Snowbirds Living in the Philippines : The Daily Struggles of Two Caregivers

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Daily Struggles of Two Caregivers

In my first posting about Caregivers, I emphasized that caregivers must have a break or help from others to prevent burning out. In this article I will describe in detail what my daily activities are and how I manage not to burn out. The second story is a conversation of myself and another caregiver of how she manages her life and at the same time taking care of her husband. She will remain anonymous for privacy reasons

One of my primary duties as the primary caregiver for my wife who has Parkinson's Disease is to help her take her medications on time. The second item is to insure she take balance meals and reminds her of her daily exercises. If its a good and sunny day, we will take a short walk around the house perhaps from 5 to 10 minutes depending in how she feels that day.

My wife needs help dialing the phone and putting on the TV. In the morning she is sometimes weak before she takes her medications. Later on in the afternoon, she feels better and will try to help me cook dinner. Before I know it is time to bed. This daily routine is only interrupted by our twice a month trip to the Casinos and Dinner. Her monthly beauty shop and quarterly trip to two doctors-a GP and a neurologist is another break in our daily routine. There are times when she feels like going to church or to the Filipino store after church, otherwise we attend mass in Television every Sunday. My son who lives with us and works full time help me takes care of his Mom on his day off. Without my son's help, I probably would have burn out by now. In between my care giving duties, I manage maintaining my blogs, writing activities, and play computer games(bridge) for my own mental health.

The following is a FB conversation between myself and a long long time friend who is also the primary caregiver to her husband suffering from a rare neurological disorder. For the sake of privacy I will just call her FBM and her husband Steve( not his real name)

"Hi Dave, Just started a while ago face booking and I saw your message. I am sorry I was not able to respond to you soon today. Great to be able to contribute on your new article about caregivers. Being a nurse helps me a lot understanding the medical "lingo" thrown at me whenever I take Steve to the doctors. Taking care of Steve and understanding his illness are challenging but I can handle them.

The hardest part I went through and is still is, is making decisions for every day problems, whether I should do this or do that without getting a second opinion from somebody I trust. I guess I was afraid to make a mistake then and even up to now with my decision making. An example is our rental house, which I am debating whether to upgrade the bathrooms and the flooring; will I have to increase the rent and how much? I guess we grew up in our culture that expects the man/husband to do the decision making for the family and that's how I got used to.

So, since Steve became ill, I have to learn fast and do all the decision making. Reading books, navigating the internet, talking with friends are my resources to increase my knowledge on problems/issues I have to solve.

Praying also helps me a lot to ease the burden of making a decision. Since I am able to leave Steve alone for 2-3 hours, I can see my friends for lunch or go do my errands which is a great therapy for me.I walk everyday as much as possible for half an hour for health reason. I still do the housework but I am not over zealous in keeping our house neat, tidy and clean.

I hired a gardener and a pool cleaner when Steve started to get sick so that has been a big help for me. My oldest son and family live closely so if in emergency I can call him or his wife to help me out. Just this week, my daughter in-law took my car to Modesto for front power window repair. I have a handy man who helps me fix little things in the house. I enjoy reading articles about caregivers and I know your article will be a good one for me to read once you have finished it. I hope my little contribution may add a little insight to your project. Love and regards to Macrine."

My response: Hi FBM, thank you so much for your reply. Your detailed response is much appreciated. I think, I will make a separate article on this. I will not mentioned your name, but your personal experience will be helpful to others who are in your situation. Again may I reiterate that as a caregiver, we should not forget to take care of ourselves otherwise we will burn out.

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Joys of Retirement

I have been retired from USFDA since 2002. At first, I feel I have lost my identity as an individual or have lost my contribution to society. However, within a few weeks all these feelings were gone. It started when my wife and I started baby sitting one of our grandchildren. As some economics professor states: "Your children are your capital investments, but your grandchildren are your profits. That is why you love your grandchildren more than your children". I really agree with the statement. Retirement also gives you lots of time to do things you like to do, such as your hobbies and of course travel. In my case, I turned my hobby of gardening and landscaping into a small business in the Philippines. This endeavor was planned about five years before 2002. That year my wife and I started construction of our retirement home in Boac, Marinduque , Philippines. The next year we built a beach house, followed by a Conference Hall two years later. Needless to say, planning and executing the landscaping was a challenge and very enjoyable. With the help of local labor, I not only enjoy the time gardening and landscaping, but also help improved the economic situation of the province by providing work and jobs to the local residents. With plenty of time, I have engaged into two specific activities as follows: First, I created a website for my small business. By trial and error, I created and design the website, www.chateaudumer.com I have never been a computer nerd or expert. But with plenty of time and patience, the fruits of my labor could be enjoyed if you visit the website above. The second activity, I have not done before was to utilize on-line activities, such as shopping, paying bills ( save you stamps) and playing computer games in the Internet. I really enjoyed playing duplicate bridge on line. You play with players all over the world and can chat in between games. But be careful, you are not spending too much time in the computer. It is very addictive. With a lots of time, my wife and I devoted more time on our favorite humanitarian project. For the last 15 years, we have been involved with medical mission to the province of Marinduque. For details please visit the website: www.marinduqueinternational.org As a summary, the joy one gets on retirement is very specific for an individual. Some enjoy their free time by learning new activities, getting involved with humanitarian projects or spending more time with their grandchildren. Others hate it, since they missed their former jobs and co-workers. Others with no children still enjoy retirement by traveling, turning their hobbies into business or more community involvement. Of course those that retire and hate it, is believe to die earlier than those that enjoy their retirement years. So, plan your retirement as early as you can. The happier you are on retirement, the longer you will live.