Somedays You Just Need Help

Dennis hasn't been able to get out of bed since we returned from our vacation in Paris. It doesn't seem to be hypotension, but rather just plain low blood pressure. He's exhausted, coughing and choking and not eating well. He did eat toast with jelly, drank his daily portion of Boost and ate a few of the bbq'd ribs I bought for last nights dinner. Of course, just the simple act of putting his hand to his mouth with the food I cut up for him wears him out, so he finally decided to just stay in bed for the day.

I should let you know that my day job is in education, so I am off for the summer and able to spend more time with Dennis. And before anyone reading this thinks or says anything about teachers having 3 months off in the summer and how lucky we are, let me tell you something. That is exactly why I am in education. For the summers. So there.

We hired a PCA last winter when it became completely apparent that I was not going to be able to continue working full time knowing that I might come home, once more, to Dennis sprawled out on the floor in a pool of blood or Coke. We thought she was coming today, but we had forgotten to call her, so I was staying home. Since I have my summers off, it was not a problem. I had tons of laundry anyway and all those pictures of Paris to download and then upload and then share with friends via email and the boomer forum I hang out in all of the time and staying home all day seemed to be okay.

We found Dennis' PCA, Raquel, through Craigslist. I know this is not the traditional way to hire a care attendant, but when we called the organizations on the list that the Parkinson's social worker had given us, we figured we had to find a more affordable alternative. I mean we are already paying those huge cobra payments for his insurance and the co-payments for all the medications and physical and speech therapy and I was NOT going to give up Laticia, my housekeeper who makes the house sparkle every other Saturday. So we decided to find an independent PCA to save our budget.

We needed some help and we found Raquel. But Raquel was not coming with us to Paris.

I knew that Dennis wanted to see all of Paris. I mean ALL of Paris. I also knew that I was not going to be able to push his wheel chair everyday, everywhere. So we asked at the desk of the hotel about hiring someone to push him around for a day. We both wanted to visit the Latin quarter and it has lots of small streets and small hills. Pushing a 150 pound chair and 170 pound guy up even a slightly hilly area is not my idea of enjoying my vacation, so if we were going to see this part of Paris, we simply needed a strong kid.

We found Julien. An 18 year old, who just graduated from High School and whose mother runs an agency that takes small groups on different types of tours around Paris. Seems she wanted he son to get some work, so she lined him up to take us around the Latin Quarter. Julien knows the Latin Quarter well, since that is where he goes to school, so he was the perfect guide and he was also able to push Dennis up the hills and able to hold onto the chair while going down the hills. Sometimes a girl needs a young boy to help out.

Thanks, Julien, for helping us out. Thanks, Julien, for showing us the Latin Quarter and all the great stories.


Until tommorow,

Ann and Dennis