Busy?

How to define busy?  If you are a fly on the wall and watch me, much of the time I am still, apparently doing little or nothing.  Sitting with my computer in my lap filling the little or nothing with hours of empty mind numbing distractions.  Whole days vanish and yet I feel so busy that I am often struggling with feeling totally overwhelmed.  So much needs to be done and yet I am frozen, too busy to do anything.

I am with my parents all day every day.  Broken leg Dad has been home for more than a month now... and making HUGE progress.  Ninety-two years old and knitting bones like a teenager.  His ortho surgeon approved full weight bearing only six weeks after his break.  But that being said... it will take weeks for him to regain strength, balance and control before he will be officially authorized to walk without someone standing close.  We have physical therapy, occupational therapy, visiting nurses, onsite nurses, an army of hardworking patient caretakers who are here to do the gross stuff like bathing, toileting and pericare (think ass wiping); and at least three doctors who all seem to never talk to each other.

Dad has become wayyyyy too accustomed to having people wait on him hand and foot.  There is a tendency to demand rather than ask, when I talk with him about it he seems to just not hear me.  There is not even an acknowledgement of my words.  Yet I cannot hold him too accountable, it must be nearly impossible to be that needy all the time, to experience the terror of having to depend on some group of bewildering strangers for your most basic needs and remain patient, calm, gracious or grateful.

I work hard to keep some kind of boundaries.  I keep track of mom but she is easy... put a sandwich in front of her twice a day and nag/bully her out of her nightgown and into clean clothes by 3:30 so she can go to dinner with Dad.  I do mail, meds, appointments, physical therapy coach for our exercise sessions, transportation, financial matters, and oversight to make sure everyone else does all the things we are paying for.  And OH MY GOD we are PAYING a lot for all this crap.  Even with excellent insurance the money is flowing.  Thank all the powers of the universe that Dad had the foresight to sock away a pretty hefty stash for just this kind of moment.  We can afford it... for now...  

It royally pisses me off when they charge me for crap they are not doing.  I talk with the treatment plan lady and ask why we are paying for something they clearly have not been doing.  She smiles condescendingly and protests they do all those things "at night when you are not there".  But I ask Dad and he looks confused... "No nobody does that."  And it is apparently true because the nurse that is supposed to do a body inventory to check for bedsores sure never seems to find them.  When Dad says his butt hurts and he tells me that the nurse came and looked at it and told him he had a "boil".  Then the visiting nurse finds open bedsores and gives me some kind of accusatory look like it was my mistake... well it pisses me off.  And that "two person" transfer thing that they insist is necessary for safety... seems all well and good... until two people were never there when he when he is "helped" from bed to wheel chair, but they were happy to keep on charging me for that "safety"... six times a day.  

But we are past that... he is finally authorized for "single" but now he is fairly independent.  He can get himself to standing and using his walker get himself around for short distances.  Now a lot of what I do is try to keep him focused on doing it right because I cannot stop him from wanting to do it himself.  And it makes me tear up to hear him bragging about finally being able to pee standing up... Its a guy thing.  

And that is just the stuff I do here... while I "hang out" with both of them.  Ten hours a day, seven days a week.  

I've decided I cannot go back to work.  Angry violent children and needy forgetful parents are too whole different kinds of stress and I am too realistic to try to do both at the same time.  And the old folks will always be the top priority.

So another set of crazy making priorities raise their ugly head.  Retirement... figuring out some kind of health insurance... forms on top of forms on top of forms.  Its all a little daunting.  Bureaucracies have been defeating me almost daily.  Just try and change addresses with the social security administration, or a bank or for fucks sake the cable company.  It will make your head explode.

Speaking of exploding heads... the cream the visiting nurse ordered has apparently been delivered to the nurse's station several days ago but no one thought to bring it down to the room or to put is on his sore ass.  So off I go to find it out what is going on and most likely will end up doing it myself.

Thank you for listening to me rant.

 

   

Mirrors and Windows

Listening to public radio the other day, I heard a writer say that every story should have both a mirror and a window.  The concept that we should be able to see something of ourselves in every story and also have the opportunity to see outside ourselves and learn about others as well resonated for me and I wanted to note that down before it becomes buried under the minutiae of the million things my life brings me. 

Why am I here?

Has it been a hundred years since I have been here... Intellectually I know it cannot have been a hundred years but emotionally I am an infinity away from where I was since I last visited here.  I had literally forgotten the name of my blog, or how to get there or what the password was.  A chapter of my life not forgotten, but misplaced.  

I look at my last post of how the work I do with children seems to suck the energy from me, steal the words from my heart.  And now, oddly here I am searching through the lost files of my past searching for that something I had misplaced at a time when I am a few weeks removed from the soul sapping rage of broken children.

As an aging only child of very aged parents there has been the inevitable fall, terrifying broken bones and complete disability for my father and now I am care taker of my sweetly forgetful mother.  And the care of aging parents leaves me with time to think and time to feel and the urge to put this life down in words once again.

I sit in a quiet room with my sweet ancient mother, just existing in her world so that she will not feel alone as my even older and fragile father struggles to heal bones and strengthen muscles.  Three weeks in the rehab center and now, tomorrow he will be brought home, with a bewildering array of walkers, wheelchairs, hospital beds and all the other things that someone who cannot walk needs to function. We have moved into a lovely assisted care elder community.  There will be all the help in the world to teach us how to do all this stuff and people to help with the hard stuff.  There will be a million questions, but I trust there will be a million answers. 

But that is tomorrow, and today it is quiet and I am here to be with my mother to answer the same questions over and over.  She loves to wonder... "Who invented glass?"  "Tell me again where your father is." "Why are you here?"  She sees me with my computer in my lap and asks, "Can I have one of those?  How much do they cost?"  Forgetting that I already bought her one... every time she sees it, it is new and mysterious. She cannot learn to use it, she cannot even remember she has it.  For she lives in the land of forgetting.  And that is why I am here, to help her find herself, because she is still there, just misplaced in time and space.

And perhaps that is why I am here, to finally have the time to find myself.  And find myself once again full of words... and tears.  I find myself remembering, a chapter a hundred years ago, a place to put my words and tears, to sort things out.