Now at stage of adaptations to the home being made. Blocks to raise sofa, multiple grab rails, shower seat, etc. Just feels strange to have this physical signs of the deterioration in my partner.
My dad got taken to hospital on Wednesday. Although he felt no different and perfectly fine. The respiratory nurse came to see him, and he was on 8 litres of oxygen per minute, but his oxygen saturation was only 72%.
I phoned up dad earlier, and, apparently, he is currently on 10 litres of oxygen a minute (it was 8). And his oxygen saturation is sitting at 88%, which is still quite low. When they try to reduce his oxygen down to 8 litres per minute, his oxygen saturation goes down to 78%. I presume this is when he is just sat still.
What is going to happen to him? As far as I know, his home oxygen machine only goes to 10 litres per minute
He has also recently been told he has a bladder tumour. I mean, I just don't see how he will be fit for any kind of surgery. He is supposed to be seeing the consultant next week, he might still be in hospital. How long can he go on like this? How common is it for people to be on such high doses of oxygen?
I 23F and my 27M partner have been together for several years prior to this injury and all the things i’m heavily starting to resent were all issues before and only got worse after the injury. My partner was diagnosed with CRPS in his wrist and that’s left me pretty much having to do everything. He’s out of work so I’m working full time, and responsible for all of the cooking and housework which I don’t mind it just has gotten to be exhausting going on for a year now and has me so mentally drained. he will try on rare occasion to help straighten up around the house but will refuse to listen to me on small things and end up making more work for me a lot of times. He and the issues we had previously haven’t made the current circumstances any less exhausting, everything is a competition now I have no safe space to communicate my feelings or struggles throughout the day without hearing “wanna trade?” or “at least ur not injured” just making an already difficult situation even more draining. He also tends to make remarks about how he was working for longer than i have been and essentially had to “do more”. To be fair he was working 2 jobs at a point but also never had the added load of housework to worry about or being the caregiver for an injured person. Over the last few years i’ve had a lot of misfortunes around family and friends so now im kind of left with no one. So not only do I get constantly dismissed and invalidated by my partner, but I also don’t have anyone I can vent to or anyone that’s bothered checking in even knowing my current situation. We don’t get much sleep with his constant pain he’s usually tossing and turning and i’m a very light sleeper so just another added factor to the exhaustion. I feel like I’ve had to take on everything pick up all the slack and i’m getting barely any thanks or acknowledgement for it and I’m starting to seriously resent him. Financial problems haven’t helped either with him being out of work and the one vehicle we have got hit a few months back. We haven’t been on a proper date in years (he wasn’t great at planning and executing dates prior either), haven’t had anything special done for me in the same amount of time, nothing to fill my cup back up is what i’m getting at. I’m scared that this will be forever if i stay but also feel trapped, he’s always had the habit of making himself a victim in situations so now it feels almost like he has the perfect cover to never let the victim mentality go. (i know it sounds horrible and i feel horrible even thinking this) but it really does feel as if he’s gotten comfortable with the dynamic and the ways he can take advantage of it and he lacks the emotional intelligence to even have a productive conversation about any of it. I forgot to mention he’ll sit on his playstation for several hours a day making me believe he’s capable of more than he sometimes lets on but will adamantly deny it and claim he doesn’t spend as much time on it as he does, I don’t know what to do or think anymore
Not sick. Not slow just retreated from the world. Can’t take big decisions, can’t follow conversations yet is still sharp on what they did as a career. She is 80.
I depended on my mum to advise me. Such good advice. But sometimes the advice is bizarre. (“Cut the legs off the bedside table and put it on the kitchen counter as an extra draw.”). If it’s not to do with her she’ll just change the subject.
My reaction is to call her out. Treat her like an adult. “What?! Are you mad? The bedside table on the counter? Seriously?) she’ll just rely “yes” as it’s a perfectly valid idea.
There are lots of other things but that happened a few days ago. But she is no good for career advice, emotional advice etc. I know she’s 80 but she is damn well not slipping away into herself on my watch. She’s not someone sitting in a chair waiting. Im not going to patronise her or pretend around her. But none of that’s working.
I was a young carer - I think.
My dad had a degenerative body and mind condition which ate away at his mobility and his ability to understand things.
Eventually, he couldn't sit up, stand, walk, or swallow anything at all; he also couldn't speak.
Our house was turned into a 'care home lite', with a lift from the living room to the bedroom, and multiple hoists around the house. The bathroom was transformed into a wet room and we had carers in four times a day and a nurse too.
No one exactly told me "You are now a young carer"; but I often stayed with my dad so that my mum could go to work/go out for a break.
I'd help with tablets where I could, and help with lifting him/sorting out certain things like peg tubes etc.
I was a teenager when he was at the stage of being confused and shouting at me for things that he'd given me permission to do a few minutes before.
I saw him have a couple of psychotic breaks.
Once, I came home from school and he was hiding from a burglar - the house was dark.
I went around and checked all the rooms to show him it was safe to come out.
I often wouldn't tell my mum things because I felt like I should be able to handle it - and I was worried that she wouldn't go to work - I knew we needed the money since he couldn't work any more.
---
Anyway, he died when I was 28.5; and covid happened about 2.5 years after.
My mum has a kind of brain fog/memory loss which might be associated with the grief, or else the sleeping tablets she's on etc.
I'm now 37, and I'm only just starting to feel a really solid sense of where I am in life, what I'd like to do, and who I'd like to be.
I've had a few adventures over the last few years, done some study, and had one or two awful relationships (but they were learning curves).
I feel like I've been catching up from my teenage/twenties years and that I'm only now just starting to feel roughly my sort of age.
Although I'm still not totally established yet - I'm not married, I don't have my own place just yet, and I'm still finishing off some training to get me into the right job.
Does this sound kinda... normal?
I'm just trying to understand my journey a bit better, and separate out what came from my previous experiences and what came from other things (my own poor decisions or whatever).
Just curious. I'm just now discovering this sub & it seems like a good fit for my situation,. From the description it sound like here we are focused on being a support sub for unpaid carers, and less about paid caregivers or cna. Is that assumption corrrect?