A Caregiver’s Holiday Letter

Every year as holiday greeting cards begin to arrive, you probably receive a few annual letters that give you a chance to read about your friends’ and relatives’ lives–the awards and promotions, the fabulous vacations, the fancy new homes and shiny cars, the adulation that school and community heap upon the children.

Maybe when you read these letters you feel your own life is somewhat less glamorous. Maybe you would write a different kind of annual letter–if only you had the time.

Well, fear not, caregivers: CaregivingBlog is here for you. Write your own holiday missive next year by using the letter template I’ve given you below. You can make the little changes you need–a quick addition here, a deletion or substitution there–and be good to go in no time.

Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa 2008

Dear family and friends,

Holiday greetings to all. I know you’ve been terribly busy, which is probably why Mom and I don’t hear from you much. Still, I thought you’d be interested in the news from our corner of the world as another year draws to a close.

Mom had to stop driving this year, and I had a heck of a time getting the car keys away from her. I hated to do it, but the third fender bender in four months was the last straw. Mom gave me a few days of sulking and the silent treatment but finally came around. On the plus side, the money from the sale of the car helped a lot with medical and prescription costs that Medicare and the so-called supplemental insurance won’t touch. I don’t know what we’ll sell next year, but we’ll worry about that then.

Also, with Mom’s car gone, I can park in the garage again! You may think that’s a small thing, but try not being able to use your own garage for a year or two. See how you feel about it after a year of bringing in groceries in the rain.

Speaking of groceries, you may have heard about Mom’s collapse in the grocery store last spring. At the time I was afraid it was another congestive heart episode. She was in the hospital for a few days before her doctors figured out what happened, and I had kind of a hard time getting them to talk to me at all. It turns out we waited too long to take care of the medical power of attorney, and the doctors now won’t give us a straight answer about whether Mom is mentally competent to sign anything!

The guardianship paperwork is still tied up in the court. I guess the argument now is over who will be named guardian. I thought I was the obvious choice since I take care of Mom all the time, but some members of the family disagree. Anyway, that’s another story.

As near as I can figure, Mom collapsed because of a drug interaction. She takes more than a dozen different medicines every day, and they’ve been prescribed by four different doctors. My goal for next year is to get those doctors talking to each other more!

The pillbox we have lets me organize the drugs so that Mom takes them when she’s supposed to, but it doesn’t help us make sure all the drugs will work together.

I’ve had to stop working full-time because Mom needs more and more attention and care. Money is tight, and I suspect my employer hasn’t offered me everything the law now requires. The elder lawyer helping me straighten out Mom’s money and property doesn’t handle employment law cases, so I guess I’ll soon be working with two lawyers in addition to Mom’s four doctors. I know the money situation will probably work out in the long run, but I’ve been knocked off the career path I thought I was on. Frankly, it doesn’t seem fair.

The year’s insurance woes would make up a separate letter, so I’ll just say that it’s pretty hard to choose the right Medicare Part D package when you have to fit someone whose prescriptions keep changing into the various enrollment periods the plans operate around. I think we have things under control, but that could change abruptly with Mom’s next medical emergency.

If you have some thoughts about how Mom’s insurance should be handled, please let me know before she is back in the hospital again. I know all of you mean well and that you all love Mom, but your criticism after something has gone wrong really doesn’t help either Mom or me very much.

For those of you who attended Mom’s birthday party, I have to say she was having a difficult day. She doesn’t lose her temper like that very often, and I haven’t heard the kind of language she used that night again. I don’t know what set her off, and she doesn’t remember. One of her doctors says the bad language is a sign of dementia. We all have to do our best to remember that she is the same Mom we have always known and loved. It’s just that sometimes she doesn’t sound like it. I know this can be really confusing for the grandchildren, but there isn’t much I can do about it.

Mom loves to have visitors, but sometimes a week or more goes by and she doesn’t see anyone except me and the nurses and health aides who come to the house. If you were to drop by, Mom would be glad to see you. She would love to have company, and I could use some time off myself!

Best wishes for the New Year from Mom and me.

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