the waiting years
Entry posted by swilkinson
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I spent about an hour and a half with Mum this morning. Some weeks I feel as if I have short changed her as I've rushed off here and there doing stuff for Ray but not done anything at all for her. There is a young 30 something diversional therapist called Rick who was on duty this morning. He came in to do hand massages on the group who to put it plainly are in God's waiting room and on the short list for Heaven. He said he'd planned to spend ten minutes with each person giving her a hand massage and talking to her as of course we all know that not everyone gets visitors. I thought that was a nice idea.
He said he joined the team originally as a "lifestyle co-ordinator" and worked with the low care hostel people running games afternoons and bus trips and bringing in volunteer groups as concert parties. That was where the funding lay back ten years ago, keeping the residents entertained and making it easier to transition from home to care via respite. Of course in some cases, in the nursing home, he is still dealing with the same people, now grown older and more in need of high care. Some people spend a long time in God's waiting room.
He also told me that his Mum who is in her early fifties is sick with a long term illness and is worried as his brother is developmentally delayed and in need of care himself so she, like all good mothers, is worried about what will happen when she can no longer cope. Rick said he will take over the care of his brother if that happens. A wonderful attitude in one so young. We have a lot of young Carers in Australia who take care of parents or siblings with long-term illnesses.
Mum occassionally woke up and smiled at me. While she was having her hand massage I moved off to talk to another carer /wife who comes in every day to be with her husband. She is worried that his needs will not be met as he was born in one of the Mediterranean countries and English is his second language and he does not always speak or understand English now so she acts as his interpreter. What an extra burden that is that some people have to carry. At least both of my care recipients speak English.
It is blowing a gale outside. The sky is a gorgeous glassy blue and it is snowing down south on the Snowy Mountains and the Victorian Alps, nothing deep enough to ski on but a good early start to the snow season as a tourist attraction. A powdering of snow looks so nice on the nightly news but the winds it produces further north really hit you when you get out of a nice warm car to walk into the nursing home.
I could not take Ray outside at all today. His stroke deficits means he really feels the cold and tenses up and that makes the shaking worse. We looked out of the windows at the garden but could not actually go outside. I'll take him out to the courtyard again when the winds die down. I missed chatting to the couples we go outside with, I guess they were all in their loved one's room keeping warm. It is so much nicer sitting out in the garden, more informal and less like being locked away or "dumped" as a lot of people say here, in a nursing home. It is more like getting together with a few friends for afternoon tea. Or so I kid myself.
I'm finding loneliness a big factor in my life now. I am okay through the day but with the shorter days, longer nights really notice that after 5.30pm when it is fully dark I feel as if my life is closing in on me. I do all the usual things after dinner like catching up on housework, watching a bit of TV, phoning friends. I know how to fill in time so I also knit, crochet and do beadwork. I sit and read and listen to music. But nothing seems to be the same as hearing another person moving about in the house or hearing a human voice. It is sad to think this is the rest of my life now but like the widows here I resolve to be better at this living alone as soon as I decide how to do that. I want to do more than fill in time, I want to actually enjoy living again.
I spoke to one of the other wives yesterday while her husband was being changed and she told me her daughter found the nursing home for her father when the hospital he was in after multiple strokes told her it was time for him to be discharged to a nursing home. Then she found suitable accomodation for her mother and moved her in to be close by. I asked if it was a wrench to move from a home they had lived in to raise their family and she said no, she would have felt guilty living there alone and it was better this way. I think she is very brave to have made that decision.
It IS very hard to decide what to do when the husband or wife you are caring for has to go into full-time care and we all treat it seriously if differently. Without knowing if or when it will happen it is impossible to plan for it but we can all in some ways be prepared for it. And be prepared to make some changes in our own lives if that is the way it has to be.
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