My dad’s been going to the shop to hang out the past couple of days, which is not much of a deal, but night before last no one even bothered to tell me that he was going to be staying there overnight. Made for a very very stressful night without sleep for me, because I had no idea if someone was about to head home with him or what was going on. He was finally brought home around noon or 1 yesterday afternoon – just in time for him to get his pills a couple hours late.

Then last night my sister and her husband showed back up around 10 pm, hung out for a while, then she started looking for the keys to the car she had given mom years back after dad had his stroke. I was puzzled, but once I figured out what she had been looking for (had to ask her) I got the keys (which I had setting by my purse because I was going to be driving said car), and handed them to her. Turned out she wants to take the car and I need to clear my stuff out of it. As I write this that’s been done and they have the car and I am sitting here carless after having thought I had a car for taking dad where he needed to go and for doing the shopping. Silly me.

What the backstory is… after mom died – the day she was buried, we followed her to Anchorage in the white Cadillac. We stopped on the way home and I filled the tank so it would be ready when I needed the car in the spring because at that time the price of gas was supposed to go up still, so at roughly $5 a gallon I filled the tank in the Caddy.

As I was filling it Helen moseyed around and asked me what I was going to do with the car, because she had apparently heard that I had asked my brother about him driving the car when dad needed to go anywhere since I didn’t like driving in the winter and he lives next door. I’ve not driven much, it has bad brakes, I prefer the professional race car driver to be driving in icy conditions rather than me. She seemed to think I was giving him the car, I said to her, “You gave it to mom, I know that. If anyone other than Dad gets it it’d be you.” She replied with, “Oh no! It’s dad’s car, and I want you to keep it and drive it, I just don’t want anyone else driving it because they would ruin it.” We talked for a bit and I made it clear I would not drive it in the winter, I’m not a good enough driver to feel safe on the road with the lunatics that need to relearn winter driving every year, I’d wait for Spring then drive it. She seemed to have no problem with that, car was dad’s and I was to drive it so me and dad had transportation. She made a few hints I should drive some before the snow hit, but I never got the chance to and didn’t really care to drive until the brakes got fixed on it. So I left it parked for the winter.

I kept paying the insurance every month, faithfully, just to be sure it would still be insured this month when I could safely drive it. Car was parked, but I paid the insurance, because I knew I would be driving this spring.

Now, last night… she takes the car away from me. No forewarning, no comment, just searched through things for the keys and without a word on what she was up to took the car. I had to dang near pull teeth before she admitted that yes, she’s keeping it and I have to empty my things and mom’s and dad’s stuff outta it. At first she’d commented that it would be up here a lot so I could get things any time I wanted to, I chose to get stuff today since the car didn’t start last night. They were back around noon today with a wrecker and took it away.

They also have dad down there, which is the second night in a row he’s spent the night down there – in same clothing he had day before yesterday, sleeping on a recliner in the garage rather than them bringing him back home to sleep in his bed. I expected him to be back when they came after the Caddy, but they didn’t bring him home then. Called a while ago, nephew said he had no idea and would have his mom call me back, haven’t heard from her yet though. No idea when, or if, dad’ll be home. Which means he won’t get a chance to rest before I have to go to the Saturday Market deal in the morning to try and kickstart a new home based business to try and earn money to help make ends meet. They were supposed to take dad so I could go get that going, but I’m uneasy now after two full nights sleeping in a chair in a garage. That can’t be good for his health, but I have no way out at this point, I have space reserved (have for a couple weeks now) and everything, all I can do is let them keep him one more night and go to the Saturday Market and have dad brought home tomorrow evening.

I’m not amused at any of it, in case it don’t show. (And this is only the things I can growl about publicly – sheeeeesh).

So, this evening I’ll have my brother drop off medications, clothes and PJs so at least Dad has had a change of clothing down there and something more comfortable than corduroy pants to sleep in. Then I’ll get ready for the Saturday Market I am supposed to be at starting at around 8 or 9 in the morning.

I had planned to take Caddy up to it, now I will be figuring out how to get my quilting things onto my ATV, since my brother has other things he needs to be doing at that time.

Don’t ya just love family? No wonder mom used to watch Momma’s Family and Rosanne and say she watched because it made her feel like her family was normal.

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(And no, I’m not joking – they live upstairs of the garage and he can’t get up there, so he sleeps in recliner downstairs in the garage with the cars when he’s at her place. I don’t like but can’t stop it either cause he wants to see other peoples and they don’t visit him here very much – plus, they let him smoke all that he wants to, I limit him to a cigarette every half hour.)

There comes a point when you are a caregiver when you need to know when to just say “No”. I’ve decided that if someone asks about taking dad down to hang out at the garage today I’m just going to say no. He’s completely exhausted, has hardly woke up today even after he had spent all night pretty much sleeping (only woke me up 3 times I think).

As much as I like him getting out,k since it gives me a break and lets him visit with the people that never come to see him, I need to think about what mom would say if she was here and I know that she would not want him to be going anywhere when he’s this exhausted – so, if asked, I am going to say no.

My dad had a blood test today, and I needed to stay home because someone was going to be by here, so my sister took him on her own.  She seems to have kept him for a while, since it is now 5 hours after the appointment time and about 4 hours after she should have got him home.  I wish that she would learn to call and let me know when he is going to hang out with them, but still…  It is amazing how relaxing it can be to have some time alone.

It’s not that I don’t love my dad, as mom always pointed out if I did not I’d have run the first time he threw something at me, but it is nice to get a break occasionally where I know that he’s with someone that will keep an eye on him and let me know if anything happens.  Leaves me free to actually relax, I mean really relax.  Able to not worry about anything, such as if my dad’s going to have a heart attack or stroke at any second and I might miss the warning signs.

Anyone that has never experienced that kind of stress has no idea what it’s like, and trust me, you don’t want to know – you really don’t want to know what it’s like to live with that kind of stress 24-7-365.  It’s no wonder my hair is thin (and so was mom’s), stress and poor nutrition are, from what I have heard, reflected in the hair’s condition.

But, I am able to relax at the moment, and am taking advantage of that luxury by catching up on some cleaning.  I’d sleep, but I’m a bit too tensed for that – laying with nothing to think about would send my thinking to bad scenarios and I don’t need that.  So, instead I am cleaning the living room and doing laundry and washing dishes and watching reruns of Burn Notice.

After having watched Congress for the past couple of years, and seeing a lot of caregiver bills vanish into the abyss, I have decided that I want to take a closer look at it all this year, so, I have decided that I am going to watch what they do in terms of anything that effects family caregivers.  So, I am going to start looking at their work during the week and dissecting it here on this blog.

I will be taking the floor summary from the Office of the Clerk’s website and looking at the relevant parts here on Family Caregiver Info.  I had actually thought to do this back even before congress first convened, but trying to get the house heater repaired and working to earn a little money writing got in the way, now I am going to be working on catching up for the past week of Congress.

We will start with day 1 here and look at what they did.   You can find the Floor Summaries archived in the forum under 11th Congress, please feel free to join in discussion about the things that Congress is up to, particularly where it concerns family caregivers.