Elder-caregivers
Related: About this forum"The chair incident" - when Dad falls on the floor
My dad asked me (insisted) I get some office chair from the neighbor's house that they had moved off and left. I reluctantly did so, and dragged it home, hoping it would be some sort of project he would look into that was low impact and would occupy his time.
A day later, my mother is screaming "your father fell" and of course I go running. He is in the middle of the kitchen floor, because the chair I *thought* he was going to refurbish, he assumed was sound and it gave way and there he is on the kitchen floor.
He is griping, my mother is yelling, and this continues for 45 minutes. I sit on the floor with my back to my fathers back and inch him along - because he cannot get up. I try to get him up and he yells that I'm hurting his arm, shoulder, hand ... can't get him out of the floor. All I can do is sit there, listen to the yelling, screaming and be the back for him to be in the floor.
Finally my uncle comes over after the hour and a half ordeal of me getting him to the couch and gets him on it.
I have never felt so powerless in my life. Not because I couldn't get a 175 lbs man up off of the floor, but because he cried like a baby when I tried to do so. Man comes by, does the same thing, it's all good.
Mind you, I hover around 105-110, but I also lift weights. It doesn't matter I guess, though, because the ordeal ended. 2 hrs. because of a fucking chair he just HAD to "salvage", sat down in, and fell out of.
I did a sanity check on myself. I thought, Aerows? Are you a lunatic, or was this some major bullshit? I affirmed to myself this was some major bullshit.
He has the chair on the back porch. Tuesday is trash day. I will beat that damn thing down with a hammer and put it in the trash, and barring that, I will set the SOB on FIRE before he will get mixed up with that damn thing again.
Sometimes, you just have to say WTF.
alcina
(602 posts)Good for you for not taking on the emotional burden of his drama. More times than I care to remember, I had to remind myself to just take a breath and let the chaos wash over me like a wave. Afterward, I was still standing and hadn't exhausted myself trying to fight the flood. But, man, it's tough! You have my sympathies.
Habibi
(3,602 posts)please call 911. You shouldn't be risking your own health to get him off the floor. Paramedics or the fire department will come and help.
NCarolinawoman
(2,825 posts)in blood pressure or partial seizure. The kindly firemen would come and pick her up like she was as light as a feather and gently put her into bed. They were good at calming ME down. This happened a lot and I got to know them well.
samnsara
(18,300 posts)mom often tells me 911 will come and get them right up off the floor.
davidsmith75
(11 posts)Looking after elderly parents is tough - a simple mistake, misunderstanding or just an event is around the corner.
It is all about doing your best in the worst situations.
Like you said, the best thing to do now is to 'beat that damn thing down with a hammer and put it in the trash, and barring that, I will set the SOB on FIRE before he will get mixed up with that damn thing again.'
and get rid of all the negativity! be strong!
samnsara
(18,300 posts)...but my dad fell back wards in a recliner he bounces up and down on to get out of. Only my frail mother was with him but since I have security cams all over their house I happened to log on to give a safety peek and there she was trying to get him up and out of the chair. They finally called the neighbor who came over and rescued them both. sigh.....
Glad your dad is OK!!