My right upper arm has become very painful. I think it's from lifting and moving my bf around. It's getting worse every day. Now I'm not sure the cause. I think washing dishes bothers it too. I take pain killers that help a lot - Vicodin. They allow me to keep using the arm. But that's why it's getting worse.

I'm not sure what to do. I think it's some kind of muscle strain and tendonitis - deltoid, I think. Sometimes I can barely stand to lift the tea kettle. I use 2 hands. I fear causing permanent damage, if I don't stop using this arm for anything requiring exertion. What I do often doesn't hurt much, while I'm doing it, but the next day the pain is there worsening.

I need to get more help with his care and the cooking and dishes. But people come in and they don't do things very well. If I have him go temporarily to a nursing home, I think he would do very poorly.

I think about seeing my pcp (she's not a doctor) but I think the only real fix is to stop overusing my arm. My s.o. doesn't seem too worried about me straining my arm. Last night I got real upset about him wanting to get out of bed at midnight. I told him I have to move him less. He has just enough dementia to be hard to reason with sometimes.

I never before cared that I didn't have a lot of money. When you or someone you love gets sick, that's when money is great to have. If you can hire competent people to do what needs doing, then everything can be alright. We have these home attendants who get sent in, but they really aren't that much of a help. The main one I don't let lift my bf hardly at all. She just doesn't have the skill. She was offered 40 hrs/week. She manages to show up 20 hours. Basically I send her to the laundromat to wash his clothes and towels and sheets. I do the cooking and the hands-on care. I can drop laundry off at a wash-and-fold service. It is not much more expensive to do that, than to supply the attendant with quarters and laundry products. I just have her do laundry to give her something to do. I do the showers. It's like the help is no help. Another attendant we have is strong and can move my bf around, but she's only here 7 hrs/week. Hospice wants to send someone for "bath visits." They allow an hour for bathing. That's not enough time to do complete hygiene on a non-ambulatory patient who can't even use a washcloth by himself. He needs total care. That's where it's good to be able to afford to hire the people you want, to be here when you want them, for as long as you want them. These agencies send in people who don't expect to have to do much. The main reason I have them here is to act as sitters, so I can leave the apartment to go to the store and do other errands. While I do that, they mainly sit and watch TV with my bf. Seldom are these attendants "self-starters." I have to specify what they are to do each time each one of them comes. I have to say, "When the dishes in the drying rack are dry, please put them away." I have to specify exactly what to offer my guy to eat, or they'll just give him jello. And I better have the food cooked and ready to just be heated up in the microwave. I'ld faint from shock, if one of them offered to make a hamburger.

Well. this is getting to be a whine . . . but I'll go on. They love to use the microwave because having to wash a pot is such a burden. Who doesn't know that you can't heat up soup in a styrofoam bowl? Somehow I doubt they do stuff like that in their own kitchens when they are at home. BTW, I do keep just about every size and type of paper and plastic disposable item that you could imagine. Once in a while, something runs out.

My bf is part of the problem. He'll tell the attendant that he's not hungry and doesn't want them to make him anything. Two minutes after the attendant leaves, he'll say to me, "What do we got around here to eat?" or "Take me to the bathroom."

I could put up with a lot of this, except now I'm waking up every morning with serious pain. I have to lighten the load on me, but don't want to settle for things being done half-arsed. I guess I'm not good at delegating.