My dad has recently got home after 10.5 months in hospital. He suffered an abscess and infection on his brain and due to this coupled with Parkinson’s he can no longer walk and his concentration is affected.
My mum is fantastic at the practical but becomes stressed easily by all the information, terrible lack of communication from varying departments and general paperwork as for 40yrs dad did all this.
I worry for his mental health as she can’t use things like TV catch up so he’s watching awful daytime TV unless I’m there.
As a result I walk through the door and I’m bombarded with questions and jobs to do.
I don’t mind however I work full-time in a manic job, I’m an only child and before this saw my parents 1/2 times a week. It’s all on me and no conversations I’m having seem to help as she’s so stressed out.
I went away to Spain on my own last week after weeks of deliberating and it was the first time in nearly a year I’ve slept more than 4hrs but they both, not intentionally, make me feel guilty.
This is just the start of our journey so please any tips, ways I can balance everything and how to train mum on the TV would be appreciated.
How old are your parents?
What care package was arranged by the hospital before he was discharged? The first 6 weeks should be entirely free.
Was a Carers Assessment done for mum?
I know this sounds terrible, but you need to stand back from this, for the sake of your own health, and the wellbeing of your child.
Mum and dad MUST accept that IF he is to live at home, then they need to have lots of paid carers to support him. Whilst you fill in the gaps, this won’t happen.
How old are your parents? It is time to ask for a care needs assessment. Ring the local council and ask for a social worker. Is there a care package for your father or not in place set up by the hospital? If not ask for one. Mom and dad need to start looking at other options. Either hire some good paid for carers or vet care homes.
There are lots of care companies covering all areas of Britain. This is a good website on care homes https://www.carehome.co.uk.
Def look at getting some help for Mum. it might make her less stressed? Is Dad getting Attendance Allowance which would start to pay for some help? It isn’t means tested. A cleaner was a good starting point for us. But it might be that someone to get him up and to bed might be good too?
Does your Mum get a break at all?
I never managed to train Mum and Dad on remote controls! I had lots of attempts at writing instructions in pictorial fashion, you could try taking pictures of the remote and printing it out to annotate. But in all honesty I never had much success! And I wouldn’t stress about it too much! Would she manage a DVD player? Maybe that is the way forward? Or if you had some help in every day they could set your Dad off watching some catch up telly when they come in?
I also had the care of both parents at one point. And found it really helpful to think about what I could realistically do for them with the time I had spare. What I or my sister couldn’t do had to fall to someone else. There was a point we were doing everything, and we were broken. Don’t get to that point.
Try taking pictures of the remote. Print them out, annotate them or simply use captions to show what each part does. If he is a visual learner, this will help.