The New Normal

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KayTheCurler said:
Part of the New Normal at our house is needing at least a whole day to recover from a trip to the city.

Went to the long awaited appointment with CNIB. Discovered that it was actually with Vision Loss Rehab, which 'partners' with them. The lady claimed that CNIB do all the 'social' things and they do the accessibility things. I pointed out that CNIB hadn't let people know about the event in Prince Albert and that they have a website and FB page that are almost useless and incredibly frustrating to use. I suggested advertising for a volunteer to redo those things if their budget can't stretch to that !

I came home with a couple of basic magnifiers, a talking clock and a free gift of a reflective cane for night use.

At the moment it feels like it wasn't worth the exhaustion we are feeling today.

Yeah - tired old f**ts got snippy and out of sorts sometimes! They even whinge. Amazing.
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That sounds disappointing. I suppose services are only as good as the person providing them. Many organizations are having trouble finding volunteers. I keep telling my Red Cross office the countdown is on (to my retirement) but it is still going to be three years and two months.
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
That sounds disappointing. I suppose services are only as good as the person providing them. Many organizations are having trouble finding volunteers. I keep telling my Red Cross office the countdown is on (to my retirement) but it is still going to be three years and two months.
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Good idea to be thinking ahead to retirement. In OT school we learned that one should have "retirement goals". :D

I tried volunteering at the Toronto Zoo when I retired but it didn't stick. It.might have been too soon.
 
Northwind said:
Whinge is such a great word. Whinge on!
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Mortal folk, often, don't have a clue about such words! Understanding a great deal is exceptional ... out of here! Imagine something beyond norm ...

Is understanding a goal or a failure of vast wills? It incarnates as Daniel Goleman's Emotional-Intelligence ... especially when intelligence is prodigal (waste) ... is there a semi tight closure for the topical item? By the Skin of a Lamb ... Ba Humbug ... said the rich man ... yet how many followed his rule of brutality? Something of depth to ponder as base ... Flat Line?
 
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Maybe the fault is mine around the low vision appointment.? The things on offer were things we had already dealt with other than good quality magnification. I have already done most of the things they suggested to make life easier and safer. I showed up with a list of my difficult activities, mostly around social life and community access. No real answers I could use. I was hoping for practical suggestions about lighting for challenging tasks and was told to check for suitable lights at stores and online.

Not a major horror story and today someone is coming to clean the house. Tomorrow my Alberta family arrive!! Saturday there is a meal planned for twenty at a local venue. Kids, partners, grands, partners, ggrands. The meal is being catered by a local woman who started a business to fill a need locally. She only makes basic, everyday style foods. that almost everyone likes. She also makes the well received Meals on Wheels.
 
@KayTheCurler
My experience with diabetes. I sometimes underestimate how much I actually know. I don't know what the professionals in vision impairment are like, but in the world of diabetes we are often treated like children. Not always but it certainly happens
 
I confess to feeling a bit annoyed about driving for four hours for 'no brainer' advice. Do they really think I need to be told that it is helpful to use a black felt tip marker instead of a fine ball point pen to make it easier to read? Are most of their clients to unobservant to notice that it helps to have plenty of light when doing things? Mutter, mutter. So much time and money for little improvement in my circumstances.
 
Well I have had similar experiences with diabetes educators. Fortunately in my case they are much more conveniently located. But I hear you. Driving four hours for common sense advice would make me livid.

But to be fair to these people, not everyone possesses common sense. A sad truth.
 
KayTheCurler said:
I confess to feeling a bit annoyed about driving for four hours for 'no brainer' advice. Do they really think I need to be told that it is helpful to use a black felt tip marker instead of a fine ball point pen to make it easier to read? Are most of their clients to unobservant to notice that it helps to have plenty of light when doing things? Mutter, mutter. So much time and money for little improvement in my circumstances.
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I am sorry that your appointment was disappointing. I would have hoped they could have shown you lots of gadgets and apps- and have more concrete advice which lights work best.
But, again, it needs to be a person that likes to learn from their clients. In my own practice, I like to forward tricks from one patient to the next. My latest learning experience was a patient who showed me the trick to use his cane upside down, hooking his foot into the handle, to assist his bad leg up into the bed. Brilliant. But- I wouldn’t have thought of it myself.
Now there is a lot of people who can problem solve and a few who really have no clue. And then the others who would know better but think they have to do without . Like there are the people who sit on really low furniture and have to rock to get out of it, making them almost fall, but need to be told to raise the seat with a cushion. In OT business, one always tries it out on the spot and not just tell people , so they have the experience of it being better.
 
She was a nice lady - just doing her job I suppose. Possibly experience has indicated that most people don't think about ways to cope.

Still don't understand the way the system is set up. Not fretting about it.
 
I wonder about what happens when things are at a new plateau.....but there is hope of a rise or more positive outcome. It could be financial, or maybe some new meds, or maybe a relationship shift.

Does resilience help us live in the moment?
Do we hope for the best outcome, and risk being shattered?
Do we try not to get our hopes up?

What do people think?

For me, in one scenario, I have been called "glass is half-full" because I cannot be hopeful having seen things go awry to often.

For a person close to me, they had hopes of good news today, but, didn't get it...so their life will continue to be in a less than ideal situation for another 4 weeks. Their new normal had been altered drastically a couple of months ago.
 
The other thing I've been pondering is how we adapt to a prolonged state and then our responses are learned.

A series of bad health news might mean that we anticipate bad news when we go to a doctor.

Risk of falling drives a different way to go down stairs.

Just pondering when our reasonable response due to patterns may need reconsideration. A shift to being open to possibility
 
KayTheCurler said:
She was a nice lady - just doing her job I suppose. Possibly experience has indicated that most people don't think about ways to cope.

Still don't understand the way the system is set up. Not fretting about it.
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Still, folk are not that patient about being talked down too ... but some authorities glow in that burning aura ... makes me blue how (a great deal of) authority are ignorant about the human resources under them ... a downer or just folly?

Just say something alien to an authority and observe the reaction ... the clown-scapegoat character enters the stage ... and a Lost One appears ... doesn't know what to think! So they don't ... passee? All in the travelling word ... it just goes ...
 
I often told people who spouses have died that they have the task of creating a new normal for themselves, recognizing that the death of a loved one changes our lives.. Other changes also create new normals. Our move from Calgary to eastern Ontario changed our life in several ways. Our move to the Hawkesbury area changed our life situation again. As our granddaughter ages, the relationship with her family keeps changing with it becoming more difficult for us to get together. Between Forest School and dance, there are more time conflicts. For several weekends, birthday parties for her and her friends have and will take up every Saturday. The death of our dog changed our lives as well.

I try to understand what I need to do to influence the shaping of the new normals as they happen: what can I do to make this as good as possible. The fall on our steps produced a drastic new temporary normal for me.
 
jimkenney12 said:
I often told people who spouses have died that they have the task of creating a new normal for themselves, recognizing that the death of a loved one changes our lives.. Other changes also create new normals. Our move from Calgary to eastern Ontario changed our life in several ways. Our move to the Hawkesbury area changed our life situation again. As our granddaughter ages, the relationship with her family keeps changing with it becoming more difficult for us to get together. Between Forest School and dance, there are more time conflicts. For several weekends, birthday parties for her and her friends have and will take up every Saturday. The death of our dog changed our lives as well.

I try to understand what I need to do to influence the shaping of the new normals as they happen: what can I do to make this as good as possible. The fall on our steps produced a drastic new temporary normal for me.
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My Dad used to counsel people to not make any major changes after a spouse died....wait a year and grieve awhile.
 
I once heard that one should grieve a relationship a month for every year.

After I divorced my husband of 12 years, it was almost exactly a year later that I began dating the man who would be my second partner, whom I did not marry. We were together 24.5 years. I started dating my big guy about 21 months after the Hippie died.

Grieving (anything) is a wyrd and individual process.

Jim, falling is so stupid. If I could get back that microsecond that I hit the edge of my bedside rug, fell hard on hardwood floor and fractured 8 ribs? It was the most painful six months of my life.
 
BetteTheRed said:
I once heard that one should grieve a relationship a month for every year.

After I divorced my husband of 12 years, it was almost exactly a year later that I began dating the man who would be my second partner, whom I did not marry. We were together 24.5 years. I started dating my big guy about 21 months after the Hippie died.

Grieving (anything) is a wyrd and individual process.

Jim, falling is so stupid. If I could get back that microsecond that I hit the edge of my bedside rug, fell hard on hardwood floor and fractured 8 ribs? It was the most painful six months of my life.
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It is amazing how little time is needed to fall and be seriously hurt. One day, while supervising the bus area at school, I slipped sideways on ice and hit the pile of snow and ice with the side of my chest. It took over a month of physiotherapy to ease the pain in my ribs. It took close to a year of chiropractic sessions a few years later to straighten my spine which were pushed out of shape by the ribs. Healing from my crash playing racquetball with B went better. Fortunately, the meds I am on now are keeping my pain low. B is getting up early tomorrow morning to chauffeur me to the two services I will lead. I could drive but not allowed because of the narcotic I am taking.

I suspect my reflexes are slower than they used to be.
 
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