Nursing Homies

My Mom Faye Anderson 

Nursing Homies

It all started with my Dad. I spent so much time as a caregiver for my family members (not to mention the non family members) that at some point it just took over my life. I never decided that I would spend my life as a caregiver I was just always the obvious person to take on the job. As a single parent and being a mom and a seamstress I worked at home some of the time anyway. 

My Dad was a hypochondriac, as a kid, I remember having to clean up after my Dad. My Mom was a workaholic trying to stay away from home, and him, and her 4 kids!! I loved my parents and I always felt like it was my duty to help my Dad. I thought I was my Dads favorite child, but he was not only a hypochondriac he was also a pedophile, so being his favorite was not such a grand prize! I remember the dirty Kleenex and the pill bottles everywhere, not to mention the spit cans and the dark rooms. Coming home from school at age 9 and having to see his mess would just give me the creeps and of course there was no bringing friends home. Some days I would run away on my bike and find some mountain trail or park to just sit alone and hide on. I remember sitting in some cornfields and some dusty ditches just to get away from home. I always went back and I would do the job but I hated it.

Later when I was a Mom and I was trying to be a wife my Dad showed up when some kids dropped him off at my house with his Honda 100 in their trunk and his tackle box. He was a sick guy and I mean really sick he did things you just hated. Like painting the grout between the beautiful granite rocks of my fireplace black and the stones bright red while I was gone on vacation.  I just wanted him to go away so bad. But I knew my sisters had tried to help and I was all he had left, so I tried to help him but the stress was not good for my family.  My marriage broke up in the process. The Doctors did find that he was really ill but that meant I would have to be there for his recovery or so I thought. He took off one day and it was years before I saw him again. The next time I saw him he came in the Buick he lived in and his Coleman stove bacon cooker, in his trunk and a fishing tackle box and pole. So I started over with him again. But he would leave and who knew where he would go!

By this time my Mom had moved in with me, and my Grandmother and Aunt Bunny had moved in the house next door. They all needed help too; Aunt Bunny was on trial medication for a heart problem and needed to be monitored by the hospital in Denver 50 miles away.  My Grandmother had dementia, and would pack her bag and sit on it out by the edge of the road and wait for “them “ to come while visions of "religious people" climbed in her windows at night to sing hymns and keep her awake! My Mom had a skin cancer tumor removed from her back and had required some grafting and bandage changing. OH boy, it was getting harder and harder and drugs and liquor were looking mighty good to me! Just for a weekend to think about just me! I was only in my 30’s and Carlee and I were dealing with some problems ourselves. So when she was with her Dad on the weekends I would really cut loose! I became meals on wheels and home care aid for a couple with Alzheimer’s, Walter and Bertha, and the driver for Gordon my neighbor with Kidney disease, 3x a week for dialysis, 5 hours I would wait for him 20 miles away from where we lived. There were others I cared for, I remember every one of them. Not long after my Aunt passed and my Grandmother went into a home I became the caregiver for my new beau’s Mom with Emphysema and Dad with a heart condition, then there was my X-Mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s I lived with for the last year before she went into a care facility and finally my own Mother, brain lesions and dementia. That made 10 + people I had cared for since I was very young. Remembering that care giving has no benefits other than knowing you have done the best you can with the goodness of your heart. There is no vacations from care giving, no medical care or retirement and the stress adds up, I knew the moment my sister dropped my Mom off to live with me that my own energy level was low and I had some emotional issues involved.  I came away from all of it with Illness myself!

After 40 + years of care giving and trying to hold down multiple jobs, there I was with an unknown undiagnosed disease but believing It was just stress I began a new business and I tried to go on, all the time caring for Mother. When She was gone, I knew my own medical problems had become overwhelming, working at all was problematic for me.

I just couldn't work and I left my friends and community I loved to live closer to my daughter because I really didn’t think that I had much longer to live myself. I had to find a doctor and insurance before I would know.

Here I am 7 years later and I have a diagnosis now! Diabetes and sleep apnea, degenerative bone and joint disease, skin cancer and nerve damage and I just had a hysterectomy because of cancer and I’m trying to get back my business and move on with very little income and not much insurance. I feel quite lost and I’m not real sure what is the next step. There is no retirement for me!

I’m not complaining really I just am writing it down to see what it all looks like!! It’s a story that looked bleak as hell!

 Now at 59 I have my own caregiver, Heather. She shows up sometimes 2 times a week and does my dishes and floors and carries laundry to the garage so I can do it, then carries it back. She’s here when I take a shower and she rubs lotion on my dry old feet, She changes the sheets on my bed and vacuums. She took me to lunch yesterday for soup and salad and she drives me around to my favorite produce markets. We also picked up a food box from St Vincents. I’m having trouble driving a stick shift (my car Mavis is a stick) so I have completely reversed my situation from being a caregiver to a receiver and it’s hard to believe that my days seem numbered already at 59. I’m wondering what happened to my life? And How do I go on from here? Will I get better or will I ever get to drive again? For some reason aging and driving is a real set back in your mind. Having someone mop your floor is OK but when you can’t drive it’s like the end of life, as you know it! I can still drive; I just can’t drive my car, Mavis. She is parked in the garage with the rims rusting away. Poor thing! Carlee says sell it but then I really will be stuck. I drove Aunt Bunny, I drove Grandma and my Mom, I drove so many to the places they needed to go and didn’t think a thing about it but now that I have to ask for rides it creeps me out so much, I want to run away on my bike and hide from it all. But my bikes got a flat tire!!

        

Heather

She was a big ole gal and sort a shy at first, a bit like me. She had 2 kids in high school and an alcoholic husband and she needed a job. Her husband’s paycheck had a garnishment, so even though I knew she’d be slow because of her size, I hired her as my caregiver because she had two kids and she needed a job.

I knew she needed the job and I needed someone who wasn’t going to be a thorn in my side. Telling me what I needed to do all the time. I just wanted help.

 Right off we got along fine I told her my stories and she told me hers and when she came we would sit and chat about an hour before she got to work. That worked for me. I needed the company as much as I needed the help. I had made myself a recluse after 8 surgeries in 4 years and being diagnosed with diabetes and sleep apnea. I already knew about the cancer, asthma and bone degeneration. I really needed help I had fallen twice in the bathtub and I was scared to shower when I was alone. I was having trouble getting dressed and my housework was really becoming a problem. I was afraid to say anything for fear of having to live in a nursing home at 57, without my cat, Buddy, and Mavis my car. I had gained so much weight, that moving around was difficult, there was nothing wrong with my appetite but I had only $150.00 for groceries and that meant cheap food at best and vitamins only sometimes.

The first few times Heather came were kind of routine then she started bringing her kids to help out too, and she also got her husband to make a kitchen shelf for me and he and the kids moved my old bed racer. And worked in the yard some.

Heather was always late and never came on the days we had planned and I was wondering what to do about that but I just let it slide. I felt for her, and I knew she was going through a rough time. Her husband was on the verge of an affair and leaving her. Her son had dropped out of school his junior year, her daughter had a girlfriend and there was signs of being gay. She was only in her mid 30’s and she was trying to just make it through the day without tears, an impossibility.  Although she had the best of intentions she was always giving excuses and feeling like she wasn’t good enough and like I might fire her. But I didn’t. I could relate to so many of her problems from my own past, but her story is quite sad.

She lost her Mom to alcohol when she was in her 20’s and she became the matriarch, 2 sisters and a brother, even though her Dad had remarried years before. Becky could never have the control of the family like Heather had. I never saw anyone who kept in touch with all the family like Heather. Her phone was constantly ringing and she knew where everyone was and what he or she was doing all day long, everyday. All this constant energy towards what was going on took a toll on her a few times a month she would be sick. She’d close herself off in her little bedroom and not come out for a few days.

When the eviction came up she was the one who found a trailer for $2000 and she rallied the whole family to jump in and help fix it up. Even her husband was taking time to work on their new home.

She was always giving a space to a friend or family member who needed shelter, even in her state of remodel of the 2-bed room trailer. After managing a trailer park for 10 years I kind of knew this personality type pretty well and after living my own life in poverty and trailer parks, I could justify her every move.

Her family is a very colorful bunch from what I have learned. The first time I met her father-in-law he was loading stuff from my yard into his van and my first glimpse I wondered why that homeless person was taking my stuff, even though I was glad. Heather called his van the big green rolling turd, she hated having to drive it but on occasion she would have to. As he was loading it I spied her daughter in the van and knew immediately who he was. The green van had a lift and Bill needed that to hold his wife, his very heavy wife and her wheel chair. Bill and his wife, Barbara lived in the same trailer park as the new fixer upper trailer. Very handy for Heather to check up on them too, having them so close! Other family members were in and out of jail. Some could be trusted and some could not. 

I had to admire her, especially when her brother-in-law dove into a lake and broke his neck. She was the first one to offer to help her sister even if it meant taking classes to learn how to work with him, and help with his care! Wilbur is a quadriplegic now and has no feeling except in one hand but not enough to feed himself. He has to have assistance not just to eat and move but to cough and clear his throat and she has to get his bowel movement started so he can poop. Heather has taken on an enormous amount of responsibility for his care. She reminds me of other caregivers I have known and sometimes even myself. I think many caregivers take on the job knowing it will be difficult and that no one else is going to step up to take it. If you had to compete for a care-giving job you wouldn’t do it! But mostly you feel obligated and wonder who else does this person have? You ALWAYS try do the best you can while still trying to please the rest of the family and carry on with your regular jobs also. That is not an easy task. Heather deserves a lot of respect for what she does. And for her care for so many people.

My friend Bev has spent the better part of 10 years caring for her Mom, Helen and Paul her Dad, who recently passed. I was always so proud of her for how patient she was and how she never gave up even when her Dad would tell her to GO! Her brothers never so much as blinked to help support her and it was a very difficult job, a second job mind you! Her Mom was a very pleasant woman but her Dad had been the one most impossible person I had ever known! She held her own and now she wonders if by keeping some of their things if she is clinging to what is gone and should she let go? I often wondered the same thing.

I’m amazed at the way the Oregon Health Plan has set up this service to help keep people in their own homes. I’m so happy to be one of the people that can stay home and have help. I love Heather and her family they have become a very important part of my existence and I wonder some days how I would ever go on with out her help. I see myself in Heather and I understand now what forced me to give up large portions of my life to care for my friends and family. If you think it was for the money you better think again, the benefits are minimal at best. The best reward is that you have done all you could to give someone the love and encouragement to go on under serious circumstances. And when it’s all over with, you stood by them when no one else was there. I don’t regret taking care of my family and I’m actually grateful for having been there for them. I respect Heather and my daughter both for what they do for me and how they put up with my idiosyncrasies and failing health care issues. I know how difficult that can be. I wish there was a reward in the end for what they are attempting to do.

OK let’s lighten up a bit and let me introduce you to my Newest line of paper dolls, The Nursing Homies, that live at Happy Haven. There is Pinky and Helen and Paul and of course Donald the outcast patient, Nurse Ethel and Heather the NA! They come with medical supplies, wheel chair, a walker, an IV stand and an oxygen machine, a hospital bed and tray and of course a rocker and a park bench! The folder opens out to a dinning area, a large bedroom and of course the nursing station! Hospital gowns and pajamas, shawls and blankets and warm hats make up the wardrobe!

 I believe older folks and people with disabilities need to be accepted into the family with humor and play and not so much fear and denial. Bridging the gap between children and family health care, in turn engaging all involved in the process of declining abilities. After all disease and loss doesn’t belong to anyone but to all and sending our relatives off to die with out becoming a part of the process is cruel at best. I feel we should celebrate this part of life and send our loved ones to a better world with grace

Some days I feel so proud of my life and what I’ve done and some days I feel like I should have done more and I wish I could go back and begin again. I will always hope that what I did to support the people I loved was comforting for them because I know how important that support is when you have no ability to help yourself. But there are times when being a caregiver you just have nothing left to give and patients is so hard to dig out from within yourself.

I remember telling my Mom about my “Nursing Homies” idea when we sat on my front porch in the rockers, before she was totally confused and she laughed and made me promise to make her a paper doll so this is it and I hope you can see this as a tribute and not disgusting because I mean it with the utmost compassion and care.

Things are actually better for me now, I’m finally feeling better and Mavis is gone I have a little Toyota, Maxine, named for a character my Mom and I laughed at together and shared in cards. My Toyota is an automatic and I can drive her. My son-in-law David purchased her for me, he worked so hard to get rid of Mavis and find a car that was just right for me. I feel so grateful to have my Daughter and David so close and people like Heather and my sisters who support me and listen to my stories. I have even started to do some work again and death doesn’t feel so close by. I hope they all know how much I appreciate what they have done for me. Remember to always take a second look at how your family is getting by and give them a hand if they need it you will never regret that. OK now I think I’ll go have some fun and play some paper dolls or sew some bags!! There will be more characters coming soon,
My best to you all Nancy