Where to start? Being a care-taker goes far beyond dealing with the elderly. It’s about the agencies that can take a few pounds out of one’s hide.

The one person who was kind and pleasant, the case manager, who we had for a few months, left. She said she was leaving me in “good hands.” Good hands that could knock the crap out of me. Victoria. Who would think such a regal name would be attached to such a person?

She was supposed to put in a request for another hour of an aide for my mother; as of now, the money for that hour  is coming out of my mother’s pocket and it adds up, quickly. I was away on vacation and Victoria left a message. I called back. She called back. We kept missing each other. I called again this morning. The woman had no idea why I was calling.

“Because you called me,” I said, and, “I was away.”

The conversation broke down soon after that; it was because of me, my fault. I did a great job making this woman feel angry, and defensive, yes. very defensive. It has taken me a lifetime to make this call. I had become my mother in the early 1960s after I was religiously harassed by a bunch of kids from a nearby parochial school; she called the Immaculate Conception Church on East 14th Street and First Avenue, demanded to speak to Father McCabe, told him to teach his students TOLERANCE. Then she slammed down the phone.

When a person works for an agency, that person is bound by the rules and regulations of a higher order. Victoria is the state’s puppet. Oh yes, she tried to offer me solutions for my mother’s need for help during the dinner hour. Oh, she didn’t know she can’t cut her food, can’t warm it up. And after that, didn’t want to hear it. Her answer was that I could be there during meal time. Hence, I should be the aide.

She didn’t want to hear that my mother can’t clean up. She didn’t want to know that part of this extra hour I was asking for was partly used to help my mother get ready for bed. I had recently faxed over the last medical report indicating that my mother had lost weight, that her medical condition had therefore changed. Nope, no need. This organization wasn’t gonna give. So why don’t I just buy her soft food she can eat, she wants to know. I am beginning to lose it with retorts about how the food is part of her close to $3,000 rent.

Victoria’s answers were matched and raised by my answers and as I upped the ante I could feel like I was was going to cry. I swallowed it.

“I am here to help your mother. I can’t listen to your family health issues.”

And more dissolution …

“You can’t talk to me like that.” OK, that’s a good one. NO ONE has ever said that to me before, so, I must have been doing a good job! I said, “Look, if I put my mother into a nursing home (which would be the end of her life as she would never consent) it would cost the state about $30,000 a month. Is THAT what is better? You are saying that one more hour of help, to keep her needs met and to maintain her safety, is too much?

She hates me now and is getting huffy. She’s telling me that is a family decision she can’t help me with, blah blah, and I am saying that this is just something to think about, that I am yelling to her not at her, that I am beyond frustration.

“You can’t talk to me like that.” Why? because I am not one of her clients who cedes to her word. Why? because I am real, articulate and beyond her rules.

My mother’s life is controlled by the state for eight hours a day. The state is the wall protected by Victoria and others like her. It’s how she makes her living, deflecting, defending. “We are not going to pay for an hour of help for your mother’s aide to go down and correct a dinner order.” There you have it. Strict and surly. Rules. The issue is partly that the building is not living up to its agreement to deliver what my mother orders, hence she needs the help of an aide to correct it. That is not in the regulations.

My feeling: This is elder abuse. I wish I had a good lawyer. (Of course when I told her I was going to get a lawyer, she said “go ahead.”)

Finally: “I understand your frustration, ” she said, like she read it off a teleprompter.

I thought to myself: “No, you don’t. And that’s just the trouble.” Words and words and more empty words.

So, I left the conversation, quiet, calm (externally), and sweetly wished Victoria a very nice day. That we would speak again another time. When I clicked off, I hoped, beyond reason, that something, just one small thing I said missed her deflection and broke through her wall, and shot her right in the heart.

This series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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