Tag Archives: MS

Gimme some sugar…………

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

I have found the Fountain of Youth, or so the news tells me.

For the last three or so years, I was trying desperately to get a medication removed from  my brother-in-law’s med list. The medication was called Metformin.

Larry was put on the medication to keep his blood sugar under control. One time…ONE TIME…when he was in the hospital or was having a particularly difficult medical time, he had a blood sugar test that was way out of line.

His doctor decided that he would put him on Metformin and keep an eye on his blood sugar just to make sure it wasn’t an aberration.

It was an aberration.

Every time he was admitted to the hospital in the last  years of his life, which was at least a dozen times and because he was on Metformin,  a drug used for diabetics to keep blood sugar under control, he had to eat a diabetic diet.

Larry hated a diabetic diet. Diabetics hate a diabetic diet. But Larry wasn’t a diabetic and about the only thing he enjoyed besides smoking and honey or sugar in his tea, was eating. None of which were permitted on a diabetic regimen.

He also had to have his blood sugar tested. This they did by pricking his finger before every meal. He despised that too. He couldn’t do it himself because MS robbed him of dexterity. Poking and prodding had become a daily occurrence in so many ways. Adding one more prick to the pile just…well pissed him off.

With each hospital admission, I would request that they review the medication list and his daily blood sugar and try to get him off the Metformin. In the meantime, he had to stay on that god awful diet and be prick insulted.

I won’t lie. I’d bring contraband into the hospital. I’d bring sugar for his tea. I’d bring hoagies and Peppermint Patties. Yeah, I did it. Sue me. If I could find one less thing to make his life miserable, I would do it. Because, by the way, he was NOT diabetic. Oh that.

I lobbied for that damn Metformin to go away with doctors in hospitals, doctors in nursing homes, doctors in rehab centers, and doctors’ offices. I even got some doctors to agree.

But here’s the rub.

Once a drug is on your list of meds at a hospital and you go back to the same hospital again and again, they never change that drug list. I’m pretty sure it takes an Act of Congress to make that change. Pretty sure Congress hasn’t agreed on anything since the 1800’s.

I went so far as to  change hospitals and was successful for a few days, until they decided he needed a heart healthy diet. It stopped the pricks (in so many ways) but he still couldn’t have sugar in his tea.

She could be 100 years old!
She could be 100 years old!

Yesterday, on a long drive to the airport during rush hour, I heard Robin on the Howard Stern show (yes, you now know one of my dirty little secrets….I love Howard) report that a new drug may help us to live to 120 years old!! Howard loved that idea, if you are lucky to be healthy and enjoy another 50 or 60 years.

This miracle drug is…………..you guessed it…………….Metformin. If you can navigate your healthcare or you want to live in a world of pricks.

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

© 2015 Cathy Sikorski

 

 

Who you gonna’ call…Dustbusters…….

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

So the saga for my brother-in-law continues. Of course it does, I’m a caregiver.

He had surgery yesterday. Finally, after 12 weeks in rehab of staying in bed with a shop vac on his behind to suck the wound into a better place. I don’t know, that’s what they tell me. It’s actually called a wound vac…but it’s a mini shop vac that stays on the wound 24 hours a day to help the healing process.

My Mom, a nurse from the ’40’s says all they really had to do was keep that wound clean and dry and open to the elements. That’s what Rosie the Riveter nurses used to do and it worked fine. Of course, because his wound is on his bottom he would have had to be lying on his stomach for 12 weeks, with his derriere on display for the world to see. So I’ll take the shop vac method. Plus, if he takes home the vac, maybe it can double as a Dustbuster.

Surgery is a resounding success. The only downside is he cannot be in a sitting position for 4 to 6 weeks. I know. Maybe solitary confinement and water-boarding would be more pleasant. But what are you going to do? The problem with these damn bed sores is that they don’t heal if you don’t stay off of them. And ironically, as bed sores, you can’t stay off of them easily if you are, well, in bed, which is where they insist he stay.

So, now the protocol is that he must be lying on his side or flat on his back at all times.

My brother-in-law is an engineer. He’s actually a rocket scientist as he worked in that industry.

His first question is:

“How do I eat?”

This drives me crazy.

Not only is it not rocket science and he is a rocket scientist, he can’t figure out how he’s going to eat.

By the way, his engineering brain wants to kill me every time I have to do something with his wheelchair or tray table and I can’t figure out the best engineering way to handle it. I’m actually on his side, when he yells at me. I am NOT an engineer. I have no spatial skills whatsoever. I can’t play pool because I don’t get it. Physics eludes me. So when he is trying to explain to me how to turn the tray table around the OTHER WAY so that the feet don’t bump into his cath bag, and I just keep shoving…well he wins the frustration game that day.

MilkshakeBack and forth we go the caregiver and the caregivee with our remarkable skill sets and loss of patience for each other’s nincompoopery (I’m absolutely positive that’s a word in the caregiving lexicon).

So when he can’t figure out that he will have to lie on his side and chew and swallow the best he can, and have as many milkshakes as nature will allow to keep his calories up, and that we won’t starve him. He will have help like he’s always had these last years, well I want to …………..say a prayer of thanks that I can help. (Not really but I wanted to look better than the jerk I am in this moment).

“You Just have to Laugh…..”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski

Send in the Clowns…..Don’t Bother, They’re Here

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

I’m thinking about asking the wheelchair repair guy if he wants to do a comedy act together.

Before I left the country for 2 weeks, I called the wheelchair repair guy (let’s call him Mike, well, because that’s his name).

“Mike,” I said, “the wheel on my brother-in-law’s chair is torn to shreds. It makes the chair bump around like he’s driving the post-Apocalyptic pothole roads from the Winter of 2015. And he’s inside….on carpet. Please get it fixed ASAP.”

“Okay,” said Mike.

The problem here is, I believed him. I knew it would be fixed, eventually.  I just hoped that with a two week lead and a few well placed reminders by my assistant, it might be close to being done when I returned.

Mike obviously spent the time shopping for a big red nose.

When I noticed my brother-in-law bumping down the hallway on my return. I sighed that exasperated sigh that we all save for just such an occasion. My exasperated assistant let me know that she even contacted Mike with the very complicated schedule of when the chair was in use or my brother-in-law was resting in bed. This was due to the fact that Mike reminded her, no one can be in the wheelchair when it is being repaired. There was even a nice little 4 day period where BIL was in the hospital, so no one was using the chair. My assistant gave that little nugget to Mike as a bonus, if he wanted to send his guy over there at ANY time of the day or night.

I called 15, 16, 18, 19 and 21 days after my first call to find out why oh why, Magic Mike can you not get your sh*&%t together and get this chair repaired? Are you practicing your own comedy routine? Are you shaping up your abs for your next film role? What is so damn important that it takes 21 days to get someone out to fix this one little wheel?

“Hello, Cathy?”

“Hi, MIke, is the chair finally fixed? You said someone would do it on Monday or Tuesday and now it is Wednesday.”

Faster than Mike. Smarter too.
Faster than Mike. Smarter too.

“Oh, no, someone has to look at the chair first, determine what parts are needed, get insurance company approval, and then physician approval.”

We’ve gone from a comedy routine to a cartoon, as steam is now exploding out both my ears.

“So all those times you said you couldn’t come because he couldn’t be in the chair, was so that you could just look at it? Let me ask you something. Couldn’t someone just look at  the chair even if he is in it?”

“Well, I guess so. But you said he was in the hospital.” How this even makes sense, I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure “Who is on first.”

“Mike, we don’t let the chair go to the hospital with my brother-in-law. The chair has proven it doesn’t know how to behave itself in public places, so when he goes to the hospital we make the chair stay home, by itself. That’s why every time he goes to the hospital, we call you to let you know no one will be in the chair for days.”

“Oh. Well, we looked at it so it will get repaired when all the approvals come in.”

Twenty-one days to look at it. I wonder if I can start sexting pictures of the wheelchair in compromising positions when I need it repaired in the future, so that Mike can definitely say they looked at it?

“You Just have to Laugh………..”

© Cathy Sikorski 2015

 

Something’s Fishy……….

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

Two years ago, my brother-in-law’s son purchased a fish tank as a gift for his Dad. My BIL had built a very elaborate fish tank in the home he had long ago shared with my sister. He really loved that fish tank. I do believe it gave him hours of joy. But when he moved and as he became wheelchair bound with Multiple Sclerosis, a fish tank was out of the question. It was just not feasible for him to take care of it the way he would like to, or be able to buy the fish he wanted.

Fishtank fish just don’t live very long. And my BIL likes to buy a variety of fish and tank creatures to populate the roost. So it would have been more of a burden than a joy.

But this gift from his son truly came from the right place. He knew how much his Dad would love this treat. What he didn’t know was how in God’s name any one was going to take care of it.

This is where I turn into the caregiver from hell. This is where caregivers do things they regret, but not really.

I took the young buck aside and said, “I know you live more than an hour away, but you have to be responsible to take care of this. I cannot take on a fish tank. It’s like a puppy to me. I just can’t put one more thing on my plate.”

He just looked at me and nodded, telling me not to worry,

sushi-190565_1280Really? Not worry? This made me so nuts, that all I could think of was, this may turn into a sushi buffet for my BIL, because I am NOT taking care of these damn fish.

The son came pretty regularly for about a year. The following year, my brother-in-law was and has been in and out of rehab and the hospital for almost the entire  year. Those fish were on their own. Again, or so I thought.

But the one thing I didn’t consider or count on was that my BIL’s caregivers, those blessed women and occasional man who come to get him ready for the day and tuck him in sweetly at night were angel(fish) in disguise.

angelfish-24669_1280angel-8186_1280

Every once in a while, over the months, I would get a text from one of the caregivers that I should not worry as they were taking care of the fish. Like I was worrying. Things that float are things that flush as far as I’m concerned. I know this is not animal PC, but I just could not and cannot go a half hour or an hour in a different direction every day to check out a gold fish.

So again, the caregivers who are in the building every day for other patients, not my BIL, take a minute to feed, clean and funeral direct, if necessary.

I am really, really grateful. Not in the ,”wow, I should take care of the fish, ’cause it makes him happy” kind of grateful. More the “I’m hopeful that he will know, he’s got good people in his world and sometimes it ain’t me …….” kind of grateful.

“You Just have to Laugh………..”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski

Real elegance is everywhere, especially in the things that don’t show…Christian Dior

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

It was going to be a happy day. After months of being in and out of rehab, my brother-in-law was returning home. His current rehab center was about an hour away from me, so I was a bit late in getting there to do all the discharge baloney.

Nonetheless, they called me when I was 10 minutes away from the facility, as his wheelchair transport was already there. The transport driver was ready to go and wanted to leave before I arrived.

“Is he dressed and ready to go?” I asked the discharge nurse.

“Yes, they are just waiting for you to get here and sign the papers.”

“Well, if he’s ready and they can’t wait 10 minutes, he can get going and I’ll be there to gather his things and sign,” I replied.

“If you’re only 10 minutes away,I’ll see if they can wait,” said the nurse.

“Either way is fine with me,” I pleasantly replied…after all, it was a happy day.

I arrived in less than 10 minutes, and went into his room to gather his things.

There was my BIL in his bed, in a hospital gown, just shrugging his shoulders when he saw me.

Right behind me followed the discharge nurse.

“I thought you said they were transporting him home?”

“Well, the transport driver said he heard you were going to be an hour late, so he left.”

“Where would he hear that? Twitter? Facebook? The Huffington Post? I literally just told you I was 10 minutes away!”

“I don’t know,” said the nurse, “but that’s what the front desk said when I told them to send up the driver.”

“Okay,” I responded incredulously and losing my pleasant disposition ever so quickly, “but you told me he was dressed and ready to go. He’s in a hospital gown.”

“Well, that’s dressed,” he said a bit defensively.

Now, granted, this is a rehab facility. Fashion is not the highest order of the day. And if you’re not running around the hallways, or eating in the dining room, a hospital gown may be your couture du jour. However……..

“Ummm…….no….that is NOT dressed for someone who is going home in a wheelchair and right to the dining room at his home, for his meals. I’m pretty sure no one wants a Sharon- Stone-Basic-Instinct  reveal from a hospital gown , while having their salad course. It brings a whole new meaning to ‘dining al fresco.’ You need to get him dressed in his clothes which are in his closet here.”

To which my brother-in-law pipes up: “I’m a bit chilly.”

Ya’ think?

“You just have to Laugh…………”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski

 

Burritos or Betelgeuse……..

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

John and I were rumba-ing, quite nicely I might add, when my cell phone buzzed in my bottom. I was thinking I had the sexy rumba move down pat, but then realized it was my phone and the BIL (brother-in-law) moniker was flashing.

When I answered, I could hear a conversation but no one was talking to me. Obviously, it was some kind of a butt dial from one of the caregivers. I called the central caregiver dispatcher to tell her that she needed to call her peeps on their cell to disconnect BIL’s phone.

Ten minutes later, my butt jangled again. This time with some difficulty, BIL got on the phone and told me he was losing his mind.

After a long conversation with Howie, the caregiver, we were all losing our minds. Somehow, my BIL who hasn’t walked for 4 years had gotten out of his wheelchair and into bed with no visible assistance. He was distraught, he was disoriented and he was of the opinion that he could take care of himself.

Howie went to the Manager of BIL’s facility to investigate. Ten minutes later, I’m still trying to learn slow-quick-quick and the mystery is solbed. Howie reported that management had a freak out with BIL. At dinner no one could figure out why his power wheelchair wasn’t working. Management called the police, who came and pushed the behemoth chair to his room and apparently lifted him into bed, left him there and didn’t discuss it with anyone.

I have yet to come down on those people. First things first.

Howie says BIL was still very upset, so we leave the concluding ballroom class lickety-split and high tail to the apartment. We are seconds from pulling into the parking lot when my cell jangles yet again.

“Your BIL says he didn’t have dinner, so can you bring him something to eat?”

“Ummmm…it’s almost 10 at night, so I guess we can turn around and go to McDonald’s.”

I hang up, my hubby turns the car around, we drive 2 blocks, my phone rings. Life may have been so much better when there were no cell phones. Truly.

“He doesn’t want McDonald’s. He wants Taco Bell.”

Really? How distraught is he? I get his order and off we go to Taco Bell.

To make sure I get just the right order, I go in to Taco Bell. It is now after 10. This is a very small town. No one is in Taco Bell. No one is going through the drive-thru. There are three very sweet, young teens working behind the counter.

“Can I help you?”

tacos“Sure,” I said, “I’ll take a plain bean burrito, a 7 layer burrito, and a small Coke.”

The place is so empty my order echos throughout the joint.

“Can I have your name?”

I burst out laughing….because you might confuse my order with someone else’s?

“Ummm….I’m the only one here!”

“I know but I can’t place your order without putting a name into the computer.” I so wanted to say Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, but I was afraid my night could get worse.

She hands me a cup and I go to the soda machine. Now, I haven’t been in a Taco Bell in years and years. This soda machine looked like a pinball machine. it was huge, had blinking lights of all different colors bouncing around and if I had had a brain injury, I probably would have gone into a seizure. I had no idea how to get the soda I wanted.

In that moment. I realized I, too will be handicapped in my old age. I won’t know how to get soda, I’ll have to give my ID to get anything I want, and young people and machines will wonder why I can’t navigate a world as simple as Taco Bell.

And yet….. I was still laughing at night’s end because an empty Taco Bell can put a laugh out there, bad night or not, McDonald’s wasn’t good enough, and the demand for bean burritos was to combat constipation. So even in our old demented age, we aren’t always the one’s who will be full of crap (bean burrito, anyone?)

“You just have to Laugh…”

©Cathy Sikorski 2015

 

 

 

 

Is your Plug Male or Female……..

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

Today’s tale is a bit vulgar….but I find honesty to be the best policy.

As my faithful readers know, I, with no training or inherent skills, have become a wheelchair repair expert over the last few years. I was able to get a different BIL (code for brother-in-law) to transport the humungous wheelchair to the rehab center, so disabled BIL would be able to get out of bed every day. By the way, there is no service, or transport that will take an empty wheelchair…well….anywhere….you have to find your own way to get it there.

One day, I’m walking down the hall of the rehab center and the physical therapist is manually pushing the electric behemoth with my BIL in the chair.

“What’s up?” I ask her.

“Oh my God, I’m so glad you’re here. No one can figure out how to get this operational.”

Because it had been a month since my BIL was even in the chair, and memory issues are a part of his disease, he was of no help either. In 2 minutes, I had everyone  operational and instructed for the forseeable future.

Then we went home.

I stayed with my BIL for about 6 hours that day. As happy as he was to be back in his apartment, he was feeling insecure and squeamish and not ready to be alone. I arrived home in time for an 8:00 PM conference call.

At 9:00 PM my phone rang.

“Hello, Cathy, this is the caregiver.”

“Hey, what’s up? Is he okay?”

“Oh, he’s fine, no problems. But we can’t plug in his wheelchair. It seems like a piece of the plug is missing that connects to the battery. So we can’t charge the chair.”

UGH. He needs that chair. He needs to be out of bed and as upright and mobile as possible to have a life where he goes to meals, talks to friends, plays SODUKU on his computer.

“Okay, I’ll come in the morning and look at it.” I must’ve been very tired. I’m still not a wheelchair repair person, what was I going to do?

Before I left the house, I called the wheelchair repair people, who told me the only thing they can do is order an entire new charger which would take 3 weeks.  When I asked what he’s supposed to do in the meantime, wheelchair repair guy thought for a minute or two (really??? no one has ever asked you THAT before?) And told me he could look around and see if they had a loaner charger, but that would take a day or two.

As I set my hair on fire in protest (only in my mind) I went over to my BIL’s apt. examined the plug and set off for the rehab center. I checked his room, as they had just cleaned it, we called down to housekeeping, I went to the nurses’ station, therapy rooms, front desk and had the social worker call the ambulance transport to look for it. No dice.

I went to my book club and my French Class. Mai oui…..I do some things for my self!

Then I returned to his apartment, there was the charger plugged in. But as my engineer BIL told me, truthfully, it was smoke and mirrors. It wasn’t charging at all. I showed the plug to him and hoped he had some brilliant insight. Nope. So I said to him:

“Well, you know what Nana would say?” She had a fine adage for problems when something would just not fit into a hole.

“Yep,” he nodded, “put a little hair around it.”  Yep, that’s what she always said.

Luckily BIL is a fiscal conservative and only used 3% of his power that day.

We then had the brilliant idea to call some local durable medical equipment providers and one dear soul sent me to Interstate Battery. As I was leaving with high hopes and the battery, my BIL said:

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but as an old man would say, I think you’re pissing up a rope!”

So with those axioms under my belt and a big huge 24 Volt battery in my arms like a newborn. I went to a big, ol’ manly grease monkey, full-of-testosterone battery warehouse.

And this is where the Good Samaritan works when he is not out on the road rescuing.

Keith worked for thirty or forty minutes to rig this battery charger so I could use it. The first thing he asked me is if it’s a male or female plug. I considered my Nana’s advice, but that didn’t lead me to any conclusion. I suppose I should have been able to deduct the answer, but I panicked and just looked as cute as I could. In that environment, I was a shoe-in.

By the way, there was never a missing part. It had been so abused over time by pulling it out by the cord that it basically pulled the charging plugs too far down into the casing.

Keith told me he has a few friends in wheelchairs and he sees this all the time, where they can’t get timely repairs and no one seems to care. He told me to just ‘Pay it Forward.’ I told him I try to do that, and he said, “well then, now it’s coming back to you!”

Sometimes…..”You just have to SMILE….and laughing never hurts, either.”

© Cathy Sikorski 2015

“

“You really don’t have to be young to find a friend in a teddy bear.” -Rachel Newman

Caregivers, Humor, Medicare, , , , , ,

I have become sort of immune to authority figures in the world of medicine and insurance. My friends would tell you my immunity started long before caregiving. My older brother, Chip would say I made my self the authority figure right around 5th grade when I would tell my Mom what Chip wanted for lunch. My baby brother Bill would say, “Cathy doesn’t have any problems with authority, as long as she is the authority.”

Okay, fine.

I’m bossy and pushy when I need to be.

But sometimes I am surprised by the far-reaching influence of my bossiness.

I was grilling the nurse in the hospital about the details of my brother-in-law’s discharge. What day were they thinking? What kind of meds would he need when they sent him home? Did they know I had a 24 hour notice rule, so that I could set up his at-home caregivers? Would they call the insurance company to confirm the need for ambulance transport since my brother-in-law was non-ambulatory?  Would the case manager call me so that I could give her the time of day that transport would work best for the caregivers as well as his meal time at his facility?

My brother-in-law was so used to this diatribe, that every once in a while he would chime in with a: “Yeah, when can I get out of here!” emphatic remark. He liked looking bossy, too.

His hospital roommate, a kind and gentle Teddy Bear of man, whose family had quietly visited with him just a few hours earlier and had now left, was patiently listening to all of this. We had exchanged greetings earlier. He was very soft spoken. Even his young grandchildren were very quiet and respectful. He didn’t have his television blaring, like my brother-in-law usually does.  He didn’t pull his curtain shut or ask for privacy. He didn’t call his own nurse for any assistance during this time. But he was clearly awake, aware and watching all this broo-ha-ha.  He seemed to be taking it in with great interest, but just stayed calm and quiet.

After I had hashed out all the details that I needed to make the exit from the hospital as smooth as possible for my brother-in-law, I noticed that his roommate called the nurse over to the side of his bed. She very graciously went over and asked if she could help. Before he could say another word, she cautioned him that she was not his nurse, but if she could help she would.

He looked at us, and then looked up at her with pleading eyes and said ever so softly: “I, too, was wondering when I could get out of here and go home.” Then he looked at me, and I swear there was a twinkle in his eye  that was a dash of courage, but still a Teddy Bear, asking for his own reprieve. I’m pretty sure he winked back when I gave him the thumbs up!

“You just have to Laugh…………”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski

 

Best Notify My Next of Kin…This Wheel Shall Explode….Absolutley Fabulous

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

The frustration level of caregiving is equal to the dropping temperatures here on the East Coast, which is at a 100 year low.  Pretty sure that’s true.

Finally after spending 6 months in rehab, my brother-in-law was finally home, healthy and enjoying his meals in the dining room with his best pals. Then the flu hit his facility. On Christmas.  But five days in the hospital with the flu, double pneumonia and a urinary tract infection did not keep  him down. Home on New Year’s Eve, he was ready to get back to his normal life.

When he, his neighbors and his caregivers all noticed that he was precariously listing to the right, they called me.

Now this wheelchair has been a problem for several months. A new set of footrests were installed and ever since then, the wheels get stripped. After the second time this happened, I told the repair people to really look at the problem.  The footrests were major culprits and needed a good talking to.

Here we were again only 60 days after new wheels were put on the chair. My brother-in-law looked like he was practicing for a circus act, as he sped down the hallway with his hair blowing in the breeze at a 45 degree angle.

When his caregivers called me, on Sunday, I was firmly ensconced in a charming little Italian restaurant 150 miles away in NYC. Of course, it’s adorable that they think I can actually fix the wheelchair.  I would have to have extra wheels, a special screwdriver, and actual mechanical knowledge. No wonder I have a God complex.

Monday, bright and early I call for repair assistance. I beg. I plead. I offer candy, money and my first born, whatever it takes to get this chair fixed ASAP, since he just got back to a semblance of a real life. What usually requires two weeks, will take two days. Okay, we can live with that.

Two days later, I arrive at my brother-in-law’s apartment for the 10:30 AM appointment. I’m psyched. Chair will be fixed. Man can get in chair and have meals with friends, all will be well in the universe.

10:30 comes and goes.

11:00 comes and goes.

“Hello, wheelchair repair guy, where are you?”

“He’s just a bit late,” they tell me.

11:30 his caregivers arrive to get him dressed to gently place him in his newly fixed chair. Except that it’s not.

12:00 comes and goes.

I have to call again. Why would they call me? I’ve only called them 10 times in the last 48 hours. It’s not like they have my phone number or know that I am waiting for them.

“Hello, wheelchair repair guy, where are you?”

“He got caught up at his last job, he will be there as his last appointment of the day. Sorry, i hope that’s okay.”

Sure. I only have to now order his meals to be delivered to his room, if it’s not too late. I need to reschedule all the caregivers because their duties will now change, since he is in bed and can’t get in his chair. I will have to go to the dining room and tell his dining buddies that they don’t have to set up his place, his tea, and his special condiments like they do every day because they are kind and amazing. But sure, no problem, you just show up when it works for you.

What I say is, “okay, just get it fixed, today.”

Miracle of miracles, I come back early in the evening to find BOTH wheels repaired, the foot rests changed and the chair ready to go. Too late to get my brother-in-law in his chair. But he says, “hallelujah” when I tell him he will be out and about starting with breakfast tomorrow.

On my way to a business appointment the next morning, I’m feeling quite smug as I know my brother-in-law is already at breakfast and I got the chair fixed in 2 days!

My phone rings. I answer with a happy lilt in my voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi Cathy? This is the caregivers. Larry doesn’t feel well. He refuses to get in his chair. He has a temp and should probably go to the ER.”

You just have to Laugh………….

©2015 CathySikorski