There are times when I wonder, if I am just spinning my wheels, or merely going crazy. I mean, I want to do my best, and yet it seems like Mom isn’t willing to work with what we got. I mean we aren’t rich, I have to work from home, eke out a living from the Internet, when I can.
Problem is, I can’t just sit down to write code for my pages, or even write posts for my various blog projects. I am on call, and have to be able to drop things at an instant. Hard to keep one’s concentration when you are at someone elses beck and call.
David works hard, and our combined income is not at the poverty level, but it sure as hell isn’t much above it. I wonder how they come up with that level? I mean, we do okay, have decent food, but the reserves are minimal at best. And when you care for a 93 year old, you need reserves.
Like Pharmacare doesn’t cover anti fungal creams, so there goes about $35 every couple of weeks. Then there is the depends, that’s turning into about $50 a week, plus the need for gloves to do the changes, another $20 a month. Add everything up and it comes to a sizeable hunk of change. Yet Mom doesn’t seem to get it anymore.
For example, today she is wanting me to get her some blouses and a couple of summer dresses. Reasonable you may think, except the fact is, she wears a nighshirt and housecoat all the time. Her ability to go out is limited, due to her walking and strength.
Factor in too that she requires regular changes, due to incontentcy, and well, let me see, wearing a dress, slip, etc, is only going to make that task harder, not to mention increasing my laundry load. Course a solution to the laundry is to do more changes, except that isn’t as easy as it sounds.
I mean she doesn’t know WHEN she’s gone, so how am I supposed to know? Then too, more changes means more effort for her to get up, go to the bedroom, then back again. She’s already exhausted before she’s even out of the bedroom for the morning, so this is gonna make it less?
Increased changes also mean more depends, which at about a $1 per depend, will become even more expensive. As it is, it is about $5 per day now.
I do a full load of laundry now, which meant I had to buy more nightshirts, just to be able to keep clean one’s available. As it seems that for every depend change, a new nighshirt is needed 2 out 3 changes. With dresses, slips, skirts & blouses, this could evolve into 2 or even 3 loads, and the washing machine is not new. Any reserves to buy a new one is out the window now, never mind having to cough up money for dresses that she won’t wear but once or twice.
Yet how do I tell her? When I do mention cost, it becomes even worse. Oh, not the demands for things, but instead she’ll say she doesn’t need a change, trying to cut down on that, or says she doesn’t need to eat much, to cut back the portions. That is crazy, but its what she does, so telling her I can’t get dresses, can’t get blouses, becomes difficult if not impossible to do.
Being up front about the expenses, is not an option. She gets the notion, thanks to Beacon, that she is a burden, and that only robs her of the ability to fight through the difficult moments.
This balancing act is tough because then too, I have David to worry about. He sees the stress, resents it too, and you can’t blame him. He loves me, so naturally he’s protective, and yet he doesn’t get the bond that exists between me and mom. Hell, at times, even I don’t quite get it. I feel resentment too, but try to contain it, to not show it, but at times, it is hard.
All I know is that I have to keep going forward, that looking back, that moaning of what I can’t do is not going to get things done. Instead, I need to vent, move on. It just isn’t easy to do.