The Doc offered pills but I have enough to be arrested as a dealer but I promised to come back if life gets any darker. It worried him that I've gone off chocolate and ice-cream and haven't been to the pokies for over 3 weeks. Buying patchwork fabric on line is a good substitute because I don't have to go outside the house but even there I'm going to have to have an intervention because I spent the food money. I'm not hungry, most unlike me but it sends the sugar screwy. Everywhere I look there is something I must put away or wash up or wash but it's just too much. Living two lives is finally taking its toll on me.
The Home is giving me the horrors and getting there is like a step too far into breakdown. I am still suspicious that the residents coming in are all in various stages of Dementia. Not their fault but they are walking around, my mother is confined to wheelchair or bed, her chum is the same. They haven't forgotten the last demented walker who slapped and punched one and would creep around mum's bed to see what she could take - in the middle of the night. Now we have an "ohgodohgodohgod" all day, a screamer, a hitter and a crap thrower. You can bet none of this was on their records when they came in.
Not only do I have to worry about any of them getting near my mother but I saw the worst of the worst PCA yesterday. She forgot the bed control but remembered the emergency bell which mum had to use. She's on oxygen all the time now but felt she wasn't getting enough by the time she was put to bed so back comes the prize dill and puts up the oxygen to 3. 10 minutes later mum is getting a bit distressed so back she comes, oh so sorry about that, I've put the machine on the oxygen line and don't we all remember that scene from "Flying High". After I left, some one else discovered that the nose line for the oxygen was in upside down so instead of going into the lungs it was freshening up the room.
No cups of afternoon tea either, staff were all over the road having another meeting and only one to organize the Thursday Happy Hour. If I could I would have been down to the kitchen to complain but I still had to hide the garbage bags, the Home was buying them for each resident but they were disappearing faster than they could be replaced. Mum especially needs them so I was taking my grocery bags down and they disappeared. The tissue boxes disappeared during the night so I've taken to buying 10 boxes at a time and hiding them on the bottom shelf of her table because no-one goes that far down to clean anything. Add to this 2 boxes of colostomy bags which takes me 3 hours at home to fix up and I have to put 20 in one bag, 10 in the other with a big note which says when this box is opened please ring for replacements. Still I did get a pat from an agency nurse who couldn't believe how I could cut them out to the exact fit, everywhere else she goes, she has to do it herself. On behalf of my two mangled fingers, thank you.
Did I remember everything? 2 butterfly motifs for her T-shirts, boxes of tissues, garbage bags, colostomy bags. Fix up the phone charger, wrong one. Write cheque for postage when I get home.
I'm a bit dry, have you any tictacs? Did you have lunch? No, walking with all the crap I couldn't be bothered. I didn't even have any water, thinking I would at least get a cup of tea, ha!
I grabbed a cab at 3.45, got the mail, fed the cat and fell into bed and woke up around 6 with the cat cuddled up to me and a nice dose of the shakes and pain in every joint. Erring on the side of caution I took one happy pill and two Panamax, should have done it the other way round and the shakes would have stopped a lot sooner. The pain in my head will have to stay since I can't take Telfast with everything I've just taken. Cat decides to go out so I leave the door open and turn the lights out, that usually fixes him, rolls in at 1.a.m and curls up with me to get warm and I know the bloody door is still open. Get up to shut it and in my multi-tasking way sprays a huge cockroach on the curtain.
I don't have the shakes today, no pain in the head, no aches but it cost a load of $$$$ in fabric.
4 comments:
Right now I'm wishing I lived next door so I could help out.
Seems the Home is even further downhill than usual, with all the new patients and things disappearing. Worst of course is the oxygen line, how could they get that wrong??
I'm astonished too that you have to prepare the colostomy bags, isn't that a job the staff is supposed to do?
I wish I could leave a door open for Angel to come and go, but I worry about burglars, being so exposed to the road as I am, with no fences even.
You caught a taxi cab? I can't afford to be running around in taxi cabs. I guess the driver was of a plain appearance, otherwise you would have described him to excite me.
River, I should have hoofed myself out of the chair and checked but the oxygen is one thing you do not touch. As for the bags I've had to deal with them since the rheumatoid arthritis made it impossible to get her fingers through the scissors. It's quite a difficult shape but I've got it down to a fine art and then there's a little clip on the bottom which she used to put on until I watched her struggle with it. I can do that and took it from her, well right up there in the pain scale that little movement is. Never let anyone tell you that swearing doesn't help, it does.
Andrew, I have a half price taxi card, bless my doctor back in 1993 who realized both my knees would have to be replaced then. Most of my drivers are regulars and plain appearance, the old saying applies, 'I've seen better heads on a glass of beer'. I did have one driver the other day that would have you drooling and the cab was pristine clean and he nearly had a breakdown when a huge bug splattered itself on the windscreen. By the time I was on the footpath with my ratty old walker, he was at the windscreen with the window cleaner.
I suppose there is something to be said for a fresh room. But it isn't really serving it's purpose.
Cats do like to cat around and one AM would certainly be far beyond my bed time but I suppose it's proper for a cat.
Thank you for your comment on my post.
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