I must get better at handling the life balancing act. My kids are so very full of life and energy. My parents are losing life and energy visibly every single day. I am so used to putting my kids' needs first and now find myself switching the order of things.Yesterday was raining and humid all day at the dunes. The kids had to stay inside in the playroom/bedroom downstairs. I was upstairs making soups for my father, helping him up and down, to and from the bathroom, running interference with my mother, fielding phone calls from everywhere. We had been there for four hours before I interacted with my children in any fashion other than feeding them lunch. This is not how we normally live and I feel just horrible about it. We brought the laptop for them to do their math and play games on now that my brother has set up a wireless Internet. The played games and did puzzles. They got along well for five long hours in one room.
On the other hand, I feel horrible about how my parents are living. Parkinson's means that it can take my father fifteen minutes to maneuver from behind the dining room table to use his walker to get to the bathroom and then walk back from the bathroom without his walker. It's unpredictable when or if his neurons will fire correctly to make him ambulatory. He is also unable to drink, so he's constantly dehydrated and constipated. This led my brother-in-law to prescribe a medication used prior to colonoscopies, so my father is on the toilet every 15 minutes. He's so tired, he falls asleep mid-sentence.
I look in my mother's eyes and have no idea what she is thinking, what she remembers, what she understands. She has relented the kitchen to me, allowing me to provide for at least my father's lunches. Dad needs high fat, high fiber and good protein in each of his meals, and he can only eat a very thick soup consistency or he'll aspirate. Bean soups are low fat. Cream soups are low fiber. All are high sodium. I'm going to shop and make homemade soups on Saturday, jello with Gatorade powder, bring him lots of desserts and stock her freezer. And then I have to hope she remembers that is where her meals are now instead of the Campbell's soup in the cupboard.
They have help a couple times a week getting Dad bathed and dressed. But every time we go there, it feels like we can't leave or they wont get by. It's always going to feel that way. My kids are suffering through it OK for now, but it's not been that long. I can't take them to the beach while I'm cooking or taking care of them, they are too young to go on their own. I wish we could afford to take a babysitter along to take them to the beach, but it's costing us $25 a trip in gas to get there as it is.
What a drag it is getting old. All my self-centered anguish over my kids and my finances vanish when I see my parents and watch their suffering.
1 comment:
Oh E, such hard work! You are being very strong and a wonderful daughter and mother. I know what you mean about leaving your kids temporarily in the dust. You know what, it is good for them. My kids saw this too while their grandfather was dying and it teaches them what people do when illness comes and it also reminds them they are not the only ones with needs. I think it helped out family to ground and balance ourselves, even though at the time I recall it is stressful. I hope we'll see you today.
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