Tyranny of detail
By MP on Wednesday 6 September 2006, 11:54 - Journal - Permalink
08:50 - arrive at mum and dad's to smoothe the introduction of our new care worker, Gail.
08:55 - make crumpets and coffee for dad and I. Tidy the kitchen. Give dad some money.
09:05 - go through the mail and get dad to sign a couple of cheques.
09:20 - let in the nurse, who gives my dad his tablet, then goes into the bedroom and cheerfully expects my mother to wake and swallow hers. Mum is angry at being woken, irritated by the nurse's manner (which she quite comically mimics) and refuses the tablet. The nurse tells me 'you see now how it is'.
09:30 - feed both cats.
09:35 - Dad, unable to wait for the care worker, leaves for day care.
09:35 - do some filing.
09:40 - post letters.
09:45 - shovel up dog shit outside the gate. I also notice that the citronella I spread around this area has been only partially successful in reducing dog shit, but completely successful in killing all the grass.
09:55 - let Gail in, defend her from mum who mistakes her for the nurse, divert mum with a cup of tea, and begin explaining the house, et cetera, to Gail.
10:10 - leave Gail to get to know mum, walk up to the shops to get a prescription filled. Notice that there is a price difference between what mum and dad are charged for Aricept, and query it. The pharmacist calls Medicare, the Dept of Veterans' Affairs, and maybe the Prime Minister too, eventually explaining that there has been a mistake and that I need to take some old receipts, and dad's vet's card to a Medicare office for a refund. Buy a packet of biscuits on the way home to mollify mum, if necessary.
10:50 - return to house, answer Gail's questions about clean dishcloths, explain more about how to talk to mum, identify the cats.
10:55 - Gail gets a call that her son is ill, and leaves. I decide I'll have to stay all day now.
11:10 - give mum her tablet, without any trouble.
11:20 - make mum another cup of tea, with biscuits, even though lunch should be here soon. Sit and monitor the biscuit intake.
11:50 - let in the Meals on Wheels man, set out the food on the table.
12:10 - finish my MOW lunch, sit with mum while she finishes hers, fend Tippi away.
12:25 - clear up all the MOW plastic containers.
12:30 - find another tree lopper's business card. Think 'Oh, No! Perhaps this was the baddie. Maybe Eddy was innocent after all!" Then notice suspicious similarities between this and Eddy's card:
Alpha Tree Services
- Tree Removal
- Tree Pruning
- Rubbish Removal
- Stump Grinding
- Mulching
Free Quotes - Fully
Insured
7DAYEMERGENCYSERVICE
Contact: ROY 0405 461 350
12:40 - go into dad's room to use the computer, but then hear mum fishing through the rubbish in the kitchen. Take it out and put it in the wheely bin. Read online newspaper (Sydney Morning Herald), check performance of stocks on the Australian Stock Exchange, start a blog entry.
13:10 - suggest to mum that we go out for afternoon tea. Wait while mum decides what to wear, goes to the toilet.
13:20 - lead search for mum's handbag. Discover its new hiding place.
13:25 - leave the house.
13:34 - enter the mall car park.
13:40 - sort out the prescription refund at the Medicare office.
13:50 - order an earl grey tea for mum, with tiramisu, and a cappuccino for me, with cheesecake.
14:20 - let mum pay for our afternoon tea.
14:25 - do a bit of shopping while we are out.
14:42 - leave the mall car park.
14:50 - arrive home. Notice that there appears to have been a power cut. Reset dad's alarm clock radio and reboot his computer before he gets home.
15:00 - Dad comes home and I can finally leave for work.
Comments
Damn! Sorry about Gail. I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover and if a first day isn't a 'cover' then nothing is, but, still, it was exactly an hour between the time she arrived and the time she got the call about her son...I hope this was just a fluke and she actually has it in her to honor the name she and I share; and/or, that her son is not chronically ill.
Otherwise, I'll say the tree trimming cards are similar...everything except the number and, who knows, could be several numbers, one cell phone. It would be interesting to know if "Roy" and "Eddy" sound like the same person.
And, I know it must have been frustrating for you, having predicted that your work day, which you needed to spend working, would be interrupted, and it was, even more than you expected. But the "excrutiating detail" is delightful for me to read. I especially like: "13:20 - lead search for mum's handbag. Discover its new hiding place." My second favorite is: "11:10 - give mum her tablet, without any trouble."
If your parents are no longer aware enough to thank you for setting aside your plans for their needs, well, let me thank you on their behalf. After all, at some undetectable (in this system, anyway, unless one is a Buddhist monk, or on acid) level we are all One, so, thank you Mike, from the part of me that is also your parents.
Mike--There is something so resonant about these details. Eating from the plastic containers, dropping everything at the first suspicious sound from another room, cleaning up the dog shit. (And I ALWAYS let my mother pay when we go out for coffee!) These moments are the complete antithesis of what we dream of in life-- but they anchor us. They're like the punctuation marks around all the big ideas we carry around--terse and unambiguous and necessary. (In small doses...) But having said all that, I also think that anyone who has anything critical to say about caregiving should follow this schedule for one day!