Another year has rolled past us and while we had some hairy moments last year thankfully all is well with Bill right now. His biggest enemies at the moment are Boredom and Constipation! Therefore my roll at the moment is trying to relieve the boredom for him, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't and of course dealing with the uncomfortableness of his constipation.
Next month will present a new set of problems for our family when the kids head back to school after their holidays and the 2 oldest boys start their polytech courses while I am at work. It is my mission at the moment to get all the able bodied occupants in my household into a daily routine to help out with Bills needs and also those dreaded daily chores. Let me tell you, that is not going to be easy.....Patrick is 19 now and its taken us this long to get him to pick his own clothes up off the floor all by himself lol....
I'm going to be starting work an hour later so I can help Bill with his morning ablutions etc and then initially anyway, will be coming home a couple of times a day at lunch time and in the afternoon to get him onto his bed for his afternoon rest. But we'll just have to take things day by day and just see what works for us and what doesn't. It has been suggested by family that one of our boys might apply to become Bills caregiver during the day which could possibly give one of them a small income, but for the time being at least, Bill and I would like them to have as normal a teenagerhood as possible.
We had a good heart to heart conversation with the kids last night about next month and some of the difficulties that may or may not occur and I have to admit I was slightly taken aback by the boys positive attitude to what we were saying. I have to say that I haven't actually expected too much in the way of help from them in the past, I was actually anticipating "the argument" that would ensue if I asked for help rather than giving them an opportunity to help if they wanted to. I preferred to avoid "the argument" and just do it myself........I'm going to have to remember that my boys are young adults now!
Having said that though,Pakura put his father into bed the other night and I almost had a heart attack watching him. Good grief my poor husband (his poor father) got dumped on the bed with no finesse at all. I had to bite my lip to stop myself from yellin at him.....shut up Erin, just shut up!!!! Made a mental note to self...first thing to teach the boys is "how to transfer their father from the chair to his bed properly" LOL.
Bills mum and step dad, 2 sisters, 1 brother, 1 brother in-law and a whole heap of neices and nephews descended on our place on New Years Eve and painted our lounge and passage for us.....all done in dusted in a day...awesome! His mum, stepdad and sisters went home the same afternoon but Des, his brother and all of the nieces and nefs stayed in Tga for New Years Eve, that was neat too.
Thank you our whanau for the much needed paint job, will have to train Bill not to scrape the newly painted walls with his chair now aye! (He has been known to do that once in a while, all those things on wheels are quite awkward to move around in the house).
All in all we are pretty happy with where Bill is at right now, will keep you as up to date as I can over the next few months.
Happy New Year all!
The Gardiners!
