Chet’s Chatter

Being punished?

Posted on 19 July 2006 @ 15:24 in Stress Busters

Looks like it!

|

Hellooooooooooo

Posted on 19 July 2006 @ 06:51 in Stress Busters

My friend somesai has done it again – taken another great shot of Tai.

Doesn’t he look like he knows someone is taking his picture?

|

Irresistible

Posted on 17 July 2006 @ 18:32 in Stress Busters

Can anyone refuse this little face?

I can’t.

|

Conversations with Mother

Posted on 17 July 2006 @ 18:28 in Family

Mother: “This is wet …”
Me: “Yes, mother, it’s soup you’re drinking.”

Mother: “Listen, I have something to tell you.”
Me: “Okay.”
longish pause …

Me: “You have something to tell me?”
Mother: “Wait, I tell you afterwards.”

Which she never did. But I’m used to it by now.

|

A Date with Mother

Posted on 15 July 2006 @ 09:06 in Family

It’s Saturday again, and I’ll be seeing mother in a few hours.

I visit her most Saturdays, and most Sundays, too. Some days I can’t make it, and it upsets me when I can’t. I usually end each visit telling mother that I would be visiting again soon. If it’s Saturday, I tell her I’ll be seeing her the next day. If it’s Sunday, I tell her I’ll be seeing her the next week. For the latter, she would sometimes ask “why so long?” and then I would explain that I have to work during the week and it’s too late to visit after work. But then sometimes, I surprise her when I show up during the week in the evening. I surprise myself, too.

It upsets me when I can’t visit her, like last Sunday. I feel like I’m breaking a promise, especially because I tell her I’ll be seeing her the next day, or the next week. But then I can’t always visit. It’s not a perfect world, and I’m definitely not perfect.

In a perfect world, I would have mother living with me, a maid to care for her while I’m out at work.

It should be easy, getting a maid. That’s the norm these days – go to the shopping malls and you’ll see families with maids in tow. The maids are usually hired to look after the children, but increasingly, they are hired to look after the elderly. My Sai Goo (father’s younger sister) is blind and wheelchair bound and has a maid to look after her. She is fortunate in that she gets on with the maid and the maid takes good care of her.

But we have to remember that a maid is a person, too, human like us. If I can’t take care of my mother, why should I expect another person to do it, and especially a stranger, someone far from home? It would be unfair to leave her with my mother for at least 8 hours a day during the week. The maid would need relief, too, from having to face an old lady suffering from dementia. And without such relief, who’s to know what she does to mother? No one around to see what goes on while I’m away at work.

I think we’ve found the ideal alternative to a live-in maid for mother – a nursing home with a team of care-givers so it’s not one person given the task of looking after one old lady, but a team who rotates duty and have one another for support.

Mother was initially a daycare resident at GT Heritage. We put her there during the day rather than have her stay home alone while father was out running errands and whatnots. Then when she fractured her wrist and we couldn’t keep up with her at home, especially at night when she would be up and walking around the house, up and down the stairs, we made the decision to let her stay at GT Heritage full-time. By that time, the home had converted from being a daycare to a full-fledged full-time nursing home. The timing was right. And because she had been there for about a year, she was familiar with the care-givers and settled in much easier and faster than if we had let her stay at a new nursing home.

I always look forward to seeing mother, especially her face breaking into a big, big smile when she sees it’s me. She does not often remember my name (except when she needs my attention and then she calls out my name clearly) but her smile tells me she knows who I am.

Saturday afternoon is family time with mother. My sister and her son would also visit at the same time, so there would be three of us keeping her company. And then my brother would call from Singapore and she would chat with him. Most times she does not make sense over the phone (increasingly, it seems she has problems “connecting” to a voice without a face), but sometimes she’s surprisingly clear and would have a good chat with him. Even tho they may be talking about different things, we make that phone call a part of her regular Saturday afternoon routine.

The care-givers have told us she is one of the easiest residents to care for. She always has a smile for them and willingly lets them help her. She knows to thank them and to raise her right thumb to show them “well done” .

It’s not the perfect solution, but it works for us.

Sunday afternoon at GT Heritage

|