Do you have professional carers come into your home to help you? I work on The Parkinson magazine and am looking for people to tell us how they got used to having people come in to help.
What was this like at first and how did you prepare for it? Do you have any tips for people who might be nervous about letting others in to help?
It would be great to hear your thoughts. Post here or email me on [email protected]
To be honest it feels like my husband is having an affair. So hard seeing young girls doing all the personal care for him everything I used to do is being done by someone else. Also i feel redundant not needed. And on a selfish note my house is not my home any more
Hi Jzygirl,
How do you cope with these feelings? Did you expect to feel this way? You can message me on [email protected] if you'd rather.
Best,
Vicky
We don't have them on a regular basis but needed them recently for around 2 months on a short term basis because of an additional problem.
There were supposed to be two sets of carers on a 4 days on, and 4 days off basis. What a laff!
There was only one constant carer out of the 4. The rest were randoms and we never knew, and they never said, who was coming the next day. The randoms turned up at any time; they walked into our home as if they owned the place and often did not even give the courtesy of their name or a ring of the bell before they came in.
I asked a couple of the randoms if they knew what the situation was and they had not even been informed that OH had Parkinsons and now a dislocated shoulder. For some of them I had to supervise how they handled the situation as I had been without help for almost 2 weeks before they arrived on the scene and had, in my own way,developed strategies to get OH out of bed, downstairs, washed, dressed, etc.
Frankly, the lack of communication to the carers about what they should and should not do, OH was stapped up and the strapping could not come off at all, was abyssmal. Most were young girls, not acceptable when you are dealing with a man and undertaking personal care.
Their record keeping was also attrocious, stating things such as, OH was in the bedroom when I arrived, when in fact, due to their late arrival, OH was actually downstairs and having breakfast.
I dread the day when we may need their services again.
Very surprised that there have not been more replies to this thread.
It's something that the quarterly magazine should address, IMO.
i am hoping that having carers coming in is going to be a temporary thing. we have got them for six weeks and hopefully OH will be more mobile and we wont need them.At the moment it takes two people to get him into and out of bed and into and out of his chair. but for the rest of the time its just me on my own and yes i manage him ok. For the 1st two weeks they was on time 7am and 7pm. after that we've a no show a late show and last night they was here at 6:30 to put him to bed so after he was in bed i had to sit him up to take his 7pm meds. and tonight i was sitting in my lounge at 6:40 chatting to OH and i thought i heard something in the hallway when i got up to investigate it was a carer she had used the key safe and let herself in without knockings or anything. yet they know he lives at home with his wife. if i ask them to do something a particular way the seem to look at me as if I'm mad and i don't really want to start telling them that not only do i know my OH better then them i am also nvq trained carer. roll on getting my home back i do feel like an unwanted visitor when they come in
previous post vanished ......... briefly..... lack of response due to hardy knowing where to start to describe the idiocy of what goes on not to mention the sheer danger. We could all write a book
“I dread the day when we may need their services again.” Posted by me Aug 2014.
That day arrived 10 weeks ago when OH was discharged from hospital after 101 days! I tried numerous agencies as I had to have a definite care package in place before discharge as we use direct payments. Many kept telling me to ring back each week to see if they had ‘capacity’ for care.
The fact that the present agency could say that they would definitely provide care whenever the discharge date was and provide same sex carers was a bonus. I walked each one of them around the routine for the first 3 weeks and things settled well.
Now, we have new carers coming who have no idea what to do and I spend the time showing them the ropes.
The call times were not great and I was promised that, as soon as they had a more suitable slot, they would change from their 10.15 am and 8.15 pm calls to something more appropriate to our lifestyle. OH is only in their 60’s! I now know that 8.15 pm is their latest call!
They also though that they could just walk in regardless of the fact they know that I was here, so now the front door is open BUT the porch door has a security lock and they have to ring for access. It’s our home!!! We have a key safe but they have not been given the code and never will be as long as I am able to get to the front door. Same with district nurses who expect to just walk in!!!
Needless to say I am looking elsewhere.
Anyone experienced the same?
