Feeling Guilty

June 27, 2009

We are almost at week two. This past weekend Mike and Ria came for a visit. They actually arrived late Thursday night (early Friday morning, to be exact). It was great to have them here. This was the first visit with the along since they were married. What a neat time to be able to spend together getting to know our wonderful daughter-in-law even better. (As much as I love Mom and Dad and have been dedicated to their care, I have missed out on many things with interacting with our children.) On Friday, the three of us went to meet Sam for lunch near his office. Afterwards, we stopped at the nursing home to visit with Mom and Dad. When we got there, Mom said to me, “Oh, good!! You’re here.” She then proceeded to tell me that she had been having some problems. Gloria, her nurse, saw me and came to give me a hug. She heard Mom talking to me about having problems with bathroom issues. Unfortunately, it had been communicated incorrectly to Gloria as to what was going on. She thought that Mom was having issues with her urine and had taken a culture to send out. Don’t know who got mixed up or how but in the process of the three of us talking, I was able to discern that it was not urine but bowel issues. Mom told me that she had not been able to have a BM so she asked for help…the help they gave her caused loose stools and lots of them. Soon after we arrived, Mom needed help in the bathroom…lots of it…while Mike & Ria “visited” with Dad. I spoke with their nurse (a really smart, nice and affable male nurse who only works their on the weekends) and let him know that she was having trouble controlling things and that she wasn’t so good about asking for help from others and it might be a good idea to let her CNA know so that Mom could have the help she needed.

On Sat. morning we stopped in to see them (all four of us) before we headed to St. Augustine for the day. Mike and Ria wanted to go to the beach and St. George Street. When we got there, I discovered that Mom was still having issues. I need to learn that what Mom tells me is not always the whole story. Not that she is lying – she doesn’t remember what has transpired. Kind of like when my children were in school and they would tell me something that happened and in their minds and the way they communicated the story, I would jump all over it thinking that they had been mistreated. Bad decision…I quickly learned that it was a good thing to talk to the teacher and collect all the information before I went nuts on the teacher. Similar situation with her. Mom tells me that no one has helped her and that she has been having trouble cleaning up and I go out to find the CNA to let her know that Mom is having issues and to please help her. Guess what??? She already has. When she was helping Dad to get up for the day, Mom had made 3 trips to the bathroom so she asked her if she needed help so she helped her. She knew all about it.

We headed out to St. Augustine and didn’t get back to Orange Park until about 8 PM. We had a wonderful day together and we up late playing in the pool together. Since I had only seen them for about ½ hour in the morning and hadn’t spoken with them at all anymore, I started to feel guilty for the first time since we had place them there. I struggled with it – fighting it off and on during the evening. Like I had abandoned them to have fun.