Long-term care; providing care, long-term – It makes a little more sense if you say it that way: Providing care, long-term.
And since this has turned into quite the conversation, let’s converse! Last week, I said:
“The people who know the MOST about ‘long-term care’ are caregivers – People who took care of people who needed to be taken care of, whether they liked it or not. Most of us have been, are or will be ‘caregivers’, or we’ve at least been close enough to it to see it…” The point being that we could learn a lot about this “long-term care thing” (most of which is provided at home) by just learning from that experience.
While I still believe that to be absolutely true, I must also accept responsibility for the fact that I probably caused a lot of past and present caregivers to have a gastric event: “WHAT?! I didn’t have the remotest idea what I was doing, and I still don’t! I’m making it up as I go along! And it sure would’ve been nice if someone had come along and sent me to Caregiver Boot Camp, cuz I’ve screwed-up so much stuff, it’s scary! Did you hear me, Harvey? – I’m making it up as I go along!!!!!”
I know. You’re replaying, in your heads, the times that you almost dropped him or you messed-up the meds or you knew what the doctor said, but not what he meant, or didn’t know that you couldn’t do that without this document or JUST WANTED TO KILL HER!!!!!!!!! Or, or or…
And every day, there’s something new that you didn’t know, but feel like you should have known. Or you were just going so fast, that you didn’t realize that if you did this, then that would happen! And you beat yourself up about your hopeless stupidity and raging incompetence, then I come along and say, “Learn from these people” – WHAT?!
I know, because here’s something I know: Caregiving is not a perfect science; well, unless you’re a “pro” and you do this for a living in a perfect institution and are trained to the hilt and supported by nurses and everything goes perfectly everyday and no other caregivers ever get sick and don’t show up and there are never any surprises and…You know what that sounds like? Yeah, so do I…
…and that’s not where most long-term care “happens.”
Most long-term care happens in imperfect homes, where imperfect people are trying to provide perfect care to imperfect people who need perfect care on an imperfect planet, so my prediction is that things will go perfectly imperfectly, and it’s scary-as-Hell if you’re the caregiver; yet, this is what most of us say we want?? Care at home?? Are we stupid??
Maybe, but more likely, we’re just human – And imperfection is all we’ve ever known.
Our lives, from Day 1, have been all about imperfection – That’s what gives it its color, its flavor – Its memories and its laughter – And the stories that end with “…THAT was close!”
Yeah, it was.
If we all held hands and toured 100 different homes (apartments, mobiles, yurts, whatever) to view and evaluate the “delivery of long-term care,” what we’d see is 100 different ways of doing it. If we were smart, we’d make some notes about some of the incredibly creative things we saw – And we’d probably be appalled by some of the things we saw! – And in some of those appalling yurts, we’d see care receivers who were perfectly happy…
…well, OK: IMperfectly happy; because caregiving – LONG-TERM CARE – Is not a perfect science.
And my point is…?
Simply that, should you ever need long-term care, it isn’t going to be perfect; thus, our trying to prepare for long-term care isn’t going to be perfect, either – There is no “right way.”
There never is.
Look around, learn, think, read, ask questions, imagine strategies, play “what if” and prepare the best you can, but don’t spend your time wasting your time living in fear of tomorrow – What are you going to do? Be scared-to-death to get up and get cabbage for munchies for fear of falling? Rent a room at the hospital? Wall your daughter into her bedroom, so she’ll be there to take care of you? Rent an apartment over a pharmacy?
Come on! No, you’re not! And neither am I. What we are going to do is the same thing that most of us have always done: The best we can.
The best we can to learn, think and prepare, while understanding that tea leaves and tarot cards won’t show us what we think we want to know: Tomorrow. We think we want to know how the story is going to end.
…but we really don’t; because if we did…?
What would have been the point of the story?
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