Here are a couple of the caregiving stories I've collected while writing A Survival Guide for Grown Children with Elderly Parents. They are reprinted with permission of the storytellers. If you have any that are humorous to share, I'd love to read them. Just write them in the "Comment" box under this blog. The photo on the right is my Mom, Evelyn, at her 90th birthday party, before the dancing started!
Leslie Borghini (Hospital Administrator, former trauma and ICU nurse, writing under pseudonym "Angel of Horror"):
I followed a nurse around, taking vitals, transporting, and answering call bells on my first day of clinical in the hospital. I had to deliver lunch trays and helped Miss Grayson open her packets and placed everything within reach. Then I left.
About fifteen minutes later, the call bell rang. I raced into the room and found Miss Grayson reclining on her pillow. Her sheets lay in clumps at her feet and her knees were pulled up. Cucumbers had moved from her plate to her eyes and dripped Thousand Island dressing. Chocolate pudding covered her cheeks. Stripes of whipped cream ran through the pudding and mingled with the dressing.
Then I noticed that the crumpled sheets were strewn with green beans, and Miss G's fingers were smothered in butter. Her rump was a smooth dome of yellow. "I'm ready for my foot massage now," she said, handing me the container of ice cream she was holding.
Ruth Berge, paralegal and author of The Florida You Don't Know, The True Story of a Brave Bobblehead Cat, and The Ghost of Sir Harry Oakes:
I was sitting in the back seat, while my Mom and her sister, Ella, drove me home from work. One would start a story, the other would say a sentence or two, then both of them would look at each other and burst into laughter. "I don't remember anything else about that, do you?" Mom asked her sister.
"Not a thing," Ella replied, between shrieks.
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