Year 2 Milestone

When my mother died two years ago, I made a commitment to do everything possible to keep my father safe and healthy. We just hit the 2-year mark, and I'm so proud of Sid for making the best of things. We will celebrate his 93rd birthday next week with a giant platter of spaghetti and meatballs for his friends.

I've been busy networking, training and learning about patient advocacy. I became semi-employed (thank you Suzanne for the tip) as an on-call advocate for a local retirement community. I assist residents with medical appointments and ER visits when family members are not located nearby - the situation I faced for years; however this kind of help wasn't available. I have 4 months left of school; I'm enjoying it and submit homework from all over the world. I'm creating a website for kazadvocate.com (Kaz is my Aussie nickname, thank you Meg).

This past week I went through 14 hours of training on dementia, delirium and depression - which turned out to be more enjoyable than you might imagine. I got lost trying to find the meeting room, which I considered my pre-test. Some fun facts:

• People with dementia often can't recognize the color white, it appears as vacant space. Therefore health workers wearing white uniforms appear to have floating heads. White toilets look missing, there’s nowhere to pee. No wonder they're agitated.
• When you ask someone what they had for breakfast, the depressed person will say “I don’t remember.” When you ask people with dementia, they may say “I never had breakfast” to compensate.
• Ghosts are common in facilities. Staff will see the deceased late at night sitting in their favorite chairs in the dining hall. Residents see prior occupants in the mirrors of their rooms.

I donated blood this morning to honor Mom's birthday, now my annual tradition. It's usually no big deal, but today I had a bad reaction. I sensed her hovering nearby; she still wants to be part of the action. Despite the discomfort, I liked having her take care of me.