I bought a Hallmark card the other day because it struck me it was an accurate representation of what was going in my life.

Card cover: Big orange tabby cat sitting and staring at the spin cycle occurring in the washing machine.

Text on front: “Sometimes it feels like we’ve hit the “Spin-Cycle” of life…”

Text on inside: “This too shall pass!  But until it does – praying the stress will be cling free! 

I can so relate to that.  You haven’t seen a blog from me in awhile because I’ve been in spin-cycle mode.   (Pretend what I’m writing below is in a three-column chart but I’m giving you the first two columns first …that of “up” and then “down.”)

The nurse was out sick so I had no help for a few days and lost my  ”me” time. This in turn set me back a week. I in turn caught the virus and lost all energy for several days to keep up with normal routine.

On one day they sent over an aide.  Great idea!  Awesome!  But the aid that demanded we get rid of our dogs, messed up putting away our dishes and followed that up with adding one full cup of soap to the wash even though I told her I would do that.  Fortunately I was able to catch the last error in the middle of things and put it on rinse cycle.

Last year I was in my first car accident ever, followed a few months later by a fender bender.  The auto insurance company is now dropping me because according to them I’m accident prone.

I was so proud of myself, I finally got the spelling corrected on our daughter’s birth certificate (after three years), only to found out that there are new stumbling blocks with getting her name on her social security correctly reflected as well.

The power chair…ha ha ha ha ha..the insurance company was just as frustrated as I was at the lack of urgency at getting my husband’s only means of mobility fixed.  So they called and a company came out.  There are some things to be fixed (You think?!) and they are going to do a tune-up (after I reminded them that it needed to be done too.  The chair will be gone for a week and they already have a bill for us.  The chair is under warranty and insurance actually covers part of this.  I’m pushing for no costs because of the chutzpah it has taken to get the $30K equipment fixed!

It is awesome to be home for all three of us instead of constantly being at the hospital.  However we are all getting “stir crazy” to get out but can’t because we have no money and no equally accommodating transportation to do so.  Our daughter (bless her heart) yesterday had it so bad…that it was her day to find every single “button” to push on Mommy and Daddy.

Emergency Preparedness: I do have some food and medical supplies stocked up in the event something happens.  Yet,  even though we are in another state, I can’t get my husband downstairs from a tornado because there’s no way for him to access it.  I still don’t know if he’s on the priority list for electricity  failure as he can’t sweat and I need to maintain temperature stability.  If there was a fire in one specific spot in our home – he’s trapped.

Let’s go back to “up”!

Sick nurse is no longer sick and we are all very happy that he’s back. Including the nurse!  Now if we could just get him some back-up so he doesn’t get burnt out from working so hard.  Nurses need caregiving too!  –Honestly we love the nurse we have.  It is the first time in almost six years that we have had a nurse last longer then three months with us…he been with us over a year now!

It was very sweet of the agency to send over the aide to help while the nurse was out sick.  That is more important to me then the aide herself.  We’ve generally not had good luck with aides…but there was a good one that they had sent previously …she just couldn’t work that day.

Both my husband and I know that I’m not “accident prone” so we’re finding another company to go with.  Guess they don’t need the money in this economy.  Easy come – easy go!

The Social Security card for our daughter can be fixed.  After spending a 1/2 hour on the phone with a very nice rep from Social Security I finally found out that I can use a naming certificate from our Rabbi as her second piece of ID. (That’s cool!  I didn’t know there was such a thing!)

Power chair:  Hey! It’s only taken us almost 4 months to get to this point.  Last time it took over a year.  The batting average is getting better!

Family: So my hubby and I sat down and had two one-hour chats about how to change things.  We decided that he could get ready for bed earlier so that I could go to bed earlier, getter a better night’s rest and thus enable me to wake up earlier. (What do ya know?  It worked! ..this morning!) He and I further decided that with the exception possibly of Sundays from now on our daughter will have no access to tv or computer until her school work is done.  (Side step…our daughter we’ve figured out is really bright…but because of Georgia law and birth-dates she wasn’t old enough to go to school last year. So we are informally coming up with school type activities to try to at least keep her busy.)  This TV/computer rule came about because she was challenging us (even though we were already using a point system…)and not observing the rules.  She woke up a few minutes ago and I was firm…no school – no tv/computer.  She wasn’t happy but she is not fighting us. Yeah for Mom and Dad!  For her..we are going to start taking her once a month to the following activities: hardware store for monthly childrens activity; McD’s to play for an hour with other kids and the library/bookstore for childrens activity.

Emergency Preparedness:  Rather then depending and expecting that society will have services that I need for my husband in a disaster, I am very active in Emergency Preparedness with respects to equal accessibility to emergency management design for the disabled, elderly and indigent communities. So I now sit in on 4 committees and make it a point to just learn tons on the subject while handing out what I’ve learned or come across to contacts up and down the east coast.  I am also now writing an emergency preparedness article once a month.  Speaking of:  have you ever thought of what you as a caregiver need to know for your loved one in an earthquake?  Please consider “ShakeOut” [http://www.shakeout.org    or  http://www.shakeout.org/centralus].  Tuesday, February 7 at 10:15am you can participate in an earthquake drill.  Even if you don’t actually participate…please take a few minutes to discuss/think/plan about yourself and your loved one if an earthquake occurred.  I participated in the one in October and learned a lot…Oh! and I just noticed on their main site that there is now a .pdf guide on the lower left hand column for People with Disabilities and Access and Functional Needs.  With Valentines coming up thinking of your loved one should include disaster preparedness too!

Thankfully I have managed to be “cling free”...good thing I’m allergic to those sheets both in reality and figuratively!

Have a Happy today!

The Roaring Mouse

PS.  My husband’s response upon hearing this blog:  ”Where’s the dryer now that the spin cycle is done?“

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