Back to our routine
A page in the diary ""
Written by suew 14. Jan 2008 03:16 PM
For caregivers like me the services we rely on are scarce over the Christmas period so we are down to minimum hours, this for me is five hours, showers for Ray on Tuesday and Thursday, three hour minder on Friday. Which means Ray is irritable because he is out of routine and complaining once more that: "she is always dragging me around somewhere".
This means also taking him shopping.Those shopping expeditions turn gigantuan as we battle through the tourists that flock here for the holidays season so the three hour shopping trip can easily turn into five hours as we queue, queue and queue some more to get to the check-out,to get into the next queue at the next store. The heat and the noise and the people bumping into Ray's wheelchair, some snarling at us until they see it is "just some poor bloke in a wheelchair, poor coot" as one guy said to his shopping companion. Funny how that "peace on earth, goodwill towards men" feeling evaporates so quickly after Christmas. I just wish it would hang around for a while and see us through the post-Christmas doldrums
Then there is the heat, the hot nights, the humidity and tossing and turning instead of sleeping. I find it difficult to fill the days in a satisfactory way. In some ways there is also the lack of support as our friends are away camping, boating, visiting far-flung family while the grandchildren are home for the seven week summer holidays. Of course some of our friends are the emergency minders while their grandchildren's parents go on working. So ringing them is futile and waiting for them to reply to emails takes a lot longer. "Where are you all, I want to cry, why have you gone off just when I need someone who understands to talk to?"
So things get a bit fraught as neither of us are in a good mood and I find simple chores take longer. Gardening, usually my relaxation, becomes futile as the spring plants wilt and die under the onslaught of the first really hot days and the weeds grow so fast that the mowing man often comes fortnightly instead of every three weeks to keep it all under control. Nothing like looking out at all those weeds where your spring plants once were and thinking that as soon as it cools down, if it ever does, there is that task ahead of you.
But we finally make it through. The Daycare bus came this morning and the cheerful crew loaded Ray on board and off he went, he will be back at 2.30pm but he will go straight to bed as being out and about again really tires him out. Next week we start back at most of our regular activities again. Some are delayed until February but that is okay as we can make a slow start to the new routine, adding one thing after another as we usually do.
It is hard to make it through this time without a break, harder year by year as all carers here will find.I am glad we have made it through this one and into a new year.