A lifelong friend and me

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Sarasa

Volunteer Host
Apr 13, 2018
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That sounds very like the volunteer form that my council sent round. To apply you needed some form of id, and to work with children a current DRB. The form is filled in but I haven’t sent it off yet, as I’m not sure if I’d be an assess or a liability! I’m 66 and though very fit, i'm also very deaf and I am not really a people person. I also don’t have a current DRB or a car.

Edited due to my appalling proof reading skills!
 
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Palerider

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Aug 9, 2015
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DRB is one issue and a very important one, but how are volunteers supposed to manage those in their homes with no idea of the social or wider medical problems people may have including dementia. People are not always easy to manage even without physical illness??

No doubt we will have to accept it as better than nothing at this stage, but should it have come to this anyway?? It just enrages me at a time when people need to know the basics will be ok, especially the elderly and those living at home with significant care issues :mad:
 

Palerider

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Aug 9, 2015
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Its fine, I'll stomp to work tomorrow listening to Radio 4 and arguing with the content as I drive ....I am just so fed up with this...its constant **** :mad: ...grrrrrr
 

DesperateofDevon

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Jul 7, 2019
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My eldest is a hospital pre-reg pharmacist and she is still expecting to sit her GPhC assessment in June (how can they let 100s of students sit in a hall to do an exam). They haven’t cancelled it yet, nor registered them as fully fledged pharmacists. They have a masters degree and have spent 4 years at university.
She’s on the wards in the vicinity of a lot of patients who have tested +ive, and commuting on public transport.
Send your daughter my love & thanks for all she's doing xxx
 

DesperateofDevon

Registered User
Jul 7, 2019
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Its fine, I'll stomp to work tomorrow listening to Radio 4 and arguing with the content as I drive ....I am just so fed up with this...its constant **** :mad: ...grrrrrr
D7B8B8E2-BA3D-4E1F-99D6-FC6D9BB8A6B6.png
difficult times & difficult choices to be made by those in our beloved NHS
Thank you for all you folks are doing, some of us are fully aware of the risks you are all taking
(((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))))))
 

Lynmax

Registered User
Nov 1, 2016
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I have nothing but praise for the NHS staff who have been looking after mum since her fall on Saturday. Angels every one of them.

I have seen the appeals for volunteers but the ones I've seen are linked to the WRVS and want people to do shopping for people in isolation or take them to medical appointments or phone them for a chat. There are already loads of local groups but I think they want a more coordinated approach. I have not read the type of appeal for hands on volunteers that you refer to, like you that greatly concerns me.
 

Palerider

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Aug 9, 2015
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Well I've had a speedy response from the local MP :

Thank you for your email and comments.

Whilst we are seeing a staggering desire for people to support one another and readily offering their services to be volunteers - I will be sure to pass on your comments to the Department of Health and Social Care and when I get a reply I will forward it to you.

Kind regards


Got home late last night. I've put myself forward to go to London to help out as things are spiralling quickly -just waiting to see if my managers will release me and organise where I will be deployed if they do let me go.
 

Starting on a journey

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Jul 9, 2019
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Do take care, humbled by what you do. All we can do is stay in, protect the n h s and save lives.
If we can do that then hopefully you won’t be overrun by very sick people.

Please take care of yourself
 

DesperateofDevon

Registered User
Jul 7, 2019
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Well I've had a speedy response from the local MP :



Got home late last night. I've put myself forward to go to London to help out as things are spiralling quickly -just waiting to see if my managers will release me and organise where I will be deployed if they do let me go.
wow !
just wow , you are an amazing person
please stay safe
???
 

katydid

Registered User
Oct 23, 2018
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In 2011 I left London to come home to the North West, after a long career as a senior nurse in intensive care. When I arrived everything was normal as far as I could see with my parents. Dad had been treated for melanoma which had spread, but he'd been treated and had survived past the 5 year mark (just). I had secured a job in New Zealand with a one way ticket, but something held me back -my mum. If I could have taken her with me I would. So with mum in mind I didn't go to New Zealand.

I had always mixed feelings about coming home, it was my roots and natural, but on the other hand dad and I never got on and he was a drinker ( and quite a ******* when he was ****ed on whisky). I had resolved if mum went before dad that I wouldn't take on care responsibilities for him. What happened is that dad died before mum and so here I am writing this. In 2015 dad died from his cancer, within three weeks his of admission to hospital. That chapter closed quite suddenly and I have to say quite emotionally. What was left was mum and me and a whole new world of Altzheimer's, mum and me.

Mum and I are are old friends, we are lucky in that respect. We have stood by each other through thick and thin whatever comes. We have supported each other and even both took our A level art and pottery together a long time ago which I am glad we both did. I didn't really start caring for mum until 2015, she had been diagnosed in 2010. She had a bad fall at the end of 2015 and when examined in hospital they said she was 'quite remarkable' given her diagnosis -I agreed she was amazingly good some five years after diagnosis. But, there was one problem, mum refused to take her donepezil, she had done since they were first prescribed and dad, for love nor money couldn't get her to take them. So I gave her an ultimatum either she takes the tablets and I can help her, or she doesn't I won't be able to help for much longer. Consquently she started to take them.

We have got through nearly four years without needing much help (although I have on occasion nearly torn all my hair out), but over the last six months things have began to escalate. Plus I work full time in the NHS and can't give up my job, I am single and have to think about my future when I am old and grey too (if I get that far the way things are going at the moment). I might be an experienced nurse, but caring professionally is very different to caring for your own, and I can say fairly honestly my emotions span from being ok on happier days to being very dark on bad days. Which brings me to something I have seen glimpses of in these forums, how we cope and how not coping takes over the carer, I saw one phrase 'carer breakdown' in one thread.

In 2005 London was bombed by terrorists, I was called into work to intensive care. I won't describe what I saw or what hospital I was working at, I will say it was horrific. But we carried on as we Brits do, 4 of our patients survived in ICU, one sadly died the night of the bombings. A year later something then happened to me and it seem to come from nowhere. I was sectioned under the MHA for acute depressive episode with an element of psychosis. I was treated for three months and returned to work a very different person to the one I was before. So much had been going on in my life all the stress, worrying about my parents at home, my own unhappiness in London and then the bombings, it all took its toll. Its over ten years now since that all happened.

I have recently involved social services (SS) as I can't cope on my own anymore with my good friend, mum. I have to say I always thought social services would be more caring and forward coming in advancing help when it really is needed. I like many others on this forum have learned that I am in fact naive on these matters and can say truthfully my emotions have ranged from feeling like I have failed mum and extreme anger towards the SS and in fact to the state, that seems to let us down over and over again. I am in tune with my emotions now after my own episode in 2006 and I can recognise the darker side of my personality when it tries to pervail and know what to do, but caring for mum puts me like many others at risk of 'carer breakdown'

There are so many different stories on this forum, I wish I could help where I can help but I can't unfortnately. What I will say is that breakdown comes in many different ways and often isn't noticed by the person experiencing it. When I was a student on my mental health placement (along time ago) I asked if psychiatric professionals become unwell too, they replied 'you can't work in a paint shop without getting splashed'. Food for thought.
xx
I understand all you are saying. I too am a nurse and I eventually had to let my husband go into a care home. In three weeks he had a fractured hip. (See previous thread). However the home he is in now is so different. Safe comfortable friendly
You need to shout stamp your feet, cry, continually phone write until you get the help you need
As professionals it is hard. We give. Not receive!!!
but we will get splashed!!!
It wasn’t until my carers Complained about me!!!!!
saying I was interfering and stressed!!!!!
that a nursing home was found in the first place against my wishes!! It’s called an emergency placing for carer breakdown
The first ones I saw I would not leave anybody in
In fact when I took Len for his first stay in one place. (Yes me,taxi wheelchair,bags meds etc., ). I took everything in had a look round, a cup of tea. And Len had lunch Then I put everything back in the car. Including Pen because no way was he going to stay there!
that caused quite a kerfuffle!
however although I still feel guilty and very very sad, lonely! I have to admit that it needed to happen. And he now settling more forgetful. When I leave I say taking dogs for a walk, gardening,shopping, See you in bit and he seems fine. I hope he is,
Good luck
 

Palerider

Registered User
Aug 9, 2015
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This is the first time I have been at home as everyone else is up and down the country, and boy is it boring. I keep on thinking I'll pop and see mum and realise I can't. Even films and TV programs I would normally sit and watch don't seem to distract me from the constant fact that I am here alone and that someone is missing after 5 months of going into care. Its wierd.
 

DesperateofDevon

Registered User
Jul 7, 2019
3,274
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This is the first time I have been at home as everyone else is up and down the country, and boy is it boring. I keep on thinking I'll pop and see mum and realise I can't. Even films and TV programs I would normally sit and watch don't seem to distract me from the constant fact that I am here alone and that someone is missing after 5 months of going into care. Its wierd.
hey you aren't alone if someone is thinking of you
#inmythoughts
 

Palerider

Registered User
Aug 9, 2015
4,160
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56
North West
Well the one thing I hoped wouldn't happen has happened, mums care has an outbreak of Covid-19 and there are a few residents with the virus. Mum is seemingly well at the moment but things may deteriorate. Not a worry I need right now nor does anyone else for that matter:(
 
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