After an entire afternoon of medical appointments and getting fitted for new glasses I am blown away and left in tears when Mom says, “I’m sorry this took so much of your day”. Yes, the doctor’s appointment took us longer than expected and then stopping for the new glasses took longer that I anticipated – actually I didn’t even know that was going to be part of this day. However, once we had the prescription for new glasses, I thought, why wait another day? Why not do it all today?
In the end, doing both on the same day was and is a time saver for me but, I realized after, it exhausted my mother – she was so tired when we returned to her assisted living apartment. Another lesson learned – only one appointment or outing at a time!
We are so used to multi-tasking when running errands that we forget it takes the wind out of the sails of our aging parent to do what we do so often for ourselves. Learning to space and pace appointments made for and with mom is today’s lesson.
Why is it that I left her apartment in tears? Well, it was another opportunity to see how she really can’t manage on her own and needs all the support her family and the assisted living community can give her. It was interesting that she asked me if I checked her out of the community and I said, “No, I forgot to do that – I guess I kidnapped you.” So, she can remember some new routines but she didn’t remember, after notes and calls, that I was coming to take her to the doctor’s appointment.”
I did leave lots of time for picking her up and I know, and you should know, never to try to rush a parent who might have forgotten an appointment – leave yourself time for the parent to get dressed or put on shoes. Know it will take them twice the time it takes you to leave the house!
I remember my grandma, Mom’s Mom, telling me that she only has one activity a day on her calendar and then she never gets stressed. Thank you, Grandma, for that lesson I needed for your youngest daughter, “my appreciative mom”.