Interaction with the home care staff was difficult for Christine’s mother as she kept meeting new people.
Transcript
She had someone come in twice a week to help her with a bath. And the only reason she got the twice a week is because she’s incontinent. Because otherwise it’s once a week. Now, that’s fine. There was the cleaning person. There was someone, a companion, for about two hours a week so the caregiver can rest… I remember, my mother—I think there were two or three different companions that came because they could never always guarantee it would be the same person, which is ridiculous because when you let someone into your home and you want them to interact with, say your mother, if she keeps having to meet a stranger, especially if she’s an older person, it doesn’t really work, and there’s not always a good connection. And there was this one woman that came that was horrible. But I was so out of it I just saw this woman would kind of toss her cigarette butt outside the front door and walk in and kind of made herself at home right away and really was… but I was so out of it I just said, “Well here’s my mother. This is the caregiver. I’m taking a nap.” And I went upstairs and I thought, “I don’t care if she rips off all the silver in the house,” or if—not that she’d tie up my mother and, like, steal her jewels, but I was at that point. I was so frustrated and out of it. It was just like, “Here’s the caregiver.” Like, “I’m taking my two hours that this is what this is all about.” And well, it turned out that she wasn’t such a great woman. She didn’t steal anything, but my mother was not very impressed by her.
Yeah, we got that, a two-hour respite care. That’s it. Now, the difficulty with that was that I had to be there when the cleaning woman would show up, and when the care respite woman would show up, because my mother could not go up and down steps alone. And our dog who is harmless, but is afraid of everything—so she barks because she’s afraid and is a medium size—so most people are afraid of her when they first, they don’t know her or meet her, and I noticed a lot of these people from the CLSC are afraid of dogs. So, she would have to be put in another room. Well, my mother, who is very fragile, could not wrestle with the dog and put her in a room, or go down and answer the door on her own. So, in other words, I would have to be there all the time.
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- Navigating the system – ChristineSometimes you don’t know about the helpful services that are out there, says Christine.
- Impact on professional life and career – ChristineChristine was so caught-up in caring for her mother that she never resolved her employment situation.
- Impact on health – ChristineChristine was so exhausted that she reached a point where she considered suicide.
- Hospitals and facilities – ChristineChristine realized she had to leave her mother’s home to protect herself. When she left, her mother moved to a care facility.
- Home care and live-in caregivers – ChristineInteraction with the home care staff was difficult for Christine’s mother as she kept meeting new people.