Caregivers

Monday seems to come quickly while Friday is late in coming. It is once again time for another installment of The Quad Life.

Following up from last week's post, the pressure sores have improved! Two separate people at different times confirmed with measurements that they have indeed improved in the past six weeks. I'm very thankful to hear this news to answered prayer. However, early Sunday morning, my night nurse informed me that a third place has now opened on my butt. At least two of them are improving at this time.

The big news this week though is about caregivers. As a vent dependent quad, they are a requirement to have 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every week of the year. Their are no caregiver holidays in the quad life either, so someone is always within ear shot if not within a few feet. For me, that means caregivers through a nursing agency, private hire, and family.

For the past several months, my family and other caregivers have been having trouble with an agency nurse. They escalated in the past few weeks to where I had to have stop coming. Since the agency has been unsuccessfully looking for a replacement for a few months, this now means we have one night a week not covered. I did not want to do this to my parents, but being scared about getting physical harm is not a way to live either. I like living in rural Iowa, but being an hour away from a metropolitan area makes finding help a challenge.

A major cough or flu has also been going around in my area and my main day caregiver has become ill with it. So, that means starting tomorrow morning, I have 24 hours without my regular caregivers. That means my parents will be missing work as they do a tag team of covering the day and be short on sleep as the night is covered. They do very well, but I'm concerned about aggravating the pressure wounds as I don't get moved as much as I usually do.

These are days I pray to be few and far between with strength given to all three of us to work through them. The night situation will be the most difficult, but I pray that a solution will be found soon. This past week has seen answered prayers, maybe this week will as well.