Many of us, myself included, come from a dysfunctional family which adds a lot of weight to the challenges of caregiving. I have read stores on various threads on other topics and decided it would be good to have a thread just for this topic for people to share, vent and discuss.
The idea for this thread originated on the thread named "The Caregiver....How are YOU doing today?"
Sounds like you have quite the challenge on your hands, Bookworm. I dread the days to come if they include changing the pampers. Luckily I live about 5 hours away from my parents and I hope I'll be able to keep it that way. I have seven sibs, but I am the medical POA and the one with the life science background so I'm the medical contact and am rapidly becoming the caregiver by default. There is one sister who lives near my folks but she is not in a place in her life (emotionally, physically, etc) where she can help much. That's okay (for now). At least I know she's there and she is willing to check on them as needed.
My 77 year old mother was in the hospital last week with pancreatitis and congestive heart failure as the primary diagnoses. Yes......related to diabetes and alcohol abuse as well as an opportunistic upper respiratory infection. And, you can probably pretty easily see the picture. My dad ended up with pneumonia but at least we got him to a doc and on meds while I was there helping out. He has emphysema and is 82. It's not super severe but of course all of this takes its toll.
Today is a better day for me now that I've found these forums. I've pulled out my tool kit and already got to practice not enabling. woo hoooo!!! Yeah, she was mad at me when I wouldn't get her a banana because that would help her disobey doctors' instructions. Told I would get her some protein but I was not going to enable her. Yup. She got mad. Fine. Go for it!! At least then my dad got to be the good cop for a little bit. I'm sure we'll trade off good cop and bad cop.
The stress and sadness for me is losing my mother this way since she is not the person she once was and I know she will continue to deteriorate and I can do nothing to stop it. I can't fix it, but I can sure not be part of helping it progress. I know I'm at the beginning of a very long road and so I am so glad to have found all of you. :-)
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have some customers that come in the store that my co-workers say are gypsies. They are not American born, have an accent, and are on welfare. One co-worker says she thinks they are middle eastern or Arabian. I am not typecasting any heritage or ethnic origins, belief system, etc. I am only looking for info that I have apparently missed.
This family...from what I have been told, is very rude, openly admits they have $1,000.00 in food stamps, and according to the manager, they drive a 2013 Toyota. I bring this up because they came in tonight, had over $20 worth of meat custom sliced and several other things from the deli. Our till had been closed early tonight so they couldn't pay at the deli. They told the people up front they did pay at the deli but had no receipt. The checker called the deli asking if they paid, we told them our till had already been closed out. So they made them pay. This is the first store I have worked in where they have labeled someone as a gypsy and I am only trying to understand how this differs from someone who is swindler or con artist who happens to be from another country living in the U.S. Does anyone have any input on this term?
Gypsy is what they ARE. They are not British, or Irish or American. They are gypsies. Similar to the Native American Indians. They have Gypsy from Ireland who is different from the Gypsy in England. (Ireland has a princess.) They even have Gypsy from the US WITH the gypsy accent. (I once watched this one.)
a) share my perceptions and observations with the doc before the appt (by phone, via the doctor's nurse, or by sending the info via fax)
b) try to share them during the appointment
c) don't share them at all (not really leaning towards this one at all ;-)
The doc is very open and welcoming of information from what I can tell. Mostly, I just want her to know the real amount of alcohol and the lack of carb control so that she can better treat my mother. I'm know the doc already realizes that what my mother tells her is not accurate so maybe it's not even a big deal for me to get that info out there, or maybe it's best if it's done in front of my mother rather than behind her back. (e.g. "We are only as sick as our secrets.") I'm not looking for confrontation, just accurate information so that treatment can be appropriate. Before my mom was discharged, the doc did sit down with her and tell her that she really needed to be honest with herself and with the doctors, but it's really different perceptions of reality and I don't know that my mom is capable of acknowledging what reality is right now.
So, what are your experiences?? I'm just going back and forth today so I'm putting it out there. :-)
Thanks!
(p.s. I hope and pray I don't have to deal with the poop stuff!!! It was bad enough with my kids. Please..........NO POOP!!!!!!!! ;-)
It's funny. At age 19, I decided that I didn't want to have children. I babysat soooo many nieces/nephews by the time I reached 19. I never regretted it. I had to have a hysterectomy for medical reasons, I was soooo afraid that I would have regretted it - after it was done. Nope. Still didn't want children. Anyway, as a "happy labor" babysitter (oldest siblings didn't believe in paying me for babysitting - it was called "happy Labor"), I insisted that all kids have their pampers changed before dropped off. If they pooped, it will have to wait until their parents pick them up. So, when parents became bedridden - I thought KARMA. I never wanted children- I now have 2 adult "childrent". Hence the falling apart on changing poopy mess pampers. I did not really have much experience on my nieceds/nephews! So, I had to Learn real fast how to clean father. I don't know how others do it, but I Cut His Shirt Off instead of trying to lift it over his head and dried poop falls on his head, shoulders, etc... So far, I've had to cut 2 tshirts! Good thing the tshirts are 3 for $10.00. =)
Are you feeling better? Yes, Christmas can bring up the memories, especially as you wrote about your dad apparently really enjoying it. Good memories. Well I hope you were able to motivate yourself and get your tree up. I'm still trying to motivate myself to hang this boot I made some years ago. I just used some fabric that already had that's red, and sewed some long black fringe on the top of the boot. and if you can believe that I haven't gotten around to hanging it up. Maybe I'll do it when I get off the computer. HAAH! Margeaux
Growing up, we didn't have an extended family. My mother's family is not close and my dad's family is in Ireland. My parents went all out at Christmas for us kids. I am sure it was my dad's doing because my mom is not nor has ever been a generous person with affection, time or money except for herself. I was the one who woke up first on Christmas morning usually around 4am. I would wait until 5 to wake my brother. He is like me and dad, very excited and no matter how old, a kid at heart. Slowly my sister and eldest brother would wake up and all 4 of us would sit in the living room looking at the tree discussing who was going to wake up dad and mom. They told me (every year), "You are the youngest, they won't get mad at you, so you have to wake them up." Lol!! Eventually I would go in my parents room and wake my dad up...."Dad, it's Christmas, wake up!" He always played this game with me saying, "It's not Christmas, go back to bed." This went on for about 10 minutes before he and my mom would finally get up. To a child it was an eternity!! My dad would play Santa and he handed out gifts to us one at a time. Each person opened their gift and passed it around so everyone could share in their excitement, especially my dad's. Periodically we would tell dad he had to open one now. He prolonged the excitement for everyone and it ended up taking about 2 hours to open gifts. Then my mom would make this huge breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, hash browns. We usually went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Great memories!!
Hi mslisadoll! If you’re talking about siblings frustration, I don’t have that problem. They did a disappearing act 23 yrs ago. If you’re talking about our parent that we’re caregiving to….yeah, I get soooo tired of being blamed. Really, I don’t take any kinds of pills (herbal, prescriptions, etc..) and Father actually thinks that I take his herbal supplements? He’s on what I call the “accusation stage” of his senility. Get blamed and yet we’re such suckers – we stay on to continue being abused verbally while caring for him. Hang in there and please go ahead VENT, VENT and VENT!!!
Sharyn, you have such wonderful xmas memories. Ha! That’s not just in the movies! It can happen in real life. I always wondered about that. You know, like the Brady Bunch show. I loved it as a kid but it’s really an unrealistic family life. Tell that to kid growing up in a dysfunctional family…I always thought that was just a TV life. But, even now, as an adult, I just find it so…startling to hear an adult child tell their parent in public the “I Lxxx you.” (Sorry, I can’t even type that word. One day I will overcome this problem of saying that 3 letter words.) I’m glad that you had the real deal xmas memories.
One step at a time!
More later.......and remember.........Take Deep Breaths!! ;-)
I know that many times people have these archaic beliefs about other cultures, because they basically don't know enough legitmate information about them.
Unfortunately many people are like parrots, they just repeat what they've been told too. I live in a big city, with people from all over the world. Just about every race, has been involved in welfare scams, bookie scams, even municipal government fraud.. So I'm of the firm belief any body is capable of stealing, embezzling or cheating. No one race or culture has a monopoly on that!
Anyway, look it up, I'm sure you're going to learn a lot. Also, I don't think it's so off topic, it is after all about dysfunctioin. Much Love & Light! Margeaux
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A part of my post didn't get posted. This is what I wrote:
Gypsies have settled in many parts of the world. Their nomadic lifestyle in part has been born out of having to leave because they have a long history of persecution.
When ever they have made encampments, usually the rest of society does not offer them much in the way of socialization, and I don't mean a hand out, nor welfare. Education is what I'm talking about, so that possibly they could grow and fend for themselves within society. Romanian gypsies are very marginalized.
I lived in Spain for three years, and I was told over and over again that I looked like a gypsy. On two occasions, I tried renting a room in a hostel. I heard the people at the reception telling one another, "they wouldn't rent to a gypsy." Well, they were completely dumbfounded when I produced an American passport, and said something in English to my travel partner!! A whole town in Northern Spain called Riano was burned to the ground, because the Spaniards didn't want them there.
Anyway, this is the first paragraph before the previous post. Margeuax