Oh Darn

Sam has aspiration pneumonia again and worse than it's been for several years.  I've got him on oxygen most of the time and he's taking antibiotics.  The doctor said to wait 48 hours and if he didn't turn around, I'd have to admit him for IV antibiotics.  The 48 hours is almost up and I think he's improved - slightly.  I really want to make the right decision here.  Going to the hospital might be an important step to saving his life.  We don't want to increase the already extensive scarring of his lungs.  There are so many parts of his lungs that no longer work.

On the other hand, we both hate going to the hospital.  He can't move because of the iv in his arm and I have to sleep on a very cold, hard window seat!  A smaller consideration is the fact that the State of Illinois will not pay me for the days he is in hospital because they think of it as time I don't work.  Hah!  This is a small consideration because they only pay me for 4 hours a day anyway!

It's Lent.  You would think this would give me time to reflect and be mindful of my life.  But frankly, I'm too sleepy.  MY body has never really accepted Sam's habit of sleeping from 4 am to 11 am.  I still like to sleep from about 10 pm to 6 am.  So when he's sick I only get a couple of hours sleep.  Then we both nap in the afternoon on the couch.  But the rest of the day I'm giving him medicine and wandering around the house like a zombie and groggily trying to think of all the things that need doing.

Oh and watching tsunami videos.

I heard from my friends in Japan and they are okay but in shock.  They are still experiencing several after shocks daily.  Tsunami and nuclear explosions are the terror at the core of every Japanese soul and they are suddenly facing both at once.  My heart weeps for them. 

Want to do something?  You can donate to people who seem to be doing a good job with the relief efforts:
American Red Cross
Salvation Army
Crash Japan

Exceptional Parents

There is a great magazine (or anyway was) called Exceptional Parent for the parents of children with developmental disabilities.  I haven't seen it in awhile, I guess because Sam isn't really a child anymore.  But the idea has stuck with me.  Exceptional children require exceptional parents.  Sometimes I have risen to that challenge and sometimes I have not.  It has troubled me lately that I am on the "not" side of the equation.  We are coming up on 60 and retirement and I am TIRED!  But Sam's needs keep growing, even though he doesn't.  When Charley retires from teaching we will still need income and we are actively thinking about what we might do.  I keep asking myself who I am and what am I good at.  The answer is always that I am Sam's mom and I am good at being Sam's mom and also a lot of craft stuff.


So fine.  My career, so to speak, has effectively been being Sam's mom.  I should think of it as my career.  


At one time I was a pretty great Executive Assistant to several guys.  Now my title is Personal Assistant to Sam.  (for which the State of Illinois pays me significantly less than the other guys I was Executive or Personal Assistant to... including the church job!)


Nevertheless.  I have been keeping a log of my day and started to explore time management for caregivers.  I've taken a lot of time management classes in my life as an Executive Assistant.  They often bugged me because they advocated delegation as a great method of time management.  When you are the "delegatee" that doesn't help much.  Now that I am a stay at home Executive, there has to be a different sort of time management that will work for me.  


So I am taking all the stuff I learned and all the realities of my crazy life and trying to come up with a new system.  I call it the "worry book".  I just keep a spiral notebook and write down all the things I am worried about not getting done.  Housework, bills, Sam Care, phone calls, sweaters for the grandkids, grocery shopping.  Then on the next page I put tomorrow's date and start thinking about what is most important to get done tomorrow.  I have discovered that I think best in the late afternoon or just after dinner.  Doing this in the groggy morning when I have to get Charley and (Hopefully Sam) out the door is just not effective.


I have three columns.  Time, Task and Actual.  I write down the time I hope to get things done and the things I hope to do them.  Then on the next day, I keep track of how the day goes and what time (if ever) I actually accomplish my tasks.


In this way, I'm getting a written record of how my day goes and hopefully I will be able to see some ways of becoming more effective at doing my job.


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