Help
I seemed to spend the entire day yesterday on the telephone.
It got so bad that at one stage I was talking to different people at the same time, on the landline and my mobile.
Nearly all the calls were related to Herself and the amount of caring I can provide. The fact that I have been providing it for the last few years seems to have escaped them. I had calls from nurses and doctors. I had calls from physiotherapists and occupational therapists. I also had to field calls from an agency who provides home help. They all gave me numbers [except the doctor!] and I’m to call them any time of day or night. The only problem is that the list is now very long and I can’t remember who does what.
Now they all had one thing in common – they want to give me help. The common thread to a lot of the calls was that they wouldn’t accept that the amount of help they currently provide [an hour, two days a week] was more than sufficient. They once tried giving a help seven days a week a while ago, which just meant I was having to set my alarm daily to let her in. And once she was in, she generally did fuck all. They are insisting I get help seven days a week again, while I’m insisting it would be more of a hindrance that a help.
I eventually managed to convince them that if Herself needed help it was generally at random times day or night and that the needs couldn’t be scheduled to a definite hour of the day. So If they wanted to go down that route it would require a team of live-in nurses who would do shifts.
That shut them up.
Another thing they went on about is the amount of equipment I have, or rather the equipment they think I haven’t. They would happily tell me I needed this and that, and I would happily tell them that I already had this and that and the garage was rapidly filling up with spare stuff.
There was just one item them mentioned that I don’t have. It’s a sort of wheeley trolley type of yoke which apparently they are using on Herself in the hospital. I told them I didn’t have room for the fucking thing. It arrived today and I have nowhere to put it. It’s fucking big and really fucking heavy so I don’t know what to do with it. I looked it up online and found one for sale – â¬1,600! It’s no wonder the health service is in trouble?
I did play with it for a bit and tried to convince Penny to act as a crash test dummy.
She wasn’t interested.
Try on the cat?
Hah! Haven't seen the little bugger in ages…
Nothing like getting more help than you need.
Is the trolley thing basically a padded chair on (electrically powered) wheels* that you control with a joy stick? if so, it has a rather huge marine type gel cell battery plus two electric motors. If it's the smaller type with a hard plastic seat then it has a much smaller battery. The latter is also extremely uncomfortable.
*You might notice that I didn't give in to my first urge to write, "electric chair on powered wheels…".
Are you suggesting one of those types could be modified to cut the grass at the Manor?
… such as a lawnmower?
Unfortunately it relies on human power – nothing electric at all. Otherwise I would strip it down to see if I could make something useful out of it…..
… such as a lawnmower?
“ … they all had one thing in common – they want to give me help”
Now, wasn’t it Ronald Reagan who said that the most frightening nine words in the English language are: “We’re from the Government, and we’re here to help.” ?? Avoid at all costs!
The problem is that the SARS-CoV-2 crisis has emptied the hospitals of all but those with the virus and there is nothing for most of the staff to do except make phone calls.