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.
Unfortunately, people forget about them and their tremendous struggles propping up their loved one, let us all make an effort to ALL the caregivers we know to remember them and ask them how they are doing.
Even strangers, in obvious caregiving roles, respond to this question and it makes their day a little brighter, speaking from my own personal experiences.
May The Lord touch each of you that are still in the role and give you strength to finish the walk you are on. Great big warm hug from one that has finished and knows the trials you are facing.
Believe me when I say that I can totally relate to your feelings.
One time a friend of mine who was very fond of my mom asked me how she was. I responded by saying, ‘I am fine.’
My friend didn’t catch the hint and asked me again. “How is your mom doing?” So, I said, ‘I am fine but a little tired.’
She still didn’t get the picture! So she said in a rather annoyed tone, “I asked you how your mother was!”
I said, ‘I know exactly what you asked me, it’s the same question that you always ask me. You totally missed my point that I was making! Then you want to discuss my mother the whole time that we are together. For a change, I am telling you how I am doing whether you asked me about my mother or not.’
So, instead of saying or feeling that sometimes she should ask how ‘I’ am doing, she says to me, “That’s a lovely blouse that you are wearing.” I realized that she was totally dense and gave up on being facetious to get my point across. I guess she thought that a compliment would square things away or make me feel better.
Perhaps, I was wrong in being a smart a**, but I was sick of my friend not asking how I was doing. She never did take the hint and ask me how I was.
My friend is sort of nosey and enjoys hearing sad stories. I needed a break instead of focusing on my mom while I was out of the house for a while.
She is also the type of person who likes to one up a person. Her mom died in her 70’s and didn’t live with her. She had a heart attack and died suddenly. It wasn’t a long drawn out thing. My mom was in her 90’s, with Parkinson’s disease and lived with us!
From then on when she asked me how my mother was I said to her, “Mom is in her 90’s, has Parkinson’s disease and she is never going to improve. I came to meet you for coffee because I desperately need a break and I don’t want to talk about my mom. I love her but I just need to have time away to talk about anything other than my mom. I know that you mean well but please stop asking me about her. I will tell you news when I feel like discussing it.’
I don’t know about you but I would get horribly depressed when people only wanted to discuss talking about my mother. I started meeting with other friends who understood that I needed a break. People that I could relax with, laugh about things and talk about other things in life.
That statement annoys the hell out of me. I always respond, no, God Bless the caregivers and their daughters for keeping them going at this point because let’s face it without good care and advocates they’d be dead already. My statement is usually met with silence because no one knows how to respond to that.
Just one of my pet peeves that just rub me the wrong way. Just wish I wasn’t so angry.
I tell people “After years of trying I learned that I cannot make her happy. But I found an excellent care home and she is safe.”
So very often, caregivers feel invisible. I know that I did when I was a caregiver for my mom.
The majority of people asked about mom, which I completely understand. All but a few people failed to ask me how I was holding up. This is something that I vividly remember discussing with my therapist because it caused me to be depressed.
One positive thing that came from this experience though, is that I always ask how the caregiver is doing when I inquire about their loved one.
I honestly don’t think people realize how emotionally difficult that it becomes for caregivers. They automatically think about the person who is in need of care, usually without giving a second thought for the caregivers.
When they experience caregiving themselves, then it sinks in.
That is so similar to what I resorted to saying to family who were stating that elderly LO was not happy .
I used to say “ He’s getting the care he needs “.
LeighAT,
I get wanting to say “ go visit and see for yourself “. The roller coaster is exhausting . No guilt, you need to take care of yourself .
Mom’s been on my plate since dad died almost….8 years ago. This holiday/Christmas season she got aspiration pneumonia, was about to go on hospice and then after the holidays passed, bounced back! I truly thought she was starting to go. The doctor ( who I think is great ) told me she could keep going for a looooong time. I walked into my bathroom and wailed! A) some holiday B) Enough already!
When people ask me how mom is doing, I think what you wrote, but the out loud answer that works for me is, “ Mom is well taken care of. “ This answers the question truthfully and the line of inquiry almost always drops after that. No way am I going to do some fake happy song and dance and say what most folks want to hear. I just can’t. And it’s not a really rude answer either.
Best to you! And everybody here!
LOL 😆 I am not interested in visiting Antarctica at any time of the year.
Now that she has declined so much cognitively, I have stopped going to see her as much. Which makes me feel terribly guilty. She was showing signs of transitioning and actively dying over Christmas, so for days I was bedside, professing my undying love and support, crying, etc. Now she's perked up a bit, but is so heavily medicated that she just stares at me like I'm crazy. So I'm just exhausted from all the ups and downs. When someone asks how she's doing, it reminds me that I didn't go see her today, so I start feeling guilty all over again. I want off this roller coaster!!!!
Below freezing for the next 7 days.🥶🧤
Why oh why can't the NH inform me about basic things without my having to call? They never call me back. An email every month stating activities and when the podiatrist is coming... not specific to my mother's care, something that can go out to family members who are interested. The NH doesn't have a web portal or site where this stuff is listed... I really want to find another place for her, but she won't be happy anywhere. But I will have peace of mind knowing what's going on with her care...
My mother refuses the outside care (there's a service that provides hearing, vision, dental and podiatry, for which she pays an insurance premium. They come about once a quarter). The NH shouldn't ask her, just tell her. "The podiatrist is coming today, he'll be with you in an hour." The NH told me that if she continues to refuse service, they will take her off the client list permanently. Why she refuses I don't know, NH says she says she's busy. Of course I get a completely different story from her. Busy with WHAT is what I want to know?? Watching the TV that she can't hear because she doesn't "have the time" to see the audiologist? Yeesh!
Not asking for suggestions, just venting. Whew, that felt good, thanks. Now, back to work!!
On top of all that, he is bad-tempered, and it took me over 40 years to realize he is an abuser, not a beat-you-up abuser, but an abuser nonetheless. My daughter wants me to leave him, but we don't have the money to support 2 households, and he is made himself so helpless, that he would require assisted living. I haven't worked in almost 50 years, and any job I got wouldn't pay enough to keep him in assisted living and me somewhere else. Besides, I live in a cold, snowy climate and I would not be able to go out to a job on many days in the winter. I have no confidence in my abilities, anyway, and I have a lot of fears. I pray every day that God would take one of us, and at this point, I'm ready to go. Nothing matters to me any more except my children and grandchildren. I don't expect a solution, because I realize that I don't have the courage to step out and change, so here I am. I just needed to whine.
We just got a Critical Alert to reduce electricity use to essentIal. The Grid system is under stress due to overuse b/c of the cold weather and could go into rotating outages.
Thank goodness I bought extra flashlight batteries.
cwillie - this is square tires weather.
Thirty-some years later, I'm very much at home, hoping that our ancient furnace keeps chugging along and that the power STAYS ON. We have a portable generator, but it can be tricky to hook up and get going. That was my husband's thing, but he's 94 now, so I hope we don't need it--or that together we can get it started. (Our son lives 15 minutes away, but I won't call him unless it's absolutely necessary.)
Alva - sorry to hear about your furnace.. I was thinking about the homeless in the temps we are having now. I think there will be more deaths than usual due to this extreme cold.
I live in SF. At worst it will go down to 40 degrees or so.
I can't imagine this happening in the cold states right now.
Heard that cities are overwhelmed with finding ANYTHING to keep open as warning centers inundated as they are right now across the entire country with unhouse and immigrants.
I looked at N. and said "We are going to see some deathes.
We always do, but this time is really worrisome.
Fires, then freezing temperatures. You live in a challenging environment. Glad you are safe in your cozy new condo .