I haven't been blogging much lately. In fact, it's been months since I've posted.
My dad had been sick and passed away the week of Thanksgiving. I'm still going through a "process" and I'm not sure how I feel about things. You see, I've taken care of him for the last few years. I started out doing little things for him, progressing to taking care of his household, taking charge of his healthcare and ending with him being in the nursing home, then the VA home and fighting the VA home staff to be included in the loop of his care.
I had micromanaged everything for so long, it was difficult for me to not be informed on a regular basis of decisions that affected my dad's care & his life. I was CONSTANTLY at loggerheads (as they say...) with the VA home staff. If I asked a question and they didn't have an answer, I got "the look" as though I had suddenly and spontaneously grown a unicorn horn in the middle of my forehead. If I didn't get "the look", I got some vague answer or got sucked into the "blame game" that they play with residents' family members when relatives ask questions that require more than a simple yes or no answer.
The blame game is when you ask a question and they give you the "look". You re-word the question, they look at you like you are a 3 yr. old and speak slowly as though you have a mental handicap or can not understand big words. When they are through with their "explanation" you know as little as you did before you asked. If you should be brave enough to continue the questioning, (this is where the "blame" part comes in), they begin with their version of mental ping-pong. They give you a vague answer and wait for you to "get it". If you don't in a couple of seconds, you get the "sideways look" and are informed that if you visited more often...you'd "know" these things...(insert rolling eyes *here*). Then you stammer for a defense. It's like an attack. You struggle with the decision to put your loved one in a facility thinking "if I just tried a little harder, I could probably still take care of him". Then you're caught off guard by someone blaming you for not trying hard enough to take care of them or for not having your loved one's best interests in mind because you haven't moved in the facility with them! Not only do I find that annoying, it's juvenile. If I had the time to visit each and every day and stay for most of the day, I would not have put my dad in a facility and I would have kept him at home!
It was a big decision for me to put my dad in a nursing home. It was also a big decision to move him to a VA home when he was getting such wonderful care at the nursing home and it was 2-3 blocks from my home. And yes, I did visit him every day while he was there. But, he wanted to be at the VA home 6-7 miles from my home because he wanted to be around people he would have something in common with. So, I relented and moved him when a room became available.
I will always consider that move to be one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. Because of the staff, my relationship with my dad became more strained. It progressed to the point where it was suffering from trying to survive in a hostile environment. Near the end, my kids and I could no longer have a decent visit with my dad because staff members were making it difficult to visit. They would tell my dad that I didn't care about him any longer, and if I did, I would visit more often. They did this knowing that one of his biggest fears was that I'd put him in the facility and forget about him, never coming back to visit him ever again. It's mean to do that to a vulnerable person like my dad! I always made sure before I left that he knew I'd come back again for a visit. I told him this every single time that I went.
They also told my dad that I was spending all his money and he wouldn't have any left if he needed to pay for healthcare. That simply wasn't true. I was paying down his hospital/ambulance bills because of several hospital stays and many ambulance calls in just this year alone. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and had started saving for future hospital stays and other needed healthcare that I knew the VA would not pay for. So he had money, I just wouldn't let the VA financial department know about it or let them have it. It was my dad's and if at all possible it was going to stay his.
Also, the staff had my dad sign papers switching his direct deposit VA benefits to his personal spending account at the home. That would have been good except for the fact that dad could only have access to $5-$10 dollars at a time, never enough for his dental bills (not paid for by the VA) or extra meds that medicaid didn't cover. That had to come out of any little bit of money left after his bills from the VA home were paid or out of my family's pockets.
These events strained our relationship because I was always trying to keep our heads above water. I would visit my dad early Sunday mornings. I pretty much had to sneak in to avoid being bombarded by the nurses with a bunch of bullshit about what was needed now. It was their job to take care of his day to day needs and they barely did that. Most of the time it seemed like they only wanted to make decisions and dump the work in my lap.
Besides all of this, our relationship began to show signs of wear & tear due to my dad's slowly diminishing mental capacity. Over time, his ability to understand some things diminished. He started out no longer understanding things about his healthcare. Then it spread to his finances and bills. Finally after an episode where he and a lady friend became lost while driving, I had to step in and execute the power of attorney that he & I had put in place a few years earlier. When he moved to the VA he was at a point where he could still understand the basic, simple decisions to be made affecting his everyday life, but not much more than that. He didn't understand all the legal papers the VA staff made him sign. He was easily influenced and the staff took advantage of that and as of today, I still don't know everything they convinced my dad to sign. He didn't know either...
While doing all this for my dad, I was handling everything at home as well. Normally that wouldn't be so bad, but my marriage has not been smooth sailing the last few years. The strain of caring for an aging parent with a myriad of health problems, including anxiety attacks at any given hour of the night or day, took a toll on my relationship with my husband.
I also run a private school/homeschool. My micromanaging skills come in handy here! lol
I have 2 children with developmental disabilities. One child has ADD, the other has ADHD and Impulse Control Disorder. They will deal with these issues for the rest of their lives. I use every teachable moment in daily life to help them learn to deal with these issues and learn to problem solve to make it in the world. While I am blessed to have a good life compared to some, my life is not a parade every day. I have struggles like everyone out there.
I have never regretted the sacrifices I made in taking care of my kids or my dad. I only sometimes wished for a small vacation for myself. Just a little time off to rest and recharge my batteries. Needless to say, I didn't get it. Until now. My kids are growing up some. They're teenagers now and are able to do things on their own more without mom constantly looking over their shoulders. My dad is gone. He was the only parent I had left. Most of my older relatives have passed as well. I have a few older cousins but we are not close so my family members are dwindling. I now have time for that vacation and I find myself asking, "What do I want to do?". I really don't know what I want to do. I've taken care of everyone else for so long that I don't remember what it's like to do what I want to do.
When I had days where I was so tired that I didn't think I could run the world alone for much longer, I'd give myself a pep talk and convince myself that I wanted to do all this because I could do a good job and I could prevent a lot mistakes from happening. I took pride in being able to handle so many things at one time and still do a pretty good job. I never realized that my identity and self esteem had become tangled up with my dad's and kids'. I was lost and didn't even know it. That was, until my dad died soon after I had switched my kids to a new online school that offered more courses. Two whammies in two months. I had so much free time on my hands that I felt as though I'd lost a job or something like that. In all the condolences sent my way, someone asked what was I going to do now? As they stared at me waiting for an answer, I realized I didn't know. I had no answer and ended up saying so. They patted me on the back and said not to worry that I'd find something to do in no time. Yet, here I am almost a month later and I haven't decided on anything yet.
I make lists of things to do and start out with much gusto, only to wind down hours later with a whimper of exhaustion. lol So much for building Rome in a day...
I guess that person was right. It'll take a while, but if I listen to myself, I'll find myself and something I love or want to do in no time.
