We had a visit from our daughter and her family, they left home at 2pm yesterday for what should have been a three and a half hour trip but with Friday night traffic going into the city and the” weekenders” leaving the city to journey up here to the Central Coast and beyond it was five hours before they actually got here.
Trev and I spent two hours yesterday morning getting what used to be his room tidy enough for Shirley and Craig to sleep in, with me getting bedclothes assembled for the so
On Saturday we went to a 60th birthday party. It is the turn of the season so a heavy sweater didn’t seem appropriate. We had to wear something pink as it was a “pink party” so I bought a pink blouse on Friday and when I got it home and tried it on with the jacket I wanted to wear it with - CLASH - so there I was with no clothes to wear! Tragedy if you are a woman. In the end I found a couple of things that were pink and sort of went together so I was sorted. PHEW!
So why do we worry so
From time to time we reach some sort of turning point and I realise that something that was once easy for us to do as a couple is no longer possible. I guess with spring now approaching and seeing summer ahead with all it’s enticements I am again listing what Ray and I can do and what we can’t do. And I sit here mourning the losses and sighing with relief that some things are still possible.
The Apex40 Club we belong to is going on it’s three day excursion at the end of this month to an ar
We had a lovely sunny weekend, on Friday the temp was warmer than it has been for a while and I got to sit out in the sun in the afternoon and warm my bones. I will be so glad when the cold damp weather goes as today the rain and cloud cover is back and it is markedly chilly. I spent the morning doing housework and then provided a lunch of soup and bread rolls for my sister. She called in on her way to another appointment Yep, the cave bears are out again.
I hadn’t seen my sister for a whi
My health has settled down a bit here and I am coping okay. Not much help when I was sick but as the “strong woman” I am not considered in need of help. As the helper to all and sundry I am always the giver, not the taker. In our friendship group everyone is a well-wisher but no-one actually wants to do anything hands-on. The ladies with a casserole that once came to a household where there was sickness are a thing of the past. Life moves on and progress does not necessarily build community.
I am feeling a bit better. My nose is bothering me less and the cough is not getting any worse. Thank goodness I am also finally getting some energy back and feeling better about life. I have been a sad sack for the past week or so,now it is time for me to pull up my socks, get myself together and start planning things like spring cleaning.
I sometimes feel as if I am half-awake, as if I am not able to give life my full attention. I know that is common in survivors but I think it is comm
The painters are still here, it is still raining every second day and our life has sped up again. That might have been the reason for an incident last night. It was well after midnight when someone shouting woke me up. It was Ray. He was shouting: “ Are you there Les?” when I answered “I’m here.” He said: “I don’t know where the toilet is in this place.”
For a carer this is really scary. Les, his older brother and Ray shared a room in their mid-teens. It was a back verandah and their y
Ray and I have been away the past four days and it rained and it rained and it rained some more. Cold, wet, windy and gloomy pretty well describes the weather we have been having and I was so grateful not to be home and having to go out in it.
I have been feeling guilty as after going to Camp Breakaway twice last year we have been four times and it is only the end of July. It seems they had a quite a large grant of money earmarked for disabled children and people with dementia and their ca
This morning when I left to spend three hours away from Ray who is really my job now, I wanted to find somewhere to sit and think. I finished up opposite the beach at the Surf Club where we have our Lions Club meetings, having coffee on their terrace in the sun overlooking the ocean. It was a nice view with the dark sea reflecting the rain clouds that are still a feature of our winter. There were couples with dogs that looked like stick figures in the distance walking along the beach and down t
“Nothing can be done”…. not the words a caregiver wants to hear but that is what the neurologist said as he looked at Ray's MRI and the bone scan results yesterday. He also said that although Ray has not had more strokes the area of damage is enlarging so he has more deficits. I asked why and he said: “We don’t know.” I asked why he has had a bleed as well as the blockages; again he admitted he didn’t know.
He doesn't seem to think it is the falls causing the pains so much as changes to h
Just had a couple of nights with our grand daughter here, it is the winter break and she had two weeks off school. All three of us went to the shopping centre yesterday and spent some time (and some money) and today while Ray was at Daycare she and I went down to The Entrance to the movies and saw the latest Shrek movie. I love her company, she is bright and fresh and really easy to please. A very satisfactory two days.
I am still coming to terms too with the death of my old friend Claude.
I want a new day in the week. It will be called Unday and I’m putting it between Sunday and Monday. Unday will be a Caregivers Breakaway Day. When the Caregiver wakes up in the morning there will be no one else there. They will not have work to do or any commitments. It will be a people free day. It will always have the sun shining all year round, be a pleasant temperature and just the ideal day to stretch out and relax.
Okay, yesterday I had just woken up and Ray had had a fall, so cal
I have too much time on my hands in winter. So I get too much time to think. That is bad when it is obsessive and introverted, which it can sometimes be but not bad if it allows me time to trim my sails and make some adjustments to my future path in the journey of life.
I drove past the beach yesterday and despite the cold dark look of the ocean there were a few hardened board riders out. That is how it should be. We need those people who know the ocean well. We belong to Lions and our C
The carer who comes on Friday to look after Ray for my three hours respite had a long talk to me this morning. She had been worried that she has been minding Ray and has not had any training on looking after people with dementia and took advantage of an offer to go to a seminar and said she learned a lot that will help in her work. The mentor who runs the support group I go to ran the seminar. He is excellent. I have learned so much by going to that group.
She had not been able to stay for
Ray and I went and picked up the bone scan today and naughty me took out the report and read it. I did medical terminology so had a fair idea of what it said. Sadly Ray has had many many fractures and bone bruises from falls and signs of arthritic joints on his left (affected) side, nerve damage caused by stenosis (narrowing) of the spinal canal etc. It is so sad he has prematurely aged so much. I could also see why he has so much pain with the equivalent of a pinched nerve and the heel and a
Sometimes we’re up sometimes we’re down. Oh yes, oh yes. It is getting that way, back on the roller coaster again. Not that we are always in pain, sad, exhausted, worried sick etc but that some part of the day it is so.
It is Ray who is in pain, bad pain, almost crying pain. He moves slowly, like a very old man, he needs help to get out of bed and he needs me to push him in the wheelchair as he can’t walk. He sits in the car and sighs and groans and clutches his left leg. And I do not k
What an interesting couple of days, my birthday, my graduation and a meeting of WAGS. We seem to have been too busy on the meeting dates to attend WAGS meetings for the past three months so it was nice to catch up with the folks at our Stroke Support group. It was a pity we couldn
Winter is coming, fast now as officially it starts here on 1st of June. So traveling 150 miles further south meant it was wetter, colder and windier and I so missed the warm weather that we enjoyed when visiting our daughter and family when she lived in Cairns, 1700 miles north and SO much warmer in winter. But I enjoyed visiting her and her family for a week even if the weather was less than co-operative.
What did I do? I showed off my skills as a sales woman on the Trash and Treasure s
Ray and I went to the neurologist this afternoon, he goes every six months. The neurologist said his patient number is 1061 and the practice is now up to 21000 so he has been seeing him for a long time. In fact he has been going there since the 1990 stroke with a break of a few years before the 1999 ones and every six months since.
We got there twenty minutes early, which was great as we saw a familiar couple walking out, and it was one of Ray
I went out alone today for the last learning day of my theological course. It was the first time in ages I had been away from Ray for more than three hours. It is over an hour
We are enjoying the last warm days before autumn turns to that colder period that heralds winter. I have loved the last week with its mild days and cool nights. It is good weather for Ray to be out on the verandah and for me to be in the garden in front of the house pulling up weeds and tidying the place up, it is good to feel the weight of blankets and snuggle in at night and yet still be out and about in the afternoon in a short sleeved top and skirt, feeling like summer still lingers.
I used to dream one day I would leave, walk away, never come back. I would get in my car and drive, far, far, away. I used to have that dream early in my time as a caregiver. I think it was saying that I had the choice; I could leave any time I wanted to. We all know that is not the case; life is far more complicated than that.
Ray used to work at a mental hospital; he carried a large bunch of keys, door keys, cupboard keys, ward keys, safe keys, keys to padlocks and keys to openings and
