Sandy,

I know the feeling only all too well. I hope that things settle down a bit to give you a breather. I will certainly pray for your sanity and peace.

Ruth

Hang in there Sandy! Take a deep breath and just tackle things one at a time. That's all you can do. Please remember....deep breaths....it will get better soon. And what would Bob do if they put you in the insane asylum??? LOL Praying for you.

Dena

hang in there ---- you can pull this off.... deep breath-- nancyl

mom aways said if you think your crazy-- than you are not-- only crazy people have no idea they are crazy... nancyl

Number one, you can only do one thing at a time with two hands and one brain, then write things down and give them a priority, that way you got everything covered on what needs to be handled right away or next!!!

If that doesn't work just keep telling yourself "I'm only human" and forget about multi-tasking, that will drive you crazy as a Betsy bug real quick!!! If somebody else can do it faster let them have at it and you sit down!!

Oh, and it takes at least two people to argue, disagree, or not see eye to eye

so that stops the turmoil

Sandy: take a deep breath, let it out; again. OK, now go get the list. Time to prioritize.

You have reached the point where taking care of him, taking care of you and managing the entire household has just hit the wall. This will happen again, trust me, but you will be so better equipped to deal with it.

You come first. Up, shower, dressed. (I stay in my PJs at this point, because I have to dress for work and that takes more than 10 minutes-LOL) Bob out of bed, changed, clean, warm and dry. Breakfast. You probably have an hour here for any AM exercise you do. OK, Bob to recliner. And you start with the phone calls. Do the quickest. Plan maybe one long one. Prep lunch. Some time to fit in upper body stretches, arm-hand stuff. Toilet, lunch and nap. YOU LAY DOWN as well. 15 minutes. Trust me. Your head will spin, but you will not react. I kept pad next to me to jot down important stuff, but DO NOT GET UP. Bob is up from nap, toilet and snack. You go back to phone - one hour only. Then it is totally Bob. Whatever your regime is: exercise, walk, discussion. Prep dinner, have Bob help you. Bob toiletted, to recliner and you review the list. Who is a call back, what was finalized, what needs to be done tomorrow. Dinner, teeth and night clothes for Bob, down time for the two of you. Bob toiletted, medicated and to bed. Review the list. You see the pattern here.

I need the kitchen faucet fixed. It is the last thing required for Bruce to have total control in the kitchen. Yes, it is a priority. But today or tomorrow to call Contractor is OK. In the meantime, I can not have Bruce sit in his own wet. So if the call is made tomorrow, that is OK.

Your list is never going to go away. In fact, you may have added three things. In Control Central here, I have running lists for Contractor, my sister, our friend, Carl. Post Its are a wonderful thing. I reviewed our priorities just today with Bruce's caregivers, through November 1st, just to know they are on-board.

You are doing great. Just a bit over-whelmed. So take a hot bath-I pray you got the part and it is in, warm PJs, Poptart and kick back. Debbie

Ditto on what ethyl said! One thing at a time and prioritize. You can do it! Breath! One thing at a time. Praying for you and Bob!

I'm a master list maker from a life time of practice! I think crunch time hit when we finally found out how much money we have to live on from here on out (start of LTD) and were able to see we were in BIG trouble. I will make a new blog entry and try to give more detail about all going on here. I do have a routine, taking care of him is not the hard part - he's actually easy! It's when the rest of the world hits the fan that I can't do more than 3 critical things at once, I'm just one person. More in another blog entry.....