Limitations

Wow, what a 24 hours. I have been pushed to the limits of what I thought that I could do and have made it, but it's not over yet. My mother-in-law had been in the hospital for 2 1/2 weeks because of a infection in her leg. Well, yesterday she was released for Home Health - which also means that she had to have somewhere to stay as she can not get around by herself. The logical place was our house, so as of yesterday I have a house guest and medical patient. The hard part is she was discharged with nothing - no directions, no wheel-chair or other things necessary to care for a women who can not get around by herself. I spent yesterday trying to get a wheelchair so that we can get her to the bathroom and to bed at night, trying to find a toliet exstention so that she does not have to get up from so far down, and trying to figure out how I was going to pick up someone who is much heavier than me. I reached the point of exhaustion and was very overwhelmed and close to tears for much of the evening. But we now have a wheelchair, and toilet set up that she can use and not get stuck on (that's a whole other story), a intercom so that she can call us in the night when she needs to go to the bathroom, and a special belt that you put around the patient so that you can help them stand up. We are working on getting physical therapy to help her get the strength back into her leg, but no luck on that one yet. I am getting into a routine of caring for her, although that will have to include an earlier bedtime so I won't wear out from getting woke up in the middle of the night. I know that we need to do this to help her, and I am grateful to a friend that has stepped in to help out. Things are getting easier and we'll make it one day and one step at a time.