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[__ Prayer __] Sister back in the Hospital

joethemechanic said:
... my brother's wife said that they couldn't do anything because they were too busy with their volunteer work at the church.
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Selfish creeps that hide behind "we are serving the church"?
I NEVER use the word "hypocrite" because it has lost all meaning. You just gave the word back it's meaning. (Or THEY did.)
 
joethemechanic said:
I kinda know how you feel. My mother is in the end stages of MS. At this point all she can do is move her right arm. Nothing else works. She lives with me and I am her primary caretaker.
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So she is more disabled then Debi (but Debi will end up like her IF she lives long enough).

Tell me, how do you do it? How do you manage to go to work? What do you do when you are away from the house - who stays with her? How do you handle taking care of her "hygienic" needs? In short HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Because I have it on my heart that I should take Debi in - but I have GOT to go to work.
 
Pizzaguy said:
So she is more disabled then Debi (but Debi will end up like her IF she lives long enough).

Tell me, how do you do it? How do you manage to go to work? What do you do when you are away from the house - who stays with her? How do you handle taking care of her "hygienic" needs? In short HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Because I have it on my heart that I should take Debi in - but I have GOT to go to work.
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My business and maybe my career are destroyed. I am just about in financial ruin. I get a couple of hours a day of help for her hygienic needs because she is on hospice. Trying to find reliable help so I can work has proven to be nothing but a failure.

I don't know what I'm going to do when she gets worse.

My fiancee left me and ran off with some other guy because she said "bad boys are exciting"

There are no miracles or Hallmark moments.

I pray to God every night to just take us both.


.

Did I mention that my brother's wife doesn't work and is a stay at home mom.


Nothing about this is a pretty picture. In two years I've gone from a moderately successful middle class businessman to a total wreck.
 
joethemechanic said:
My business and maybe my career are destroyed. I am just about in financial ruin. I get a couple of hours a day of help for her hygienic needs because she is on hospice. Trying to find reliable help so I can work has proven to be nothing but a failure.

I don't know what I'm going to do when she gets worse.

My fiancee left me and ran off with some other guy because she said "bad boys are exciting"

There are no miracles or Hallmark moments.

I pray to God every night to just take us both.


.

Did I mention that my brother's wife doesn't work and is a stay at home mom.


Nothing about this is a pretty picture. In two years I've gone from a moderately successful middle class businessman to a total wreck.
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See, this is the thing - if I take Debi in (and I WANT TO) my fate will be the same as yours. And at this point, I am 52, I have no time to recover from this before I am old and unable to work.

I do what I can.

But you know what I mean when I say that NOBODY understands, don't you? Unless this happens to you personally, you just don't 'get it'. The fact is, Christian or not, this can happen to you, it is devastating and destroys all of your "joy in the Lord".
 
I am 50 and do not think I will have time to rebuild either. Yes I get it 100%

Most people are so far away from getting it it is unbelievable.

If I hear one more person tell me that there is some kind of agency that provides free or affordable elder care that allows me to work and have a social life I'm going to scream. I always ask where. They always tell me that

"They don't know, but they know that this agency exists, and if I just look hard enough"

Women I meet tell me what a wonderful guy I am. Then they go on an obligatory first date with me, tell me how much they want to see me again, and then avoid my calls,,,,,,,,,,

I tried hiring a live in caretaker. She robbed my mom of about $1,000 worth of jewelry. She was also quick to call herself a "Christian".

I could keep going but really nobody wants to hear it, and frankly it makes me upset to think about it for too long.

I really don't have any good advice for you. Despite my best efforts everything I have tried to improve the situation here has failed.
 
Well, I was HOPING you were going to say, "Oh, Mark - all ya gotta do is this and that, and she's taken care of". I was HOPING I was missing something.

But clearly I am not, neither are you. It is everyone else who is missing it.
I wish there WAS an answer.
 
UPDATE 9-13-2012

Well, Deb is no better, not much worse. I am just trying to not let it all get to me. What an awful end to a life, some days I talk to her, I can tell she's almost (if it were possible with Deb) suicidal.

Her quality of life is gone forever: largely immobile, dependent on others for almost everything, unloved by anyone (I do what I can, I stop by most weekends for 3 or 4 hours, her son comes to see her every Saturday but only stays an hour or so), she has no privacy as she shares a room with a dementia patient... I could actually go on, but it gets too sickening.

That's my update, thanks for asking (not being sarcastic, I get PMs).

All I can do is what I can do, I call her almost every night and talk about an hour. I'm so busy I don't really have time, but I make time anyway.

Celebrate every day you have your basic health - you have no assurance for tomorrow, and some of us don't have today.
 
Pizzaguy said:
UPDATE 9-13-2012

Well, Deb is no better, not much worse. I am just trying to not let it all get to me. What an awful end to a life, some days I talk to her, I can tell she's almost (if it were possible with Deb) suicidal.

Her quality of life is gone forever: largely immobile, dependent on others for almost everything, unloved by anyone (I do what I can, I stop by most weekends for 3 or 4 hours, her son comes to see her every Saturday but only stays an hour or so), she has no privacy as she shares a room with a dementia patient... I could actually go on, but it gets too sickening.

That's my update, thanks for asking (not being sarcastic, I get PMs).

All I can do is what I can do, I call her almost every night and talk about an hour. I'm so busy I don't really have time, but I make time anyway.

Celebrate every day you have your basic health - you have no assurance for tomorrow, and some of us don't have today.
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I was wondering how she was doing. Thanks for the update.
Sorry to hear she's not getting any better.=/
 
Mark your up dates on Deb, are an inspiration. Not some phony all is well... Just a man caring in real life for his sister and yet i see the hand of the Lord through the tragedy.

Thank you for caring and for sharing your burden with us.
 
Thanks for the update, Pizza. I have of late been thinking about her so much and about your state - and everything. :sad dunno. And thanks for showing that you care for her so much.

The Good God will always be with you and give you more strenght to take care of her. Be encouraged and be bold.
 
I had Deb over to my new apartment yesterday - I had gone to visit her, and she was REALLY down. It was a nice day, so I offered to take her for a ride - we ended up over by my apartmetn and while it is kinda more difficult to get her around back to me door - the effort was worth it. Of course, she perked up as soon as I got her in the car - and now she has seen my place - and I'll have her over again, next wekeend IF the weather cooperates.

Her situation is really bad. I hate that I have not seen her smile in several years and I know now I won't see it ever again. She was always so much fun and so encouraging to me over the years.
I remember a time when being around here met laughter.

MOst of us take so much for granted, and people who say "She has to work on her attitude and learn to count her blessings" mean well, but such people are completely clueless. I wonder if making such statements causes "karma" to pay them back some day? I hope not, but I wonder.

I have no prayer request, as I feel this is without hope. I will continue to do what I can. And I will continue to try to 'understand' why there is so much suffering in our world - and why it is so unevenly distributed (as far as I can tell, anyway).
 
What a marvelous treat for your sister - and for you, Pizza! You truly are a special brother to her. Such blessings you are to one another.

We really do take so much for granted, including good health. And so many of us really do have a tough time dealing with someone else's health issues. Some don't understand what another is suffering unless they're in that situation; some are hardened into denial that another person can suffer in such hideous ways. Some people live in fear about others' health matters. Any of these explanations could prompt one to make inane comments such as the "She has to work on her attitude and learn to count her blessings" that you presented.

My prayers for you and your sister continue.
 
Praying for Debi, that she will have God's peace and that He will be very close to her, so that in spite of her suffering she may have joy in knowing the love of Jesus.

Praying for you, Pizza, that God will give you wisdom in dealing with this very difficult situation.

And for you and your mother Joe, that you will be given strength to cope, and that God will take care of your financial needs.

And may God bless both Joe and Pizza for being such a wonderful brother and son.
 
Ok, my sister's condition has worsened. She had surgery some two weeks ago on her bladder. The healing process is a mess.

They admitted her to the hospital on Monday. Later today, she is being transferred to Landmark Long Term Acute Care Hospital in Athens, GA. I don't really understand why, but what this all means is that wheelchairs are out for her now - she will very likely be bedridden for life after this.

Her care now consists of very painful re-dressing of her wound each day - morphine makes it tolerable. (The dressings and morphine, as well as catheter and colostomy which are needed to provide for cleanliness for healing - are the reasons for long term hospitalization.) Medicare will ship her home after two weeks (two years ago, she'd be allowed to be there six weeks - but with the new guidelines, two weeks is it.) She fears that she won't be healed well enough in two weeks and the whole infection cycle will start over again.

God won't heal her of her M.S., but maybe we can pray she will heal from the surgery in two weeks.
 
From my post on THE SPACEPORT just now:

Get ready to hold me...
For those who don't know, my sister has M.S., diagnosed in 1990. She turned 60 this spring and always said she'd never live to see 60.

BUT, she also described to me, the ignorant younger brother, what her last days could be like. For the past three weeks, it has been a roller coaster of highs and lows but the lows keep getting lower. As of this evening, after doing SO well yesterday, she cannot feed herself, change the TV channel or use the phone on her own.

Anyway, the events of the last THREE days are, as I sit and think about it, way closer to her prediction of her last days than I really realized.

They say her weakness is low potassium. Infusing it has done little or no good, they are now doing tests to see why it is not working, they mentioned her liver to my nephew as a possible cause(?) She's been on POWERFUL and abundant I.V. antibiotics for two weeks fighting an infection of an open wound from her bladder surgery a month ago. I wonder if the antibiotics and morphine (administered daily for wound dressings) could have something to do with it. For the past week, the dressings are being changed only every three days as they are using some kind of pump in the wound to make it heal better.

She's also had exacerbations of her M.S. make her arms not work well and her hands almost useless, but again that got better yesterday, a LOT better. Tonight, my nephew says she is just SO weak.

Being single, I am way too close to her for my own mental health! She's been such an anchor, advisor and mentor to me over the years - and I've been able to pay some of that back in the past few years (oddly enough!) - this is gonna be hard.

I have no fear of posting this here, she is not going to be online....
 
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