Fall from Space

  
It just takes care-giving to bring me to my knees...


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Joy

                                                                                                              fog by ivanmarn



What's not lost cannot be found.


 

Insight

                                                                               " Sea in the Skies"  photo by windscafe

I don't have insight into something until I see the end

I don't see the end, my friend , until I relax
    the drink it down, soul quenching kind that
 I don't feel in years
     Yes, over two years...
          that births perspective
               with the unnoticeable move of it's pinky
but crushes the doubt and displacement
   of an orphan's stress
      that harassing in-my-face-ment

fear

with the wave of it's hand...

in a storm surge of strength
coarsing quietly
privately
considerately
in me

I don't relax without an advocate-
       who gave a command and a promise
             and creating a script and a timeline,
                  for me and
                      having a name exalted             
                          the name of Yeshua-

                                  who is watching
                               

I don't have an advocate
unless I obey
just set it and forget it
don't think about it most days

I don't obey without love
   that's in there somewhere
      that terrifies me because of His mercy
            and awes me
                because of His faithfulness

a place of reference
a road I'm still on
I have a home, wherever I am.
I will tell my story.
         

Elitism

                                                                                         anti-tank missiles by hisks
                                                                             

Hey, You know those proverbs?
You know they're really true?

Just never thought.

(But, I mocked, they probably refer to you.)

No! You know them!
They're just knot unlocked yet
Maybe life's knocks haven't
knocked the news loose yet.

But know it, Dude, the greatest kiss of
                    Truth this poem's stating

is that with the mirror that Wisdom holds

sparkles hope

the reflection's

creating.


singer britt nichole talks in WalMart spot about hope


 

It's All In the Question

I picked up some bread this Sunday at the church. It was after the sermon and I was in the bread room, just finishing loading bread graciously offered me by the ministry into several overnight bags.


Then it happened-it was one of those questions that kept coming back, wafting through my consciousness like a tissue in a haze, then suddenly sticking in my mind like when an electromagnet is turned on in the junkyard and tons of scrap metal bolts off the pile onto the magnet like a deer flushed from cover or a birdied putt that falls into the cup on the hushed first green.


"What are you going to do with all this bread?" asked the young man whose wife was busying herself, rightfully so, in a hands on way about the room, in those postures and nonverbals associated with discerning when the last of the patrons had left and when the real final one, me, would leave so the rest of the day could begin.


I don't know. I said something like " "I'm going to have some for us and freeze some and share some with--"


"Yeah, share some!"


"...with some people...ahem, yada yada (trailing off....).


"Well", he qualified, "It's all going to be thrown out anyway, so take all you want. Most of the people we help only want the sweets."



Of course his question was all wrapped up, all associated with the fact that I was a first time visitor. I'm a caregiver of a loved one with a cognitive disability. I show my love by planning things in advance. I did my groundwork over the phone this past Wednesday. I called the church and asked about handicapped access, possibly a separate room where the sermon is piped in like for a person with autism who may call out and disrupt the service and other questions I'm learning to ask. The person on the other end of the line offered to save me some bread. "If you come to the food pantry on Saturday there is a line. I can save the the wait and you can get it Sunday when you come to the service." I am learning to heed these kinds of recommendations. Sometimes an objective person who is not a caregiver is refreshingly insightful into making my job easier, and I am thankful for the kindness.


So questions matter, especially on first days.


I was there to get some much needed socialization and I was measuring my every response with what I felt would be in the realm of a normal flow of conversation. Kind of like a wanna-be Babbit.This was not something I had to do before I was a caregiver. Lately I have hung up the phone and thought "MediSKapt, you said WHAT??!!"


Maybe I needed to respond "Why do you ask, sir?" Which I had, already, in the the scope of this visit.
But not with this question.


As we rode the public transportation system home with my loved one, a view in which a passerby may have needed to look twice to discern whether all those bags hanging off that wheelchair meant that these people were either homeless or just shuttling through town temporarily loaded down, I kept thinking about that question.




Then I had the answer. Just like life, the answer was in a correlated question.


"Well man, a better question would be 'What am I going to do without this bread?"


That question I can answer. 


Yes,


God is Immense.


I thank God for that bread.

                               photo by: grngobstpr

Maybe He Sighed

Don't know whether God laughed or cried, or maybe He just sighed
All I know is life is hitting hard
like a bat making shards
of the spot I just vacated
the moment before...
can't say I stay-cated

Before,
Yes Before
C
-Tal
-o- Pram
hit the can in a million places around the nation
A million doctors just changed that bat-channel
A million patients just changed that bat-station
It's not a legacy med
There is no replacement
just the vacuum
no thought of just in case-ment

I heard the words from my loved one's Dr
he used the French
& he frequently opted
---not @ me
But the FDA
'Cause Citalapram was deep six, bro-
gone from the shelf
he knew that it meant trouble-
In denial, myself


I responded "Dude, that med keeps the cops out of my life!"
So he gave me the lowdown
me still the dull knife

Citalopram is axed from my med regimen
in three one week step-downs

Life would get interesting.

              photo by kjarman                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                               

2 weeks in...
it's about to hit the fan/ the chemicals in my loved one
and a new one just began

at 1/2 dose C-levels I'm analyzing the doctor's delivery much more closely
and I would have to give it an A
the balance of control had now bled from my side to my loved one's

Yeah, because you see my loved one is what they call a
Bad Dog patient
 Just really only want them to be themselves on occasion
and so complicated they make a Google earth view of Manhattan seem winsome
warts, rooftop water sheds, low resolution and then some.

Earlier in the day I came up the stairs to the front door
I was a few seconds too late i guess
or the spin cycle lasted a little longer than before
because I heard Boom...Boom...Boom...Splinter
as the living room window fell in fragments to the ground
three floors below

Stood there on the landing
Just shook my head and dug for my keys
felt a cool breeze
against my heating soul

My loved one kicked out the window.

So later on in the evening
Sun-downing time of evening
as my loved one wrestled past me and the
big round table placed to protect the bedroom window,
I decided to do a mental health assistant
"MHA" take down
asinine looking back
but at the time thinking "You're not going to destroy my house"

and we rolled around for an hour
My loved one biting to my face
scratching up my neck
brandishing the folding chair,
"...I'm gonna kill you, bit_ _!!" they said
because my loved one is my parent but they ain't no pushover

There ain't nothin' like wrestling
not lifting weights
not calisthenics
not King Fu

I was Jacob wrestling with the angel
except
I was wrestling
with a demon...

I wanted to call 9-1-1 but my cell phone was in three pieces
body, battery and back
don't ask me how
my loved one got the battery in their pocket

the volume from my loved one was on ten and the way they were screaming
I wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on
abusing the elderly and worse
and that I had cried wolf in the past so who would listen

we wiped the vinyl floor with our bodies for a long time before I was able to say to my loved one
"That guy was a real jerk, let me help you up"
only to realize the window was open
for all the neighbors to hear the episode

As the tens of minutes went by

in the trembling denouement

I found my glasses and 

realized the raspberries had seeped through my damp shirt and pants

As the tens of hours went by
I realized
that:

it's a whole lot easier just to take off your loved ones shoes when inside

Don't know whether God laughed or cried,
or maybe He just sighed

two people rolling around on the floor

full of fear

in the vacuum of a little pill

that cast a long, cooling shadow

                                                                                                            photo by yurdican
                                                                                                                                

This is where I live, friends.

It's hard for all of us.

This is why I write like this.

Maybe something that rhymes...

Sometimes only a song will do.


ps "C" now  dosed in  a shadow of it's former self- ed. 

The Curve

 I asked God to let me feel His care for me today.


     No matter how much it seems easy to believe that we are stuck in our routines of care giving, we have a choice. We choose every day to continue to  care for our loved ones, or not. We choose to continue to live in a disciplined way. We choose to continue to keep the schedule of care for our loved ones. I thought about the goodness of this truth. It imparted a renewed sense of appreciation for my decision to care for my loved one at home.
A patient's behavior swings on a curve. They cycle through moods, behavior we perceive as negative, different medications etc. and then return to a baseline. As the behavior changes we as caregivers may go through a grief process, feeling that we are losing hard earned ground. We may feel angry, hard-hearted or unwilling or unable to accept this new behavior from our patient. Our patient may have returned to an earlier baseline behavior or worse. We may have forgotten the interventions we used for that earlier baseline. The thought of returning to these older interventions may trigger further grief for the caregiver. Care giving is a two way street. When the patient swings into different behavior patterns we tend to swing into a responsive pattern.
     hopefulHEALTH means health first for the caregiver. We must maintain health for the duration of our assignment so that we can care for our loved one. We may be tempted to abort our assignment with the patient feeling that this new behavior from the patient will never change. We are unwilling to accept that thought. Then the patient's behavior swings back to their baseline. It may be because of a discontinued med that has worked out of the patients system. How many caregivers have given up and institutionalized their loved one during these swings? The patient is now at their normal baseline yet they are without the familiar care of their loved one. 

                                                 photo by gtrfrkbob


                                                        
     Then I considered in this scene:


    A businessperson in a suit  walks into a nursing facility. They are looking for someone. It is a cafeteria, and there is a sea of faces, bodies seated in their own worlds. They keep walking. It is a large room. The visitor passes more patients, more faces. It is a large crowd, and--There is their loved one. Just a number in the crowd. The visitor's mind spotlights their loved one's image, separating it from it's surroundings. Their loved one's gestures that only the visitor understands are ignored, unappreciated- their verbal and non verbal communication misunderstood. Their clothes don't match. They are not wearing their favorite colors. Time stands still as the loved one is observed. The visitor approaches and the loved one lifts their face to see the visitor. Their eyes light up and their face breaks into the dawn of a smile. "Oh, boy!" they say.
    The businessperson leans over and removes the tray from the chair and loosens the belt restraint. The loved one has not been properly bathed. Their hair has not been combed. They are not groomed; they have no lip balm, no fragrance.


 The visitor has made a decision. 


The businessperson helps his loved one to their  feet and they walk out of there,


Forever.


They are going home.

                                                      photo by mulligand
                                                            
     I feel deeply moved as I regard this thought, immersed in  it's meaning. I feel a strength twisting through me. Later in the day I considered this was part of an answer to prayer. God's Spirit was revealing Christ's beauty and justice.
     My loved one has not been a resident of a long term or mental health facility. Yet, this vision affirmed me.
  If you have decided that long term care is not the best fit for your loved one bring them home from the assisted living or nursing facility.


  Sometimes I feel a nagging emotion that I am neglecting my loved one just working up in here on this blog.


Whether our loved one is at home or in a facility,


we have the power of decision.