So far there's just a mind blowing amount to learn and it's a bit overwhelming but I can do it.
eclectica
Thursday, 10 July 2025
Pete's Post
So far there's just a mind blowing amount to learn and it's a bit overwhelming but I can do it.
Tuesday, 1 July 2025
2025 week 27
My contract ended yesterday and on the same day, my request for redeployment resulted in being offered a role as an administration assistant in an aged care centre. It will be just 16 hours a week but full time in the first week while I'm being trained. I start next week so I have four days off to try getting my head around life.
With mum in hospital I wasn't going to be having a holiday but I'm a bit disappointed there's no time to catch my breath. I'm grateful to have a job but I just hoped for a break.
I toured the aged care place mum wants to go to today. It was ok but not amazing. They have a room available but mum's discharge from hospital is too distant and uncertain for us to accept the offer.
Everything feels sad and it's been raining all day. A friend of mine forgot we had a coffee date. My gut told me she would.
Saturday, 28 June 2025
2025 Week 26
About six weeks ago the mid-north coast of NSW had what was called an extreme weather event, a very large amount of rain leading to one in 500 year flooding.
I had many requests to go and help but of course, there were other things taking my time and attention.
Nine days after dad's funeral, I headed off to Taree on a volunteer deployment. The following day I had a phone call to say Mum had been unable to get off the toilet all night (9pm-11am)
I regularly call to check on her but her phone answering can be hit and miss so it might have taken several more hours before I realised there was a real problem. As it happened, a nurse going to shower her found her and insisted she was transported to hospital, where she is still.
Mum is 82 with heart failure, disability, frailty of age, a cancer history and some cognitive impairment so it becomes complicated.
In hospital her meds were changed and that caused her to retain fluid, her heart was really struggling and a UTI caused delirium.
I was away up the coast thinking she was just getting checked over and held in hospital while an aged care bed was organised. Despite several calls to the hospital and many messages to my siblings, I didn't know how bad it was and got rather a shock to get home to a frail and confused mum on oxygen.
The one good part of all this is that she will not be allowed to return home and the system will ensure that she has no choice but to go into care, something the family and her care team have all wanted for some time.
Fourteen hours of attempting to get off the toilet hurt mums elbows so that she is unable to feed herself. Tonight I was at the hospital to make sure she had help with her dinner and in a room of four patients, there were three middle aged daughters there to make sure their confused parents were fed.