Caregiver's Rant

[lngrid]

Quote:

obxWaMi, you're the unsung hero of the care-giving world. You don't earn social security quarters. No union represents you. You don't get time off. You just do it because of old-fashioned love and duty. My hat's off to you.

 

[lngrid]

Quote:
I did have a client whose family was like yours. She was the matriarch of the family They were WONDERFUL to her as well as to me. It was a joy to work for them. Nothing was too expensive or too much trouble to provide for her. No sacrifice was to great. When she died, the Hospice nurses said her situation was The Perfect One.

Families like yours are golden. Absolutely worth your weight in gold.

 

[Wifezilla]

I happen not to own one. And why should it be MY responsibility to provide one?

It is a situation that has come up more than once. You have a choice. Fix it by getting a folding chair for $12 or spend time and energy being pd off each and every time it happens again in the future. We know it will. You decide.​

 

[sundance]

Thank you Ingrid for reminding us that we should Never take another peron for granted. caregivers, family, any one. As we get older we seem to forget that if not for the caregivers we would not have even a thought of near normal life.As we grow older (well as I grow older) I forget simple things and often my kids look at me and ask why did you do such a stupid thing.well i simply forgot it. When DH was burned, the nurse was new to the area we lived in, and had just moved there. she and my old dau was almost the same age, and we took her in like she was family, he was her first patient after gradiation from nurses training, and moving to a new area, she became part of our family for the 10 months he was burned.When she was reasigned we kept up with her for a few years but like other people we both moved on with our lives. but I will never forget her, and if I ever need a caregiver I would want one like her and she would be treated like part of the family,since she is another part of me. marrie

 

[lngrid]

Quote:
You made the right call, even in this kind of economy. Because caregivers and clients often interact on the most intimate of levels it is vitally important not to work where you don't feel comfortable. I won't work in a situation where there is any illegal activity, smoking, drinking, ANY sort of abuse or any pornography left lying about casually.

I had a job where my client's husband cursed at me from time to time (usually happened once a year). I immediately let him know in no uncertain terms that this was beneath contempt and he always apologized. I stayed in the job because the client and I had a very strong bond. I could always lift her out of depression and she was an incredible example to me of courage, character and intelligence.

 

[lngrid]

Quote:
But at least you were provided a place to eat. I was not. Not even a chair.

 

[Wifezilla]

One more thing...

Wouldn't it be your client's responsibility to inform the hostess at whatever event they are attending that accommodations will be required for the care giver as well? Unless someone knows of or has done care giving for a person with special needs, they are not going to think about these things. It just isn't part of their world. If the client is mental disabled, that is another thing all together. In that case who ever is making the arrangements should be the one speaking up.

 

[Beekissed]

As a nurse, I know how you feel as a caregiver. From your post I strongly suspect you are dealing with folks who are pretty well off on the economic scale. I, too, have found this kind of behavior with the more wealthy set....they are very used to dismissing "the help" as pieces of very useful furniture, but not as real people.

In the country, things seem a little different. I am a hospice nurse in a rural area now and I am treated like a queen! I am the honored guest everywhere I go...even the funerals of the patient. It is sometimes embarassing but still very nice. I once worked in a facility in Newport, RI, where most of the patients and their families were wealthy and they were the most rude, entitled people I'd ever met. Who says that wealth equates with good breeding and manners?

AND they had the nerve to make fun of "southerners" as being uncouth and ignorant......

As Forrest would say, "Stupid is as stupid does, Mrs. Blue."

 

[lngrid]

Quote:
I've been pondering how to respond to your post and have put a lot of thought into it. It sounds like you've been exposed to ignorant pus blisters. These are the people who think it's degrading to need help with simple things. These are the people who spread the lie that anyone (other than another ignorant pus blister) is useless. I'm not being even slightly sarcastic when I say that this is very sad. These ideas deserve nothing more than to be buried in nuclear waste dump.

I know you weren't born like this because, as babies we pooped and drooled everywhere and never thought of ourselves as inferior. When we were hungry or in discomfort, we made sure everyone in the room knew about it. We believed in ourselves with enthusiasm. As we grew, we needed to reign it in a little and to learn to believe in others, too, but all too often the ignorant pus blisters get to us as kids and feed us these lies.

Butlers arose in a culture that believed a person's worth was based on the class he or she was born into. Our culture believes that a person's worth is linked to his or her monetary fortune. I find the idea that giving a caregiver second-class treatment can elevate anyone to be not only false, but pathetic in the extreme. It gives in to the lie that anyone is second-class.

I hope I'm making sense. I've been working over this post so hard that I can't tell if what I'm writing sounds offensive. I don't mean it that way. I'm not angry at you. I'm upset at the ideas you've been infected with. As a caregiver I've seen and heard ignorant pus blisters be brutally inhuman. If it wasn't so unkind I'd ask some of them, "Were you raised by a crack whore or something?"

Can you tell I really hate ignorant pus bags?

 

[lngrid]

Quote:

I totally understand where you're at, ProductionRed09. I hope you get the chance from time to time to recharge your batteries.

I knew a woman who had three children. Two of them had the kind of fast-acting muscular dystrophy that kills in the early twenties. She and her husband poured their lives into all their kids. All three kids went to private schools, to college and took trips to Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. The family took all their vacations together.

Those parents are the closest thing to heroes I've seen in this life.

I hope what you face is not so extreme.