Pushing Pills

I have come to see how really freeing it has been to have home health nurses visit our house every week. Our regular nurse, who usually fills Dean's pill organizer, wasn't scheduled to come last week and I forgot to ask the other nurse till it was too late. So Sunday morning I was up bright and early, sorting and filling the pill box. It felt odd doing it myself again. I had mixed feelings.

I had some guilt feelings about having the nurse do it in the first place a few months ago. It's not much work really. Plus at first I was worried she would make mistakes. It was hard to turn over the responsibility to someone else. I had so much ownership in it.

I slowly enjoyed not having to "push" the pills into that little box though. And then the feeling suddenly hit me this week that maybe I deserved to be free of the task. After all, I had done it religiously for over ten years. It's about time to turn it over to someone who will get paid for it.

The bath aides who help him shower three times a week have also been a blessing. They not only relieve my mind about him falling in the shower, but I don't have to argue with him about whether to shampoo. They keep track of it in their reports. How many years I have struggled with these issues on my own. It's nice to have reinforcements there to lighten the load even a little.

All I can say is that God knew when the time was right for the nurses to come on the scene. It wouldn't have happened if Dean hadn't fractured his foot last summer. Of all his falls over the years, this was the first one resulting in a fracture. Also, our case manager was temporarily changed, and she was experienced enough to know that we needed help around here, so she arranged for the home health agency to offer care.

All was ripe for this intervention and I have no doubt that God, our primary Case Manager, was overlooking the whole operation. And will continue to do so...