It’s Friday, so let’s share some funnies. What’s a humorous experience that’s happened to you in your caregiving role? It could be something that happened years ago or just yesterday, as long as today it makes you giggle. We’ll giggle with you.
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Tags: humor
One day I came home from work and the caregiver who took care of mom for a few months (while I worked), was smiling at me. I understood why. There was mom with the dog’s fun basket, stuffing dog toys down her pants. Her pants literally were bulging with balls, stuffed squeaky toys and a giant snake squishy. She saw me and sat down with a loud protesting squeak from one of the stuffed hedgehogs and continued to stuff more toys.
“Mom,” I asked her. “Why are you stuffing all the dog toys down your pants?”
“Well…” she thought for a second. “Why not?”
I had to admit, she had me there.
In late August we met my siblings at a motel for a time of family fellowship. Although we are not Catholics, as one of the things to do together we decided to visit a local convent. The architecture was beautiful. We had checked it out ahead of time for handicap accessibility. At one point in the tour, however, the tour guide said to me, “Do you mind, if I push your husband for the next part of the tour?” I said that was fine. Soon we arrived at a little step. Before we knew what she was doing the tour guide lady whipped my husband’s wheel chair way back and then bounced down the step. We were all standing there in shock hoping my husband didn’t fall out. Later on she said she had been a nurse for 48 years, so she knew what she was doing. After the incident we all had a good laugh about this Hercules type spunky woman.
My dad, who passed away in July of 2003, had Parkinson’s Disease, Dementia/Sundowners and had lost the majority of his eyesight due to strokes in the vessels behind his eyes. My dad had always been the jack of all trades, he was a learned mechanic and all around fix it guy. Parkinson, dementia and loss of eyesight didn’t stop him. He loved being on the roof, under the house and always outside messing with tools, lawnmowers and what not. One day he recruited my boys, who were probably 10 and 6, at that time, to go help him that he wanted to check something under the house. They were his eyesight. My younger son came in about 30 minutes later, he and Grandpa had bumped heads and Grandpa sent him in the house. My son told me I wasn’t gonna like what Grandpa was doing. I was helping my mom do something when he came in, so about 10 or 15 minutes later I went outside to see what was going on. OMG. My dad had my son working on the plumbing under the house. I could smell it as soon as I walked out the backdoor. I went over to the crawl space and yelled for David, my son, he was already on his way out and when I saw him I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I could not believe my eyes. He and my dad looked like people I did not know. David was just shaking his head and my dad was cussing up a storm. I laughed so hard when my dad came out of there, all I could see was the whites of my daddy’s eyes!!!
Such cute stories!
I enjoyed the chuckles. Like Lillie, my senior dad also had Parkinson’s Disease and he fought back hard as well. For 14 years he managed to stay quite active, walking daily. As the second major downturn took its toll, he finally had to move to a walker, and then to a wheelchair. Still determined to be as active as possible, he creatively devised a way to swing his great-granddaughter even though he couldn’t stand. He took a rope, tied it to the swings, sat in his chair a ways away and pulled on that rope. We watched and shared her delighted laughter as he was able to keep her swinging for the longest time. My mom and I still enjoy the smiles and chuckles from that wonderful memory – six years later! 
Kaye – @SandwichINK´s last blog ..Seniors Staying Busy Having Fun
I am a full time caregiver to both my parents, 82 and 83 years old. We had an apointment about 45 minutes away from home. When the apointment was over, we loaded in the car and drove towards home. My dad loves to stop for ice-cream so we went directly to our favorite place. I popped the hatch and surprised by what wasn’t there… called up to my dad, “dad, where’s your walker?!” I couldn’t believe it! I’d left it in the parking lot! He is completely dependent on it! I got the ice-cream to go, dropped them off at home ( we have a spare walker, thank goodness) and then made the trek back to retrieve the forgotten walker. It was a good laugh!
I have another “edandkathyism” to share. I took my mom to a warehouse style shoe store and dropped her off while I ran next door for another quick errand. When I came back I found her sitting on a bench surrounded by single shoes. “honey,” she says “can you go find all the matches to these?” she had taken all of the samples! I had to rummage through all the rows and closed boxes to find the matching style and mates!
Thank you all so much for sharing your stories. They each gave me the giggles.
We’ll share funnies again next Friday. Enjoy your holiday weekend!