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Caregiving Badly buddies, where are you?
I might go out to Denny's and order "Moons over my hammy" tonight.
It's all yours, take it away....
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Today, hubs lost his shaver, taking it in the car, plugging it in the house overnight.
I don't know what is wrong with him....I offered to shave him-gee, its not like its a straight blade. He actually accused me of not putting it in the right place, expecting me to find it for him. So when he asked-for the last time-I said:
"Did you look in the freezer?"
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We still have a bark collar from when we had our American Eskimo. People just don't hear the part about us removing the electrode rendering a slight shock, leaving only a beep collar-no shock people!! Just a beep!
You would think we were monstrous pariahs, because we cannot even give that collar away for free, with free batteries and instructions.
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It once occured to me, wondering if those domesticated spoiled doggys could ever actually pee on their own without instructions.
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Lu, funny that!
When hubs used to walk our dog, he would say "pee-de-wee-dee".
I was inside laughing so hard that I had to "pee-de-wee-dee".
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When I take the puppy out to do her business I say"Go peepee,doodle dump wee wee"but my husband always says "just go potty".
Today I let her put her paws in paint and we made pawprints on his underpants.
We know nothing.....
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Cwillie,
You wouldn't look that good in a bark collar,
Because of your hair color.
So can you just stop calling, calling, calling, incessantly,
For no reason.?
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Full moon explains a lot this week!
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I like the oiled toilet seat idea best.That's nice Send.
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Oh the incessant calling, calling, calling for no reason, am I the only one who has wondered if an anti bark collar would work on humans?
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Dodgers - going to chi town
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Sleep tight, Send
We know what a full moon brings
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570 am radio
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Turning off the hot water at it's source.

No better yet...hide all the batteries in the house! Anybody got a U-Haul truck?
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Maybe I will just oil the toilet seat with melaleuca oil-it is a natural antiseptic and antibiotic, with a slight burn to it.

You may know it as Tea Tree Oil?
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Can one get the dodgers on a Roku box?
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Ms. Madge, I thought in L.A. it was the Blue Line?
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...





Caregivers behaving badly.
Ever just want to tear your hair out, or someone else's? If you cannot restore a sense of balance, you will run away from home? Just want to say some things without the constraints of staying on topic? Well, this thread is for you! If you just need a short break to let it all hang out, be a brat, then come on, you can do it. No holding back! Go for it, you can do it.
10/13/2016:
It is just before the full moon on Oct. 15th coming up. I am going to sleep tonight at 9 p.m.
Why is that behaving badly?
Because after not hearing from dH for 15 hours, not knowing when he will be off work, I am burnt out. Don't get me wrong, I still want to support his efforts, but cannot make myself sick over it. He will call?
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Headed home to try and catch the 9th inning - Dodgers holding on by their blue balls
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Sendme2help
Aug 8, 2016
First thing tomorrow morning, I am going to leave the toilet seat up, and the toilet unflushed. I am old enough to just say: "I forgot".
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Sendme2help
Aug 8, 2016
Welcome to the brat thread, Gershun!
You are right, we will need more brat buddies .
What, do you think they will be needing a written invitation?
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I know that in our fair city of Seattle, the city is putting up communities of little houses, and one of the parameters for living there are that they are drug and alcohol free. Unfortunately, the tent cities made by the homeless population under our freeways and viaducts don't want to make use of the small but safe and tidy shelters, and prefer to live in squalor but free. Sometimes there's just no helping those who don't want help. It is a good feeling to help when you can, but sadly, that's all we can do. The city multiple times has gone through and dismantled the tent cities, but they just keep coming back, and rebuilding. It is truly sad!
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Countrymouse that was great that you even bothered to help. Most people probably wouldn't have. At my Mom's service, the pastor told a story about my Mom. One of the members of the congregation was this youngish man who it turned out was living under a bridge. My Mom went out of her way to help him. She brought him clothes, food etc.even invited him to her apartment which probably wasn't the safest thing to do. But to make a long story short, since then he has totally cleaned up, met a woman at the church, got married etc. etc. So, we never know what our small tokens of kindness might do for someone.
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CM, don't feel bad that you did not think of returning to see how the man was doing right away. You were concerned at the moment about the woman and getting her help as it sounded like she was not in a good way. This was wonderful of you to get her help. You can always go back to the park and tell the man that she got to the hospital and is being looked after. Just when we get depressed about our own situations sometimes we see how lucky we are when we see others who have it so much worse. I need to count my blessings more and get things done today. {{Hugs}} to you, CM, for helping!
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I don't know what to wish for, Lucky. They're not a couple. I'd like to wish that the man will be persuaded that a soggy blanket under a dripping hedge is not enough shelter for winter time, and let the Salvation Army help him get into proper housing. And I'd like to wish that the lady - or girl really, she didn't seem to be of any great age if you make allowances for what sleeping out, drinking too much and being filthy and ill will do to you - will let someone get her clean and sober and better, and get her life back on track.

But if it were that simple neither of them would be in their present positions anyway, would they? I don't know what compromises each of them respectively is not prepared to make with the world so that they can live ordinarily decent lives. Maybe they have a point, who knows? People who won't conform make life hard for themselves, I think, and that makes it harder for anyone else to sympathise and harder not just to give up on them. But they're still people, and their lives are still hard.
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Churchmouse....Thank God you were in the right place at the right time yesterday and mainly that you have a kind heart to help others.I hope his lady friend is doing much better and finds her way back to him to let him know that she's ok.....if she pulls through alright.I sure hope so.
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Er, careful people. I'm worried about getting overwhelmed by all this. There is too much sadness in the world to face up to all at once and if you find yourself haunted by things like the poor lost old man in the car park (that brought tears to my eyes too - he might have recognised the type of vehicle, do you think, and mistakenly thought you were someone he knew?) it is time to take a break.

There was an incident in our local park last night. There is a regular rough sleeper who lives, really, under one particular clump of bushes. I exchange greetings with him when I see him but don't usually hang about. The dog usually stops to say hello and get his head patted. This man drinks a lot, and the other dog-walkers and park keepers tell me that he consistently refuses assistance with shelter or rehoming. Anyway, he called after me yesterday (yikes!), but fortunately I didn't pretend I hadn't heard him. He was rattling on about some problem in his - what do you call it? Shack? Tent? Sty? - and asking for help. Well I wasn't following him in there, are you kidding? But I put my Staffie on the lead, to help me feel a bit braver, not that this dog would do anything in a crisis except hide behind my legs, and tried to grasp what the man was saying.

I eventually gleaned that a woman, whom he was at pains to stress was not "his woman", was in his shelter coughing up blood. From his agitation and concern, my guess is that he had gone in there intending to evict this interloper forcefully, and then discovered that she was in a bad way and repented. I peeked round the back of the bushes, and under a sheet of plastic could see a kneeling figure who alternated between retching terribly and swigging from a can. She wasn't coughing up blood, she was vomiting blood; and then she managed to croak 'it's only 'cos of me peptic ulcer, I'm fine.'

I heard myself say automatically "I won't come in if you don't want me to, but if you have an ulcer and you're vomiting blood the ulcer could perforate and that could kill you. I am going to call for help."

The man seemed to agree with this idea (at least it'd get her out of his shelter?). I didn't have my phone, but fortunately the Westie owner we meet most days did.

I started to explain: "There's a lady behind the hedges - "

"A lady?" she interrupted me, quite sharply.

I goggled at her briefly, not sure what she didn't get, then corrected myself: "well. Um. A woman, then? Her name's Dawn. She says she has a peptic ulcer and she's vomiting blood."

No further delay - she dialled straight away, we gave the details, the ambulance was there in no time at all, and one of the paramedics gave me his word "Dawn" would be taken to ER and looked after.

Once we'd seen everything under way, the Westie owner caught up with me and said "I didn't mean, I hope you didn't think, I didn't mean she wasn't a lady. In that way. It's just I thought it was a man who lived there..."

I burst out laughing at us both, and said "I did think you were being a bit harsh!"

Later in the evening I called the hospital but of course there was nothing they could tell me; so I just left a message to wish her well and hoped they'd pass it on. Now, too late, I realise that more to the point we left the man alone with no one to talk to about what had happened. That woman could have died in what is his home. That woman could be him if he stops being able to manage even the basic tasks he's dealt with so far. Or if he gets ill. Or if it gets cold. He must be very frightened, sometimes.

The really Good Samaritan would have thought of that before. But my point is that it's not reasonable to expect ourselves always to be shiningly Good - average, not bad, do what you can, is going to have to do. If we expect too much we end up either in pieces emotionally, or making the best the enemy of the good and doing nothing at all because we can't achieve perfect.

I will make a point of going to the park at roughly the same time tonight and seeing if he's there and wants to talk; but I refuse to feel responsible for him.
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I too heard that the song "Hotel California" was about being addicted to drugs. It is haunting when you listen to it again knowing that it isn't about some hot sheet motel somewhere in California like a lot of people may think.
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Sometimes this is what I think of while laying awake at night. I probably will go this way and if my husband, and lifelong friend since 8th grade now living on the opposite coast go first, this is what will happen to me. Sometimes I wonder if an end in a sudden disaster would be better....People always feel sorry for those that die in storms and such, but who knows what horror would await them in old age. This is what depresses me so much. No counselor can fix that one.
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I agree cwillie. It brings me to tears picturing elderly people dying alone. When my Mom was in hospital one time there was this sweet little lady in the bed across from Mom and she used to always beckon me over. I think she just wanted someone to talk to. I found out later on that she was 100 yrs. old.

But seriously........you are right willie. There is a lot of compassion lacking sometimes in nursing homes. When I used to visit Mom I'd see these people all sitting in the lobby alone. I don't know if they were waiting for a visitor but I used to imagine that they were and I walked out in tears all the time.

One time my hubs and I were in Hawaii. We rented this little jeep type vehicle to roar around in and we got lost and ended up in the parking lot of this nursing home. This old man got up all excited and of course we just turned around and left cause we had no business being there but I kept turning around and looking at this man. He looked so sad. I cried for about a half hour while we drove away.
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Msmadge it infuriates me and breaks my heart that people like you mom's roomie get no care or attention in their final days, $%#*ing nursing homes are in the end of life business, they should have the sense and compassion to shower a little extra attention on the dying or bring in an outside hospice agency if they aren't willing, there are even volunteers that will sit with the dying and their families.
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