I posted a while ago when mom was in the early stages of her recovery from her rupture. She was not awake for 3 months starting May 2017 and was heavily medicated until December of 2017. She finally started making more improvement, but I still get a little concerned that there is something more we should be doing. We get her moving and walking as much as possible, but when she isn’t willing she takes it very personally and says that we are saying that she isn’t trying which is never the case. She has had significant improvement, but she has days that are much more productive than others, and those other days she seems either somewhat confused, or unwilling to try anything. Is this something that anyone has experienced? Since the weather has been a little nicer, she has been more willing to go outside and practice her walking/balance. However, other days when it is colder she is very unmotivated or maybe she is just tired, but I’m not sure. It has been almost a year since her rupture and we are VERY happy with her recovery, I just want to make sure we aren’t missing anything. Also have reassurance is nice. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hey Rachel,
My advice, don’t push it. Encouragement is a good thing, but so is rest. Just from what you have said roles have been reversed (From a parent being the carer/support of a child, to the child being the carer/support of a parent) and that can be difficult to damn near impossible to accept (I know I didn’t like it one little bit). I formerly worked with people with disabilities and I’d often try to encourage clients to participate. Some days it was a breeze other days it was like trying to move a concrete wall. Now I’m the one with the disability and just like my former clients I have days where I simply can’t or I simply don’t want to. I found with my clients, if I pushed them I could have any reaction of submission to violence and if I was lucky enough to get submission today, tomorrow could be the total opposite.
Now, some people find this a bit odd probably because it didn’t seem to have an impact previously, but the weather can play a massive role in my pain levels. On cold wet days the atmospheric pressure is greater and I now seem to be more sensitive to this and my headaches pound. I often explain it as “I have a man in my head with a sledgehammer trying to escape from my skull” no amount of encouragement is going to overcome it, What I actually need is rest, not exercise. In fact encouragement just makes me frustrated and angry. I am not a child. I have a niece who is a nurse and she tries her ‘nursey attitude’ with me and at times I am so tempted to punch her in the nose. What I want to say is simply “PISS OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” but I grit my teeth and say “ohh, not today thanks.”
We all have days when we are more productive than others, jeez I have days that are non-productive at all, but your mum sounds like she has doubts in your belief of her and those are the days she needs your praise. We all like praise when we’ve done well, but praise on the days when we haven’t recognises how far we have come from the start of our journey and that can mean 1000times more than the praise we receive for daily achievements.
I hope this helps.
Merl from the Moderator Support Team
Hey RMA,
As I say I completely understand how difficult the role reversal can be for you, but, just for a second, turn it around and think “how difficult is this for mum?”