Is it the heat? or maybe the humidity?

I sure notice how tired I am this month. Is it because summer is actually here and sunshine is pouring in our windows, baking us as it does each year? Our AC is working hard, the dehumidifier has to be emptied often and the three fans in the room are at full speed. But even with my protector screen in front of the southern window, the heat tends to make me sick.

I won’t open the door to let in the breeze because nothing filters out the humidity! My Love’s COPD cannot handle the humidity. My body cannot handle the humidity…on this one thing we do agree!

So what do I do? In the afternoon, if I see the tree tops swaying and realize there might be a small breeze blowing, when the sun is on the other side of the building, I open the door a crack, daring the humidity to come in, “…what point to run a dehumidifier with the door open?” I ask.

My Love reaches for his puffer. I know effects won’t last and he’ll feel a need for another puff soon. I step out onto the balcony and shut the door behind me. It is nice to feel the wind brush my arms, and notice my ”’much too long’ hair blowing around….to realize it is summer…the second one since the pandemic began. We have been inside for so long!

I have just spoken with the head of the day program where My Love attended 16 months ago. They anticipate possibly being able to open, on a limited-participant-each-day basis. Oh, how nice to hear that. It had been such a nice few hours for me each week. She asked what I thought about starting again…after our second vaccines this month.

How different it is now than those months ago. How changed I am, and My Love is. How much older I feel having been isolated so long. I consider how much My Love’s memory has lapsed since we left the program for lockdowns. I consider how much functionality his body has lost, how much more I must do for him, think for him, say for him—he is never alone. All the time now I am two people, multi-tasking, double-track thinking, perhaps? Will he fit in with the day program folks now? I wonder.

He doesn’t register anything about the virus, he hates the mask on his face and has no idea why he must wear one. The one criteria of concern is the need for social distancing. It will have no meaning. I seriously doubt he could consciously understand the need to stay at 2m from someone else. He has no clue about the virus, even when I mention the ‘big sickness.’ He does not remember my words, let alone know what they mean. Masks and distancing are off the charts of understanding.

But, I definitely need respite. I am aging faster than I would have believed possible. I feel old. Much older than the sixteen months that have passed since we have been isolated, like captives, in our small apartment. I need the stimulation of other people. I know I need some grooming, some TLC time for me.

Without a doubt, I need to be refreshed, recharged, repaired, the same as someone focused on driving all day needs a rest, I need to relax with both eyes and both ears, and full mind attuned to something other than my responsibilities toward My Love’s every need. I have ‘grabbed the bull by the horns and moved forward,’ long enough without help.

Our second vaccines were last week. We had relatively little reactions, and this week it seems we are OK. I am calling the services we had before the pandemic halted our lives to see if we can get some help for My Love and respite time for me.

Hopefully, the powers that be will acknowledge my request for someone to help with showers and shaving. Someone to talk to him while I go to the basement to do loads of laundry. Hopefully, someone will come and relieve me of continual conversation…ultimately with myself…yet provides a closeness that stimulates his mind. My wish is that someone else can keep him from wandering off to find secret spots: to hide his puffers, to deposit his pills he’s put in his pockets, to hide his accumulated, folded squares of Kleenex, to remove and hide his Depends without telling me. It is amazing how quickly he can scoot down the short hall, after asking permission to go to the bathroom, and carry on all his clandestine activities in the back rooms….all while I am in the kitchen cooking or washing up. Unfortunately, from there I cannot see or watch him. If I did not know better, I would say he planned his mischief so I would come out and play with him! But alas, he is just ‘doing things without thought’ like many one-year-olds…he has not words to tell me, he just does…that’s his level now in stage seven.

Light at the end of the tunnel is having someone to relieve me while I take a nap; even if they can look through picture books together while I catch up on another of many forgotten chores. I am not young anymore. My next birthday will be my 80th. I understand that having respite might not come from the day program if he can’t meet their criteria. Even though I don’t have the energy to do the many other things I used to do, planned respite hours from somewhere just might allow me again to be a rested caregiver, to carry on from one respite period to the next.

I know exhaustion happens to us all. Take note. Take action. That’s the plan.

Do you have your plan? Visit our blogsite page Respite Ideas. Time to make your plan.

Fatigued, in need of respite. (c) 2021 Judith Allen Shone