Tag Archives: funny

A Caregiver Confesses…………

Caregivers, Humor, Multiple Sclerosis, , , , , , , , ,

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

 

 

2014 Reasons to be grateful….okay only 10…..

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Everyone has something to be grateful for…just look around you:

1. Grateful that my cleaning lady is downstairs and I’m up here typing.

2. Grateful that my company left, not because I didn’t LOVE having them here, but now I can forget to put on a bra, or clothes and run to answer the phone or quick send that email.

3. Grateful for my sister who basically cooks the entire Thanksgiving dinner, except the turkey and stuffing and brings it to my house. You should all be so lucky, especially when it’s snowing.

4. Grateful that my brother-in-law is home and snuggled in his independent living and not in a nursing home anymore……even if the visiting nurses still try and get me to look at the miraculously healing wound on his derrière.

5. Grateful for my darling, amazing, commenting, fun, funny, interesting readers of this blog.

6. Grateful for Depends, mail order drugs, external catheters, bed pans and spit cups. Yes, those inventions make my life better.

Wine...just wine
Wine…just wine

7. Grateful for the Hallmark Channel, bad Christmas movies and wine, really grateful for wine.

8. Grateful for all the people, Facebook posts, somee cards, and Pinterest posts that make me laugh.

9. Grateful for heat, electricity, water and wine, not necessarily in that order.

10. Grateful that I am able to sit here and write this blog because I have an amazing husband, daughters, mom, brothers, sisters, friends, a cleaning lady and wine.

Thank you all for being my readers, my friends, my supporters and my partners in laughter…Laughing alone isn’t nearly as much fun and…..

“You just have to Laugh………”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski

 


	

	
	

		
			



							


	

				

					

		
				

			Nailed it……………
		

		
		

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I am getting a mani-pedi tomorrow.  First, ballroom dancing and now mani-pedis. Who is this so-called caregiver? But I have to because I’m going to a Masquerade Ball where I can use my new and improved dancing skills.


This brought me to the conclusion that my brother-in-law could use a mani-pedi himself. I just can’t get him to the salon. No one will transport him in his humungous wheelchair if it is not a medical necessity. Now actually, it is a medical necessity. Because he is diabetic, he must have his nails taken care of as a function of keeping infection and fungus away. The podiatrist will come to his apartment and take care of feet, but not fingernails.


Conveniently, there is a salon in the building where he lives. After 6 months in a rehab nursing home, wanting to feel clean, and groomed and just as much  a regular guy as possible, we made an appointment for my brother-in-law to get a haircut and a manicure at the salon in his building.


Sorry.


The manicurist won’t cut his fingernails. They are too hard to handle and she’s afraid of hurting him or cutting him. Albeit, she is supposed to be a professional manicurist. She suggests I get the visiting nurse to do it.


I text the visiting nurse. This is our text conversation:


“Hi cathy…We r not allowed to cut nails due the (sic) the risk of infection with diabetes..Sorry :(”


“Thank you for telling me. Do you know what other people do?”


“A podiatrist for the toes and I guess they do the fingernails themselves.”


I know. Already you are saying…………but Cathy, if he could do it himself you probably wouldn’t be asking this question…..to a nurse.


I can only come up with two possible solutions:


1. Pretend he is a bride and make arrangements for a personal manicure on his “wedding day.” I know some manicurists will do that. They may require an entire bridal party, but I’m sure I could get my mom and sisters, maybe some nieces and girlfriends to show up.


Or


2. See if I can get him a mail order bride that is a manicurist.


Either way the word bride seems to be the answer to my problems.


“You just have to Laugh…..”


©2014Cathy Sikorski


 

	

	
	

		
			



							


	

				

					

		
				

			Or we’re gonna’ go round and round……..
		

		
		

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Sometimes a girl has just gotta’ dance. Whilst deep in the Rumba, the dance of love, according to our ballroom dance instructor, I actually turned off my cell phone. I take this ballroom dancing seriously, since I read it is the number one hobby that can stave off dementia. Plus, my husband can’t believe I have found an activity we can do together where children, siblings, parents, caregivees, nurses, insurance companies and doctors can’t get in touch with me.


After 90 minutes of “slow……..quick, quick” and wine and cookies (okay, there are other perks to ballroom dancing), my husband and I are happily re-connected, refreshed and ready to go home.


As we leave the dance floor and enter the parking lot, it’s snowing like a blizzard out there on November 13th. This should have been my first clue of disaster.


Fine. I’m refreshed, I can deal with the first frostbite of the year. Then I checked my phone.


Two calls from my brother-in-law. Two messages and a few other missed calls and texts from his caregivers. Uh oh.


The good news is my brother-in-law called. At least I know he can dial his new phone. He insisted I bought a completely useless phone that he couldn’t operate. So there’s that.


I cringed for the bad news as I listened to the messages:


Message 1:


“Cathy, this is ‘L’, nobody got me out of bed for dinner, and no one delivered my meal either.”


Message 2:


“Cathy, it’s an hour later. Don’t know if you got my first message. I didn’t get dinner. Wish someone would have warned me that  I wasn’t getting dinner tonight. I guess I’ll be ok.”


It’s now 90 minutes after the second message…the exact amount of time it takes to learn the dance of love with 6 variations. I call him back. No answer. Either he has passed out from hunger, someone came to his rescue, or he gave up and went to sleep.


I text the last caregiver who I know was with him to give him his night meds. No response. I make an executive decision to let it go until morning. Based on his overall weight and eating habits, I’m pretty certain missing one meal won’t end his time here on earth.


The next morning on my way to his facility, I called his caregivers. I wasn’t planning on taking this side trip to see him, but I wanted to reassure him that I received his phone messages and was taking care of business. They assured me that someone had set up his meal for dinner. I’m not so sure. My brother-in-law doesn’t have dementia. He just generally only thinks about things he cares about and leaves the rest to me.


When I get to his room, after breakfast, (I wanted him to be fed and in a good mood………I learned a thing or two from having toddlers), I asked him if he ever got dinner last night.


“You called me twice last night to say no one brought you dinner, remember? Did you have dinner or not?”


He looks at me like I have the head of Medusa, or am speaking in Italian.


“I don’t remember calling you or if I got dinner, but I just had breakfast, so what’s the big deal?


I just Rumba my way out of the room………….slow….quick, quick…..slow….quick, quick.


“You just have to Laugh…………….”


©Cathy Sikorski 2014

	

	
	

		
			



							


	

				

					

		
				

			Patience…the Patient has gone clear….
		

		
		

			Caregivers, Humor, Medicare, Multiple Sclerosis, , , , , 					

	


		

		
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.


Medicare 2015No 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


 

	

	
	

		
			



							


	

				

					

		
				

			Weighing In……………
		

		
		

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I noticed a weird bruise on my arm last week on Thursday. By Friday it had morphed into something that looked like a bear climbing a tree. It didn’t hurt. I had no recollection of bumping into things, or drinking too much wine on Wednesday (although now that I’ve written that “Wine Wednesday” sounds pretty tempting). So I went to the doctor.


Bruise Comparison Photo
Bruise Comparison Photo


The first thing they do when they take you into the super secret area where patients are seen is tell you to “get on the scale.” I have been trying to decline this for years. If it’s my annual check up or I think I have diabetes or perhaps I have miraculously lost those last damn 10 pounds by eating chocolate cake and the new Yeungling Black and Tan Ice Cream, then and only then will I get on the scale.


I’m sorry, I may be naïve to think that all American women have a psychological battle with weight, but I know all my friends do. That stupid number can send me into a tailspin of self-loathing and regret for days. I will not have it.


This time I may have been a bit intense in my questioning and refusal to be weighed for a bruise. The nurse ratted me out to the doctor.


“We have to weigh you for insurance purposes,” said the doctor.


“I’m sorry, but the insurance company doesn’t get to play mind games with me. Do you have any idea how crazy that scale makes me?”


“I’m starting to….”


“Women the world over hate getting weighed, even on a good day. It is a sign of our possible failure to literally measure up. It makes us feel bad about our next bagel. And it makes no sense when I’m coming in for a bruise. And on top of all that, not one doctor ever comments on my weight and how that may affect my health, so I have to conclude that unless it’s critical to my visit, it’s not important to the medical community on that day either.”


The doctor looked at me like I needed Xanax at that juncture and said, “we just have to check a box on the form that says we weighed you.”


“So what happens if I refuse to be weighed?”


“We check the box marked ‘declined’.”


So there you have it ladies and gents. If you have an irrational aversion to that doctor’s scale, you can just say “no,” or better yet, “declined.”


By the way, perhaps someone should have asked why I was so stressed by something so trivial. And that’s where the caregiver craziness shows up. In the final analysis, when attempting self care……


“You just have to Laugh….”


©2014 Cathy Sikorski


 

	

	
	

		
			



							


	

				

					

		
				

			What’s at steak??????
		

		
		

			Caregivers, Humor, Multiple Sclerosis, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , 					

	


		

		
In the last four months, my brother-in-law has lost somewhere between 25 and 30 pounds. That may seem like a lot, especially for those of us who have been fighting those last damn 10 pounds for years, but it has been a blessing.


He now has lost so much of his Buddha belly that he can actually turn himself a bit from side to side. This is a spectacular advancement in the world of MS and bed sores because he may now be able to spend more time in his electric  wheelchair and less time confined to bed to protect his skin from breaking down.


He, on the other hand, sees that he has been subject to lousy food and a Spartan diabetic diet.  Now, it is kind of hard to point out the beauty of lousy food and a Spartan diet. So after much praise for his ability to scooch around (yes, I do believe that is a medical term), I researched the possibility of getting some fun back onto his food tray.


He is still in rehab for a few weeks to get stronger from wound repair surgery, so I must get permission to adjust his diet. And I do. Everyone agrees his blood sugar is exemplary and he can have sugar instead of sugar substitute. His blood pressure is also stellar, so he can have salt again as well. Hip, hip hooray.


I take this as a sign that I can ‘bring’ him a special meal of his own choosing at least once a week. It’s actually getting to the point where I’m concerned that he might loose too much weight and then we have another problem. I know, the “oh you’ll get too skinny” story is usually baloney, but he has taken refusing bad food to new heights….and I don’t blame him. In fact, he would welcome baloney, but they don’t serve that…too salty.


So, as we live in the Philly area, I brought him his favorite naughty meal. It was a cheesesteak hoagie with hot peppers. That means there were condiments such as fried onions, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise all slathered on that sandwich. He ate every single bite, picked the stray onions, peppers and tomatoes off the hoagie paper, and wiped his mustache with glee.


When the aide came in for his institutional food tray and it looked like he hadn’t touched a bite, I debated whether to confess. Ah…what the hell……….


“I brought him a cheesesteak.”


“Well, good for him,” said the aide. “I don’t think one person ate today’s dinner. It was that bad.”


“So our secret is safe with you?”


“What secret?”


Sometimes you find partners in crime in the best and most unexpected places.


“You just have to Laugh….”


© 2014 Cathy Sikorski


 

	

	
	

		
			



							


	

				

					

		
				

			You’re the Boss, Applesauce….Andy Warhol
		

		
		

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My mother-in-law, Marie, thought I was as cool as Bruce Springsteen.  A few years ago, in one of her long stints at the hospital, the social worker arrived in her room and quickly began her assessment of the situation.


“Marie,” she demanded, “do you know what day it is?”


“No,”  Marie truthfully answered. Marie was in her 90’s and loving her assisted living facility. Every day came and went like it was Tuesday or Saturday, or who-the-hell-cares day.


“Well,” the highly trained professional asked, “do you know who the President is?”


Okey dokey….now I jumped in.


“Is this really necessary?” I wondered while looking the social worker straight in the eye.


“Well, I need to know if she’s oriented to space and time.”


You’re not oriented to space or time if you’re thinking an elderly woman from a facility is keeping up with current events.


“Ask her questions she knows the answer to, if you’re trying to find out if she’s in any way conscious.”


“Well, okay.” She turned to my mother-in-law and pointed to some of the other people who were visiting in the room.


“Who is that, Marie?”


“That’s my son, Ted.” Correct.


“And who is that lady next to him?”


“That’s his wife, Judi.” Also correct.


Then pointing to me: “And who is that lady there?”


“Her?” And Marie pointed to me as well.


“Yes, that lady?”


“Oh, that’s the Boss!”


Boom!


I have become legendary. Last week in my brother-in-law’s room the social worker came in to ask some questions.


“What day is it?”


“Truthfully,” he said, “I don’t give a shit.” Score 1 for the ill and infirm.


“And who is this with you today?” she asked him, pointing in my direction.


“Oh her? Yeah, watch out for her, that’s the Boss!”


“You just have to Laugh….”


© 2014 Cathy Sikorski

	

	
	

		
			



							


	

				

					

		
				

			A Gentleman is simply a patient wolf…..Lana Turner
		

		
		

			Caregivers, Humor, , , , , , , , 					

	


		

		
A while ago, I commented on how, at least in the senior community, I felt like quite a catch (I still got it…sort of… ) I learned yesterday, that in those same communities, I’ve got quite a bit of competition.


As the winner of a basket of cheer at a local assisted living facility, I was invited to take a tour and claim my prize. For those of us in the writing profession, this was the mother lode: two huge coffee mugs, two pounds of coffee, flavored creamers, Starbucks Frappuccinos and European biscuits.


My daughter was home for a visit, so she went along for the ride. While we were waiting for the tour guide, a beautiful 81 year old resident stood behind the sofa, greeted us warmly and chatted all about how she loved her new living space. Jane entertained us for 20 minutes with her life story, the benefits of assisted living, and smarmy little secrets about her fellow residents.


A lovely blue eyed blonde aide appeared by Jane’s side and joined us in our lively chit-chat. Then Dr. H came along in his walker. Jane was compelled to tell us he was a physician and very brilliant.  Our blonde friend had a different take on the matter.


“Watch out for Dr. H,” she said, “he likes to grab your butt.”


“Well, yes, dear,” said Jane, “that’s true, but he’s not nearly so obnoxious as Karl.”


The aide scooted around the other side of Jane to get as far away from Dr. H as possible. With that, the good doctor comes over and tells us:


“I’ve been around a long time, but I’m never too old or too busy to appreciate a beautiful woman.”


A collective groan reverberated from all the women in the lobby…..of which there were about ten of us. Ugh.


The aide backs out of the room and Dr. G. follows her as fast as he can, but the walker just can’t keep up with the runner.


My daughter, who is in her twenties, can’t quite fathom that this is her plight well into her octogenarian years, turned to Jane and says: “So what’s the deal with Karl?”


“Oh, most of these men are harmless, even though every one of them is a dirty old man. But Karl, yes, dear you really have to watch out for him. I tell all the new ladies to stay a good distance from Karl.”


“But how much harm can he do in here?” said my daughter.


“Well, it’s like I tell all the residents. Don’t be so stupid and go into his room by yourself. He lures you in there and then he sticks his hand up your shirt. I can’t believe these girls would be so dumb as to go into his room.”


And there  you have it. We all still got it, even if we don’t want it.


“You just have to Laugh…..”


© 2014 Cathy Sikorski


 

	

	
	

		
			



							


	

				

					

		
				

			Caregiving is Coconuts!
		

		
		

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I was lucky enough to be asked to podcast all my fabulousness on the Happiness Recipe radio podcast!

Please, dear readers, give these great gals a shout out and check out our fun day talking about caregiving comedy and coconut cake. What could be better? Click below for a start to a Happy Monday!


Confessions of a Serial Caregiver at The Happiness Project