Tag Archives: Rehab Centers

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

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

Caregivers, Humor, Medicare, , , , , , , , ,

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

 

 

 

Caregiving blows hot and cold….

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

I’m entrenched in the rehab cycle right now. Many days to the rehab center every week are required to watch the progress of my brother-in-law, keep an eye on his care, and to make sure he’s behaving like a human being to the overworked, understaffed people running around trying to please everyone, and pretty much pleasing no one.

The very first day he entered rehab,in the dead of summer, he wasn’t there two hours and protesting royally about the heat. Now, MS sufferers really do need to be temperate. So his complaints were absolutely legitimate. To my amazement, the staff relocated him immediately to a bed where he would be next to the window and air-conditioner.

His first two roommates complained bitterly because they were freezing. My loved one had the thermostat at 60 degrees because he was alternately too hot and too cold. Ya’ think?

But the third roommate hopped on board with my brother-in-law, lickety split. They conferred daily, maybe even hourly, about how freakin’ hot it was in their room. The good news was that one guy wasn’t bundled in a sweat suit and blankets, while the other was half naked in a hospital gown embarrassing anyone who walked down the hall and peeked in mistakenly.

Flat Stanley in PA
What they want it to feel like

Every time I entered their room, the two gentlemen of Verona were commiserating about the unseemly state of the weather in their room. No matter how many times I reset the air conditioner, it wasn’t cold enough……for them. Meanwhile, anyone on the staff who was in  menopause was hanging out in their room to cool off.

By the third day of this, I was at my wit’s end trying to make these two guys happy. The only saving grace was they were enjoying the mutual complaint department. Sort of an “us against them”, giving rehab a fun kind of flavor.

Yesterday morning I entered their room and noticed that the staff had pulled the curtains closed during the night. The curtains were romantically billowing in the window forcing  the air conditioner to blow all the cold air straight up to the ceiling. I went to the window to draw open the curtains and let the cold air directly into the room. That was when I noticed the window panes had quite a bit of condensation. Looking closer, I saw the window was actually open. In fact, both windows were open. Open.

All night long, the July heat was drifting in through the open windows, allowing all the humidity to circle around and settle on their hot sweltering bodies. Ugh. Really? Someone came up with this idea as a way to cool these guys off?  I closed the windows. I asked the gentlemen to tell the staff to keep the windows closed.

The roommate quickly informed me that he thought the open windows constituted a good idea. It would allow circulation and air into the room at night. This logic reminded me of my mother-in-law.  Every time she left the house in tropical heat, she turned off the air conditioner. We told her she might as well turn off the refrigerator every time she left the house too, as that logic goes.

I return the next morning and the condensation is just waiting for me to put “Cathy was here” on the window.

Okay, so … I give up…..

“You just have to Laugh….”

Cathy Sikorski

 

 

 

 

 

No matter where I go….

Caregivers, Humor, Uncategorized, , , , ,

So I volunteered to be on an advisory board for a Catholic elementary school. I know, I know, REALLY? You need to do more volunteer work? But my really good friend, the principal of the school asked, and whenever she asks me to do something I say yes and have regrets later. But THIS time, I figured it’s about little kids, no elders, no Medicare, no Social Security, no nursing homes. Yay….little kids.

The parish priest leads the first meeting, and after we open with a prayer (and boy do I need all the prayers I can get), he tells this quick story.

“So, I’m a power of attorney for one of our parishioners who is 90 years old.”

Oh MY GOD (i’m thinking) REALLY, SERIOUSLY, THIS CANNOT BE HOW THIS MEETING STARTS.

“AND,” says Father, ” he was rushed to the hospital a few days ago, so of course, the hospital called me right away.  I went over there to make sure everything was fine, and they were going to keep him for a few days and then send him to rehab to one of two possible facilities.”

So I’m thinking: okay, he probably had some problem getting him in to the facility that he wanted. Or the elder parishioner had some unexpected medical condition. Nothing new here. And, by the way, I have not yet confessed to this group what my background is.

Father continues:

“The dear man is in the hospital for three days, and I’m waiting for a call because they have told me that he will likely be moved today or tomorrow. So I’m sort of hanging around, trying to stay close to home in case they call or need me for anything. Finally at 2:30 in the afternoon the nurse contacts me and says:

“Hello, Father?”

“Yes? I have been waiting for your call.”

” Well, I guess we should have called you sooner, like BEFORE we released your parishioner from the hospital.”

“REALEASED HIM???!!!! WHERE DID HE GO? He’s 90! He doesn’t drive and I’m the only one who transports him. WHERE IS HE?????

“Oh, he was transported by ambulance to a rehab center.”

“WHICH ONE…. where did you send him?????”

Poor 90 year-old guy, when he got there, he had no idea where he was, why he was there and what was going on. NOT BECAUSE HE HAS DEMENTIA…..he doesn’t……BECAUSE NO ONE TOLD HIM OR HIS CAREGIVERS.

Yup, true story (and I asked Father if I could put it in my blog and he gave me his blessing …and said yes, too)

You just have to laugh…….

Cathy Sikorski

Trick or Treat…Mother Nature’s Halloween joke.

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

One beautiful crimson and golden day in October, and I mean beautiful, I was required to go on a ‘shopping spree’ for a rehab center for my brother-in-law, “L.”  He was recently hospitalized and needed a few weeks or months to get his strength back, so he could return home. The first place they sent him was too challenging, and they basically kicked him out for not trying hard enough to get better. Who am I to judge? The guy has MS, and he knows what it means to exercise or not exercise, the choice is his. But they said, “nope, you’re not trying hard enough and it ruins our success rate.” Well, ok they didn’t say the last part, but we all know that’s what’s going on.

So I had to find a new place and quickly, because he would be booted in a day or two at the most. My Mom and I spent a very long day looking at five different facilities, trying hard to stay with in a 10 to 20 mile radius, so that I could be there on a regular basis to check on him and make sure he was not being neglected.

O my God, what horrific nightmares are out there. The first place was in this absolutely gorgeous, wooded, bucolic setting. And every resident was passed out, drooling, and not engaged in anyway. AND THAT WAS IN THE LOBBY!  The staff was setting up for a Halloween party, and the decorations were as shabby and pathetic as the lobby. The next place, it smelled….and not good.  The next two places were over-crowded, had teeny, tiny therapy rooms and were dirty. O mon Dieu! Je ne sais quoi! Yes, I was thinking in French because I couldn’t even process this in my native tongue.  Finally, we get to the fifth place, and it is okay. And I really mean just okay. I would like it to be cleaner. I would like to hear less commotion in the hallways, with residents who are clearly distressed. I would like there to be more visible staff. But the therapy facility is enormous, the therapists seem very knowledgeable and have specific tools for dealing with MS patients. And there are some younger men here. L gets a private room because there are so few men in rehab. So all in all, we’ll take it. I’m running out of time, I’m exhausted, and I have seen the worst so “okay” will suffice for now. If I need to keep looking, I will, but it’s just temporary and even though it’s the furthest from home, I will come every day in the beginning, to make sure he is properly cared for.

We take hours to complete all the paperwork to get him in there tomorrow. Ugh….me and my Mom are pooped. This is how I thank  her:

“Don’t you dare go to the hospital tonight. I don’t care that you are perfectly healthy.  If anything happens to you, don’t call me. Call your brother, call all of your other five children or any of their offspring, But I cannot deal with one more hospital, medical team, or medical issue for at least three days.”

Mom just laughs at me. She’s perfectly fine and there’s no reason to think otherwise.

The next day, Saturday, I go out to run a few errands, and it begins to snow. ON OCTOBER 29th, WE HAVE A FULL BLOWN BLIZZARD. Now normally, that wouldn’t be so crazy to have snow in October. But we have so much snow and the trees have not yet lost all their leaves. Trees begin to bough and cover everything, and break power lines and hearts with their cruel, beautiful snow-covered, orange and gold autumnal CRAP. I live in the woods. I can’t get down my driveway, until I call my husband who says: “Shake the trees, Cath, the snow will fall off.” (he’s like a genius)

AND THEN, AND THEN, AND THEN, the phone rings.

“Hi, this is Grandma’s assisted living place.” (of course they don’t say that, but you get the idea)

No big deal, I think, they always call me for Depends, or toothpaste, or nicely scented body wash. HA! Nice try.

“Um, your mother fell and is being ambulanced to the hospital 20 miles away (in a blizzard) because she may have hit her head and that’s the only head trauma unit.”

“Ok,” I say weakly, because I forgot to tell my 93 year-old mother-in-law not to dare go to the hospital today.

My husband comes home, and off we go, in the blizzard to the hospital. She did indeed break her hip and will have surgery(and then I will have to find a rehab for her).  Five hours later, we slowly drive home on snow-covered roads, reach our driveway, which now has broken snow-covered trees all over the place. We park in the street, walk gingerly through the snowy trees, and least you think this is some Robert Frost romantic moment,we find out we have no electricity and no heat.

You just have to laugh…..

Cathy Sikorski