My mom had an excellent head for figures and when she left school at 16 took a job in the office of a large bakery, ending up in charge there. She didn't work when I was a child, but as I reached my mid teens she went back to accounting both when we moved to Zimbabwe, and later in New Zealand. She could add up a column of figures faster than an adding machine. She had a very strong work ethic which accounts for the high regard she was held in by her employers - always looking for work to do. This lifelong characteristic actually prevented me from picking up on some of the early signs of her disease.
She and my father had a great marriage. He was the one with the practical know-how and the dreams. She was a great support system and that's something I don't forget. She was not creative in the same way as my dad and I, and I was often aware that she did't have a hobby, until they moved to this property and started running black sheep. She took to spinning, so the wool became her hobby. She used to spin some very beautiful fine wool and I still have her wheel and some samples of her spinning.
She was always very active, walking to and from work (she loved walking). From 1966 she helped my father develop from scratch two 10 acre properties here in the Far North and build what was to be their home. Then when his illness caught up with him, for 5 years she supported him through that. After he died of leukaemia in 1985 and I later moved up here and stepped into his shoes, she carried on, working hard with me for several years on a dairy goat stud I ran on our own place and a 100 acre run-off property I acquired. That is another story.
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Saturday, July 15, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Help Comes
Then out of the blue I found a helpful tool - Mike Brescia's "Think Right Now! for Windows", which you will find Here, and that and my painstaking efforts began to bring peace and a new sense of confidence. Two and a half years down the track I am now debt-free and my online graphics business and Art sales are beginning to yield me a little return, because doors have opened for me to sell my art without leaving my home. I have some small goals in mind, and they are starting to materialise. I am not out of the woods yet - life is not that simple - and I know that this need to monitor the brain is an ongoing work, but I also sense that the keys to my future are slowly coming within my reach.
As far as my mom is concerned, the position has not changed, but my feelings about the situation have changed, and that is the crucial part. Master this concept: The outside circumstances will not change until the inner thought patterns have changed FIRST. My favourite saying is a wonderful quote that can be interpreted and applied at so many levels: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".
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As far as my mom is concerned, the position has not changed, but my feelings about the situation have changed, and that is the crucial part. Master this concept: The outside circumstances will not change until the inner thought patterns have changed FIRST. My favourite saying is a wonderful quote that can be interpreted and applied at so many levels: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".
- - -
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alzheimers, alzheimers care, dementia, caregiver, alzheimers disease
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Black Night of the Soul 2
So there I was, with all this weighing heavily. I literally didn't know any more what I wanted to achieve with my life. This is no exaggeration.
All that stood before me seemed to be the downward slope. Even my beloved art seemed to be a hopeless cause - it was very hard to settle down and create a painting that I could not be sure of selling quickly, when I badly needed money "NOW".
Desperate, I analysed my situation, and decided I couldn't do anything about having to look after my mom, but I could do something about my thinking. What we think - consciously or subconsciously - is the key to what we get in life - I knew that. I also realised I was in danger of bringing about the very situation that I feared most.
I turned again to my favourite self-help books by John Kehoe. I didn't know how to correct whatever was wrong with my thought patterns, they must run so deep. I understood goals and visualising, but even that was beyond me. After all the crashes, I had no faith in my ability to come up with sensible goals. "Visualising" was a bad joke - not to mention impossible. Things were black and I knew it.
I formed a plan, borne out of the barren wasteland of my mind - get right back to basics, none of this fancy visualising, goal-setting stuff. Focus totally on weeding out the brain's incessant chatter from day to day, minute to minute. This was entirely my own plan - so I asked for guidance, tried to know it was on its way, and monitored my thought patterns - rigorously. Every time I caught myself worrying about my future and losing my home, I looked around me for things to give thanks for right there, and did just that every minute I could. I gave thanks for the sky and the trees and the flowers and the house I live in, instead of looking at all the things about the place that needed doing.
I gave thanks for my pets instead of reflecting that maybe they shouldn't be in the house, or chiding myself because someone had made a mess. I gave thanks for my mother. I tried to pick up on every single little negative thought and turn it into a thanks instead of a stress factor.
This is NOT an easy practice - it requires concentration, determination and persistence, long term. The brain loves wallowing in negativity and doesn't like being disciplined at first - it will in fact try to make you feel like a fool for saying anything positive.
Just say the positive, grateful stuff anyway, whether you believe in what you are saying or not. Believe me, this is THE KEY to turning your life around, and I outline it here in the hope it will help someone else battling with the problems of being a caregiver.
- - -
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alzheimers, alzheimers care, dementia, caregiver, alzheimers disease
All that stood before me seemed to be the downward slope. Even my beloved art seemed to be a hopeless cause - it was very hard to settle down and create a painting that I could not be sure of selling quickly, when I badly needed money "NOW".
Desperate, I analysed my situation, and decided I couldn't do anything about having to look after my mom, but I could do something about my thinking. What we think - consciously or subconsciously - is the key to what we get in life - I knew that. I also realised I was in danger of bringing about the very situation that I feared most.
I turned again to my favourite self-help books by John Kehoe. I didn't know how to correct whatever was wrong with my thought patterns, they must run so deep. I understood goals and visualising, but even that was beyond me. After all the crashes, I had no faith in my ability to come up with sensible goals. "Visualising" was a bad joke - not to mention impossible. Things were black and I knew it.
I formed a plan, borne out of the barren wasteland of my mind - get right back to basics, none of this fancy visualising, goal-setting stuff. Focus totally on weeding out the brain's incessant chatter from day to day, minute to minute. This was entirely my own plan - so I asked for guidance, tried to know it was on its way, and monitored my thought patterns - rigorously. Every time I caught myself worrying about my future and losing my home, I looked around me for things to give thanks for right there, and did just that every minute I could. I gave thanks for the sky and the trees and the flowers and the house I live in, instead of looking at all the things about the place that needed doing.
I gave thanks for my pets instead of reflecting that maybe they shouldn't be in the house, or chiding myself because someone had made a mess. I gave thanks for my mother. I tried to pick up on every single little negative thought and turn it into a thanks instead of a stress factor.
This is NOT an easy practice - it requires concentration, determination and persistence, long term. The brain loves wallowing in negativity and doesn't like being disciplined at first - it will in fact try to make you feel like a fool for saying anything positive.
Just say the positive, grateful stuff anyway, whether you believe in what you are saying or not. Believe me, this is THE KEY to turning your life around, and I outline it here in the hope it will help someone else battling with the problems of being a caregiver.
- - -
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Reality
As you see, even in New Zealand the welfare state is not really a welfare state at all, it has become a business - or more correctly a business within a business. For all government is a business - and usually a badly run one at that. The difference now is that instead of paying taxes to give ourselves some overall benefits - like health care, education and elderly care - we pay larger taxes, and on top of that we have to pay for whatever other services we use - payment a second time. Even state schools these days rely heavily on parents to supplement funding - one way or another. Welcome to the brave new world. Whoever dreamed up "user pays" in the 1970s? That was the beginning of the end, the blueprint for extortion.
From time to time I remind myself - all this nonsense is a byproduct of so-called civilization. In the real nitty-gritty world far removed from the welfare state, there is no home help, no respite care, no carer support - at least, none run by bureaucracy - no bureaucracy even! Look after your own as best you can, but at least you don't pay taxes (maybe), don't have Big Brother looking over your shoulder (maybe). No doubt there's a Big Brother of some sort lurking somewhere, with his hand held out. "Life was nasty, brutish and short". Maybe the "short" wasn't a bad thing.......... I am digressing.
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From time to time I remind myself - all this nonsense is a byproduct of so-called civilization. In the real nitty-gritty world far removed from the welfare state, there is no home help, no respite care, no carer support - at least, none run by bureaucracy - no bureaucracy even! Look after your own as best you can, but at least you don't pay taxes (maybe), don't have Big Brother looking over your shoulder (maybe). No doubt there's a Big Brother of some sort lurking somewhere, with his hand held out. "Life was nasty, brutish and short". Maybe the "short" wasn't a bad thing.......... I am digressing.
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Monday, July 10, 2006
The Figures
In New Zealand, government charges out longterm care at the rate of about NZ$630 per week. On today's exchangs rate as I write this, that equates to US$386 weekly. Private rest homes would charge more. Obviously, I can't afford that.
My contribution to the national economy over the last 9 years has been to keep my mother at very little government expense. A little home help (about 12 months worth all told I think - I haven't had any for over 2 years), 28 days (mostly less) Carer Support per year for perhaps 3 years, and 1 week per month Respite Care, which started at the beginning of this year - that's 6 weeks.
And if I come to the point where I really cannot handle the caregiver's role any more, government will turn round and reward me by taking the one thing I have left - my home.
Like I said - don't let them steal your identity. Maybe I should make out an account for 9 years of full-time care at $630 per week - that's about NZ$235,000 by my reckoning - and present it to the government health agencies. THEN we might get round to talking turkey.
- - -
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My contribution to the national economy over the last 9 years has been to keep my mother at very little government expense. A little home help (about 12 months worth all told I think - I haven't had any for over 2 years), 28 days (mostly less) Carer Support per year for perhaps 3 years, and 1 week per month Respite Care, which started at the beginning of this year - that's 6 weeks.
And if I come to the point where I really cannot handle the caregiver's role any more, government will turn round and reward me by taking the one thing I have left - my home.
Like I said - don't let them steal your identity. Maybe I should make out an account for 9 years of full-time care at $630 per week - that's about NZ$235,000 by my reckoning - and present it to the government health agencies. THEN we might get round to talking turkey.
- - -
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The Bottom Line
I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I owned this place and had absolutely nothing to lose by putting my mom into care, I would not have done a single thing differently from what I have done so far. In fact if I did own the place she and my father worked so hard to develop, for some strange reason it would probably be harder for me to even consider putting her into care.
My real worries lie in the future. The completely, totally and always uncertain future. I am haunted by those elderly permanent residents I see in our hospital and rest home, placed in special padded, reclining chairs and fed with spoons. Many people around me don't know how I carry on now. My fear is how I will carry on under those conditions.
- - -
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My real worries lie in the future. The completely, totally and always uncertain future. I am haunted by those elderly permanent residents I see in our hospital and rest home, placed in special padded, reclining chairs and fed with spoons. Many people around me don't know how I carry on now. My fear is how I will carry on under those conditions.
- - -
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Black Night of the Soul
Just over 2 years ago, I could not see anything good left in life for me. By way of background, I am lawyer by profession and worked as a government lawyer and a law tutor. I was successful at my job, had my own home, and a comfortable income. After my father's early death (leukaemia), I was faced with the decision of staying put with a job, or moving home to the country without one. Never one to pass up a challenge, I chose the latter option.
This is not the place to go into details, but suffice to say for 17 years everything I touched to bring in an income failed - largely for reasons outside my control. The final failures were due to the growing restrictions imposed by my mom's condition. It was like being thwarted at one turn after another. On top of that, I had lost my capital, and my last attempt at business left me in debt.
There I was living on the dole, with debts to meet, and completely tied to the house looking after my mom. With 2/3 of our income derived from her - her own pension and an army pension of my dad's - I couldn't see how I could afford to keep the lovely place I had moved home to enjoy. I felt I was staring down an endless black tunnel for my future - where had all the promise of my earlier years gone? How was I going to survive if my mom died?
How was I going to survive if she didn't? The land is still in her name because I put my capital into developing a business. In this country and probably in yours too, government has now empowered itself to sieze the property of elderly people going into fulltime care, to offset the cost of keeping them. At the very least if I put her into care, they would impose a caveat on the place and out of their kindness allow me to live there until I die. Isn't that nice? I can tell you - it would be the last straw.
- - -
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alzheimers, alzheimers care, dementia, caregiver, alzheimers disease
This is not the place to go into details, but suffice to say for 17 years everything I touched to bring in an income failed - largely for reasons outside my control. The final failures were due to the growing restrictions imposed by my mom's condition. It was like being thwarted at one turn after another. On top of that, I had lost my capital, and my last attempt at business left me in debt.
There I was living on the dole, with debts to meet, and completely tied to the house looking after my mom. With 2/3 of our income derived from her - her own pension and an army pension of my dad's - I couldn't see how I could afford to keep the lovely place I had moved home to enjoy. I felt I was staring down an endless black tunnel for my future - where had all the promise of my earlier years gone? How was I going to survive if my mom died?
How was I going to survive if she didn't? The land is still in her name because I put my capital into developing a business. In this country and probably in yours too, government has now empowered itself to sieze the property of elderly people going into fulltime care, to offset the cost of keeping them. At the very least if I put her into care, they would impose a caveat on the place and out of their kindness allow me to live there until I die. Isn't that nice? I can tell you - it would be the last straw.
- - -
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Sunday, July 09, 2006
Most of All....
Above all else, I'm grateful for the Internet - it has kept me sane over the past 9 years. Thank God I was online when my mother's illness really manifested, with some graphics and webdesign skills already in the making. I can't imagine what would have happened otherwise. Bow out and take off? With a houseful of furniture, 3 dogs, 5 cats, several goats, a horse and 5 ducks - and nowhere to put them? Not that easy either with no job and nothing in the bank. That's another story too....
The Internet does two things for me. When my mom's demands have tightened ever and ever closer round my neck, and my options for running an offline business have been chopped off one by one, I can still reach out and make contact with other normal people round the world. That's what helps preserve my own entity and sense of worth - without it I could not have survived. I wish every caregiver in a situation like mine could have it. Secondly, I can see the net holds the key to my financial future, once my mother moves on. And I desperately need that key.
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alzheimers, alzheimers care, dementia, caregiver, alzheimers disease
The Internet does two things for me. When my mom's demands have tightened ever and ever closer round my neck, and my options for running an offline business have been chopped off one by one, I can still reach out and make contact with other normal people round the world. That's what helps preserve my own entity and sense of worth - without it I could not have survived. I wish every caregiver in a situation like mine could have it. Secondly, I can see the net holds the key to my financial future, once my mother moves on. And I desperately need that key.
- - -
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alzheimers, alzheimers care, dementia, caregiver, alzheimers disease
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