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| message board May 2011
Posted at 9:16 AM
After what I've been having to do and tolerate for the last few years taking care of my grandma any job will look pretty wonderful. The only problem is that I'm so exhausted and mentally taxed that I think I'll want to lie in bed unmoving for many months once this is finally over, however and whenever that comes about (through death (hers or mine) or her being sent to a nursing home). I may get to stay in bed all day for months anyhow considering the job market. Just because I'll take any job and see it as much less taxing and frustrating than what I've been doing doesn't mean anybody will hire me. Ah ... planning for the future ... is it always this way? Posted at 9:40 AM
Miserable doesn't even begin to describe it. Posted at 10:04 AM
I so, so, so wanted to just stay in bed this morning and keep sleeping. Posted at 9:53 AM
Is irrational, unrealistic hope better or worse than no hope at all? Posted at 11:11 PM
This isn't honestly much better. I may be less stressed at night when posting than I was in the morning, but now I'm more tired. It's a lose-lose situation. I'll keep thinking on it. Maybe there's a better way. Posted at 10:49 PM
I switched to writing Journal entries in the mornings so that I'd have more time or less stress or so I wouldn't just be writing only about what frustrating thing my grandma had done that day, but I'm finding that, although the change initially worked out well, I've quickly fallen back into not only the same rut but I've become even worse. These Journal entries are short, uninteresting, and dour. Who wants to read that? Heck, I don't even want to write stuff like that! The thing is that mornings are actually the hardest part of the day taking care of my grandma, and it's more exhausting than all of the rest of the day combined. In retrospect this may not be the best time of the day to write Journal entries. So, pending further pondering on my part, I expect to be swinging postings back to the evening. Hopefully the content will improve with the change. We can only hope. Posted at 11:10 AM
Is there truly no hope?. Posted at 9:42 AM
Life stinks ... yeah, yeah ... (life stinks) Posted at 11:20 AM
I think my interest in politics is just about gone. You can only take so much frustration and disgust before you just don't want to be around something any more. Posted at 10:52 AM
Someone definitely needs to make and sell t-shirts that say:
(for background info, go here, here, and here for ever increasingly amusing details). Posted at 6:10 PM
My mind is everywhere and nowhere lately. Sanity calls for a mental health break ... and as usual the call goes out and gets a disconnected signal. Posted at 11:10 AM
My life feels surreal. Posted at 9:31 AM
Happy birthday, Sarah! You can run to Ireland, but you'll still be a year older no matter what. Posted at 11:44 AM
Without hope and dreams there can be no happiness. Posted at 9:25 AM
Happy birthday, David Plunkett - wherever you are ... Posted at 10:46 AM
HI crimestoppers! Posted at 9:57 AM
Tired and energized at the same time. Weird. Meh. Posted at 10:19 AM
I'm tired of living like I'm impoverished just because my family is unwilling to help support me while I take care of my grandma. If that sounds selfish to you, perhaps I should show you comparisons of how much it would cost my family to have home health care workers 24 hours a day or how much it would cost to cover the expense of a nursing home. This has never been about money for me. It has always been about doing what's right and taking care of my grandma. But I have to tell you, I'm getting more and more angry each time I hear that my parents put new tile in their brand new bathroom or that they planted a whole orchard of fruit trees in their back yard knowing that they expect to move from that house in as little as a couple months. And I get angry when my sister gets a VW Beetle as a birthday present from her husband even though they already have three cars. Meanwhile I'm living in socks with holes for soles, boxers with no crotch, suffering through cold in the winter or heat in the early summer to keep utility costs down, eating simple, cheap foods to keep grocery bills down, eating out hardly ever, going to a movie theatre so rarely that I can hardly remember what they look like, and having so little of a social life that I haven't seen anyone in months. Living like this has been something I've done to help get by on a tight budget and not have to lean on my grandma's income for support, but things are truly ridiculous now. I'm certainly not a saint just because I'm doing this, but I also am not a martyr for this cause. I deserve better than this. Posted at 11:34 AM
Not today. Posted at 9:23 AM
Loneliness is all it's cracked up to be and more. Once again, less equals more. Posted at 11:09 AM
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. And my grandmother's mind is wasting away ... Posted at 9:37 AM
I need a less stressful job ... like air traffic controller. I need a less physically demanding job ... like lumberjack. I need a less frustrating job ... like customer service rep for Windows Vista. I need a less financially debilitating job ... like ... anything. Any way you look at it, less is more, and I without question need and deserve more. Posted at 11:04 AM
Is there really any reason to live this life? Really? I mean something valid, not just some useless, "You don't have a choice" or "Life is what you make of it" bullshit. What is the point? What can be done of enduring value? And I don't mean like making a new video game or new technology. I mean something real: something that saves the planet; something that helps humans transcend to a new level of development; something that raises the quality of life for all living things without detriment to other living things. All I see is selfish personal searches for money, fame, and power, and none of these are worthwhile life pursuits. In fact they invariably are the opposite - they only serve to harm other living things and harm the planet. They serve no one but the individuals living them, and those people have no right to do whatever they want when it works only at the detriment of others. So what point is there, truly? What good can come from any of this compassionless self-interest? Posted at 10:27 AM
What a curse. Nw I'm even dreaming about caring for my grandma in her infirmity. I woke up almost like from a nightmare with that one. Is there no place where I'm free? Posted at 10:24 AM
You expected something witty and light-hearted? Here? Come back later. Witty and lighthearted left a while ago, and they didn't say when they'd be back. Posted at 11:17 AM
Stupid chest pains. Posted at 9:34 AM
It's overcast but not raining today. I should be happy because this is the first break in the rain in days and it gives me a chance to do yard work. But therein lies the problem ... yard work. Isn't there a chance it might rain? Posted at 11:11 AM
It's early in the day but I've been up a while already. The strange thing is that I've been vividly remembering things all morning since I was awake in bed waiting for the alarm to ring and at other times as well. I'm not usually one to reflect on the past unless prompted, so this is a bit unusual. It's nice, though. All of these "visions of the past" have been good memories. I need that sort of lift ... and maybe that's why my mind is bringing those things up for me. There have definitely been very good times. That's why the present and the future are indeed so bleak. And that's also why I don't usually relive the past. As nice as the good memories are, they just point up how much worse things are now and how I can never go back to what I had before, no matter how much I want it. Posted at 9:26 AM
I'm as close as I've ever been to giving up and leaving my grandma to the mercies of a nursing home - and fending for myself against very few employment opportunities. Both of those results are ugly and indeed terrifying to some degree, but the excessive stress and increasing ... impotence is the closest word I can come up with ... are leaving me some nights (last night in particular) seriously considering that I should stop. I have always said, from the very beginning, that I was here for as long as my grandma wanted and needed me, or at least until she needed more care than I could provide. I always thought that if we came to that it would be because she needed regular skilled nursing care. I would never have imagined it would be because the senility made her so unreasonable and insane in so many insurmountable ways. Now I just don't know what to do. I am a man of my word, but ... So far today we're not going along much better than we were yesterday at the same time. If today progresses even close to as badly as yesterday did then completely lose my mind. But, knowing as I do how these things go, today could just get better and better and I could be amazed at how well my grandma does. You just never know with dementia. What I do know is that one way or another this is drawing to a close. My grandma's decline is much faster mentally than physically crippling her, but the combination is crushing her. There's only so long she can endure that before she needs more attention than I can give or she just outright dies. It could take another couple of years, honestly, because her major organs are all still strong as could be, but if everything else shrivels and twists around those organs - including her mind - then the end will be upon her. This is a horrible way to live and a horrible way to die. Posted at 11:29 AM
How do you deal with someone - even a woman of barely 100 pounds - when they stand and walk just fine but then, because they feel a bit afraid, say, "I can't" and give up, falling faster than you can think? I am frustrated and aggravated by this (I don't like it that my grandma is just giving up) and terrified at the same time. She continues to be lucky with her falls and suffers only minor bruises, but this luck can't always hold out. It's also worrying that she won't even try to hold on long enough for me to try to grab her in a way that would let me carry her to a chair. It makes every time she stands - no matter how brief - fraught with danger. This just keeps getting more and more impossible as the days pass. WHere is the manual for this sort of thing? I really feel like I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes. Posted at 10:44 AM
Journal, by Paul Cales, © May 2011
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May 31, 2011
