When I asked for additional time off I had to explain my reason. A vacation… to the nursing home.

Question

I found myself thinking "I don't get to spend 2 weweks in Hawaii every year! My idea of a vacation is traveling all the way across the country to spend 6 days sitting in a nursing home room!" Of course I didn't say it out loud, but that is the way I felt. I haven't had a real vacation in years. Certainly not to a tropical beach.

It occurred to me that there must be lots of us who have done or endured outageous things in the name of caregiving. Like the person who posted here about hair in their toothbrush after their mother used it to brush her hair.

Laughter truly is good medicine and a great way to relieve stress. So let's share some of the outrageous, crazy things we have experienced as caregivers and maybe get a laugh or two to bring down the stress levels. Please reply to this post with your story.

Emerald4Me · Accepted Answer

2 weeks in Hawaii, wonder what that is like.  We are in the same boat.  Our vacations are spent flying to the small town where hubby's elderly parents live.  The phone calls of guilt about how we don't visit enough.  There is no room for us to stay with them, so it is airline fare, hotel room, and renting a car.  We cannot get our youngest to go (a teen) because the "town is so boring."  These "vacations" are spent by having his 3 siblings, who all live close by, tell us it is our turn to help out mom and dad.   Hubby spent 2 days in the heat of summer cleaning out their garage and MIL acted all put out in making sandwiches for lunch.  I made or bought all other meals!  Then we come home where I am the only sibling living close to my widowed mother.  Ugh.  I want a break.

Here4her · Answer

My mom loves peanut butter. She keeps a jar in the cabinet above where she sits at the counter. The cabinet is her little storage place where she keeps various things.

At Christmas my son-in-law saw her take the bottom of her hair brush and scrape out the bottom of the jar and eat off the brush handle (and the brush handle had chew marks all over it from our puppt getting a hold of it)..

He says he will NEVER eat peanut butter at our house again. It is funny how we as caregivers adapt to things that we never thought we could handle.

I love my mom and I know that she just didn't have the energy to go get a spoon~

When I asked for additional time off I had to explain my reason. A vacation… to the nursing home.

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