Being organised

I often feel very unorganised but the reality is that you need to be super organised if you are a caregiver. Your day revolves around everyone else-

George has a caregiver to shower him each morning. This is about 9 am on Monday/Tuesday and Friday, on Wednesday and Thursday it is 8 am and during the weekend it is 10 am. Caregivers are often up to an hour late. You need to have everything ready for them, the catheter emptied and to be there in case they need something during this time.

His night caregiver arrives at 6.30 pm during the week and 7 pm on weekends. This means that he needs dinner before then and his catheter emptied as well as everything organised.

The health nurse comes on Monday to change the catheter bag, this can be at any time.... The things need to be ready for her (I keep all this stuff in a storage box).

Each of the caregivers has their own way of doing things and so you need to cater for these. I find that each thing he does during the day means that I have to have out the clothes/shoes that others find suitable for whatever it is. I must write all this down as I keep all this information in my head and so no one else can do it - really there is no one else who is going to so I guess it doesn't really matter that much. However carers do need to realise just how much time and effort that they need to put in to ensure all these things are organised.