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.