The Wednesday HodgePodge (August 16, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t participated in the Wednesday HodgePodge in a while. The reason is a comment Joyce, the organizer, made about Rikkie Kolle, the trans woman who won the Miss Netherlands competition last month. Trans rights are dear to my heart, so I felt the need to educate Joyce (respectfully, of course), even though I will probably not be able to convince her that trans women are women. After this, I didn’t feel I could in my right mind participate in the HodgePodge again, despite the fact that Joyce assured me that people from all walks of life are welcome. Then today I decided to check back and the first HodgePodge’er I stumbled upon happened to be Jewish. That’s a relief. So now I feel that I may be able to join in again, given that it’s indeed not just a place for conservative Christians.

1. What motivates you to work hard?
Nothing, honestly. I am not a hard worker. That being said, if I want to accomplish something, I thrive on setting myself deadlines.

2. It’s been said “Ignorance is bliss”…is it?
It depends. Where it comes to the state of this world, a healthy balance is needed. I mean, complete ignorance will lead people to mistreat the planet and each other even more than we already are, but being completely submerged in negative news, won’t solve anything either.

I think the same goes for our daily life. I mean, I watched a video on signs of dementia a few days ago and was shocked to find out I ticked more boxes than I thought I would. Now the doctor doing the video covered the complete spectrum from entirely healthy (which I know I’m not) to end-stage dementia. I am pretty sure I’m still at a stage where I can reverse any cognitive decline I might be experiencing. In this sense, ignorance could’ve felt like bliss, but it isn’t necessarily so.

3. Would you rather be stuck on a broken elevator or a broken ski lift? Explain. Have you ever actually been stuck on either? Of the common fears listed here what’s your #1: heights-enclosed spaces-snakes-public speaking-the dark-flying.
I’d probably choose an elevator, though neither seems appealing to me. Never experienced either. Out of the common fears, I’ll choose snakes as my number one because I’m very scared of venomous animals. I can handle a non-venomous snake without a problem though, have even had a small one around my neck.

4. What’s something you like about the town or city where you live?
The institution I live in (not my specific home, of course). The rest of the town is boring.

5. Life is too short to ___.
Waste it by endless worrying. Oh now how I wish I could stop doing it.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I haven’t shared this with the HodgePodge crowd yet, but I am soon moving to another care home. My assigned staff actually mentioned September. I havent’been given an exact date yet and won’t find out till about two weeks in advance. Fingers crossed it won’t be like the end of September, because quite frankly I can’t wait.

Colors, Changes and Connections

Posted on by Astrid

Today, I am joining Denyse’s #WWandPics link-up. Denyse apparently has been sharing posts following an alphabetical theme. Today, she talks about the letter C. I could do this alphabet thing too, but then I’d have to start at A. Instead, I’m taking inspiration from her “C” words to write my post.

Denyse’s first “C” word is “change”. Of course, things are changing in my world too, though I’m not yet sure when. I got informed last Saturday that my new care home will keep my current day schedule for now. That’s in spite of the fact that it apparently indeed does cover two hours more care a day than I get funding for. I still don’t fully understand the technicalities, but I don’t really care, as the number of support hours I get according to my day schedule was never the problem. It was how cut up into at most 60-minute activity blocks it is. It’s okay though. Better than the alternative my staff have been suggesting, saying I need to find a way to cut back on those two hours and go down to 30-minute activity blocks.

I asked my support coordinator about having a care plan review. We haven’t had one in nearly two years due to my moving to my current home right when my last review was due. My support coordinator is going to get the new one to schedule a review once I’m settled there and he will attend too.

He also finally sent my mother-in-law an activation code to access the daily reports on me and my care plan. As far as my mother-in-law is concerned, they mostly report really superficially. For those who are wondering, back several years ago it was agreed upon that I wouldn’t get access because it might cause distress, but I did want someone in my family to have access especially now that I’m struggling significantly. Most daily reports apparently go something along the lines of “mostly had a good day, slightly stressed over ___”. I don’t know whether it’s deliberate, but that’s certainly downplaying my distress.

The support coordinator for the new home did ask my current support coordinator to confirm what color paint I want on my wall, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure I already told him through my mother-in-law. It will be pink, since lilac wasn’t available. Truthfully, all other colors except maybe blue sounded awfully ugly to me. And yes, despite being blind, I do have some concept of color from when I could still see a little.

Through all this change, I am happy about my online connections. I have multiple disabilities, so am in Facebook groups for various conditions. I am also in a few Facebook groups for former preemies or NICU babies in general. The Dutch one is organizing a get-together in September. I sent the organizer an E-mail to sign up, then decided to ask some further questions in the Facebook group. As far as I’m aware, the get-together will be held in a café-style meeting room, so I’ll most likely be able to get the ParaTransit taxi driver to get me right to where I need to be. On the one hand, I’m reminding myself that I used to attend the DID charity meetups independently each month from 2011 till 2013 and even rode the train there by myself. On the other hand, it’s 2023, not 2013 and I’ve probably declined cognitively at least a little. Then again, if I don’t try, I’ll never know if I can do this. I would really love to connect to other NICU survivors, as honestly I’m beginning to realize I might not be alone in experiencing significant attachment issues and they might in fact have started this early on.

Can’t Wait to Leave

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for Five Minute Friday is “leave”. I am pretty sure this or a similar prompt came up before when I was in the process of finding what turned out to be my current care home. Maybe not on Five Minute Friday but on Stream of Consciousness Saturday or the like. Well, now that it came up on FMF, even though I’m not an actual Christian like most of the participants, I thought I’d join in. So, here goes.

I can’t wait to leave this nightmare of a care home. Today, a fellow client was being severely out of control right in front of my room and my would-be one-on-one had to leave me to attend to him because her colleague was alone attending to “the group” (ie. everyone except another one-on-one client). I felt it was unfair, because that other client’s one-on-one is non-negotiable, while my staff keep claiming I need to cut back on my hours. Well, I could not do any activity at all with how long it took the staff to attend to this other client and then bluntly tell me, once melting down, to calm down, etc.

I can’t wait to leave this nightmare of unclear and mostly very harsh treatment that I receive here. I mean, I’m not aggressive, but I get treated like I am.

I am hoping to find out when I’ll be moving to my new care home real soon.

I sometimes feel left alone on this journey. I try to turn to God, even though I no longer subscribe to traditional Christian beliefs. I really do hope that, even if (which I’m pretty sure is a “when”) I’m left all alone in this world, there’s someone out there who cares.

Hello Monday (August 7, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Monday of August. How are you all? Let me share about my weekend. I’m also sneaking in a bit about today, because I don’t think I can devote a separate blog post to the topic and it needs talking about anyway. I am joining in with Hello Monday.

Saturday started out pretty good. My assigned staff came to do my one-on-one for the morning. My schedule did get somewhat distorted because she came up with the idea of us clearing out my wardrobe. I didn’t mind at first, but I didn’t realize until it was too late how overloading this was.

Then eventually, after having had a shower, getting dressed and having had breakfast, I realized I’d forgotten the steroid cream I’d been prescribed for my eczema. I asked my assigned staff to help me apply it. “I’ll show you how, then you can do it yourself,” she said. Fair enough, you might say, but by this time I was well and truly overloaded. I sighed, to which my assigned staff made a comment about me being a “big girl” and that I could stomp my feet all I wanted (I didn’t). Once she got down to showing me how to apply the cream, she kind of curtly told me to relax my hand (which, well, having mild cerebral palsy, I simply can’t), then asked why I can’t. I got quite thick layers of cream on some parts of my skin and nothing on others, but in the end it didn’t matter, as the cream she’d grabbed was the oily lanette cream rather than the steroid. I do understand my staff meant well, in the sense that she’s trying to encourage independence. However, I often don’t realize how overwhelmed I am until it’s too late and at that point, any further demands will lead to me shutting or melting down.

Saturday evening was pretty good. We had home-cooked macaroni for dinner, which I loved! I actually was allowed a second helping.

On Sunday morning, my one-on-one arrived 25 minutes late, claiming it was only 15 minutes and that it just was what it was and deal with it. Then at lunchtime, she wouldn’t leave my room after I’d finished my drink (I wasn’t eating because I’d be having lunch out with my spouse), claiming she was making up for the time she’d been late in the morning. Well, it isn’t just sitting in my room that helps me. If she could’ve taken that time to help me with an activity that needed doing rather than just “chilling”, that would’ve been appreciated, but she couldn’t.

Thankfully, my spouse arrived around 1PM. We drove to Apeldoorn once again and, after a stroll around the city, decided to have lunch at Backwerk once again. I had the same old chicken barbecue baguette. Hema was closed, so we just had a drive around, then stopped by Aldi in the town next to where my institution is (I’m pretty sure those who live in the Netherlands know which town I’m referring to, if I haven’t shared it already). I wanted to get some nuts and Tuc (a kind of salty biscuit), which my dietitian allows me to snack on later in the evening. My spouse also got apricots, so I also bought those. And of course the perpetual Kinder Bueno. Then my spouse drove me back to the institution.

Once there, it turned out one of the staff had car trouble, so didn’t arrive till 4:30PM. Of course, it was my one-on-one that got cut. One of the other staff made it sound as though they were buying us French fries and a snack to make up for it, which I considered rather lame. Then after we’d finished our fries at 4:50, the staff informed me bluntly that my day schedule would be followed from there on, so I would have one-on-one again at 6PM. I felt this was ridiculous, but had no choice, as the staff were using stupid emotional reasoning to get me to agree with them.

In the evening, I did show my one-on-one how to make beads out of polymer clay.

Now on to my cheating by sharing a bit about today: this morning, my support coordinator informed me that he was going to attend the team meeting for my new care home to answer some questions about me, but that he thought I could answer those questions perfectly well myself. I agreed and went with him. Some of the questions made me feel a little uncomfortable.

The first question I got, in fact, referred to my drinking excessive water. That happened exactly once and was an impulsive act. I decided to broaden the topic and explain about my preference for how staff deal with my impulsive or self-harm tendencies, ie. by not giving more attention than needed to the behavior but to stay supportive of my emotional needs. I did forget to mention that wounds do need to be checked, something that doesn’t always happen here.

Overall, I mostly felt validated, in the sense that at least the team didn’t respond negatively to my comments. I did find it hard to walk the fine line between being too bluntly honest about my needs and delivering a sales pitch of myself. I hope I did okay though.

July 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month and this means it’s time for my monthly reflections. As usual, I’m joining in with What’s Been on Your Calendar? (or #WBOYC for short).

This month was a toughie once again. All I had to keep me going was an E-mail from the behavior specialist at the end of June saying that they were still investigating a possible new home for me, so I hadn’t been forgotten. This didn’t do much to perk me up, honestly. At the beginning of the second week of the month, my mother-in-law E-mailed her to request extra supports. We had been discussing her asking the behavior specialist to come round to talk to me every once in a while to keep me from spiraling further into crisis before, and in fact my mother-in-law had requested it before, but that message had not been responded to. This time around, it turned out the behavior specialist was on vacation till the end of the month. I’m pretty sure given her work schedule, she should be back tomorrow, but even though our E-mail was sent pretty early in her leave, I’m skeptical that she’ll respond then.

Of course, I did find out on the 23rd that a new home has been found for me. Like I mentioned last week, the way I found out about it was rather weird and I don’t know anything about the home other than what my care agency has on its website about it. A moving date hasn’t been set either as far as I’m aware and I won’t be informed till about two weeks in advance. My assigned staff asked me today whether I keep wondering when I’ll be moving. Yep, of course.

In other news, my support coordinator did leave the agency a few weeks ago. I can’t say I miss her, as I can talk to my new one much more easily. Still, I’m glad I’m leaving this place in the hopefully not too distant future.

I haven’t really been crafting much over this past month. The only thing I finished, in fact, is a bracelet with the glass beads I got from my mother-in-law for my birthday. Today, I did finally get round to claying once again. And got my hands all blue from handling alcohol inks without gloves.

I also didn’t walk as much as I did last month over this past month. I honestly don’t really care though.

Since iOS 16.6 resolved the Braille display bug that caused me to be unable to read books on my iPhone, I have been reading more over the past week. I also finally bought a blender, so yay for smoothies!

Here’s hoping August will be a better month than the past few months have been.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 29, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been a while since I last joined in with #WeekendCoffeeShare, so I thought I’d write a post for it. I just had my evening coffee, as is usual when I sit down to write these posts. I may still grab a cup of green tea later though, since, like I mentioned yesterday, I started using the Water Reminder app again. If you’d like a drink, cold or hot, join me and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, I’d first share about the weather. It hasn’t been summerlike, honestly. Rather rainy and the daytime temperatures barely got above 20°C. It isn’t supposed to get any better soon.

If we were having coffee, then I’d repeat myself by shouting off the rooftops for all of the Coffee Share crowd to hear that YAY, I AM MOVING!!! Of course, as those who read my post from Monday will know, I hardly know any details about my new care home and a moving date hasn’t been set. However, the bits of information I do gather, make me feel like this could be quite positive. I mean, it’s not likely my dream home or anything, but then again that was supposed to be this one, only that dream turned into a nightmare.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’ve been spending more time among my fellow residents lately. It’s not really my choice, truthfully. In part, it’s because I look for familiar faces in the communal room when I get assigned the umpteenth new temp worker. Then when I do get a familiar staff, they often ask me to join the group too. This morning, my one-on-one for the moment sincerely claimed another resident had asked me to come play a game of dice, but I’m not 100% sure it’s true with all the times the staff are initiating it. For those who don’t know, me being in the communal room, unless I’m indeed playing a game with the aforementioned fellow resident, usually means me sitting around doing nothing while the staff chat among themselves or scroll on their phones, thereby my not doing any meaningful activity. Besides, I usually get overwhelmed very easily, but the staff expect me to be able to tell them rather than them picking up on my signs. Today, I was extremely overloaded for over an hour after spending not even twenty minutes in the living room. With the fact that I’m moving, I’m not sure whether the staff want me to practice functioning in the group more so that they can lessen my one-on-one, as that wouldn’t benefit them at all. However, I don’t see any other reason for them to initiate me being in the group so often.

If we were having coffee, then I would tell you I closed all my rings on my Apple Watch every single day this week so far. That’s quite an accomplishment lately, as in late June, I broke my 300-odd day streak of meeting my movement goal and I once again didn’t meet it last week. I honestly have been rather unmotivated in the exercise department recently. This week though, I logged more workouts – mostly walking – than last week.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’ve generally been really uninspired over the past couple of weeks. I did make some simple smoothies with my new blender earlier this week, but other than that, I hardly did anything creative. I can only hope I can change this sooner rather than later.

Hello Monday (July 24, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining Hello Monday for a weekend recap. The weekend was a true mixed bag, but those who know how much I’ve been struggling please do read on till the end for some exciting news.

Saturday was a truly crappy day. I got a total stranger as my one-on-one for the morning. This is not unusual, but the crappiness started as soon as I voiced my discomfort with her being a total stranger. Rather than try to comfort me, she was like: “What about if I leave you alone till coffee time?” Coffee time is at 11AM and it was just past 10AM. I said no, because despite what the staff here seem to think my one-on-one isn’t a mere suggestion. Fifteen minutes later, she was like: “I haven’t had breakfast yet. I need to grab some food, see you at coffee time, okay?” I went to the communal room, where my assigned staff happened to be, who set this straight with my would-be one-on-one. After that, we played some card games, had coffee and then she quickly decided to swap places with another staff. He’s not a stranger. Not someone I get along with, but at least I know what to expect of him (which is very little, to be honest).

In the evening, there was a staff shortage until 6PM and of course I was asked to come to the communal room to unburden the staff (his literal words). Then I got a staff I barely knew once again and only could play card games once again.

Sunday was better. I did get an unfamiliar one-on-one in the morning, but at least my spouse came by for a visit. We once again drove to Apeldoorn for lunch at Backwerk and hopped into Holland and Barrett for some essential oils. My spouse got a discount card even though we rarely shop there.

In the evening, my new support coordinator – did I share my old one left the agency a few weeks ago? – was my one-on-one for an hour. We went for a walk and discussed some aspects of my care, both unaware of the E-mail landing in my inbox at 7PM. My mother-in-law had forwarded it to me. It was originally sent to her at 11AM that morning. The subject line read something like: Painting Astrid’s new room.

The E-mail started with something like: “I am [name], support coordinator for Astrid’s new care home, [home].” The person writing the E-mail then went on to tell my mother-in-law that, when moving, a client can have one wall in their room painted in a desired color, and which color would I like?

I had heard my assigned staff mention this home among the possible homes considered for me, but I had absolutely no idea I had been accepted into it. I don’t know anything about the home other than what the care agency’s website says, which isn’t to be trusted due to the fact that they make things look better than they are. However, it isn’t really like I care. Any small improvement over the care I receive here is greatly appreciated.

Today, I confirmed with my support coordinator that I am indeed moving to this home. When the move will be, is not yet known for sure, but I’ll find out about two weeks in advance and be able to take a look around a few days before the actual move.

And for those who are wondering, I chose lilac as the color for my wall.

Ideal Isn’t Real

Posted on by Astrid

Today is the day the word I picked for #JusJoJan was assigned to, so I’m pretty much obliged to write a post. My original choice for a word was “Home”, but I made up my mind as I wrote my comment on Linda’s post and chose “Ideal”. My plan was to then write about my ideal care situation.

I am not sure I can do it though. An ideal situation, after all, doesn’t exist and chasing it may mean I lose sight of the things I could appreciate in what I already have. That’s possibly what happened with the move to my current care home, much as I struggle to admit it.

Of course, I knew there were going to be drawbacks to this care home, but I minimized them in my mind. When, back in like late 2021, I read up the information on this care home on my agency’s website, it sounded ideal. In fact, I remember at one point telling my staff and some people on an E-mail support group I belong to that it was my dream care home. But that’s judging from a promotional webpage, not reality.

Then when I actually got the opportunity to go here, what I found out on my visits here indeed revealed some more negatives. However, for the most part, these were vague “gut feeling” negatives, not facts. A factual negative was the fact that staff here don’t tell us clients who will be on shift the next day, reasoning that they might fall ill. “But we all come back,” the support coordinator reassured me, “and if we don’t, we’ll tell you.” Well, the one time a staff left so far, I didn’t find out in advance.

Maybe, looking back, there were clearer signs than just my gut feeling that the dream care home was going to turn into a nightmare. I am not sure. Maybe I didn’t ask the right questions. Maybe the staff – purposefully or not – avoided answering the real questions, focusing instead on details. Either way, I can’t help it now. What I can do is never believe something is going to be ideal again. Ideal isn’t real, after all.

Gratitude List (October 7, 2022) #Blogtober22

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s Friday, which usually means the Ten Things of Thankful linky is live. It isn’t yet as of the time of this writing, but if it will be live tomorrow, I’ll link this post up regardless. After all, I really want to do a gratitude post. It so happens that today’s prompt in #Blogtober22 is gratitude. Let me share.

1. I am grateful I was able to see most of my staff from my old care home and give them something from my shelf of handmade items before I moved here on Wednesday. I left the things that hadn’t been picked yet to be distributed among staff I didn’t get an opportunity to see.

2. I am grateful for delicious French fries on Sunday. Okay, it was my idea and I paid for them, but I am grateful the staff were willing to drive to my favorite snack corner in Raalte to get them.

3. I am grateful that the one client at my old care home who can talk a little, came by my room once it downed upon him that I was leaving. He gave me a candy bar and started to cry a little. I am grateful I was able to comfort him.

4. I am grateful for all the nice goodbye presents I got from the home and day center. I still don’t have pictures, but will show you once I do. Among other things, I got a giraffe soft toy and a framed collage containing photos of me.

5. I am grateful that, on Wednesday, the staff who were going to help me move were in the home early. After all, I woke up at around 7AM and am so glad I could get help then.

6. I am grateful my new staff don’t leave me alone for prolonged periods of time. In my old care home, it had been determined that I could be left alone for up to 45 minutes at a time, and this sometimes got prolonged to several hours if staff just popped their heads around the door when the 45-minute timeframe was up. I indicated pretty early on that, now that I don’t know my way around the home, I think 45 minutes is too long. Thankfully, the staff are able to accommodate me.

7. I am grateful for nice chatter with my fellow residents at the new home. I am also grateful for several clients from other homes who greeted me and started talking to me on my walks.

8. I am grateful my call button works after all. It didn’t work the first day in my new home, but yesterday, it got fixed.

9. I am grateful for home-cooked meals. Even for me, a rather picky eater, I think the staff are able to cook quite good meals, better at least than the meal delivery service ones. On Wednesday, I even at one point wanted to try some mash, which I normally can’t stand. I eventually decided against it though.

10. I am grateful a fellow client at my new home, who is into St. Nicholas, gave me a candy mouse this afternoon. This is a typical St. Nicholas treat. It was such a sweet gesture.

What are you grateful for?

Moving Into the New Care Home

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. I’m departing from the #31Days2022 prompts today, because the prompt for today, “other”, didn’t spark any creative muse in me yet. Instead, for today’s post, I am writing about my move into the new care home. It’s been quite the overloading day, to be honest.

I had set the alarm for 7:30AM, because the moving crew would be in Raalte at eight to collect my desk and chair. The rest of my belongings had been moved to the new home yesterday. Not surprisingly, I woke up before the alarm went off. Thankfully, there already was a staff available for me. When the moving crew had removed my furniture, I had breakfast at another table.

Thankfully, there still was time for a walk before it was time for me to collect the stuff that could go into the staff’s car and to drive off to the new home. This stuff included the soft toy I’d slept with, my clothes from the night before as well as the goodbye presents I’d gotten from the home and day center. One of the day center staff specifically came by to say goodbye to me on her day off.

As we got here to the new home, we were greeted by a man whom I’ve come to assume will be my assigned staff but of which I’m not sure. We were allowed to unpack, which took several hours. I had lunch after everyone else had already had theirs.

My staff from my old care home in Raalte left at around 2PM. From then on, several staff have come and gone into and out of my apartment. I did go for a walk around grounds at around 3:30PM. Several clients from other homes greeted me and my staff and started talking to us. I liked it, but it was a bit overwhelming at the same time.

At around 5PM, I got very irritable. The reason was the fact that my call button doesn’t work as of yet. It looks like it may’ve been set to be received at the night staff’s office in the main building, where during the day there’s no-one. I hope that’s true, as otherwise I won’t be able to reach anyone during the night.

I also found out there’s no handle to lock my room’s door from the inside without a key. I immediately drew the conclusion this means I can be locked into my room. Of course, the staff said they wouldn’t, but the mere fact that they can, causes me intense fear.

I am trying to stay as calm as possible as I write on my blog now that I’m alone. Thankfully, I can tell time – the staff verified this, which may seem stupid to those reading my blog but was actually validating to me. Now that they know I can tell time, they can tell me when they will be back. This does help me.