Independence suddenly reins, and you no longer go into the room with the parent at the doctors office. Nothing better you think than being cut-out. You think less responsibility, more of the parent taking on the responsibility of themselves and breathe a sigh of extra freedom. And, nobody says that that is a bad thing for either party. Wrong!
Suddenly the medication – the pharmacology prescribed by the MD, that you pick up at the pharmacy, only has the Pharmacist to ask questions of. You – yourself, have used this drug, and know that’s it’s a serious one in the categories of weak to serious. You do list the current medication, and they tell you the computer looks out for interactions. Ok. You ask about their age, and their current drugs and any known side effects. None, but take with food, and minor items. Ok.
Not okay. Next morning, you have side effects to clean up after. There an incontinence mess, or vomiting mess, or a dementia mess, or an arguably factor that has arisen. The parent won’t eat and suddenly you know that independence you were hoping would pan out, just went flat.
The work is now yours; the mess is not serious enough to call the MD or is it? Thinking alone, as you clean-up the parent, clean up the floor, the bed, the kitchen. Make food that gets only nasty comments. Run the washer and the dryer, and miss a day of work – again. The head scratching continues to think, ‘this is medicine? This re-action will make someone better?” As the work begins all over again.
6/15/09
Communication - Karnack the Telepathic
Bring home pink instead of brown? Square instead of oblong, and hear all the commentary and endless criticism from the parent on your purchase or decision?
The easy thing, the parent forgets is that you really don’t know them like their spouse or partner did/does. You are not privy to what they usually purchase, get, have, or use. You like myself, never really
wanted to know that much, or didn’t care to know if the brand name was better than the generic store brand in their taste pallet for breakfast cereal. Each of us stands in wonderment of what we have to do next. Return the bad product and get the right one. This is where the feeling of being treated negligently enters in. We make the effort – which most often never gets any credit, since we did the wrong thing to begin with. Therefore, in the parent’s efforts toward the house daughter or son, we don’t deserve acknowledgement. We did the wrong thing. We really did what we could, but we are not mind readers. Yet the generation who’s entertainer, Johnny Carson had a character, Karnack the Magnificent, who was a comic mind reader on this late night television show might have originated with a wife or an elder’s shopping adventure in Mr. Carson's personal home.
It pleases me relate the Karnack character to my own misfortunate experiences and lack of telepathy in such situations. Although I will give up my after hours of work, drive in traffic, deal with store return policies, hunt down the correct product or model, purchase it, drive back to the house, and pull up so hard on my bootstraps to present the replacement item – that I’d really rather not do anything at all.
Yet, I try, with amour mounted on my chest, my heart, my ego – deliver the replacement goods. For better or worse, in sickness or health, I have done my duty to my god and my country, all over a piece of
merchandise that wasn’t quite right.Allow me to remember this when I get old. I can forget my address, my own old age telephone number,but this lesson, I must keep. And that is: I speak, I must describe the good and the bad, and I must give a range of options in sizes, shapes, colors, and state why, to the annoyance of the person tasked to achieve this product, about why I need it and want it.
Savings? A lifetime of woe and self-doubt. Priceless because I can fire Karnack the Telepathic!
The easy thing, the parent forgets is that you really don’t know them like their spouse or partner did/does. You are not privy to what they usually purchase, get, have, or use. You like myself, never really
wanted to know that much, or didn’t care to know if the brand name was better than the generic store brand in their taste pallet for breakfast cereal. Each of us stands in wonderment of what we have to do next. Return the bad product and get the right one. This is where the feeling of being treated negligently enters in. We make the effort – which most often never gets any credit, since we did the wrong thing to begin with. Therefore, in the parent’s efforts toward the house daughter or son, we don’t deserve acknowledgement. We did the wrong thing. We really did what we could, but we are not mind readers. Yet the generation who’s entertainer, Johnny Carson had a character, Karnack the Magnificent, who was a comic mind reader on this late night television show might have originated with a wife or an elder’s shopping adventure in Mr. Carson's personal home.
It pleases me relate the Karnack character to my own misfortunate experiences and lack of telepathy in such situations. Although I will give up my after hours of work, drive in traffic, deal with store return policies, hunt down the correct product or model, purchase it, drive back to the house, and pull up so hard on my bootstraps to present the replacement item – that I’d really rather not do anything at all.
Yet, I try, with amour mounted on my chest, my heart, my ego – deliver the replacement goods. For better or worse, in sickness or health, I have done my duty to my god and my country, all over a piece of
merchandise that wasn’t quite right.Allow me to remember this when I get old. I can forget my address, my own old age telephone number,but this lesson, I must keep. And that is: I speak, I must describe the good and the bad, and I must give a range of options in sizes, shapes, colors, and state why, to the annoyance of the person tasked to achieve this product, about why I need it and want it.
Savings? A lifetime of woe and self-doubt. Priceless because I can fire Karnack the Telepathic!
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