Category Archives: Anger & Frustration

My Thoughts – or Here we Go Again

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I was struggling with what to write about for my 3rd blog (after my helicopter ride) when I was again interrupted. I had to have an angiogram to check up on my fistula that caused the brain bleed. My fistula was gone, Praise God!!, the Dr. said that this wasn’t unusual. I come back home in good spirits and thoughts of now I just have to gain my strengh back. Then the Dr. reviewed the scan.

The Doctor found an aneurism. Oh boy, I just stepped into a whole new thing. Get a CTScan, stat. Come to York Hospital, stat. Had another MRI (did you know there are MRI’s that are like angiograms? I probably had one of those. Dr tried to fix the aneurism with embolization. Couldn’t do it. Soooo… I’ve had brain surgery. Yep, I have “railroad” tracks” up the back of my head. Aneurism was in a different place, right on the back of my head. Not a good place, if any place is good with an aneurism.

I woke up in Neuro ICU, not doing very well. The Dr. had given me Keppra, a seizure drug, as a preventative. I get it, I really do. But I don’t believe too much in preventative medication before you even know you have the thing. If I have seizures, I will talk to my Dr. about it.

Well, my husband had brain tumors, and he never really had seizures except after surgery. Keppra Rage. It even has a name. My husband wanted to kill all the doctors and nurses. I was, at least, not that bad.

I was in pain in the urinary area (it’s too complicated to explain fully) and I couldn’t make the nurses understand why I was so uncomfortable. Of course, I just got out of surgery and on pain killers. The pain killers didn’t take care of this pain. I yelled and screamed and called them all names. I was horrible. I remember that I heard a small voice that said, “you weren’t like this before.”

If you’ve read my blog from when I was helicoptered to York, you will know that I loved those guys at ICU. They were and still are my Angels. They finally did as I asked (once I explained it to them through tears) and it was such a relief.

When I was discharged, I had my son wheel me to Neuro ICU and I apologized to the nurses. Of course they didn’t want to accept an apology, I didn’t do anything wrong, but I needed to let them know that I’m not usually like that. They needed to hear that I love them, and I treated them badly. As our talk progressed, their faces had big smiles and there were a few tears in the eyes (including mine).

Nurses in the hospital deserve respect. Most of them are wonderful people with wonderful hearts. When you acknowledge that you were wrong or that what you said was hurtful, the other person can either ignore you or you may have just repaired a relationship. Say Thank You to your next service person, even if they are in a bad mood. And if you yell at someone, go back and tell them you’re sorry. Eat a bit of “crow”, be humble like the Lord has told us to be.

I’m Still Stuck?

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I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling like I’m stuck in this Covid mess that we are in. I’m tired of wearing masks every time I walk into a building for work or the store. It’s really wearing on me. Going to the doctor isn’t simple anymore. Before walking in the doctor’s office or just after I get there I have to do a questionnaire. Before I go to work every morning I have to fill out a questionnaire that tells me I’m likely to be able to work. {{{SIGH}}} Yes, I’m feeling stuck. I know that I’m one of the lucky ones. I haven’t gotten Covid, although I know a lot of people who have. I still have my job, I didn’t have a loss of income. I know a lot of people who have really been negatively impacted by this. I’ve been blessed considering everything.

In my last post I mentioned (but didn’t get into) the way you feel when you’re stuck. You feel weary, frustrated, tired and angry. Well, weary of what is happening, especially if it’s the same old, same old everyday. Frustrated because it seems like you are not making any progress on anything. You feel tired because, usually, you are also depressed, which makes you tired and the more you think about being depressed the “tireder” you get. And finally, you get angry. At yourself, your situation, at people who just happen to cross your path the “wrong” way. We aren’t good for anyone or anything while we feel this way, and we need to stop the cycle.

Believe me, I still get these feelings, especially now in the Covid situation. Thing are not “normal” (what ever that means). I’ve found out that “normal” is a setting on the clothes dryer and nothing else. I’ve even come to hate the term “new normal”. What happened to the old normal? Was there even a thing that was normal? Not in my life….

I digress… The only thing that can calm me and help my mood is knowing that God is in Control. That’s Control with a capital C. Yes, He knows about everything that is going on and He has a plan. I don’t know what the plan is; He is God and I am not. So, my job at this time is to trust Him (and sigh if I must, He understands) and keep moving. I may not be moving very fast and I may not be going to a lot of places, but I’m moving. I’m working on improving me physically by trying to walk more and drink more water and eat better. I’m also trying to read my Bible regularly, reading Bible commentaries and trying to get into a habit of scheduled prayer time. I’m working to expand my mind and my heart as well as my physical self. This is something we all have to do to keep our spirits up. The “feeling stuck” mood has to go if we are to be any use to anyone.

I’m Stuck…

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“…I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:12-13

When Joe was first diagnosed with the brain tumor, I was panicked. Here was my husband of 21 years being told he probably would die in about two years. I totally when into a spin. Our life was just starting to get into a settled routine, one child still in High School and one just graduated, I had a good job and Joe was starting back to college to work on a degree. We had clawed our way up to this point and I thought we were almost “there”. Then this happened.

Joe didn’t die in two years. We spent the next 16 years going through medical treatments for his poor scalp and skull that had been radiated to death. No tumors, so that was good, but he was constantly under medical care for one thing or another.

My emotional state would swing back and forth, from being panicked to feeling stuck. Feeling stuck as in, I’m going to be doing this for the rest of my life feeling stuck. I know I didn’t sign up for this earlier in my life. I was hoping for Joe and I to work our way into a nice retirement where we could do what we wanted and play with the grandchildren. It certainly didn’t work out the way I envisioned it. So I was stuck.

This verse from Philippians hit me one day and then I couldn’t get it out of my head. “I have learned the secret of being content… I can do all this through Him who gives me strength”. Being Content. You can’t be content if you’re feeling stuck. You feel weary, frustrated, tired and angry.

Since the verse wouldn’t get out of my head, I thought and prayed about it. Verse 13 is the kicker. “I can do all this through Him who gives me strength”. Once I had thought through this verse well and prayed I started to try harder to rely on Jesus to get me through instead of myself. My feelings of being stuck got less. It was a long process. I’m stubborn and don’t like to give up, but in this case, I had to for my mental and spiritual heath.

So, if you are feeling stuck and the walls are feeling like they are closing in on you, look to the One who can give you strength. Then you can feel more content in your circumstances.

Anger and Frustration

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What do you do with your anger? Our world has enough stress in it right now, adding caregiving on top of it creates a whole new kind of pressure. I know that I wasn’t the wonderful, kind loving person that the last couple of posts seem to paint me. I got plenty frustrated at Joe and it built into anger.

For example, we went through a lot of health care aides for a while. Joe was not very nice to these wonderful people who would come in and give him a shower, dress him and make sure he ate. On the whole, most of these ladies were kind, wonderful people. Joe would make them cry. He was mean. He’d call them names. I had one wonderful woman who would cry almost every night when I came home, but she kept coming back. Some of them didn’t.

He would tell them he wanted to wait for me to come home and give him a shower. We had done this for several years previously because he was mostly ambulatory but needed help in the shower. As his physical condition got worse he needed help to walk (fall risk) and get around and so we were able to get the home aides. I was working full time to support us, and by the time I got home, made dinner and then give him a shower, I was so tired. I was already running exhausted all the time and his meanness with the aides just put me over the edge.

I had already talked to Joe (nicely) about being nice to the aides. I had encouraged him to take his showers during the day so I wouldn’t have that burden with him in the evening. We’d had a lot of talks about this. He’d say he just didn’t like them or they wouldn’t take care of him his way (which was to leave him alone).

After the fourth or fifth aide had come and gone I lost it. I yelled. I hollered. I blew my stack. I told him straight out that if he made it so I had to quit work to take care of him, he would regret every minute I was home. I told him if he didn’t straighten up I would slam him in a nursing home and never visit. There was a few other threats, but you get the idea.

It worked. At least for a bit of time. We also got an aide who had a thick skin and wouldn’t take the “guff” from him. I thanked God for her everyday, she was that good. She stayed with Joe up to the time I did put him in a nursing home because his medical needs were getting overwhelming for me and for the aides and the Home Health Care Nurses were coming more and more frequently.

I know I shouldn’t have blown up on him that way, but what do you do with all that frustration that builds up? It’s so hard to get any time to yourself, but I’d manage an hour or two on the weekends and that helped. I also had a counselor that I could vent to and a couple of friends that I would talk to. My faith also helped to temper much of my emotion. I look back on this time now and I feel some guilt for acting that way. But we are all on a “Learning Curve” so to speak. Most of us are thrown into caregiving without warning and the “Learning Curve” is very steep. So, even though I know I wasn’t my best person at that time, I forgive myself for acting that way and move forward. It’s the best thing to do.