It's Thursday...I dread Thursdays...

Nugget, I wish I could just visit on a “lunch break” …unfortunately, my caregiving is 24/7 7 days a week. ..even though I have private pay aide for 35 hours a week..I’m here all the time. I live with my mother…putting everything…like my life…on back burner..& I examine all her bank statements, etc & pay her bills, do her grocery shopping, pick up her prescriptions, do her laundry, make her meals, wash her hair, clip her nails, change her diapers..etc etc etc .& try not to lose my sanity when she has a scream fest..hallucinations that she swears are there..& curses me if I don’t see the fires & floods ..so no, unfortunately, I can’t really relate. Sorry.
Hugs 🤗

Yes, I visit my mother in memory care every second Saturday and I feel the same way. I take a magazine and a baked treat to have something to talk about. I used to go every week and cut it down because I felt like my life was work and memory care. Now I plan nothing else on the days I see my Mom. My husband does the grocery shopping and cooking on those days. If you don’t have someone to ease the load for you on Thursdays, maybe you could treat yourself to your favourite take out or something like that. Good luck!

I totally agree with burntcaregiver I took care of my husband for 8 years 24/7 7 days a week the last two i had to quit my job to become a full time caregiver , I would be able to leave the house once a month when his 89 year old father could watch him so I could go grocery shopping. He is now in a memory care facility but now that I can get out I have no desire. It's a sad and lonely road. I am only 61 and have three adult children I would have loved them to watch there dad for 1 hour once a week but they were unable or unwilling to do so.

Ariadnee and Aliciaboots1 are right. Make the best of it. Bring him treats. Make a few copies of every new bank statement and bring him one each time. Try to engage him in conversation about things he likes.
Then look on the bright side. You only have to do this once a week for less than an hour. Think of all of us who live in worse than you get from your father 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and for years at a time.
Yes, you feel like an "employee" when you go to visit because in a sense you are like an employee to him now. Elders are among the most selfish and narcissistic groups of people on earth. They often are demanding and petty and domineering because they think that reaching an old age entitles them to be such a way.
It doesn't, but it happens.
Count your blessings that you feel like an employee for an hour once a week. Many of us here are living in slavery because of the elders in our lives. The flip side of that cruel coin is that many of us were also abused the elder we are now a nanny-slave to.
Keep this mind when you visit your father once a week for an hour and I guarantee you will feel a lot better about those visits.

I grew to dread the ringing of my phone because it meant some type of crisis….daily. Usually a fall.

then there were daily calls about insurance refusing to cover this or that.

STRESS!

I get it. I didn't know what I would find: happy, unmotivated, a fall or incontinence.

Pounding in my chest started at the door & I knew I had to make changes.

It wasn't any particular task, mess or even an emergency. It was the unseen pressure - the gravity of the slippey slope I was on, the pull from the quicksand at the bottom. The growing needs & dependency.

Is it just the pillbox & the bank statement? Or more?

It’s not horrible. It’s life with our parents now.

It’s like we have advance notice that we will be walking into trauma. Week in, week out.

…advance warning that a hammer will come down and hit us in the head.

Then, we steal ourselves for next week’s visit and another hammer, and more trauma.

One upside from this major surgery I just had. I have had to avoid the visits.

Hugs from here! I get ya!

Ah....Thursdays....that was the day my Mom got chemo. We'd make the best of it. Now, it seems like there really aren't any surprises for you when visiting with your Dad. "It's always the same thing". Thursdays for Mom and I could be a roller coaster of health issues stemming from her chemo treatments. Ok-so you're an employee in a business. Is he yelling at you and telling you horrible things? Bring a bank statement every visit. Bring a friend too. Bring a therapy pet if possible. Bring lunch-or a snack if that's a possibility. Bring a few trinkets from the dollar store. Bring some old family photos if you can. Can you send him a greeting card (Dollar Stores are cheap) once a week? Small things, but that may be a way of dealing with the stress each of you have now. Bring your dignity too. This stuff is hard, and unfortnatly, the American culture of dealing with issues like this is so sparse on support of any kind.

I get it . I dread when the mail arrives. Every piece of paper is seeming to be an emergency/crisis, I established office hours. And it seems Thursday is your office hour. Tell dad you have a copy of everything in your file, if you have financial POA ( and get POA if you don't), and that you review everything. Bring him treats, like crazy on Thursday. Babble about your hobby, his favorite team, birds, games shows. If there seems to be a doctor question, mention you'll call the doctor if routine. ( It's the lunch hour, docs offices aren't open until two) And you will get back to him on that. Medical emergencies are another thing. Yes, these are your correct pills. One shopping list a week, dad!