Tag Archives: Mom

Throw Momma from the Train???

I don’t know why..wait..oh yes, I do….I decided to take my 86 year-old mother on a whirlwind European vacation with us because she said she wanted to go when my sister went last year.

Our thirtieth wedding anniversary was approaching, so of course, why wouldn’t we take my Mom and our adult daughter with us on a 2 week trip to Budapest, Prague, Vienna, Dublin and a few other small towns thrown in? So romantic.

We nixed the river boat tour as too little time in each city and too much  time on a boat, especially since my daughter and I can be prone to sea sickness. What we didn’t realize was that a bus tour meant loads and loads of walking.

I almost killed my mother.

it would have been okay, except every day at least one of this intrepid group of four from age 23 to 86 decided that we should all do the extra tour of the day. And the remaining three did not wish to be unsociable or, God forbid, miss any one little highlight of the tour. Every one of us was pooped every single day. Up at 6 AM or earlier and very late to bed. We were going to have fun, damnit.

We even met up with our older daughter and her fiance in Budapest to add to the romance of 30 years of marriage. I will admit that Nanny passed on the pinball museum that day, which actually may have been one of my favorite pastimes. After walking a billion blocks to the museum in some heavily UNpopulated area, we played pinball for over 2 hours on all kinds of machines from the past eight or nine decades!

And then we got lost in Vienna.

pastryNow, normally i would embrace that. It’s fun to be lost in a foreign city. As long as you feel safe, it’s intriguing to find yourself in areas of the city that aren’t on the tourist map. But it’s downright cruel to keep your 86 year-old mom hiking through the streets of Vienna without a map, a plan, a coffee,a sausage or even a Viennese pastry.

We couldn’t find a taxi, a cafe, or any reasonable place to stop. And we couldn’t abandon her in a park and say we would come back for her because we had no idea where we were leaving her.

As she got redder in the face and was puffing along, I began to get worried. I think I actually broke into a furniture store that was closed when a gentleman came out…I just grabbed the open door and went in to an apparent board meeting. The look of panic on their faces was alarming, to them…not me… I was worried about my Mom.

Kindly, in perfect English, the nice man gave us directions:

“Go up this street until you can’t go anymore, then turn left and you will be at your destination.”

We almost turned left before we couldn’t go anymore….which actually meant running into a stone wall……..and there we were.

We’ve been home a month. We discuss the concerts, the architecture, the tour guide who told us all about living under Communist rule, and how exhausting but amazing the whole vacation turned out to be. But we never once have discussed getting lost in Vienna. I was pretty sure my Mom wasn’t impressed with our trekking across Eastern Europe.

Grand CentralUntil yesterday when she said, “I still want to take a train trip across the entire continental United States.” Cause that wouldn’t be tiring in any way.

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski

 

Mothers are the mother of all frustration………..or daughters………….

My Mom is going with us on a trip to Europe. My sister took a Viking River cruise last year and my Mom was green around the gills about it. I asked my sister why she didn’t take our mother and she claimed she didn’t know Mom wanted to go. Ha! Who doesn’t want to take a Viking River cruise? I should’ve asked her why she didn’t take me.

prague-226869_1280I think I’m the winner because Mom is pretty fun and she still pays for things! Our 23 year-old daughter will be her ‘companion’ on the trip. Of course, we are paying for that, so  my  husband sees that our 30th anniversary trip turned into a money pit that may wane in the romantic department. And there may be shark infested waters here.

Mom hasn’t traveled abroad since we took her to Italy in 2001, and she needs a real suitcase. We took her to San Antonio two years ago. My husband and I took turns carrying her carpetbag (no really, it is literally a carpetbag with no wheels and no long strap) through the airports. It was like carrying a toddler, while trying to wheel my own luggage.

So I put my foot down. We were not going through Heathrow to Budapest, Vienna, Prague and over to Dublin with a carpetbag. We were going suitcase shopping.

She didn’t really like the colors of the ones at Kohl’s. And I flatly refused to let her get a plain black suitcase that would take us 400 tries as it went around the luggage carousel to decide if it was hers or not.

Then we went our local department store. Much better selection and nicer colors. Oh, yay.

We debated hard sides versus soft sides.  Soft sides win. I don’t really know why. I was just glad the debate was over. Plus they were really ugly. After doing the luggage loop around and around the choices, we narrowed it down to green, a knock of  the Louis Vuitton print and absolutely NOT any animal prints. Okay, we were getting somewhere.

We opened and closed the green and the brown. Pulled the luggage around the store to see if one was lighter than the other. We lifted them and debated the inside zipper areas and colors. Yes, colors. They were the same size suitcase, but the interior silk made one look bigger than the other, or it really was and the size dimensions were all lies. Oh, and what does the matching carry on look like? Is it the right shape? Is there enough room? Can I get into the zippers with ease? Are we buying a matching carry on?

You all know what I was thinking. Don’t pretend you aren’t thinking the same thing, too. You are no better than me. JUST PICK A DAMN SUITCASE!

I went over to her house the next day, where she was putting things into her new suitcases three weeks before we leave.  She was chatting on the phone with her girlfriend from nursing school. They were allegedly discussing whether or not to attend their reunion. But she was laughing and wiping tears from her eyes.

Words and  phrases like,”yes my daughter is 58 too!” ” Oh my God, we just went suitcase shopping yesterday, too!”  were wafting from her bedroom.

“SO impatient……..pain in the you-know-what……………. made me crazy…………….. so glad that’s over……….”

Hmmmmm…

“You just have to Laugh………….”

© 2015 Cathy Sikorski

 

A Caregiver Confesses…………

Not every day in a caregiver’s life is worthy of a pat on the back. Last week the visiting nurse called me with her weekiy update:

“Hi Cathy, all is well with your brother-in-law,but I’m calling today as his advocate.”

Uh-oh. What does that mean? Immediately, my hackles go up. I don’t actually know what hackles are, if I have them or when they go up and down. But I do know that some red flag is waving behind my eyeballs, and I have become defensive before she even says her next sentence. And here’s why. I am his advocate. Not you. First, I am a professional advocate. Second, I am the one who goes to bat for him almost on a  daily basis. And third, if you are telling me you are advocating for him to me….that must mean you are about to tell me what I’m doing wrong.

“Okay,” I say calmly, “what’s up?”

“Since you’ve put him back on bed rest, he is frustrated and really angry. He doesn’t want to be in bed most of the day. He needs to be in his wheelchair and out and about with his friends. He needs to go to the dining room for every meal and have that independence.”

And here’s where I’m not so happy with myself….but this is only the first part of my confession.

“Let me tell you something (not a good way to start an open-minded conversation). He  just returned home from 10 months in and out of the hospital with 6 of those months straight in a nursing home.In just four days after being home, he began to have bed sores again and problems with open wounds. I feel pretty certain that he does not want to go back to either of those places and so since I know that bed rest was the only solution, I instituted that. Within 10 days of you seeing him, those wounds have significantly healed and he is almost able to return to his normal routine.”

“Well,” she replied, “I’m sure that’s what he needs.”

“I am not trying to make his life harder. Quite the contrary. But I will be sure and let him know that you have advocated for him.”

“Okay, thanks and Happy Thanksgiving!” she said as she got off the phone at breakneck speed.

The Thanksgiving remark sort of slapped me back to reality as well. I was feeling less grateful for her help and more needy of explaining my part in this Passion Play.

And then I misbehaved.

I went over to my brother-in-law’s apartment to discuss his advocate. I waited until the next day, so I could explain to him that I’m not a monster, I’m not insensitive to the fact that lying in bed most of the day is boring, not fun and makes for a long day. I only have his best interests at heart, and I don’t want him to end up back in any place but his home, where he is as happy as he can be.

When I arrived, he was watching TV in his chair.

“Hey,” I said, “your nurse tells me your mad at me.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I don’t want to be in bed so much. ”

And this is where all my sensitivity training, my caregiver’s heart and I’m pretty sure my 26 years as a Mom comes in to soothe and explain how all my hard work for him is truly in his own best interests, that I love him and want him to be healthy and safe and happy and that sometimes that road is a little bumpy.

“Get over it, ” I said.

I thought he would just have to laugh…..and guess what…he actually did………

©Cathy Sikorski

 

 

Stroke of genius?

I called my 86 year old Mom for help.

“Hey, Mom, I need a picture of your cabin in Canada.”

“Okay,” she said, “come over and get it.”

“No,” I told her, “I want you to get it off your computer, and email it to me.”

“Oh, ummm….where is that?”

“Where is your computer?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous. Where is the picture on my computer?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you?”

Maybe I did have to go over there and get it.

“Okay, let’s start at the computer. Are you on your iPad or your desktop?”

“Let me go to the big computer, the picture has to be on there because your

In folder marked "Canada"
In folder marked “Canada”

brother-in-law made it my screensaver.”

I hear her sneakers tweak around the kitchen floor, her bedroom door makes a little squeak as she opens it, and the whirr of her desktop hums through the phone line as she boots up.

“Okay, now what do I do?” she asks matter-of-factly. She calmly clicks on all the buttons I direct her to. We get all the way to the photos stored on her desk top and we are at an impasse.

“Mom, do you know where the photo is stored? Like, what folder is it in?”

“Well, I guess it’s in the one marked ‘Canada’, does that sound right?”

“Just try it. See if it’s in there.”

For some reason, I don’t hear any computer buttons clicking on the other end of the line. Silence, with a little breathing is the only sound coming through.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing? I thought you were looking in the file marked ‘Canada’. Did you find it?”

Now she’s exasperated. Technology has won again. She is frustrated and annoyed, and I have no idea why.

“Ugh….I have been waiting and waiting for the keyboard to come up so I can look for the picture.”

“Wait…what? I don’t know what…..Wait….are you on your iPad or your computer”

“I’m on the computer. I told you that’s where the picture probably is.”

I realize that this octogenarian is trying her best to be in the 21st century. She has willingly taken on a desktop and an iPad. She puts up with her children trying to train her like an organ monkey over the phone, and sometimes it’s just too many things to remember. Plus naming every button as a “square thingy that looks like a tv,” or a “the blue e thingy,” usually ends up with a trip to Mom’s house anyway.

” Um….Mom, look down at your fingers, there’s your keyboard. It doesn’t come up on the screen like the iPad. You’re using the actual keyboard.”

“Oh.”

We both burst out laughing. She does indeed send the picture.

Caregivers need to give credit where credit is due and…..

“You just have to Laugh….”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski

What makes the Hottentot so hot? Courage….the Cowardly Lion.

So I have to prepare a story about courage for a story slam. This may or may not be it.

I think my Mom is one of the most courageous people I know.  She had 5 kids all under the age of 10, and was pregnant with her 6th when my Army helicopter Dad died in a crash. Along with my Nana, she raised six pretty terrific kids (I can say that, I’m the middle child).The problem arises when she mixes her courage with a bit of the crazy.

As you may know, she is a big help to me in my caregiving duties. She is a nurse and was

This pic never gets old!
This pic never gets old!

often  called upon to help me with nonagenarians. She is in charge of all the meds for my brother-in-law. So this lady has got it together.

She gives great advice, except to herself. A few years ago, my mom and my brother Chip, decided to take a trip to Canada. My Mom has had a cabin there since 1972. It’s very rustic. The cabin is nestled next to a little lake. Years ago, my Mom and stepfather, and any other rustic thinking person, would go there all summer long for fishing, wildlife, nature, no electricity, no running water.  The kind of place I would not set foot in.

For the past 5 years or so, my Mom goes only occasionally. She still manages to find people who actually want to go there, but the boat dock is rotted, the trail to the lake is overgrown with weeds, she no longer has a garden the size of the Louvre, and so it’s just a short trip for a few days with those escaping technology or their spouses.

This time Mom and Chip went to check out the new floor that my brothers and brother-in-law had installed. They drove 8 hours from home. They were there approximately 45 minutes, when my Mom tripped on the lip created by the new floor and promptly broke her arm. See, she knew she broke it because she’s a nurse. That and the crack that sounded the minute she hit the floor.

My mother insisted that my brother get back in the car and drive her home 8 hours with that throbbing arm and nasty seat belt, so that she could go to a hospital near home. Now as the one who was probably going to be her temporary caregiver, that was great for me. As someone who tests the limits of courage and common sense. this 83 year old grandmother should have had some sense knocked into her before she hit the floor.

Courage or Crazy…………you be the judge. In any case………..

By the way…that picture IS  the  actual cabin. I made my Mom email it to me….THAT is the next story!

“You just have to Laugh………..”

Cathy Sikorski ©2014

 

 

Does your right hand really know what your left hand is doing?

A million and one times, caregivers are told “take care of yourself,” “take time for  yourself,” “you’re going to have to put yourself first.” All of this great advice theoretically has benefit, but putting it into practice can backfire.

My Mom is a 45 year old in an 85 year old body. She is my right hand with much of my caregiving responsibilities. So when I had to include her in my caregiving queue, it was not only distressing but a bit of a last straw.

The first time it happened she broke her hip….no….she corrects me every time…she did NOT break her hip like some old lady. She fell while power walking and broke her femur at the top near the hip. While in rehab, Mom worked like a trained monkey to get out of there. But I still had to bring her laundry to rehab, go and check on her, help take care of her bills and her home, etc. As caregiving goes, it was one of the easier gigs.

Two years later, she needed a caregiver when she went to her cabin in Canada and within hours of arrival, she fell and broke her arm. She forced my brother to drive her  eight straight hours back to Pennsylvania for medical care because she didn’t want to get stuck in a Canadian hospital .

This time I was already inundated with caregiving for my brother-in-law, my mother-in-law and my friend who had recently experienced a traumatic brain injury.

My mother basically has 8 children. I put my foot down. I called a family  meeting and told my sisters (yeah the smart brothers lived far away) that I was not going to be the go-to person this time. I live the closest to my mother, but the rest of my sisters live within 15 or 20 minutes.  My oldest sister, Tina agreed to be the daily coordinator. All my other sisters divvied up the jobs of grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, bathing assistance, etc.  Doctor appointments and pharmacy runs would be done as needed. Any mission that was not set in stone would require a call to Tina, who would either do it herself or ask someone to help.

My go-to Girl!
My go-to Girl!

 

My mother attended this caregiver summit. She understood everyone’s mission and consulted the chart of who was coming when. Since Mom had been assisting me with all the other people on my caregiving list, she was well aware of the time and energy commitment a caregiver puts out.

The last thing I said to her was, ‘if you need anything, you call Tina first. She will make sure it gets done pronto.”

The first week my Mom was home, I was so busy I barely noticed a week went by.  Day 8 my mother calls me:

“Hey, Mom, how are you? Is everything going ok?”

“Yes, everything is pretty good. I’m feeling good and I can do more than I expected. The doctor said I can’t drive for 6 weeks, but we will see about that.”

“Ok, we’ll see, but don’t do anything crazy.”

“Well, that’s why I’m calling you. I wanted to know if you would take me to the grocery store.”

Now normally, I would just say, “sure”, or ask what she needed so I could pick it up for her. But some little devil sat on my shoulder and shouted, “TINA.”

“Aren’t you supposed to call Tina?”

“Well, I didn’t want to call her because she lives so far away and you’re just around the corner.”

Through gritted teeth,  I said, “I’ll call you right back.”

And then I called Tina.

Don’t ever think that anyone, even your right arm, really understands caregiving. Which is why……

“You just have to Laugh….”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski

 

 

 

Go to Girl and Go Go Gadget

Invariably, on the day you need to be in your car for 8 to 10 hours, that is the day, all hell will break loose.

My go-to Girl!
My go-to Girl!

My go-to girl is my amazing 85 year-old mom. Weird, for a caregiver, I know. But she is a former nurse and raised six kids, so she knows her stuff. She pours all the meds for my brother-in-law, she helps me out in every pinch and she loves going to the ER with me. So when she calls, I answer…immediately.

“Hello?”

“Cathy?”

“Yes, Mom,” I say on my handsfree car phone as I’m driving 65 miles an hour down the turnpike on my mission to hit as many major cities in the metropolitan area for various necessities on Easter weekend.

“Um, I’m at L’s apartment, and his wheelchair stopped dead. Can I release it and push it down the hallway to the dining room so he can go to dinner?”

“Wait, no, you can’t push it. You are 85 for crying out loud, that wheelchair weighs a thousand pounds without the big guy in it.” (See When Wine and Wheelchairs don’t mix….)

“Look, Mom, since he had the wheelchair fixed, there’s a button on the back that sometimes disengages his controls. Can you see the button on the back?”

“No, I can’t get behind him, he kind of stopped weirdly in the middle of his room, and I can’t get behind him.”

I can’t really figure that one out, but okay, I’ll work with what I’ve got here.

“Okay, can you stand on his right side and look behind his head area. That’s where the button is. See if it’s red or green.”

“Oh, ok, yes ok it’s green, wait, now it’s red.”

“It sounds like it’s cycling through. Just turn it off and then back on and then see if he can use his own controller. And stand far away, he’s been known to take off like a bat out of hell when we are trying to figure this out.”

“Oh…..okay.”

She fiddles with it a few times and it doesn’t seem to work. I’m still stuck between 5 eighteen wheelers on the turnpike and going nowhere near L’s apartment.

“Okay, Mom, I’m gonna’ call for reinforcements to come help.”

“What? I can’t hear you, you’re cutting out.”

“I can hear you perfectly,” I say.

“Well, I can’t hear you,” she says as her pitch rises in frustration. But of course she could or how would she know I said that?

“HANG UP, I WILL CALL YOU BACK!” Because somehow I think yelling is the answer.

My reinforcements are hard to find, so I call her back to say I’m working on it.

“Hello, Cathy?

“Yeah, Mom, I’m trying to get you help.”

“Oh, that’s ok, I was waiting for your call to tell you that as soon as you hung up it started working. He started to drive toward me, and that seemed ok, so he went to dinner.”

Ummmm…you couldn’t call me?

“Ok, well that’s good, thanks for the update.”

“Oh and Cathy?”

“Yeah?”

There’s a big hole in the wall where his headrest got imbedded into it when he went too fast in reverse, so we’re gonna have to get that fixed.”

You just have to Laugh……

Cathy Sikorski

 

 

 

 

A holiday for who????

In a sense, we mothers, never stop caregiving. And when you’re kids come home for Christmas from college and their ‘real lives’, you sort of begin all over again.  Which of course, we LOVE, right?

But then you can’t find your favorite pj’s or slippers. Or you are under constant demand to mate the sox that you let pile up in the ever-growing ‘volcano of  unmatched socks’ because your little darlings could only bring home so much stuff, and you haven’t replenished the unforgivable pile of stuff until Christmas  day. So c’mon, Mom get it together, we’re home now and you love us.

And I do, I really, really do like  you…so much so that Dad already knows he’s been relegated to the back seat of ‘attention’ and accepts his fate as driver, drink provider (now that all are over 21..YAY) and default errand runner for all things Christmas.

What turns us caregivers into “I-DON’T-CARE” givers? About ourselves, I mean. At the drop of a semester, and a holiday, we ramp up our to-do lists, our need to make magic for everyone, and our total and complete exhaustion all in the name of creating, “it’s a wonderful life”. If only George Bailey would have gone for a massage and a facial, had his nails done (including a peppermint pedi) and THEN came home and said:

“You know what,  you’re right. Life is pretty terrific with me in it! I feel refreshed, relaxed and well-groomed. Let’s eat!”

But noooo. Like George, we caregivers choose to take the hard road. Like today when my daughter asked for chicken. And like an idiot, in the middle of making bacon for my other daughter, I ran to the basement in my bare feet (cause’ chicken daughter absconded with my slippers when hers broke in the middle of the night), zoomed over to the freezer all the while, keeping a mental timer on that bacon so it didn’t get too crispy, didn’t bother to turn the light on, cause I KNOW where the freezer is in my basement, and promptly smashed my toes, likely breaking at least two of them, into a brick that was left lying in front of the freezer.

Yay caregivers the world over! Yay Christmas! Damn you George Bailey, you just couldn’t take care of yourself for once and be a lesson to us all?

Merry Christmas, caregivers…..cause

You just have to Laugh………………….

Cathy Sikorski