My "whine moment today." What's yours?

Can't give ma scotch, she's been zonked all day. During her bath, she kept say OW OW... I'm sure she's a bit stiff and tender, but the Nurse said it would be good to give her a itty bitty tiny dropper of her liquid pain med. ZzzZzz she also suggested it would help her go. NOT! She's been out like a light for 6 hours now. D*mn.

57, I would just take a wild guess and say it's some of both. Boredom and Alz. Then toss in a bit of "let's make her guilty and look sad", topped off with a bit of..."yawn", Easter decorations, why do I need those"? If they could only realize just how much of a fun time they could have while being in there... especially if they're still mobile and sort of cognizant.

I get tired just reading all the comments in the posts.
A question then a whine. After work drove home grabbed dads Easter decorations (forgot the daffodils I bought yesterday) and zoomed back to his AL for a very short visit before dinner. Was surprised he was sitting in living room waved hi and told him I had some items for his room.
Put the decorations up and did my usual sweep of his room and bathroom to see how much stuff was moved around and turned the news on TV so he could watch after dinner. Chatted with the activities director who said Dad hasn't been participating in many activities lately and has been sleeping a lot. Said dad will eat breakfast as he does get up early compared to others, goes and naps, eats lunch then can sleep away the afternoon.
I then though about this as when I greeted him today I really did not get much of an acknowledgement but I did take him to his room and showed him the decor and he did smile and ask if I was eating dinner. I have color photocopies of my sisters cats as an aide says he likes looking at then.
When I stopped in for a longer visit Tuesday I didn't get much of that smile acknowledgement from him either but we went back to his room for awhile and he was ok.
So is this a transition in his Alz?
I called my sister (mistake) she said he is probably bored and why don't I take him for a short 15 minute car ride. I told her she can drive up here and do that herself. Need a helmet to protect myself from my sisters comments.
Off to find my corkscrew for some needed wine.........

Give Mom a large scotch too it will "relax" her

Scotch? :) me please!

What a chaotic day. Bather arrived at noon, nurse at 12:30, carer at 1:00. Suppository deposited by 1:30, bather gone by 2:00, nurse gone 1:45, carer gone at 4:00. AND NO POOPIES yet i feel so alone ... just.... waiting...for the volcano

make that a double scotch

However if you are giving out free bottles of Scotch please come round to the back door.

CM, you're a tickle - I have some Jamesons in the cupboard. I've just learned that BIL is now planning on staying with us a few days. So when I get my oomph back, I now have to get the house company ready. God help the man if he even MENTIONS the trust in front of me - But this is not a new thing with him, so my totally pissed off state is really the smoke screen for my deep concern about how to best help Dad. And sadness at seeing this marvelous man like this.

Ah spring is in the air... and so is the sound of the doorbell ringing with door to door salespeople.

I feel like posting a note on the door that reads:
TO SAVE YOU TIME, PLEASE NOTE :
I do not need new windows
I do not need a new front door
I do not need new gutters
I do not need a new roof
I do not need my driveway sealed/replaced
I do not need my house number painted on the curb
I do not need any trees cut
I do not need 20 lbs of frozen food

Linda, the perfect BIL would bring the fatted calf with him? Send the man a shopping list - and don't forget to include something comforting for your cold (fine Cognac works for me) :) Wish you better x

Veronica91, oh my gosh, same thing here and I am just 68... I use to be able to do yard work for 8 hours with just a quick break for a snack.... plus I was a gym rat going every other day.... six years later I am lucky if I can do a half hour worth of yardwork without feeling wobbly.... and forget the gym, that ship has sailed permanently. My giddy-up is gone :p

My very self sufficient FIL was in the ER twice this week, once for a hernia gone amuk (was taken care of without surgery) and with a suspected stroke. It appears there was no stroke but they did an OT and a PT eval and the doc wanted him to go to a SNF for rehab, since he lives alone. Dad said no dice. It looks like we're at that crossroad we knew was coming. He's been mentioning looking for an AL - we just need a family plan for the interim. Murphy's Law - I caught a doozy of a cold....need to get healthy quick! I need to find a fatted calf before BIL hits town.

Everything gets covered up manipulated or spun. The only thing to do is create your own ground zero and start from there. Fix the things you can and ignore those you have no power of changing. I am not really paronoid although hubby is so I let a lot of things run off my back but he sits and stews about them.
Jessie I can tell you what it will be like in ten years you will have trouble carrying two gallons of milk and only be able to lift three dinner plates back into the cupboard. At 63 I was still working a full time job and had several horses. I could carry 2 five gallon buckets of water, lift a 50 lb bage of feed and haul hay bails around. Not anymore. Now I need someone to clean house and plow the driveway. Grocery shopping leaves me needing a nap. It's called old age and i refuse to subscribe to that. Carry one Jessie.
CM were you standing under that pole with your pitchfork? Poor guy must have been terrified he'd never father another child. They don't climb poles reound here anymore they have advanced to an elevator with a platform on top that lifts them up easily. We are so advanced they even have a little cover to keep the rain out.
Has Mum got over the daffodils, I guess yours are almost over by now. We had another three inches of snow three nights ago. This has been the winter that never ends but we already have daylight saving and spring starts at the end of the week.

The common thing I see among all the caregivers is self sufficiency and independence because we have to do so much ourselves. Will this make us stronger than most people in the long run? I hope so. Little problems that I hear other people having seem easy and often frivolous compared to the things we are faced with each day, often out of left field.
Mom is doing ok, though I worry, and well looked after in the facility for rehab which will make it easier, I hope, to get through my husband's procedure if I am not worried sick about how she is being treated in rehab....I cannot believe how much better this place is compared to the last 2 she was in. I wish I would have sent her to this place for rehab instead of the calamitous, (is that a word?), place she was in last summer and feel guilty about that. Though this place seems much better, I am in there each day assessing how she is doing, speaking with staff, etc. It is still strange not having her here. My routine is completely disrupted as I was on some sort of autopilot going through each day. I guess I will use this time to start some early spring cleaning.

Susan, things are getting so scary with our environment and I am constantly suspicious as to what is being covered up and what is in our food and water. At least they told you about the water to be sure no one in the community drinks it.
I have trust issues and wonder if many things don't get covered up more than we all know. I look at how things seem today and think that if we all knew that these things would occur in the future and had a crystal ball back in the 60's and 70's that we would have shouted "that can't happen!!" But here we are and there are cameras everywhere, we are constantly being tracked by our devices, food is making people gain weight like never before, TV subject matter is strange and gloomy compared to back then, etc. etc. The hoodies people wear also remind me of the dark ages back in history when everyone wore hoods....These times seems to be like some sort of modern dark age.....
At least we can be proud of all that we do each day, the surprises and problems we handle, and know that we are stronger for doing this even though it doesn't seem like it at times and that this strength we are gaining will benefit us in the long run in this crazy world!

So sorry CM.... Lord knows Ive felt like I was starving mom. Just isn't true.
Elderly people do not need as much food as WE would like them to have.

Hope you told the fellow it's only safe to come down if your internet is working properly, if not, stay up there!

Those important discoveries .... are our lifesavers. We can only do so much!

Oh, I've not read my email in 2 months.... I stopped all notifications on everything. If it is that important they should know my cell number. I'm going back to the cave days. HA! Even cooked dinner over the firepit. I love the smell of smokey hair.

It did. I don't want to talk about it. At least four technical support people have been made to feel that they are personally responsible for the slow starvation of a bed bound ninety year old (no internet, no grocery deliveries). A mile and a half of cable has been replaced and the engineer is asking if he is safe to come down from the telegraph pole now...

On the plus side, I did make the important discovery that I can go to our nearest village store and the house won't necessarily burn down, nor will mother die because I've turned my back for fifteen minutes. It is a breakthrough, just not one I feel like being grateful for.

On the minus side, mother's dystonia is tightening its grip, literally, and by Saturday I needed real help - i.e. the forum - with dealing with the accusations that I was hurting her intentionally. Not a fun weekend. I missed you all much more than you missed me, believe me!

CM, I wondered what happened to you. Yes, you were missed. Did you internet service go down?

The kinds of questions I have trouble with aren't the ones with grammar problems. The ones that leave me answer-less are the ones where there is so much going on. Hypothetical example: Parent sick and needs to be placed. Caregiver wants to leave but has no money or job. Sibling visiting and stealing all the money and food. Car broke down and cat has broken leg. Caregiver doesn't want to put mother in facility, but doesn't want to stay or call anyone in. And brother would steal everything and probably broke the cat's leg. Besides, the car doesn't work, so how are they going to leave... you know, those type questions. I sit there and look at the keyboard, realizing even Dr. Phil wouldn't have an answer.

I guess the one best thing to do is look to see what the primary problem is and tackle the primary. (Pardon me. I'm just thinking out loud now.)

Susan, that is scary. I use to handle boat motors, putting them off and on boats. Carrying 50 pounds was no big problem. Now the trash can is heavy. I thought about getting the wheel-y kind, so I wouldn't have to drag them. Age makes a huge difference. I'm 63 now. What will it be like in 10 years? 20 years?

You know, cougars might have the right idea.

Just scared the heck out of myself, and had a vision of the future.

We can't drink our water here, due to toxins in the water from a chemical plant that buried their toxic waste here in the 70's when they pulled out of town and shut their factory down. It leached through their "retaining wall" and into our water supply. Our river and wells are polluted with it. So we (and everyone else in town) buy our water elsewhere or have it delivered. I have a cooler that holds 5-gallon jugs. So far, I've been able to hoist the jugs up onto the cooler with minimal effort - until tonight. I don't know what happened tonight, but when I went to pick up that darn jug, my arms just quit working, and I dropped it from chest-height, onto my lower leg. I already have circulation and edema problems (read: blood clot risk) in my legs - so what do I do? I go and drop a 40-lb jug of water on it. Instantly saw visions of myself after Mom passes, being alone in the house and doing something like this, and ending up on the floor, unable to reach the phone. I guess at that point, I'll be a candidate for an emergency alert pendant or something. (sigh) My arms still feel kind of weak and shaky, but I think that's more from adrenaline than anything else. I can use my fingers and all that (I'm typing...), so nothing serious wrong, but sure was a wake up call for the future...and not a nice one.

Haven't you forgotten the Govt CM "Put the lot of them up against the wall and.............."

Jessie, I think it's the getting of wisdom isn't it? - when you realise that if things were that simple we wouldn't have any problems. Whereas when you're twenty you can put the world straight in a trice. Unfaithful boyfriend? Ditch him. Violent criminals? Shoot them/hug them depending on what sort of parents you're reacting against. Declining elder? Take her a cupcake with a smiley face on it. Warring nations? Make music (actually I still think that's a good idea - maybe I'm not grown up enough yet).

There are times that i am so overwhelmed I cannot find my words. Everything seems to jumble together. Thoughts are not so coherent so I struggle to put them into words. Apparently I failed English Class. I truly wish I could convey my thought as eloquently as others on here....oh well.

Weed through it. IF anyone comes on this website they are in some sort of trouble.

I was out doing an errand for mom this morning and my brother actually made my mom some lunch. Wow. Seriously, I was shocked. I was also glad because one less meal that I have to prepare these days is like a mini-vacation!!
However, what bugged me was mom telling me how nice it was of him to make her something! Like it was some HUGE deal or something. I don't mean to be petty and I am happy that that tiny offering made her so very happy, but it also bugs me that he can do so little and he gets so much credit. I know that she gives me a lot of credit too and for that I am thankful.

JessieBelle, you are not alone. I just wish some of the new questions that pop up would be written a lot clearer to make it better to understand. One question I couldn't tell if the writer was writing about her mother, or her daughter, or her mother's sister, or her daughter's sister. It was one of those 500 word long sentences. Too much for me to try to sort out.... [sigh]

Is it me, or are some of the problems we're getting on AC seem too complicated to sort through? Some of the questions I just want to write "You got a mess there." Maybe it's because I realize there are no easy answers. Or maybe it is because some people really do have such a mess.

I'm hoping I feel better this weekend. I have a ton of yard work to catch up on. Last fall I didn't get it done. It's warming up and I see some spring bulbs looking for the sun...better get out there and give them a hand.

Dee, that is a perfect saying.... bet many of us feel that way :P

Saw a really cute sign on Pinterest today:

"I have decided I no longer want to be an adult. If anyone needs me, I will be in my blanket fort, coloring".

Gonna print this, tape it to the fridge, and make me a blanket fort.

HA! I'd settle for them dealing with one bout of constipation where you manually get to stimulate ma's butt to help her go.

I bet there is at least one poor little bird that has the misfortune of getting seasick.

Jeanette, if all we had to do to be heroines was breeze in once in a blue moon and do something interesting (in its way) like paint a wall or dig a flower bed or even change a light bulb, we wouldn't have so much to whine about, right? It's the day in day out grind that no one gives any thought to - I call your fence and raise you five cups of tea, four pad changes and seventeen difference answers to the question "why don't birds get sea-sick?" - that your brothers should be obliged to take their turn at.

My whine for the whole of last week was no broadband, no email, no nothing. Not so much a whine as screaming hysteria. But I'm all better now, sob sniffle...

Jeannette - glad your brothers helped with the fence!