Dad, who can not take care of himself, can not live on his own for a week, must have someone with him in his last week of quarantine, has clearly been exposed to the zombie flu but is totally asymptomatic, needs full time care. I'm here with him but he's a lot of work. I need to be able to sleep at night but Visiting Angels pulled out after two nights.
I get it: people are scared. No one wants to catch this thing and we're clearly living in a house of pestilence. The MN dept of Health, who is making it up as they go (believe me, I spoken at length with them) issued orders that said home health care companies could not send people out unless they were guaranteed gloves and masks. Well, we have tons of gloves but no masks and there are no masks to be had for love nor money anywhere in the known universe and so...no more Visiting Angels. I'm on my own.
Thanks a lot, Dpt. Of Health. Way to come through in a clutch.
Days are great, we watch tv, eat the food they deliver to us, take naps...
nights are horrendous.
At night, Dad turns into a giant toddler who hates being in bed. His hips ache, he can't get comfortable, he needs a drink of water every ten minutes, he wants to use the toilet ever 90 minutes (during the day he goes as often as a normal person) and in between demands for water or relief, he asks to be repositioned on the bed every half hour or so. He has an uncanny knack of calling out for me just as I'm falling into that deep, healing sleep...all night long.
At 4 am (45 minutes after the last time I repositioned him in the bed) I heard his voice call "Help!" I sprung off the air mattress and opened the bedroom door and there he was, right at the door, sitting in his wheelchair...He'd clearly gotten himself out of bed and wheeled across the room to the door, which we expressly forbid him to do in the middle of the night because he gets wobbly and if he slips to the floor, I can't pick him up!! He gave me a bright smile and said "I need a drink of water."
Because I am not a Saint, I didn't think 'oh, poor dad is thirsty', no I am merely me and thought "you got this far but decided to wake me up four fucking feet from the sink??" I did NOT say that, of course. I'm no saint but I'm not a monster yet. Give me till Thursday.
My Dad is one of my favorite people in the whole world but at 4 am, when he cheerfully asked me how I slept, I barked "Its the middle of the night; I'm still sleeping and you're going right back to bed after this!" He said "Okay."
In his defense, there are no clocks in the bedroom, so he has no idea what time it is, how often he wakes me or how much time has elapsed since he last yelled for a drink of water.
I can't believe my Mom hasn't killed him yet.
We woke up for the day around 9:00. I know I slept because I had horrible dreams. We had breakfast and called Mom. She gave me some tips that will help at night; things I didn't know, like she usually gives him melatonin and tylenol before bed. That's huge. As big as discovering that I've been putting him to bed in a laundry hamper by mistake instead of his bed.
More important, she feels great! She sounded terrific and she said, yes, she feels better than she has in weeks. well, yeah; she's had the zombie flu for at least two weeks.
The morning flew by, lunch was already delivered and the second load of laundry in the wash.
If he sleeps even two hours a stretch tonight, we got this thing beat.