How do I forgive myself?

You kick yourself all round the room, then you post what you've done here, and the good and lovely people will a) console you and b) recommend that you don't do it again!

That's what happened to me, anyway. I always set out my mother's early morning and lunchtime meds in two different egg cups. Then I put the a.m. ones on her breakfast tray and the lunchtime ones in the cupboard. Methodical, see?

And one morning the phone rang and I went to put the lunchtime eggcup in the cupboard, and it wasn't there, and where the heck had it gone, and ohmygod I must have left it on her tray -

Dash to her room. Too late.

Yup, she had taken both sets of meds. Bumetanide, Bisoprolol, Losartan...

😱

I called her GP, confessed, and was told to calm down and report any worrying signs but they didn't think there would be any.

Moral: whichever method you use can be improved by learning from mistakes.

I think every caregiver eventually makes a similar mistake. We are human, and often trying to multitask or operating with suboptimal sleep, etc.

I accidentally gave my father too much of a painkiller medication for a few doses, and the mistake definitely contributed to the whole series of events surrounding the delay of the discovery of my dad’s spinal cord injury. Maybe the effects of the injury wouldn’t have been as bad ultimately if I hadn’t made that error. Sigh. Everyone (including me!) was doing their best.

My sweet dad said he didn’t blame me and I had to forgive myself and just keep on keepin’ on. Best to you and your mom.

Hi Meredith, find an improved medication routine. I forget within seconds whether I have had my morning tablets today, or am I remembering swallowing them yesterday. I now have a pill pack (aka webster pack) which runs for two weeks with the days of the week named, with all the doses sorted in advance. It’s very very common, and ought to help you too.

Just for your interest, I was in my mother’s hospital room when the nurse found that another nurse had mixed up doses big-time because she was not clear about exactly what metric milligrams meant. She was visiting from a country hospital, to get recent city experience – which she clearly needed. There was a sub-voice panic, but my mother wasn’t killed, thank heavens. If they can do it, you need to forgive yourself. Just work on ways to make it less likely to happen again!

When my son was an infant, one with many critical medical needs, we kept a running chart of his meds with dosages and times given. Once in all those doses my husband and I both gave him the same highly potent med, right on top of each other. Complete freak out! I was convinced we’d just killed him. A quick call to his doctor confirmed that he’d be fine, but that didn’t stop the guilt or the watching him like a hawk. Ultimately we’re all human, making human mistakes despite doing our best. Highly trained doctors make mistakes, that’s why it’s called “practicing medicine” Forgive yourself and move forward, you’re doing your best

You are a human being. Humans make mistakes. Even doctors make mistakes, and so do nurses. The anxiety of caregiving often makes us so anxious we cannot stay mindful and stay in a headspace where you do something without thinking of the dozen other things on the "plate" at the same time. You made a mistake with something that luckily doesn't make a difference. It will help you going forward to know to keep you mind about you. Forgive yourself for human limitations. We all have them.

Help me with something- if your mother is in an Assisted Living, why are you making yourself responsible for administering her medications? If this is a service available to her, it may be worth considering. My LO’s meds are administered daily for a small fee. I couldn’t POSSIBLY be responsible for administering them, based on her erratic schedule alone, much less all the other variables in her and my environments.

More important, just by your description you are putting an incredibly unmanageable burden of stress on your already overburdened list of responsibility if you are not even allowing for the possibility of making an innocent ERROR which was NOT “potentially deadly”.

Will it help you OR your mother by characterizing your actions with language like “completely failed her” and “heartbroken”? NOT ONE BIT.

You do what you do OUT OF LOVE for her, not out of being a Saint who is doomed if an innocent mistake occurs.

IF you cannot arrange for AL staff to administer medications (but her iron is actually a supplement, right?), then buy yourself the best organizer set-up you can find, and set aside a few minutes once a week to set it up. Having done this, YOU will be in better control of preventing accidents with dosage.

I’ve been a caregiver often throughout my life, and I’ve both observed AND LEARNED BY EXPERIENCE, that taking really good care of the CAREGIVER is JUST AS IMPORTANT as taking care of the patient. A weary, depressed, anxious, unnerved caregiver is MORE LIKELY to make an innocent goof than a comfortable, self nourishing one.

Be at peace with what’s happened as a blip in a long sequence of loving care.
It has made no difference in her life. Release your desire to make it too important in yours

Caregiving is stressful and distracting, and makes it easier to forget things. You're not the first or last person who will do this. Heck, I can't even remember if I've taken my own vitamins in the morning sometimes! Perhaps alter your process?
I use a monthly pill dispenser for my Mom's meds that I bought on Amazon which holds 31 pill boxes in a tray. The date is printed on one end of each daily pill box, so the tray looks like a calendar when fully loaded. This allows you to pull out the pillbox for the day and put it back in the tray with the date hidden once the doses are taken. (On Amazon search for 'monthly pill box' with what you need-1, 2, or 3 x / day.) It's been a big help to me. I use this method for her prescription meds, and lay out her vitamins on her placemat each AM.

Accidents happen. Please forgive yourself.

Obviously, you care. Or you wouldn’t be so upset.

When the guilt is high about this. Tell yourself that you are human and that humans are fallible. I know if you were reading this story from someone else, you will tell them to keep forgiving themselves and to keep putting one foot in front of the other. All of us deal with self talk, which sadly a lot of times are out right lies and can be so self judging to the point of being a sadist on ourselves. It's common to all of us to hold ourselves to unreasonable expectations. One day you may be fine and then another day can roll around and there we are dredging it all up again. When that happens, you must be your own mental security guard and tell yourself, no this is not gonna be how this goes today. It's not that you did it on purpose. If you feel you need to, take extra measures like posting a chart on the wall or somewhere and when meds/vit etc are given mark it down, whoever is administering something. That might help you have confidence in the days ahead.

Meredith, you are human. Humans make mistakes. If iron is something you give her on a regular basis have you considered having the pharmacy have all your mom's medications in blister paks. It's so convenient. All her pills would be in their own little blister pak with the dates and times she needs to take them. I did this with my mom's medicine and it really helped.

(I see Margaret already mentioned this but I guess it doesn't hurt to hear it twice) LOL