Calmer
Thanks everyone (and I mean Brucie and Amy too, you always abuse the people you know best, can identify with, I'm sorry guys, I did understand where you were coming from, but I guess I needed to scream, and I mean the sorry today), Calm here after the storm now.
Coincidentally or not, I got to work this morning and turned around and came home again. I'm exhausted, my 2 month toothache/earache is still with me, so this morning I am not going to take any paracetemol so I don't underplay my pain, and go to the doctor and rant and rave at him to do something (using my PMS TF!
. First doctor I saw, told me it was a toothache despite me being sure it was sinus related, so I saw a dentist and got all my teeth fixed, but still had problems, second doctor told me to take head clear tablets despite the fact that I had had it for a month at that point...then as doctors tend to like to have the same days off as I do, I've been stuck with the pain!
I obviously was a lot more worked up about how the visits to Dad's home affected me than I realised. So much so, that when I asked my husband to listen while I read out the various posts on this thread (as a bit of a sounding board, to see if I was being completely stupid) I began bawling my eyes out half way through it, and continued to cry hard as I read the remainder to him. I never expected that just reading the words would cause me to bawl! (Amy, thats why I didn't stay long enough to see your private message to me...I read it this morning though and when I get a chance shall reply, brace lady 'grrrr'ing at me
)
I asked him (my husband) what he thought when I cry like that, am I being ridiculous, should I not get so upset about it all, am I being silly? And his reply was that he wished he could do something to help me but even though he couldn't he was glad that I was able to get out my feelings my words, as he remembers that he felt that being able to do that (he just used a diary) was integral for him getting through one of the worst periods in his life.
I was also no doubt getting worked up about it all, because last night they had a 60minutes show on tv just before I posted that had a young couple on it protesting about how there was nowhere for the wife to live (she has MS and she has progressed to a stage where she needs full care)other than old folks homes. And my god when I saw how lovely the home she was staying in was (despite being an old folks home) I guess I thought, sheesh they're upset enough to go on TV about it, and the rest of Australia has no idea that it can be so much much worse. The second thing that probably worked me up is that my Mum cancelled her Saturday visit and instead is coming down today, but the main purpose behind her coming today is to pick up some bargains from the shops. Last week she was supposed to come down on Tuesday morning and got here Tuesday night instead and didn't visit Dad until Wednesday afternoon, stayed for 4 hours (I am happy about that, but I suspect she doesn't just visit with Dad in that time) and then went home again. Oh and last but not least, on my last visit to Dad he was looking wide eyed and stressed and the words that did come out were 'bad man' and it appeared as if he was telling me about a 'bad man'...he may have been halucinating, he may have been talking about himself as he used to call his reflection the 'bad man' when he was sundowning, or my other concern was that he felt a man at the home was a 'bad man'. Not to mention that a recent report on old folks home in a southern state of Australia exposed cases of sexual abuse of residents.
Needless to say, I worry about who Dad is living with and that there is not enough supervision, (and thats why I am angry that the staff aren't there to pay attention to the other residents, and why I intimate about the kind of people these residents are, making me wary of 'caring' for them, I'm concerned that they are scaring my Dad, hurting him, I think it is so much harder to 'care' for these people when I am worried that the people I am taking time to be concerned about are hurting my Dad...even though I am completely confident that if they do so, they are not responsible for their actions, so I am back again at being angry at the staff! <sigh>) that he is not safe, he can't tell me if he isn't and then one can't even be sure that he is aware of the reality of his situation anyway.
You might think oh dear she is getting silly, these people won't hurt her Dad but the other week one lady slapped Dad right in front of me, a few weeks earlier one came at him with her walker and she would have knocked him down if I hadn't been there to block her, and then last week the same lady who slapped him last time came rushing at him and I put myself between her and Dad, gave a yell of 'Ahh!' and said in a parental tone of 'Don't do that S' all the while looking at her and thinking she's still strong enough to give even me a punch that could send me to the ground and I hope she doesn't call my bluff! And since then I have heard that she has punched one of the carers!
All this has happened in the times when I have been visiting with Dad, I worry a lot about what goes on when I'm not there!
Maybe I need to clarify the kind of place where Dad lives, he lives in a what is termed a 'high care
mobile' unit. In that these people require to be locked into the section they are in, because they are quite mobile, but it is not safe for them or sometimes others for them to be able to walk around freely. Dad had a week last month where he ended up on the floor 4 times in 7 days and nobody knows whether he was pushed or fell. Why wasn't anyone there to see?THESE are all the reasons I am so worked up about this. <sigh>
Oh and I just realised, its a week today before it will be Dad's first anniversary for living in the home...ironically my mother's birthday...He was a skinny as a prisoner of war back then, and both my husband and I agreed that he would not last the year, now it looks like he could last another ten and he has a pot belly.
And there we are back to the same old miserable thoughts that go round and round in my head all of the time. I want this to be over but I don't want him to die.
Thanks again to everyone.
Love