Absentee Chat

I love when I am half way through writing then editing a post and my IPad decides to publish, so if you all received a not completed all over the shop post..delete 😒

Brother P needed respite
From our penguins whom we love
I thought I’d take the challenge
A challenge yes it was!

Six days I have been absent, some of you may have noticed.
Last Sunday my brother and his wife went away for a few days, in need of respite. He, being the closest to the penguins, has been going over every morning at 7:15am to get Pop out of bed, showered, breakfast etc, on the days the carers don’t arrive.

I took on the challenge…and believe me a challenge it was. My brother spends approximately 6-7 hours per day with them. For anyone who has had to mind their elderly parents, it’s not for the feint hearted.

Permit me to give you a breakdown.

I’m exhausted!

Preparing breakfast lunch and tea daily.
Helping Pop from chair (recliner) to kitchen table chair.
This means lifting him, telling him continually to take big steps.

Having Parkinson’s, his brain doesn’t tell his legs to move any longer and he continually freezes. So after I have him balanced with his walker, it’s ‘Big steps Pop, talk to your feet”.

After every meal, lift him out of that chair, organise walker, follow him down the house to clean his teeth, possibly toileting. He’s weak, so it’s me to pull down the pants, get him seated, pants up, help to basin, then back to walker. The days the carer doesn’t come in, I got him showered.

From bathroom, it’s back to recliner. This procedure, chair to chair, to bathroom was continuous every day.

Evening was bathroom again, then into bed. He has a bed support stick. I help him to the mattress, he holds the stick and leans back. I lift his legs to the bad, cross his arms over chest, bend his knees and roll him onto his side. Because now he is slightly incontinent, I also put a towel under him for the night.

In the morning, getting him out of bed and starting the day again. Most mornings the bed had to be stripped, sheets, towels washed and hung up.

During meals he struggles to get the food off the fork or spoon as his hands shake. So I help to feed him.

Now add to that, the times I would sit down to finally have a rest, when I’d be called upon to make my ‘delicious’ ice coffee for a Pop, or grab this, that or the other.

Mum having Alzheimers has not made my ‘vacation’ very easy. It is so hard not to bite back when her angry moods set in, yes I’m guilty of getting too upset and losing my cool with her.

It was bed time for me, a single mattress on the floor, usually at 12 or later each night, then up at 6:30-7am.

I love them, of course I do as does my brother, but we can’t continue this and as previously mentioned we have to place them into Aged Care. We have tried to have rational discussions with mum, but ..sadly she is no longer rational.

This afternoon when the four of us were ‘talking’ ..things got out of hand, mum said..yelled, leave my house, stop dictating, I’m not moving, I can look after the house… The same conversation, we have had, that can’t be resolved easily.

It was their 64th wedding Anniversary on Wednesday. I coloured and curled mums hair, made her up pretty. Butter wouldn’t melt..would it..   ☺️Dressed them and took them for lunch, surprising them with two friends who joined us.
Here they are.

K? Her second appointment with new physcologist – went well.
Still doing modelling photos, unpaid and here are a couple of her latest shots.

 

Never a a dull moment in my world! 😀

My eldest daughter and her husband finally after a year of searching and attending Auctions have bought a new home – so exciting!

Hope you you are all well. I hope once I have slept and recovered, to be back into the swing of things.