It is 10 am the morning after Thanksgiving. Although I worked Thanksgiving day, there is still a lot to catch up on after a day off in the middle of the week. Not only that, but I have a water heater out on one hall. And then my cell phone rings. It is mom. I can tell something has happened. That is usually what precipitates a call during the middle of the day in the middle of the week. She starts talking about how she is not an imbecile and people keep treating her like she is. I have the maintenance supervisor standing at my door. What a great deal to be a working woman. I used to feel torn between my job and taking care of my children. Now I feel torn between my job and being there for my mother. I think I've mentioned before, but my boss is really great about me talking to my mom when she calls. My boss is one step ahead of me in every respect, mothering, career and having a mother with dementia. Her mother has now progressed to needing to be in a skilled facility. I know she would love for her mother to still be able to pick up the phone and call. So it's not that pressure. Yet there is the maintenance supervisor and hot water is pretty important to my residents. I have to hand up and call again. Yet I know I may never really figure out what happened if I hang up now. But hand up, I do, and call back again just before lunch. I get the answering machine.
On my way home from work, I call back. Whatever happened this morning is no longer pressing. Reading between the lines, I can figure out that dad has gotten frustrated about something. She does not recognize any kind of impairment at this time. She talks about "the stroke". I usually focus on that as well because it is concrete subject she can understand. I know there were symptoms of memory loss 2 years before the stroke. But at this point I don't think it really matters what we call it. Her brain has problems. She can understand a stroke impairs that brain. We have the same conversations again, I had as good a job as your dad and made as much money, the doctor said I shouldn't drive but I still have my license, people don't talk to me now, they only talk to your dad.
I have to admit, even though I deal with this 8 hours a day at work, it takes a lot of deep breathing to listen over and over again with my mother. I really don't know how caregivers in the home do it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I am frequently coaching staff on how to make sure residents have their needs met, yet being respectful and treating them like adults. I also know my dad and patience has never really been his strong suit. Combine that with my mother's long standing need to be the center of attention and now she can't remember that just 5 minutes ago, he was there with her doing whatever. And then there is her long standing personality trait of obsessing about things. The memory loss has just compounded that trait (and I am finding I have inherited that trait myself).
I hope all of this will make me a better facilitator of the Caregiver Support Group. Although I am the "professional", I am realizing more than ever that I really don't have all the answers. Will that be discouraging for caregivers at the group? I hope not. How do you mitigate the feelings of inferiority because of someone else having to make decisions and do the daily tasks? I don't know. I do know my dad has to be able to work in his workshop in order to deal with his stress. I'm glad my mom is at a place where she is ok in the house by herself. This is sometimes more discouraging for me than encouraging as I realize I have many more questions than answers. Which brings me back to the whole point of this blog. No matter how many years of professional experience, when it is personal, it is a whole new ball game.
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