Latest / The Wicked Daughter - Caring For Your Aging Parents, One Meltdown at a Time / E016: The Rest of Life Doesn't Stop

Transcript

E016: The Rest of Life Doesn't Stop · The Wicked Daughter - Caring For Your Aging Parents, One Meltdown at a Time

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a strange thing that happens when your parent is in a rehab or hospital.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Your life doesn't stop.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: It just gets shoved into a waiting room.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: And after seven weeks, I realized I had a lot of catching up to do.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Not just on the little things, on all the things I've been putting off.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Seven weeks.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Only seven weeks?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because it feels like so much longer.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like I've been living in this alternate universe for months.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And now all these little pieces of my regular life were starting to demand attention again.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Bills, emails, laundry, groceries, house stuff.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: All those completely ordinary things that apparently had the audacity to continue to exist while I was busy dealing with a family crisis.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thankfully, I have a husband.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he had been picking up a lot of the slack at home.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: He'd been handling most of the cleaning, the laundry, the grocery shopping, walking the dogs, paying the bills.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, a pretty impressive portion of the things that keep a household functioning.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because while my attention had been on mom, somebody still had to keep our own house from completely falling apart.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that somebody had been my husband.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So while I was catching up, I was also realizing just how much had piled up.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was Mom's house.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: We'd already dealt with most of the food in the refrigerator.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: That part was relatively easy.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the rest of the house?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was going to require a lot more commitment.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was time to start sorting through things, and packing things up, and deciding what was going, what wasn't.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: What could be donated?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: What needed to be thrown away, what mom wanted, what I wanted, and what neither of us had any idea what to do with.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot of stuff.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of stuff.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: At times it felt like I was sorting through thirty eight years of accumulated stuff.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, not literally, but that's what it felt like.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the really strange part.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had been working on it for hours and days and getting rid of stuff.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of stuff.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Boxes had left the house, bags had left the house, things had been donated, things had been thrown away, things had been packed.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I was making progress.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: I could see the evidence sort of.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: But somehow I'd walk into the house and think, how is there still this much stuff?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate when you're just living your life and putting things away where they belong.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't really understand how much you own until you have to go through every single thing.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Every single thing.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And suddenly a house full of perfectly ordinary belongings becomes a full time archaeological dig.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Every drawer has a story.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Every closet has a surprise.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Every cabinet had something I had completely forgotten was in there.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And just when I thought, okay, I've made a dent, I'd look around and think apparently not.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Which is incredibly frustrating when you know you've already gotten rid of enough stuff to furnish a small village.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the thing about cleaning out a parent's home.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're not just packing boxes.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're making decisions constantly.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Donate it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Throw it away.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Ask mom.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Don't ask mom.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you stand there holding something completely ordinary and you're suddenly crying.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because it belongs to your mother, and now you're deciding what happens to it.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: That was this week's meltdown.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And all of this was happening while I was still spending a part of my day at rehab.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Visiting mom, keeping her spirits up, talking to her, keeping the family news network updated with what was happening, trying to stay one step ahead of whatever came next.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was finding a home for us.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because eventually mom was gonna come home, but not to her home, to a home we were going to share together that didn't exist yet, which meant I was trying to find a place that would work for all of us.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that meant looking at houses a lot differently than I ever had before.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can mom get through the front door with a walker or a wheelchair?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a bedroom and a full bathroom on the first floor?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is there enough room in the bathroom for a walker or a wheelchair?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Can she get into the shower?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to find a home while I still don't know exactly what mom's mobility is going to look like when she gets there.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I have a husband.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want our entire relationship to become what's happening with mom?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: What did the doctor say?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: When are you going to rehab?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: What do we need to do next?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: We still need to be husband and wife.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: We still need to have dinner together.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: We still need to talk about something other than medical appointments.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: We need to do some normal life.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're dealing with a family crisis, a little time for us can actually become a scheduling exercise.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it matters.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because for seven weeks our lives had revolved around mom.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we needed some time that was just ours.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Not a lot, nothing elaborate.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just enough to remember that we're still here too.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because caregiving can become so all consuming that you can go an entire day without doing anything that is actually part of your own life.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a strange feeling.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're still living, you're just living around the caregiving.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Everything else gets squeezed into whatever space is left.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And right now, there isn't a lot of space.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's finding a home.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's continuing to back up mom's house.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's visiting mom.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's helping mom.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's catching up on seven weeks of everything I put off.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's trying to keep my own life from completely falling apart.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's trying to give my husband a little time and attention too.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm learning maybe this is what this part of caregiving looks like.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Not balance.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not some beautifully organized schedule where everything gets equal attention.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Just triage.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Mom needs me?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Mom comes first.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Something else can wait It waits.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Until eventually it can't wait anymore.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Then that becomes the thing I deal with.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then I move into the next thing.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not glamorous it's not efficient.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm pretty sure nobody's giving me a gold star for it.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: But somehow things are getting done.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Not all of them not perfectly but enough.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's the thing I'm learning.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to keep your entire life running at full speed when you're taking care of someone else.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you just have to keep the most important things moving.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Visit mom.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Find a home.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Continue packing up mom's house.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Pay the bill before you get charged a late fee.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Give your husband a little attention before he starts wondering if he's married to you or your mother's care plan.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And when there's nothing left in the tank, sit down.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: You can pick it back up tomorrow.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Mom's house will still be there.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: The laundry will still be there.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: The paperwork will still be there.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, none of it is going anywhere.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: But tonight maybe it's okay to stop.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because you did enough today.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're sitting there thinking, yep, this is my life too, that's exactly why I created this podcast.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are plenty of places to find information about caring for an aging parent.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes you don't need another checklist.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: You just need to know somebody else gets it.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: If the wicked daughter has become that place for you, hit follow so you don't miss the next episode.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to help me keep making these episodes, you can support the show through Buy Me a Coffee.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's a link right in the podcast description.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't or don't want to contribute financially, that's completely okay.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sharing an episode or telling another caregiver about the show helps more than you know.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, back to the story.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: If your house is a mess because your attention is somewhere else, you're not the only one.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got a pile of paperwork staring at you, you're not the only one.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you spent hours sorting through a parent's house and wondering how one person accumulated this much stuff, you're definitely not the only one.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you're trying to take care of your parent while somehow keeping your marriage, your household, and your own life moving, you're not the only one there either.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes caregiving isn't about finding a balance.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's about figuring out what needs to happen today and giving yourself permission to let the rest wait.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Mom is okay.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm making a dent on the to-do list.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And tonight I got to sit down for dinner with my husband.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, that's a pretty darn good day.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, take care of yourself too.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the wicked daughter, caring for your aging parent, one meltdown at a time.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: When your friends say cherish this time, you smile while you're losing your mind.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: Was it the pharmacy line or the rush our doctor drive?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: So you swallow that glare with a laugh and a sigh, and say, Don't fret, dear.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: We're having the time of our lives.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we're having the time.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: The time of our life.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Wicked daughter.