All in a Day's Work

For anyone who has ever wondered what it is a carer does I thought I'd share 'A Day in the Life of'.
Most people I know think it's either -
A - wiping people's bottoms all day, or
B - making cups of tea
Well they're all wrong!

Last Sunday for example I got to my first call at 6.30 to find a lady who had lost both hearing aids and was in desperate need of a wash and clean up. It took me an hour to realise that the hearing aids weren't going to materialise and then I hurtled off to the next stop - now late - having left a message for her daughter so she'd get something done for her.

Next stop - an elderly gent who needs a hand to get up in the morning. No problem on a normal day but on this particular occasion he'd decided to move his TV in the bedroom - and unplug it from the wall and the aerial ... Twenty minutes later I had the TV installed, batteries in the remote and porridge and tea set down in front of him.

And onward to the next stop where a fantastic lady waited patiently for me to give her her promised shower - it's not something she usually does on a Sunday morning but she'd asked me specifically if I'd 'be so kind'. In the back of my mind (SHAME ON ME!!) I had quietly hoped she might have forgotten but it really wasn't going to be my lucky day ... On leaving the shower I happened to notice a patch was missing from her arm - one often used for stroke sufferers. I replaced the absent disc, made breakfast, trying to make it look as if I wasn't rushing and headed out to my next stop.

Time wise I was slowly catching up - which was handy because I had to meet someone for a double call after my fifth call. The next stop is usually a quick chat and a cuppa but not that morning! The ceiling in the bathroom had turned itself into an indoor water feature and the light bulb was desperately close to being an underwater one :) A few phone calls later and I was back on the road.

So onward and upward I went to my next gentleman - only to find he wasn't there! He'd been taken ill in the night and his wife was desperately trying to find the matches to light the fire. Thankfully I found them on the kitchen table and we managed to get the fire going. Having made her some breakfast I made a few calls and got her in touch with the ward her husband was now on - and spoke to her neighbour who was only to pleased to go round and take her up to the hospital later.

I met up with my colleague at the next stop having just about caught up with myself. I moved from there to a blind gentleman who had been out the day before - on the say-so of his neighbour - despite the fact we had had four inches of snow the previous night. This particular man had been housebound for a week but the neighbour thought 'he'd be OK if he went slowly'! Unbelievable. Needless to say blind men with canes struggle to feel the difference between roads, pavements and kerbs in the snow and he only got as far as the end of the road before falling. Thankfully a passer by brought him home, no real harm done, but it makes me want to throttle that neighbour who only needed to stop and think for a second ...

Several more calls went without a hitch but my last one is worthy of a mention. This one was to an elderly lady who spends the day on her own. We go in to see all is well and help her get settled at night. I went in to a house that felt like a fridge at 8pm. The heating had packed up and she hadn't a clue what to do because her husband used to do that sort of thing. She'd been sat under a blanket all day because she "didn't want to make a fuss". Anyway with the heating back on full and heaters positioned around the house I got her into bed with the electric blanket on.

So that was a fairly typical day. Yes I made a few cups of tea - I wiped a few bottoms as well - but when you read it back both of those things have very little to do with my role as a carer. And you know what? Care is what I really really do.