No One Really Knows How to Do This

I haven’t written as much lately as I usually do. My dad’s accident caused a lot of problems. I’ll provide an example. On Saturday, I had to do something like 8 loads of laundry, and my dad’s laundry is not simple. We have a horrible “high efficiency” washer that takes two hours to do a load with a prewash.

I want to get an old-fashioned washer that takes half an hour. I do not care how much water it uses. I have a well, and our water goes back into the aquifer through the septic tank. Not that I care whether it goes back. If Al Gore can have a compound with a $3000 monthly electric bill, I can have a real washer. If Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t like it, he can come here on the jet he uses to fly to environmentalist events, and he can lecture me about it.

The earth was provided by God to make my life easier, so if I damage it a little, tough.

High efficiency washers don’t work all that well. They will accept larger loads than normal washers, but they don’t get them clean, because the stuff in the middle stays dry. Try it yourself and see. In reality, you have to baby them and be careful not to put too much in them. Then when your clothes come out, they smell like mildew. There is nothing you can do about this. You can minimize it by running cleaning cycles with various chemicals, and you can waste your time cleaning the gaskets, but a certain amount of mildew will always remain, and when your clothes get hot and wet enough during the day, they WILL smell, and people will think it’s you.

It’s hard to find a decent washer. Everything is made in China, and nothing is reliable. Horror stories abound. Even Speed Queen makes questionable washers now. I think the best option is to get a mid-priced agitator washer and accept the fact that it will probably die after three years.

I keep learning things about being a caregiver. Here’s one: demented people should not have complicated bedding. My dad used to have a quilt and a blanket, which is a lot for Florida. Right now, he has a synthetic polar fleece blanket which weighs less and is easier to wash. I don’t think he liked giving up the heavier bedclothes, but once the blanket was in place, he forgot all about them. The blanket is a lot easier to wash.

That’s another important thing to remember. No matter how upset a demented person gets about something, he will forget about it in a day. Very often, you will find yourself in ridiculous circular conversations about nonsense that seems very important to the patient. The proper goal isn’t to resolve things. The resolution will be forgotten. The proper goal is to end the conversations peacefully. I don’t lie, but I try to say what will stop the boat rocking.

If you really have to, you can walk away and leave the patient angry. It will pass, because he will forget.

The other day my dad decided we had to go to Sears, right that minute, and get him a lift recliner. There is no Sears near here. There was no place except La-Z-Boy, it was early Saturday evening, and their cheapest offering was $1600, which Medicare would not help pay for unless it was cleared in advance. Was it even in stock? Who knows? I wasn’t going to drive 10 miles just to find out. And who was supposed to deliver it and carry it into the house?

I could not get him to accept the fact that we could not get a recliner at that instant, and I finally had to go away and leave him with his annoyance. There was nothing I could do, and he would have gone on for hours or maybe all night.

Another thing: a demented person with chronic pain will never be quiet about it. Every time they notice the pain, they think it’s a fresh topic that needs to be discussed. My dad’s back is bothering him, so we have repeated discussions about it, in which I say the exact same things: we have an appointment with a doctor, all he can have is Aleve, he already rejected surgery, and maybe he will have to live with pain from now on.

Demented patients may worry a lot, about things that will never happen. The other day he was worried about getting stuck in bed. He can get out of bed without help now, but I discussed various solutions anyway. Mechanical devices.

Ultimately, no matter what strategies we choose, short of assisted living, I am the fail safe. When he asked what would happen to him if something happened to me, I didn’t have anything positive to offer, so I said I guessed we would both die. I said there were some risks I could not avert.

He’s not completely gone. I couldn’t say, “Superman and Tinkerbell will fly in and look after you.” My response had to make sense, so I told him the truth. If I die, he will have very serious problems. Nothing I can do. We can get him some kind of alert device, but will he be able to use it? Maybe.

He didn’t seem all that worried about the “Steve dies” part of the scenario! Not at that moment. He was troubled by the thought of the adverse effect on him.

Should I be determined to make sure his life will be perfectly safe no matter what happens to me? Let me ask you this: have you had kids? Have you ever lived alone with a baby or small child? Did you feel it was irresponsible to live alone with a baby or child, knowing they would be in real trouble if you died suddenly? No. There are limits to what we can do, and we accept them. If I’m severely injured, my dad won’t be able to do anything for me, but I’m not putting MYSELF in assisted living in order to prevent that. Life is full of unavoidable risk.

Think about this: old people, like everyone else, can fall down. Their bones are more brittle than young people’s, and they are more likely to receive brain damage or to break hips. Do we make them wear motorcycle helmets all day? No. Do we force them to live in rooms with padded floors? No. We get them canes and walkers, we keep them off stairs, and we hope they don’t fall. Just because you CAN do something to make someone safer doesn’t mean you should. Death and injury are facts of life, and all you can do is take reasonable precautions.

The only way to keep my dad “safe” is to put him in a wheelchair. Then lack of exercise would kill him in 6 months.

I decided against putting a ramp in front of the house, because ramps don’t work well with people who are still walking. My dad can read. I have signs telling him to stay off the steps. I need to get a little work done on his bathroom, and I’m going to get all the information I can from his doctor today. Until he loses the ability to walk, I think that will do.

Here’s another issue: what kind of vehicle should a caregiver have? I persuaded him to replace his ancient SUV with a new one, and it has worked out extremely well. Would I make that choice now? I don’t know. He could be in a wheelchair a few months from now. How will I get him in and out of the car? In retrospect, I wonder if a van would have been better. You can have them fitted with wheelchair stuff. On the other hand, when he reaches that stage, won’t assisted living be the better choice?

I have to make all these decisions myself. If you’re a caregiver, get rid of the delusion that you have to listen to your patient and give their opinions and desires real weight. You have to talk to them and get useful input to make their lives better, and you have to be considerate, but you can’t let them make final decisions. You wouldn’t hire a demented doctor or even a demented TV repairman, so why would you let a demented relative tell you what to do?

I used to try to persuade him to go along with things. These days, I only do that when it’s appropriate. For example, I used to try to get him to throw things out or give them away. Now I do those things without consulting him. He doesn’t need the NordicTrack any more. He doesn’t need 50 pairs of underwear dating back to Bill Clinton. He doesn’t need a pistol beside his bed. He doesn’t need half a cubic foot of old napkins and paper towels on his dresser. I get rid of things that cause problems, and he rarely notices.

There is one area in which he does whatever he wants. When it comes to legal representation, he’s his own man. I got him his own lawyer, and the last time we consulted him, the lawyer put me in the waiting room so he could talk to my dad privately. He’s still competent to discuss certain things. I don’t know what they said. I didn’t ask. That was necessary, in order to avoid issues with his estate down the road, and we didn’t get the solution I wanted. So be it. Other than that, I butt into his affairs all the time. It makes the wheels of life turn smoothly.

I always feel like there should be some source of ideal advice. Someone out there should be able to give me a list of things to do. It’s not true. I hire professionals, and truthfully, their ideas are sometimes worse than mine. I’m sure I’ve wasted money on them. Everyone who plays this game is winging it, regardless of what you might think. If you’re a caregiver, don’t expect yourself to be perfect. The earth is a corrupt place where things go wrong all the time. You can’t look after yourself perfectly, so hoping to take care of someone else perfectly is fatuous.

I rely on God for guidance. I know that if I maintain my prayer life and use the tools he has given me, I’ll end up where I need to be. I may get off course, but things will work out. I don’t know how people who don’t know God survive.

Actually, I know a little bit. They fail. They flounder. They suffer humiliation and regret. Even when they look successful, they’re face-planting.

I keep having supernatural experiences. As I’ve mentioned before, God gives me little phrases which I write down. I go to them later and repeat them to myself. When I do this, I feel God’s power going through me. It brings peace very quickly, which is something I can’t do for myself.

Today I started doing this, and my insides started gurgling and making other rude noises immediately. I felt a little nauseous. By now I know that these things indicate the presence of enemy spirits.

I don’t force this stuff. It’s not possible. Try to make your stomach growl. Good luck. Can’t be done.

I’ve had this experience before, while casting spirits out and so forth, but this was the first time it happened while I was doing other things. Apparently, the spirits I brought into my life through decades of rebellion are very disturbed by the phrases God gave me.

I decided to see if it happened while I read the Bible. I brought Psalm 32 (appropriate) up on my phone, and I started reading. Sure enough, the same thing happened. That’s new.

Christians don’t fight demons. It’s tragic. Paul told us our primary job was to battle spirits. He said we don’t wrestle with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and so on. Remember? Yet we focus on powerless rules and positive thinking, which help no one.

In the post-2000 world, people who believe in spirits are considered crazy. I could probably have my sanity called into question because of the things I write here. Think about that! God is a spirit. If it’s crazy to believe in demons, it’s crazy to believe in God, who told us demons exist and who cast them out, personally.

In the future, and I don’t mean the far future, Christians will be declared incompetent because of their faith. That will be interesting.

Joy Behar thinks Mike Pence is nuts because he believes he hears from Jesus! And she wasn’t afraid to say it on TV, in a country where God used to be honored by default.

She’s a Jew. Her people turned their backs on Moses after he talked to God. They turned their backs on God, too, after he appeared to them every day in a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. Her attitude is not something that should shock anyone.

Most Jews are atheists. That’s one reason so many Jews love leftism. Mommy government is a substitute for God’s help. It’s a false messiah. The Jewish prophet Samuel told them what to expect from that idol, but they didn’t listen. American Christians are headed the same way. We want to suck on that black, toxic nipple because we love sin too much to quit.

To get back to my situation, I have to avoid focusing too much on strategizing with my own mind. God gives me solutions when I take my hands off problems. No one can foresee all the problems a caregiver will face, and no human being can come up with the right answer every time. I have to put these burdens on God, who, after all, asked for them.

I need to do some business and get ready for a doctor’s appointment. Hope what I wrote helps someone.