This week will bring my last scheduled day as a caregiver for the elderly. I have been working off and on as a caregiver since early 2014. I started with no "official" training, just the experience of caring for my mother in my home for nearly two years. I told the agency owner that I was certified in common sense and compassion, which no amount of training can actually give you. He bought it, and sensed my sincerity. As the months passed, he saw how good I was, and he began to make comments about wanting to clone me.
Unfortunately, that agency was not well-run, and I moved on very shortly, to work with an agency that provided HHA training and certification. I told the head of that agency that I was already certified in compassion, and he LOVED it, wanted to know if he could use that phrase for their agency. "Only if it's true," I said. That agency definitely set higher standards for their employees, but they seemed to me to be more concerned about paperwork than anything else. I abhor paperwork. We all had to submit properly completed paperwork every weekend (i.e., another drive to the office). As I began to get frustrated by all of the driving (we also got called upon regularly to do "fill-in" shifts. Sometimes I'd be with a client, and I'd get a call to cover another client immediately after, and it would be 15 miles away, driving during the time of schools letting out. I couldn't even get there in time. My frustration grew. Just in the nick of time, as I was reaching my breaking point once again, a friend told me about a client that her older daughters were working for, a very active, wheelchair bound woman who needed another assistant. I went to meet her and we immediately hit it off. With that job, I broke free from the poorly managed agencies, transitioning into working directly with the client. But now, here I am years later, worn out and suffering from thyroid and adrenal meltdown, realizing that I need to be MY OWN caregiver, because "what good am I if I can't even function?"
So, where do I go from here? Lent is a very good time to ponder and pray about that. It's obvious to me that my first job is to rest for a while, and work on making myself well. Luckily for me, my oldest daughter has dealt with many of the same health issues, and my other two daughters also follow in my footsteps, with some of my bothersome health issues. It makes me sad that I passed those on to my girls. However, my oldest daughter is a researcher, and she has basically healed her own thyroid dysfunction. I'm turning to her now, as my "in-house" and free, naturopathic advisor. Whenever I go to visit her, I always come home feeling better, so now I'm mimicking her own path to healing, in hopes that I can come back stronger and healthier. There are so many "experts" out there, offering healing diet plans and suggesting supplements to use, how can anyone possibly choose the right path for their own unique situation. For me, having a healthy daughter who no longer has to take Levothyroxin, points to the obvious path for me. I am very blessed to have her guidance and advice. As the days of Lent slip by, I will keep you posted on my recovery.
I have grown children and grandchildren who would like to see me more often. I'd like to be healthy enough to visit more often, and actually have good energy during those visits. I'd like to be able to sleep through the night, waking up refreshed in the morning, instead of feeling like I fought with dragons all night long. (Actually, I never dream of dragons, but I do have a lot of dreams about water. I do a lot of swimming in my dreams, but then they morph into strange events where I'm in an airport, trying to get to my gate, and cascades of water are coming down the steps, and I'm frantically trying to navigate those). Last night, I dreamed that my husband drove us up a wall in some sort of museum. Maybe those weird dreams are brought on by my nightly melatonin dose, but I'm taking the recommended dosage, and it does help me sleep through the night. And, if I don't sleep through the night, I am a basket case the next day. My health issues increased significantly just lately, when I took on a client which required an early morning wake-up for me. My mind was so focused on waking up on time that I woke up every hour, checking the clock. Within a week of starting with that client, my adrenal suffering hit hard. I decided that I could only do one day a week with the new client (who is a very nice and interesting elderly man, btw, and none of my stress was brought on by him, that's for sure!) My kids learned very early on that "mom doesn't want to be wakened in the middle of the night, or very early in the morning!" I just forgot to follow my own rule!
And in the meantime, you'll find me here in my recliner, maybe using my heating pad during another dive into hypothermia, or playing my favorite word games or doing jigsaw puzzles on my iPad, or working on a magazine article for submission (I publish monthly on Catholic mom.com, and regularly in Celebrate Life Magazine) or planning healthy meals for my week or reading more about thyroid/adrenal healing. Or visiting with local children and grandchildren. Yeah, it's gonna be that kind of Lent from here on out, because I really can't handle anymore non-stop adventures like I had last week! Wish me luck, and pray with me, that The Holy Spirit will guide me to complete healing!
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