Tuesday, May 12

Today was to be the day. The day where a home health aide or PCA (personal care aide)would show up and take over the duties of caretaker for my husband while I am at work.

I've written it here before and I'll write it again. The best laid plans of mice & men.

I received the call from the agency on Monday, May 11 asking me what hours I need for coverage (again). I told them that I work from 9am - 5:30pm Monday thru Friday. I also put a request in for an aide to come on Sundays because of my obligations to my church. "No problem" they say, just call us ahead of time and let us know what Sundays you'll need coverage. I said "okie dokie".

While speaking with the agency regarding the PCA's hours, I reminded them that my husband goes to the dialysis clinic on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, from 10:30am - 2:30pm. He returns home between 3pm and 3:30pm. So we wouldn't need a caregiver during those particular hours on those days. I would need someone to come in on those days and see that he gets into the transportation van. That company won't pick up without someone being here at the house. (Side note: The transportation fiasco has finally gotten squared away as they showed up at the house today w/o a call to the dispatch office; however they were 15 minutes late). "No problem" they said (again).

So I'll let you guess what happened this morning before I left for work. I haven't gone back to work full time per se' because it's never that simple.

If you guessed that the PCA didn't show, you'd be 100% correct. She (I know it's a female because during that call yesterday, they gave me her name) was supposed to be here at 8:30am. 8:30am came & went. No aide. I didn't call the company because I have been given liberal time off while I get this taken care of. So I waited for the transportation folks to get here and take him to his appointed place, then I left for a few hours of work. I had made a deal w/my supervisor that until this is taken care of, I can come in on the dialysis days and work on some administrative things. So I did. It was nice to get back into the work environment but I hadn't missed it as much as I thought.

I got home and the transportation folks dropped my husband off and the gears started to grind once again. At about 4:30pm, the agency called to see how things were going. I told them that I hadn't seen anyone today as of yet but other than that, things were going well. Of course she was taken aback and couldn't for the life of her understand why no one was here. And then she asked me this question after inquiring about whether the aid was here or not: "Are you sure she's not there?" Had that not been the most absurd question that I'd been asked since this whole thing started, I perhaps would have let it go. But I couldn't. I just said to her. "Well, let me check the bathrooms and kitchen". "Nope, she's not here and pretty sure she hasn't been here today." "Ok" the agency spokesperson said. She told me she was going to "make some calls" and see what was going on. I told her I was ok for today but perhaps someone could start tomorrow. I have decided that I'm taking the rest of this week off because apparently this was much harder than I ever thought it could be.

I have yet to hear "what was going on." I won't be surprised when, tomorrow, once again, no one will show up.

It seems that each day brings an issue. No one can fix it and I just laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

If an aid gets here before I retire from work. I'll be sure to post it and hopefully she'll have an answer as to why she couldn't get here when she was supposed to.