The Business of Busyness
by Scott Hardie on May 26, 2019
My mother has Alzheimer's and dementia. She'll be 80 in a few months. For the last decade or so, her partner Andy has been taking care of her, but he's 85 himself and not able to continue. Since last summer, I've been taking on more and more of the daily responsibilities of taking care of my mother's needs, financially and legally and medically. And holy hell is it time-consuming. I had heard that it gets like this but I really had no idea.
I spend about 80-90% of my free time taking care of my mother. I'll frequently stay up until 12-2am answering emails from Andy, sending requests to her caregivers at her assisted living facility, scheduling appointments and companions for her, filling out forms and legal paperwork, placing orders for various things that she needs, and blocking out time in my work calendar for time that I'll have to take off to be in the room with her various doctors when she sees them. I'm on a first-name basis with her caregivers and lawyers. I keep a constantly-changing list of her medications and specialist doctors. I have come to dread checking my inbox or glancing at my buzzing phone because it's going to be more demands on my time and attention.
With Kelly dealing with her own recent medical crisis (3 surgeries and 15 days in the hospital so far), and a stressful work project that has me working overtime to meet difficult deadlines, I have been stretched really damn thin. It's gotten to a point that I have never reached before in my life, where I'm just failing outright to get things done. I pass out at midnight, unable to finish tasks that need to happen that night, because I just can't do any more. I reached a point this past week where I just surrendered and said I'm going to get done whatever I can and not stress any more if some things fall by the wayside because I'm human and have limits.
I have no idea how parents do it. I couldn't imagine trying to juggle all of this with kids on top of it. And my mother doesn't even live with me; being physically and immediately responsible for her needs would be even harder.
I'm saying all of this to illustrate why I've been absent from Funeratic for nine months and counting. I have so far been able to keep up with making goos, and I'll answer messages and concert challenges when they come up, but I really haven't had anywhere near the amount of time that I'd like to have to work on this website and interact with people here and add new content and do any of the numerous projects that I still think about. Funeratic is still big in my heart, but it gets a tiny sliver of my time because that's all that I have been able to give lately. Like I said, I'm trying to set more realistic limits starting this past week (and I'm trying to push more of my mother's care onto her very expensive professional caregivers where it belongs), so maybe I'll be able to make time for the site, but I certainly can't promise that.
Thanks for continuing to stick around. I'm not done with Funeratic.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Happy Holidays
In case you wonder why it takes me so long to answer your message: I'm signing off for a week and a half while Kelly visits. Parties, shopping, museums, bowling, movies, lots of restaurants, and a few days at Disney World lie ahead. Have a wonderful holiday week. Go »Fuzzy Logic
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Yesterday, Kelly and I joined friends who had free passes to shop at the new Ikea store in Tampa before it opens to the public. It was our my first time in one of those stores, and it was every bit the harrowing shopping marathon I'd heard it was. For a store that boasts so frequently about how efficient everything is, having you proceed through the store in one long winding line for four hours sure doesn't feel that way, but every store has ways of getting you to buy more than you came for and Ikea has come up with a unique one. Go »Overheard While Shopping for Birthday Cards
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