Really excellent article. My sister did the lion's share of caregiving when my mother was ill. Being that my mother was on Long Island, 5 minutes from my sister's house, that my sister is a retired nurse with a supportive, retired husband and grown kids, that I was working and living in NYC, with younger kids, being that I don't drive - I have a license but I haven't driven in years - and there was no way to get to my mother's house without driving, and being that my brother, who lives on LI, works full time and had kids around my kids ages, she was the natural "target" of the tasks at hand. She very willingly took them on too, and is the one who arranged for my mother to go to the assisted living right near her house after my mother fell in her home and my brother discovered her 5 or 6 days later.
Honestly, other than things like my ordering stuff, including the adult diapers you spoke of (size was always an issue too) on Amazon, occasionally coming and taking my Mom out or bringing her to my sister's house so she didn't have to deal with that, doing the closing on my mother's house that had to be sold (but my sister negotiated the sale), helping clean out the house, helping move my mother's stuff, coming to stay the night with my mother after she had a hip surgery, and a few more random things, there wasn't too much for me to do.
So I did the one thing I thought might actually be really helpful. I was a sounding board - available 24/7 - so that my sister could say whatever she needed about my Mom's care, about their toxic relationship (yes, I'm borrowing from you, but it was very apt in their case), about the nurse who stole my mother's oxycontin and replaced it with a pill that did something, I can't recall what, and the cameras that caught her in the act, about anything that was bothering her really. It was the least I could do, and I was happy to do it. I can only hope it made a difference for my sister, and I think it did.
From my writing, you can probably tell that I am wracked with guilt for not having done enough, but I truly believe one thing: caregivers need emotional support and they need to vent! And this is my take-away from your well, written, often humorous, article. :)
Really excellent article. My sister did the lion's share of caregiving when my mother was ill. Being that my mother was on Long Island, 5 minutes from my sister's house, that my sister is a retired nurse with a supportive, retired husband and grown kids, that I was working and living in NYC, with younger kids, being that I don't drive - I have a license but I haven't driven in years - and there was no way to get to my mother's house without driving, and being that my brother, who lives on LI, works full time and had kids around my kids ages, she was the natural "target" of the tasks at hand. She very willingly took them on too, and is the one who arranged for my mother to go to the assisted living right near her house after my mother fell in her home and my brother discovered her 5 or 6 days later.
Honestly, other than things like my ordering stuff, including the adult diapers you spoke of (size was always an issue too) on Amazon, occasionally coming and taking my Mom out or bringing her to my sister's house so she didn't have to deal with that, doing the closing on my mother's house that had to be sold (but my sister negotiated the sale), helping clean out the house, helping move my mother's stuff, coming to stay the night with my mother after she had a hip surgery, and a few more random things, there wasn't too much for me to do.
So I did the one thing I thought might actually be really helpful. I was a sounding board - available 24/7 - so that my sister could say whatever she needed about my Mom's care, about their toxic relationship (yes, I'm borrowing from you, but it was very apt in their case), about the nurse who stole my mother's oxycontin and replaced it with a pill that did something, I can't recall what, and the cameras that caught her in the act, about anything that was bothering her really. It was the least I could do, and I was happy to do it. I can only hope it made a difference for my sister, and I think it did.
From my writing, you can probably tell that I am wracked with guilt for not having done enough, but I truly believe one thing: caregivers need emotional support and they need to vent! And this is my take-away from your well, written, often humorous, article. :)