The idea behind respite is
simple: give the carer a break. During respite, the routine is to have no
routine. And so…
Yes, it’s my plan to post a blog close to
the start of the month. This isn’t always possible. Today, by sheer
coincidence, is the first of the month. It’s post now or much later. Respite is
coming up again, and it’s a longer break than last time, so I won’t be doing
routine carer things like writing in this blog.
If I don’t blog right now, I can’t (won’t)
blog on a break. Then the break is over. Followed by another break. That’s the
problem with March. It’s hitting the end of the year for respite allowance.
Coming into the system with most of the year behind us, we had the full
allowance of days available…with the caution that we’d have to be careful with
our days left in the time left. Book early, book often.
I feel if I blog between the breaks that are
left, I’ll be too far into the month when writing about being a carer. Yes,
I’ve been forced to delay blog posts before. No, the world won’t end if I can’t
get anything written promptly – I have other priorities.
There are things I could write about, should
write about, but I have one eye on being a carer and one eye on upcoming
respite, and a third eye on possible mutations.
Have we lost any clothes
after respite? No. We’ve gained clothes. Once, actually worn home. And twice,
but hidden away inside the travel bag. The most unusual thing to happen so far
was the misappropriation of a perfume bottle.
I don’t know how that makes its way from one
visitor’s room to another visitor’s room. But I’ll take a mild guess. There are
long hallways in the building, leading to residential rooms. And there are
communal areas.
Pass-the-perfume-parcel
most likely goes like this…
A guest carries the perfume bottle to the
communal area and sits it down. Later, a member of staff sees the item out of
place, and engages in conversation with my mother. The wrong guest.
“Is this yours?”
“Aye.”
You could hand my mother the rudder of the Titanic and she’d lay claim to it.
“Is this fragment of a cybernetic arm from a
post-apocalyptic hell, propelled back in time and severed by Linda Hamilton,
yours?”
“Aye.”
“Would you like me to put it in your room
for you?”
“Aye, okay.”
“You’ll see it later.”
“Aye. I’ll be back.”
Anyway, the trip goes something like that. Minus
the cybernetics. I don’t think a walking frame counts as cyber-enhancement
unless it has batteries for a phone link. The journey is straightforward. From
bedroom to main room to another bedroom.
As
these respite trips are all scrunched together at the end of the financial
year, it’s easy enough to return not too long after the last short trip, and
hope that the wayward item jogs a staff-member’s memory.
Last time around, I made the
point of buying in new socks. Furry socks. Padded. Easy on the feet. Coming
away from respite, I found thin ankle socks had sneaked aboard the travel bag. At
least I am keeping on top of detail.
The worst thing would be to come back with
the wrong person and not notice for a week or two. This is unlikely, as I am
responsible for administering pills on a daily basis, and, if any problems over
identity arise, then I’m destined to notice at the pill-giving stage.
Or at least, I’d like to bloody well think
so.
Preparing to abandon routine has a routine
all to itself. I have a lot to cram in, and I considered sacrificing this
blog-writing time. But…no. I want this blog post to go out right at the start
of the month. Then I don’t have that blogging routine to come back to, just after
one break and right before another.
Phone calls go out to the people who need to
know. In addition, other people need to know in person. A mini-bus won’t call.
Daily carers go elsewhere. Nurses who turn up randomly will be told there’s no
one to run blood-tests on. Unless they want to drive to the back of beyond, of
course.
A driver is arranged well in advance, so
that we can drive to the back of beyond. I’ll say this of the weather – it
hasn’t affected a single visit. We’ve had more rain than there is in creation.
New records for the time of year. And the time of year is spring struggling to turn
under a winter blanket.
Snow hardly falls. I prepare for it anyway.
Shovels stand ready. Salt is there in a big tub. I keep the path clean and
clear of obstacles. Spring is starting to throw foliage up at the path’s edge,
and I’ll take care of that before it turns into a wall of thorns.
I must forcibly remind myself
to mention no pick-up for the daycare bus. This saves a telephone call. That’s
part of the routine. I ordered pills in a week early so we’d have no trouble
crossing from one month’s delivery to another month’s batch while respite
happens.
The pill thing was complicated by a
non-delivery. When an item isn’t in stock, I don’t receive a phone notification
at the usual time to go and pick up the pills. Instead, there’s a delay, even
when almost everything is sitting there waiting.
Here, the hope is that the pharmacist will
take delivery of the late item and then send one message over the phone. But I
can’t bank on that delivery. The order is expected on a Friday. Reduced service
on Saturday. No service on Sunday. Hectic day on Monday. What to do?
Chance the delivery on Friday. Head out into
stormy weather, waterproofed to the gills, and believe in my heart of hearts
that most of the delivery is there.
This is part of the routine of preparing for
respite and a break with no routine at all.
I went out into heavy rain, with a huge
backpack. Lots of rain protection. The rule of the pharmacy is that, no matter
the pharmacy, it is illegal to swing a cat in one.
My huge order was there. I slapped the huge
order into my waterproof bag with all the skill of a mountaineer stashing
supplies. And I didn’t poke an eye out or collapse a single lung while in the
legally-required tiny space that is your average pharmacy.
Usually, I’m told
if an item isn’t there. But I knew something was up. My Spider-Sense was
tingling. I sensed a spider. There’s always a spider. Spider-sense is pretty
useless.
At home, I
decanted the huge order of pills. One item missing. The least-essential item on
the list, fortunately. There it wasn’t.
I couldn’t wait
over the weekend to discover, say, that the entire order hadn’t gone through.
In horizontal rain, under a battleship sky, I plodded along, to find out what
was wrong. Supply problem.
The pills are all
ready to go away to respite. No mistakes there. They must go out in their
boxes, with the labels on them, for insurance purposes – administration, as
well as for purposes of administering.
There comes a time when I leave the respite place. Always a
wait, while pills are processed and last-second questions come up. I get into
the car, and drive off. Not always directly home. After all, the point of
respite is to throw routine out of the window.
Trips to and from
respite are as random as random can be. The care money doesn’t pay for the
trips immediately. There’s always a wandering time-lag before a bill pops through
the letterbox. With so many trips happening in short order, the bills sometimes
arrive together, proffering their own individual visitor cards as they land,
cold and wet, in the hall.
Here’s an
exception to the notion of no routine during a respite break. I can and do
receive bills while I’m on respite. Those I pay right there and then. Done and
dusted. I don’t think of paying bills as being part of carer routine, even when
they are precisely part of carer routine. Bills never stop being bills while
you are on holiday.
What do I do on a
break? It’s all about what I don’t do. I don’t time anything. Everything. I
don’t time everything. And I don’t throw careful timing away to deal with a
random emergency, either.
In the past week,
I discovered two broken pieces of electrical equipment. I replaced both on the
same day, or made a plan to replace something as soon as the postie would carry
it to me. Random. Threw my plans out of joint. But fixing things is important.
After dealing with
a random electrical fire, it was more important than ever to replace a thing
when the thing went wonky. Will I replace anything while I am on respite break?
My sanity.
I am more likely
to notice things that need fixing when I go around doing routine bits of this and
that. But here’s another exception. If, on my respite travels, I notice
something needs fixing, I will fix it. Electrical faults don’t stop being
electrical faults while you are on holiday.
Cake doesn’t stop
being cake when you are having a break. I’ve ordered one in. It’s a burden to
consume, I know, but sometimes holidays are hard work. I’ll suffer through the
experience.
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