Her Bad Day Is Mine Too

One long and drawn out caregiver folly that comes to mind was when my mother lost her handmade needlepoint eyeglass case that featured a butterfly design against a blue background.  It was something she made a long time ago and it held a lot of sentimental value.

On a random weekend a few years ago, she couldn't find the eyeglass case so she asked me to look around her bedroom for her.  She usually put the case at the foot of the bed so perhaps it fell off and landed on the floor.  I got out the flashlight, got on my hands and knees and searched in vain.  After we spent some more time looking around the house and in the car, she wondered if the case had accidentally fallen into the small trash barrel that was by her bed.  Now her anxiety turned into frustration because I had just taken out the trash the day before and if her theory was correct, the case was now long gone.  However, I didn't recall seeing it among the trash when I emptied the barrel.  Surely even in my zoned-out state of mind, the eyeglass case would have caught my attention.  But where was it?

She was convinced it had been thrown out in the trash and now she was having a bad day.  As a caregiver, when the person you care for has a bad day, you have a bad day.  This is partly due to the sympathy you have for their awful predicament but sometimes it's because they are in such a foul mood, it rubs off on you.

Soon, I found myself searching online for what happens if something of value is thrown out in the trash.  Turns out, the trash company can look for an item at the transfer station if you call them and narrow the search by giving them the truck's route and time of pickup BUT such a search needs to be done within 24 hours.  Unfortunately, it was too late for my mother's eyeglass case if it had indeed been lost in the trash.  Still, part of me felt it hadn't.  

        
I tried to calm my mother down by saying there really wasn't anything that could be done right now.  If the eyeglass case had been accidentally thrown out, it was gone for good and no amount of complaining could bring it back.  If it was lost somewhere inside the house, it would eventually turn up somehow.  Well, that wasn't good enough and she continued to be miserable.  She got on my nerves and I found myself repeating the words she used to tell me as a child: "If you have something nice, you have to take better care of it."  I thought it was foolish of her to place the eyeglass case so close to a trash barrel.

 
After a few days, she resigned herself to the notion that it was gone forever and visited the needlepoint store to look for a new canvas.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any good patters in stock for making another eyeglass case so she left empty-handed and feeling dejected. 

A couple of weeks passed and then one night I heard her give out a yell from downstairs.  While in the bathroom, she had grabbed a towel from the linen closet and out fell the needlepoint eyeglass case.  Apparently, she had been folding the laundry on her bed at the beginning of the month and unbeknownst to her, the case was accidentally folded into one of the bathroom towels.  My overjoyed mother said,  "My prayers to St. Anthony were answered.  He has never let me down.  He may take his time, but he has always come through for me."  Now every time I take out the trash, I make sure to check her barrel a little more carefully to make sure only trash is being thrown away.

I'm glad things worked out for my mother this time around but the story of her eyeglass case shows how quickly a caregiver can go from having a nice day to dealing with sudden catastrophes.  I find myself always on guard for the latest crisis and that's a mindset that doesn't offer much peace of mind.

Caregiver Follies

I posted this subject to the Catholic Match forums last year and it was very well-received. While caring for my elderly mother, I noticed in the sea of typical struggles, certain difficulties that most people probably wouldn't even think of unless they walked a mile in my shoes. The following is a list of some of those funny and not so funny observations: 

* One pleasure in my down time that's become rare is listening to music with headphones on because if I'm upstairs in my room, I need to be able to hear my mother's cries for help if she needs something. I swear the record companies add the sound of her voice or the noise of a ringing telephone to the background of their songs because there have been many times when I think I hear those things but it turns out to be a false alarm.

* I have become a bathroom guard for those single occupancy ladies rooms since my mother doesn't want to lock door behind her just in case she falls and needs help. If that doesn't make me look like a creeper sometimes...

* My mother needs glasses to read but she will often forget to bring them along when we go out to eat and I have to read the full menu to her...loudly at times because of her hearing trouble.

* Lately, I have been finding plates or silverware that my mother washed still with bits of dried food attached because she somehow "missed a spot." 

* I will check to see what she is wearing for the day so I don't pick out an outfit with the same color palette hoping to avoid looking like those couples who dress alike.

* Sometimes she hides her medical issues because she doesn't want to worry me but I get really worried when after three days of suffering, she blurts out, “Take me to the ER. I can't it anymore.” 

* She talks to the TV during Family Feud and when I'm upstairs I will sometimes hear her yell things like, “That's an ugly suit!” or “No, you idiot!” She will sometimes answer the survey questions but I can't hear the questions: “Cows!” “Beach ball!” “Your oven!” “Mexico!”

* When I come home from my third shift job, I walk by her bedroom and listen to hear if she is still breathing.

* She no longer drives but she is an expert backseat driver.

* When I hear my mother yell, "Something's wrong with the television" I always have to fix the problem which is something usually minor like she accidentally pressed the aspect ratio button or the closed captioning button which is right next to the on/off switch.  Technology baffles her.  

* When I'm sleeping after a hard night at work, she'll often ask me from downstairs “Are you asleep?” so loudly that it wakes me up. “Not anymore!” is my typical response.

* When I am sick and just want to sleep, she keeps asking me questions about every twenty minutes: "Is your throat still sore?"  "Do you want to go to the Minute Clinic?"

* To prevent hypoglycemia, she always puts Lifesavers mints in her pockets but it's amazing how these things tend to show up around all around the house: in drawers, in cabinets, under furniture.

* Before doing the laundry, I always have to check the pockets of my mother's clothes for the previously mentioned Lifesavers mints and the large amount of tissues she likes to carry with her. 

* She craves attention so whenever a repairman comes to the house, she likes to talk his ear off. What's worse is when she touches on a hot topic like Trump or immigration.

* She asks the doctor who emigrated from Russia, "What do you think of Mr. Putin?"

* My mother will get frustrated with other old people and she's at that stage in life where she will tell them off. Before one Palm Sunday Mass, an elderly woman was talking her time to pick through the palms and my mother actually said, “Are you going to be there all day?!”

* Despite the fact that my mother is almost 86 years old, she doesn't want to use a walker because according to her, those are for old people.

* In fact, she doesn't want to associate with people her own age because in her words "they are a bunch of old farts who complain about pain all the time."

* When I do get into an argument with her, my mother has no trouble pulling out the old age card and simply says, “Why don't I just drop dead?”

* My mother always uses the speaker phone function so the sound of dialing brings me a feeling of dread because she calls so many doctors due to her failing health. Also, one of the doctors' offices plays bad smooth jazz music when they put her on hold...often for a very long time.

* While dining out, she sometimes comments on the poor fashion choices of the other patrons: “Is she for real?!” “They're not leaving anything to the imagination, are they?”

* My mother has the uncanny ability to yell a question to me from downstairs during the most dramatic part of a TV show or movie.

* Even though I am half a century old, she still worries when I leave the house. I will hear her say, “Drive carefully” and she will sometimes insist that I call her when I am ready to head back home.

* During one trip to the bank, I decided to make a long side trip down a country road just to clear my mind for a while. I came back home to see her in tears because she thought my unexpected delay might have been caused by a car accident.

* My mother doesn't understand that when I yell out of frustration at other drivers or at other people or about my life in general, I am not yelling at her.

* Hearing the sound of her pain pills rattling around in the plastic bottle brings anxiety because that means she's in pain and needs to take another dose.

* When my mother yells for help from downstairs and it sounds like a huge medical emergency...only to find out it's something not as serious like when she dropped a box of toothpicks and they landed all over the floor.

* Having to raise my voice because she has trouble hearing but then she thinks I am yelling at her in anger.

* Giving me cheap career advice that is so out of left field when I tell her how unhappy I am with my current employer. “Why don't you call channel 5 and ask for a job working in TV?”

* My mother telling me that if I ever got serious with a girl, she'd be happy to sell the house and move into a small apartment by herself. Once I start dating, however, she somehow forgets that statement and begins to worry that I will abandon her.

My post generated many responses from other caregivers on CatholicMatch who shared their own interesting observations about their elderly parents. Feel free to share any of your own caregiver follies in the comments section below.