Sandwiched Support

Tag: health

  • September 24, 2025

    Pushing Through Anyway

    I haven’t been feeling well this week, but I’m sandwiched daughter and mom. There is really no one to fill in for me without rearranging or canceling plenty and without a TON of favors being asked likely of other moms who either don’t work outside of the home or work from home. Quite frankly unless I am completely incapacitated with a stomach virus that won’t quit I don’t want to take the time and energy to ask multiple people for help with ALL that I do for my family each week. Text after text to try to find the right person who happens to be free and willing to do each thing honestly ends up being a lot and quite frankly it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t return the favor later. And it’s not that I don’t want to help them out, it’s only fair and these individuals are friends and relatives and fellow sandwiched moms in solidarity, it’s just that I already feel like I don’t have the bandwidth to keep up with my own family’s needs and wants. And I know they feel the same way. So just like people show up to work sick, Moms do that too except we don’t get a real restful break unless someone chooses to step up to take something off of our plates and between the meal prep, the appointments, the running kids to activities, the housework, the laundry, and the childcare, homework support, and support of aging loved ones, no one is willing to take it all on. Lightening the load of a member of the sandwiched generation is absolutely a thing and it is greatly appreciated, but truly there is no one who is really taking it all on for even one day. Sometimes a husband takes on putting out the “fires” of what’s needed to get his children through the day or a mom-in-law runs the kids to everything, makes lunch and dinner, and puts in a load of laundry, but it is a rarity that coverage does not leave plenty for the primary sandwiched adult to catch up on once well.

    A comparison can be made here to any job, but truly there is no comparison to the number of items on the primary caregiver/sandwiched adult’s list. And so very many categories leaving “tabs” open in the brain.

    A visit to urgent care or a nap or a trip to pick up a medication is carefully considered and life juggled to fit it in with everything else. And boy do we ever try not to loop in someone else. Instead sleep is lost, meals are skipped, and we do the next thing while the laundry and dust bunnies collect and multiply.

  • September 23, 2025

    Outside Texting In

    You would think I would simply be grateful and I am grateful, but it’s complicated! Mom is home doing well on small amounts of soft foods right now and so far it’s been a good day with me wrapping up at work outside of the home today and Dad holding down the fort at home. He grocery shopped and has helped Mom care for our family dog who hasn’t been feeling the greatest lately (she does show improvements though).

    But late morning today at work I missed a call from our church prayer chain where a recorded message is sent out on a call line and plays repeatedly until you hang up so that you can get all of the information. It’s a great resource so that those who want to pray know how they can do that for someone who is in need (frequent prayer requests are for medical needs and concerns and losses of loved ones and anyone at church can ask for prayer for anyone in the community, sometimes using last names, sometimes not). Very soon after I saw that I had missed the prayer chain call and didn’t get to the voicemail before my mom-in-law texted me that a close extended family member on my husband’s side of the family had a major medical event happen to him earlier today.

    Certainly others have had things happen medically other than Mom recently, but not a lot of family has had something this major that needed immediate surgery at least not that my worried brain is remembering at the moment, since Mom’s initial emergent surgery about a year ago. We do know of medical conditions and treatments that are ongoing for several family members, many of them due to serious medical conditions, but to my knowledge all of those individuals are currently stable at home.

    So lately I have been the medical advocate, the closest family member of the patient, the one hurrying into the hospital on repeat and texting everyone else urgent questions and regular updates. Today I am the friend who also happens to be a relative as two of this man’s daughter-in-laws are my very close friends who I have done a lot of life with. They have been neighbors at one time, part of the church we regularly attend, part of moms’ groups I was part of when my kids were little, part of my baby showers (one was at my wedding shower and played violin at our wedding). We have been friends for decades. One of them was at college with my husband and I, another had me in her wedding. And I am texting them today trying not to intrude, but communicating love, support, and encouragement fully from a small distance.

    I’ve assured them as they assured me when I was going through something similar (but not exactly because I cannot know what this specific situation is like for them) that I will come pick up their kids when they need me, that I have no specific expectations of when they will contact me back if at all, and that I am praying for their family member and am here for them.

    This extended family member is wonderful and truly loved as is his caring and compassionate wife. They lost their youngest son in a terrible accident years ago when we were in college and have been through so very much already and never lost their beautiful faith. They are a true example of loving parents and grandparents and loving people who serve those they care about and the community so selflessly.

    Lately I have been the one sitting by the patient’s bedside texting away to receive support and answers from knowledgeable others. The daughter-in-laws are both nurses and have often been two of my go-to medical people I know who I can go to with questions about Mom.

    Now I sit at my desk in my office with everything caught up waiting to see if I’ll have a walk-in appointment pop up before I leave for the day. And really all I can think about is that the man who married us 20 years ago, the man who we asked to provide baptism for all four of our children, and the man who has a very distinct voice and personality and who can talk to everyone with a focus and a sense of encouragement showing that that person really matters to him is having major surgery and I am waiting away from the hospital. I am not in this waiting room this time.

    I am on the outside of this one, texting in. And I can barely contain my prayers and my questions. And I can hardly remain in my seat. And I know that no matter what happens that it has been and continues to be nothing but the utmost blessing and privilege to know this family member and both the family he comes from and the family he and his wife have built together.

  • September 16, 2025

    This is not a cutting matter.

    If a surgeon is being asked to do anything beyond determining if surgery is needed, if post-surgical healing looks to be on track, or of course surgery itself they seem to unequivocally prefer not to.

    I get it, they are the highly trained specialists and the only ones who can perform the surgeries (along with other types of providers and specialists on their team and similar teams). So they seem to want the hospital to pass the patient, with post-surgical complications, onto another department of providers (in Mom’s case it’s been internal medicine or GI) to monitor and treat them if there is nothing that warrants emergent or scheduled upcoming surgery.

    But yet the hospital wants them to show up each time to follow through with making sure the patients they operated on are taken care of. Seems reasonable and understandable until you factor in how busy they are and how few of them there are and you start to notice them getting short with abs frustrated with the patients who return with pain, with “inflammation,” with complications.

    From being unsettled and taking a longer time to heal and recovery than the average patient of the same age and condition (this seems to be Mom’s situation right now) up to the need for emergent follow-up surgery and everything in between I’m sure they see so many patients that it may be difficult to keep up with it all.

    So what are the hospital systems doing about this? Can there be more PA’s and NP’s who are trained by the surgical team and work for them and with them to provide excellent follow-up care not just in the office post-op, but also with the more complicated situations where patients are readmitted post-surgery with a variety of problems? Certainly the surgeon who operated on the patient and the team should be closely involved at looking at all scans, ordering tests, and weighing in on the treatment plan after considering all relevant information, but surely other educated medical providers who are not operating can provide supportive care as the patient is under observation.

    Can we come up with a better system where someone who has time truly listens to the patient and the patient’s family/advocates/support people to get the full picture while tests are being run? Can those individuals be trained to diagnose and treat post-surgical complications that do not appear to involve the need for further surgery to free-up the surgeons without leaving the patient and patient’s family feeling dismissed?

    How can the hospital teams communicate and work better together?

    And who can we assign to communicate with the family and other members of the support system on a regular basis to receive and answer their questions with empathy and compassion and to provide reasonable medical updates?

  • September 15, 2025

    Admit for Observation

    Mom has ongoing abdominal pain and is in the ED of the big hospital and they are going to admit her for observation for 1-3 days. Surgeon said earlier that the inflammation in the CT scan looked mild and Mom could go back to the rehab. Plain is not ongoing and they say admit 1-3 days. I wonder how we can know how long it will take, how long she will need.

    It’s tough to plan the week and when she might be discharged. It’s hard to know what to expect and to imagine next steps. There are worries that this could be last Fall all over again and everything that came with it. Dad says not to worry ahead of knowing what will happen and as a mental health professional I too know better, but in the sandwiches season it is a challenge not to fear the unknown.

  • September 14, 2025

    It’s the Weekend, But it’s Not

    If I had remembered to write this yesterday, this is what I would have posted. I spent 8 hours at my son’s baseball double header yesterday including the hour drive each way and I easily could have posted but wasn’t thinking about it. Wonder how long it will take me to give into more reminder alarms and alerts on my phone.

    Friday night I would have loved a date night with my husband either at home or out, but our middle sons and Dad wanted to go to the high school football game so my husband took them and I ran my oldest to work. I wanted to go park at a free community movie with my oldest two sons because the movie is their jam, but one was working and the other was with friends at the game. I could have asked a friend to join me at the movie but it wasn’t appropriate for my youngest and she was home for the evening feeling slightly under the weather. So I cleared off the attic stairs, which I had been using as a spare closet/plunking spot for whatever I needed out of my way, because the HVAC guy was coming today to do maintenance on Monday. This took me until 10 PM. I wanted to watch a movie or a show on my phone before I fell asleep after getting my daughter to bed, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

    Saturday was almost perfect with a pleasant visit to Mom in the rehab center with my youngest followed by my cousin’s beautiful bridal shower not too far away. That was a bright light, but I spent the long drive home wishing I drank more coffee after my daughter had climbed all over me all afternoon and I felt my energy fade after all the excitement (certain things can make me feel my age and that’s one of them) and I got a call from my husband that the dog is not well.

    He noticed she has been lying around much more than usual and having trouble walking on different feet. He called the animal hospital Saturday that is literally right by our house and they were not open. I arrived home from the bridal shower and my husband had to leave right away to take our oldest to work while I held down the fort getting supper made and being there while our two middle boys had friends over. Then Steve came home and took our to an urgent vet a half hour away and they told him that because they were short-staffed by one vet that it would be 6-8 hours for our dog to be seen with the symptoms he reported. So he left because it was the evening by then and he hadn’t eaten dinner yet and that would have been a lot to sit there at that time for 6-8 hours.

    Sunday morning he drove her back to the same place in which showed a 4 hour wait time before 8 AM. He got down there with her and their online wait time was apparently inaccurate and they were again telling him it would be a 6-8 hour wait so he left and went to another urgent care vet he found online. Around 1 PM Sunday afternoon he was heading home with her and he reported she had bloodwork and it came back negative for Lyme’s Disease but they still think that’s what it is or a similar tick-borne illness. They said her joints are hot. So she received IV fluids and antibiotics and went home with antibiotics and some subcutaneous fluid that they put in there that her body is supposed to gradually absorb (her body has a temporary hump of fluid). Hoping that she gets better in 2-3 days because this was several hundred dollars just from this visit alone, she recently has had a seizure problem that we are now treating with twice daily meds so there have been a bunch of expenses there, and she’s only 4 years old. All 4 of our kids in the car on the way to church were worrying she’s going to die and talking about desperately wanting another dog if something happens to her. And as sandwiched adults we are just done with pets. We just have so many family members for whom we are responsible and it’s a busy season and I would be very hesitant to get another dog or pet in general because of the significant cost and the time and energy that we are already short on. And my husband is on a whole other level of “no way is another pet happening in this lifetime.” So, we’ve had plenty going on, and we love our dog, and we keep her alive and well until our youngest is in at least Middle School which is 5 more years. Hoping it’s reasonable to wish for at least that.

    After taco night at home Sunday we called it and again couldn’t keep our eyes open.

    It was the weekend, but it wasn’t.

  • September 11, 2025

    3 Day Rule

    I saw an article by CBS News on my phone today talking about how a patient on Medicare has to have been in the hospital (not counting the ED) for 3 days which is 3 midnights in order for the patient to be eligible to enter rehab following the hospital stay. Something new to me again. Mom always has been hospitalized for more than 3 days when we have sought out rehab for her so I did not give thought to how long she had to be hospitalized qualify to go. I just thought it was based on medical need to be in rehab for PR and OT.

    Always something more. I wonder if I will ever find the time to read through every document full of fine print.

  • September 9, 2025

    We Can’t Accommodate

    I am realizing more and more that while the Physical and Occupational therapists at the acute rehab centers in our general area are fantastic, well-trained, extremely hardworking, and motivators, they really don’t have all of the tools to accommodate everyone’s needs. Mom is medically complex but not nearly as medically complex as others. The more I get to know what the rehabs do not have, the more grateful I am for the setup we do have here at home for Mom.

    She is now in the second Acute rehab that does not have a grab bar by the toilet on the side of her good arm. She is very hesitant to try to manage, even with help, in the private bathroom connected to her room at rehab, because she has a torn rotator cuff on the arm that would be used to grab the grab bar by the toilet to help her stand up and she cannot support herself with just that arm. She stated that everything is backwards from what she needs and has at home.

    Every rehab asks about stairs in the home and Mom and Dad’s living space is on the main floor of the house so there are only two stairs down into the garage for her to get in and out of the house. We have measured the stairs and reported the measurements to every rehab and they insist that they cannot send Mom home until she demonstrates in PT at the rehab that she can climb up and down the two stairs. Here’s the catch though. They don’t have any stair setups in their gyms that are like the two stairs heading down into our garage. The rise is not the same. The run is not the same. It wouldn’t matter too much if Mom didn’t have bone on bone arthritic knees awaiting replacements, but when the stairs are bigger than what she has to do at home and they have angled railings on each side which is not what she uses. To get down the two steps she uses her walker or takes someone’s arm to help. To get up the two steps we have a curved grab bar mounted to the wall, one grab bar on either side of the wall so she can pull herself up one step at a time. They don’t have a set up at rehab that mimics that.

    She has a grab ring in the middle of the bed (my parents have two twin mattresses that each are remote operated to recline or be raised similar to a hospital mattress). She has two very short stairs with railings that help her get up into bed with motion activated lights that turn on what she gets up at night to lead her to the bathrooms. Her rehab beds do not have steps up to them or railings. The bench and grab bars in the shower we have for her at home are different than what they have in the showers at the rehab. She is not really practicing to go home with the accommodations we have at home.

    It would be great if they had more options to accommodate individuals and to simulate what they actually have at home.

  • September 7, 2025

    The One I Meant to Post Yesterday

    As my daughter and I reached the parking lot after our Sunday afternoon visit to Mom at the big hospital a bed opened up at the rehab she was hoping to return to late afternoon today and by evening Mom was settled into a room! Previously she faced a beautiful courtyard there that she enjoyed for a day and now she’s on the other side of the facility and was pleasantly chatting about all of the black cows outside of her window facing a farmer’s field. Hoping for her ability to persevere with bone on bone knees as getting them replaced is the next step and being on them is never pleasant. Hoping this is the last stop on a long journey from the initial emergent surgery at the small hospital nearly a year ago now.

  • September 4, 2025

    Responsive

    Shout out to an amazing neighbor who has been the MVP at texting me more often than anyone else to ask how Mom is doing, how her pain is, and what the updates are regarding her care. She is a retired physician herself and has answered many of my questions. She has been very responsive and very encouraging. And there are certainly others who have been incredibly empathetic and responsive as well.

    It’s a shame that the medical team has not called me once post “end of surgery debriefing.” I had them write my name on Mom’s white board and just like in the small hospital I can’t seem to get through to anyone in the big hospital when I call and when they told me they would put me through to he bedside nurse. They put me through to a voicemail. I never got a call back. And I am admittedly weary and burned out. I have been advocating THIS time around on this medical issue for Mom for 11 months now. Hospital systems and their staff, in my growing experience, are NOT supportive of the patient’s support system. If it’s not a liability concern it appears that they do not care.

    And Mom said this morning the attending surgeon did not come in to check on her. Rather two residents came in very briefly and asked how she was doing. She says she is feeling so-so as she has been telling them everyday. She also tells them the NG tube hurts and they simply said “it’s going to be there a while.” This was upsetting for her as the attending told her they were going to leave the NG tube in for another day and his statement implied that there might be a change after that/.

    I am an hour away with 4 kids, plenty of work for my two part-time jobs and trying to live apart from spending my life at the hospital. It’s hard to get there. But it appears that I have to be the squeaky wheel to receive bare minimum reasonable communication and updates. It’s ridiculous that Mom has been BACK in the hospital for 5 days now and not once have they given me an update. I only got one in the ED because Mom put me on speakerphone while the provider was in the room. I tried calling the ED multiple times and no one ever answered.

    Responsiveness to a patient’s people and empathy are in short supply in the inpatient system.

  • September 3, 2025

    Repeat after me, they are not responsible for lost or stolen items.

    It’s another first world problem for sure, but my elderly parents become quite testy when the items that they liked and that they spent hard earned money on disappear. We try to be careful and take only the bare minimum of what we need to hospitals and other care facilities, but the saga continues with the things Mom has loved and lost.

    And before I go on with the stories I will just say that as a working sandwiched only-child advocate for my mom and just having Dad, who is aging and has many of his own medical issues, and some peripheral help from family and friends, I just plain CANNOT be there with Mom and her things all the time EVEN during every admission, discharge, or transition. I have tried when she was being treated repeatedly at the small hospital which was 10-15 minutes from our home depending on traffic and lights. But now that she made a move to the big hospital just under an hour away, I absolutely have to rely even more on transport teams and facility staff members and sometimes I regret that that is the case.

    I believe the first incident was a nice charging cord being left in an ED room by a staff member who was pushing Mom’s gurney to her room upstairs in the small hospital during one of many re-admissions. I know I told a staff member about it before I left but it was the middle of the night in the ED and Mom insists that she told the person transporting her to bring it along but that was a time when heavy pain meds were on board so we are not sure what was communicated but the charger never made it to the next destination. Dad filed paperwork and they said they would cover the cost. I insisted that he follow through with that and I honestly don’t know if the small hospital ever reimbursed us for it but when you’re sandwiched some things just must fall off the list.

    The second items that disappeared were in an Acute rehab facility over the holidays. Mom had some white blankets from home with her bedding as she is always extra cold and our first mistake beyond bringing the personal blankets to a rehab facility in general was that they were white. When they change those beds every bed linen (ALL of them white) gets scooped up in a heap and hauled away to a laundry company who services several of the facilities. From the moment Dad reported the personal blankets missing they were long gone mixed into oblivion in a sea of white everything and could have been shipped back out to any one of the services facilities. Dad repeatedly asked for them to reimburse him for the cost of those brand name blankets and they showed him the form I had previously and quickly signed upon admission that said they are not responsible for personal belongings.

    Most recently, in the last week, Mom was discharged from the big hospital to their very nice Acute Rehab facility nearby and transportation on a weekend night on Labor Day weekend when I had taken the opportunity to go a few hours away to the shore with my husband and children and I was grateful for that transport team and the ambulance that took Mom to Rehab and the one that had to bring her back less than 24 hours later to the ED. I need to get Mom’s clarification on when the items were lost but one of the transport teams never brought in an arrangement of flowers from my aunt that traveled with Mom nor a pack of her personal briefs in which she chose to pack another cell phone charging cord and her favorite glasses case, all of which have now grown legs and run off on us. She had staff call the ambulance company but no one knows a thing.

    Just thankful that the glasses she needs weren’t in the glasses case. We always hope whoever has the items truly needed them more.