Beware the Helper

Cheerful, she bounced into the house. So cheerful she startled The Mom, and this put The Mom’s back up. As it turned out, this was an Early Warning Sign to Beware the Helper.

It took a while to calm the situation and get The Helper and The Mom acquainted, showing The Helper around, getting “to know” each other.

But The Mom was uneasy, distraught, even, and begged me not to go. But I had to go, or lose the time that Respite was so preciously buying me. Time I desperately needed to recover from the years of solo care giving, from the constant strain, from the onset of Fatigue…

Finally they were calm and seated, poring over an old photo album. I retired to my Den and tried to work on my Project. But all was silent in the other room.  It should not have been. The Helper ought to have been asking questions–about the pictures in the picture album.

Since all of this was so new, I, like The Mom, was uneasy; I dared to sneak a peak. And there she was, the Helper, our first Respite CareGiver, ensconced in my easy chair—doing my crossword puzzle,The Mom, in her easy chair, just sitting there, staring into…nothingness…

Has Respite come to this? Nothingness? I had been assured that there was training involved.

Beware the Helper.

I, of course, immediately contacted our case worker and got a new Respite Person.

We went through a lot of ‘Respite Persons,’ for the Mom was not an easy charge after all–she was not giving up her independence easily–And the Respite crew themselves came and went, fell ill, got reassigned, got sent to a tougher case–or an easier one…

Oh, we had some great Helpers, folks we’d be proud to call our friends. Yet, through it all, the Mom remained unsettled.

Some respite workers, I found over the years, were apparently in the same mind as our first. Such as the young one I saw in the park with her charge. She spent her whole time on her “Smart Phone,” while her charge sat beside her–sometimes alone while the girl wandered off in deep conversation on her “Smart Phone”–head hanging between her knees, apparently lost in limbo, losing out on the stimulation the girl had been hired to provide. Descending deeper into Alzheimer’s.

Beware the Helper.

In the end, I did get the benefit of Respite. But getting there entailed putting up with constant interruptions from my Project in The Den to get the television going, to play a record, to fetch The Mom from her wandering away upstairs, to fix the coffee maker, to
find something for them to do…

At first I resorted to coffee shops. Then the library. My Project proceeded.

It all came to a crashing end when The Mom fell ill and wound up in hospital.

After that trauma, came the long wait for  “the first available bed.” That came up in one of the local care homes,  where she resides today.

And The Project proceeds.

And The Mom improved, stabilized, and, if not always thriving, does well.

I guess we were lucky we didn’t get stuck with an abusive care giver on Respite. I do trust there aren’t any of those around.

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Picture credit: found on cyberbreeze.com via Pinterest

http://cyber-breeze.com/effects-sugar-23-facts-sugar-probably-didnt-know/2/

by Maria I. – Dec 11, 2014