Oliver: The hardest lessons in caregiving sometimes can be painful to learn

I fought the floor, and the floor won.

Well, I didn’t exactly try to engage in combat with the kitchen linoleum a little over a week ago, but I found my right cheek slamming into it with considerable force. The floor, of course, was no worse for wear in the aftermath.

Me, not so much. As I write this, I have the start of a black eye, and a significant bruise on the right side of my face that starts near my mouth and creeps upward. It’s a look, that’s for sure.

As a caregiver, I’ve had to learn a lot of lessons as I’ve gone along. Some of those lessons come with emotional challenges, some with mental challenges. A few, at least lately, have come with physical tests.

Sadly, it’s the physical ones that I seem to do the worst at, and I’ve had the bruises to show for it.

This time, it was not realizing that I had no business trying to “help” when my husband, Tony, was getting irritated with his other caregiver.

Tony’s early onset Alzheimer’s disease has been getting worse this year, and Tony’s response when he doesn’t like a situation can become physical. A lot of times, though, he starts swinging because he’s uncomfortable or in some sort of pain.

When I’ve done well, I’ve been able to defuse tense situations by knowing what’s behind them. If Tony doesn’t want to change his clothes, I try to patiently explain why we need to do it, and then I’ll wait him out. Eventually, he gets there. When he does not, I must evaluate whether the request really needs to be done at all.

It’s been a learning process. What I want Tony to do and what Tony wants to do don’t always sync up. I’ve also found that we’re all better off when I allow Tony to have his way, so long as it doesn’t put either of us in danger. Very few things Tony wants to do, happily, are like that.

That’s not to say that I’ve always been so generous of spirit. When Tony decided that he wanted to unscrew every knob on the kitchen cabinets, I must admit I wasn’t happy about it.

I learned the hard way that trying to explain to him that this behavior is unacceptable does not work. His response to my lecture left me with bruises that took a long time to heal.

These days, I just try to check the knobs regularly and then quietly tighten them. He doesn’t remember unscrewing them, and it’s honestly not that big of a deal … anymore.

Sometimes I’ve completely misunderstood what Tony has been trying to tell me. Of course, the fact that it was 1 a.m. and I was exhausted might have had something to do with my inability to think clearly.

Back in October, Tony had a solid week in which he would not go to bed. The first night of this was a doozy for both of us.

First, I did get him into bed, but he refused to stay there. He was restless and babbling, and nothing I said or did would get him to climb back into bed.

After about two hours of trying, I lost my patience and thought I could “make” him go to bed. Wrong.

Eventually, I just closed the door behind me and went elsewhere to sleep, bruised and defeated.

After a consultation with one of Tony’s doctors and a fine suggestion, I tried some pain meds. Lo and behold, my dear Tony finally started going to bed again and sleeping through the night.

I always ask him if he’s in any pain. He always tells me no. However, this seems to indicate otherwise.

These days, as I’m still trying to figure things out, I’m much more attuned to Tony’s mood. And it has reduced the unpleasantness we experience.

However, Tony still doesn’t like getting ready in the morning. But that’s not my responsibility; that’s his other caregiver’s. I gave up that duty earlier in the year when I was having surgery for breast cancer. I could no longer handle Tony’s displeasure.

So, I suppose I shouldn’t have tried to “help” when Tony didn’t want to take off his cardigan. As I reached for a sleeve, Tony lunged at me. I jumped backward just as he shoved me. The momentum sent me flying backward. As I twisted, I upended our coffee maker into the sink and then heard the sickening thud of my cheek hitting the kitchen floor.

Ultimately, it was another lesson learned. Albeit a painful one.

• Joan Oliver is the former Northwest Herald assistant news editor. She has been associated with the Northwest Herald since 1990. She can be reached at jolivercolumn@gmail.com.