Balancing Act

Okay I wanted to try to write something more cheerful than I have been but all I can think about is that Mom is sick with a bad cough and I'm not sure she is being looked after in that respect. Yesterday when we visited we mentioned it to a nurse and she said she would look after it, but today's nurse had heard nothing about it. She too said she would look after it.

At what point do we as family members stop trusting the "looking after it" part and move past that to becoming irritants to the staff and induce them to act? And maybe it is just a simple cold.

Mom tries very hard to suppress any physical complaint and last night she tried very hard not to cough by breathing as shallowly as possible. She would rather suffer than complain, and actually denies having a cough because she cannot remember having coughed one minute ago. Last year as she lay in the hospital with a broken hip she had no idea that she had injured herself until she moved and I think the only reason she received adequate pain relief was because we never left her side. And yet she can always find a positive often humorous spin to anything. She clearly didn't remember falling but told my brother that she must have been doing back flips.

And that's something that the staff where Mom lives love about her. Seldom complaining and making people laugh are a great way to endear yourself. So while of course we have to make sure her cough is looked after, it is a very real problem to worry about how staff at long term facilities treat your parent. We visit for a few hours at a time. Mom is there 24\7. The squeaky wheel family may get lots of attention but what's more important is the kind of attention the patient receives from staff when no one is watching and frustration levels at the complaining family are high.

We're lucky Mom is in a really decent place, and most importantly she feels at home there. In the hospital she was always trying to go home. Two days post hip surgery Mom somehow got out of her bed, folded her sheets neatly and said to her nurse, "Thank you very much for everything, but I need to go home now." So we know how fortunate we are that her long term care facility is "home."

And the times when Mom is physically ill are times when thoughts come in like: Well, maybe it would just be easier if she could go be with Dad. So of course that brings guilt and wars with the protective instinct when I have to face that my parent is in some ways more helpless than a child, because she would not remember any wrongs or neglect and is totally dependant on her caregivers.

And I don't think I knew the meaning of helpless as a baby till right now.