Have you ever had the experience as a caregiver (or even a co-worker) where you’ve been taking care of someone and they are clearly forgetting things and allowing you to have all the responsibility and power? Basically, they are done. They don’t want to engage in any way that is challenging or difficult. And okay, fine. You deal. And then this happens:
“You are going home tomorrow from the nursing home to your own apartment,” you say to your brother-in-law, with every so much enthusiasm because he has been waiting for this day for 5 months.
“I know, but I thought I was going home Tuesday.”
“Umm…you are….tomorrow is Tuesday.”
“Oh, yea.” Caregivee laughs at his own silliness. Then he says, “and it’s time to sign up for Medicare, right? It’s open enrollment. And we were going to look at all the options to make sure I had the best plan. Did you do that yet?”
This is where I go through these thoughts:
I want to kill you.
Who are you and where is my brother-in-law?
When in the last 7 years have you even said the words, “open enrollment.”
I take a deep, cleansing breath, and say ,”sure, we can work on that when you get home.”
“Because your sister and her husband worked the same place I did and they are on the same retirement insurance. He had a heart transplant, so he’s no healthier than me, ” says the guy who refused to do his physical therapy just so he can hold a cup without spilling it.
Sometimes I want to run away from home.
No worries. I will read the 500 page booklets from Medicare and your employer retiree plan and we will end up doing the same thing we have done for the last three years because the plans in your retirement only have one option with unlimited lifetime benefits. And you’ve probably used over a million dollars already. And your young, very young. Sick, but young. That’s what I think, but what I say is:
“Okay we will go over that, we have a few weeks yet.”
“Okay, just wanted to make sure you were on top of it. Now did I have lunch yet? Why is that picture on the wall crooked? I don’t think anyone changed the clock to daylight savings time?”
You just have to Laugh…..”
©Cathy Sikorski 2014