At Every Age

Posted on by Astrid

There’s so much I want to write about, but I can’t get myself to sit down and actually write. Well, sitting down is not the problem, as I’m probably still a pretty sedentary person, but actually writing is.

Today, I”m joining in with Finish the Sentence Friday (#FtSF). This week, the prompt is to write about your (or your child’s or whoever’s) favorite age.

I used to think being younger was better. I don’t really know why. Maybe I was conscious at an early age of the fact that life is finite, so growing up meant getting closer to death. I also thought that growing up meant an increase in responsibility, which scared me from an early age on. After all, I knew from as young as age nine on that I was supposed to leave the house and go to university by eighteen. That’s a huge burden of awareness to carry as a child that young.

Now I think being at every age has its beauty. I do worry that I’m declining in health already, and this is where the sitting down comes in. I really need to get more active, because I know that at every age, you can do something to improve your health and wellbeing.

I also think that, at every age, you can retain or regain some level of childlike wonder. We see this in the alters, who each represent a particular stage in development. Some are grown-up for their age, like Jace, the 9-year-old who was told about going to university and leaving the house. Others are more childlike, like Milou, who is 8-years-old and very playful. We also have an adult, Marieke, who, though she’s 32, enjoys sensory learning and play.

In my fellow clients at day activities, I also see the beauty in every age. They are intellectually disabled, most with a so-called “mental age” under six. Now the concept of “mental age” is highly ableist. However, learning about normal child development can teach us some interesting things about myself and others with developmental disabilities anyway. I was intrigued to read about emotional development as it pertains to people with mild intellectual disability and as it pertains to me in some way too. The consultant psychologist assigned to my case in my care-finding process, said I function emotionally at a 16-month-old level. This explains a lot of why I act the way I do. Interestingly though, we don’t have an alter who identifies with this age.

In short, I think every age and stage in development has its beautiful sides and its ugly sides. Childhood means your parents still have a lot of control over you, but it means you have relatively few responsibilities. Adolescence and young adulthood come with increased responsibility and freedom. I don’t know yet what middle age or old age will bring, but I’m confident I’ll find the beauty in it.

Progress in Finding Long-Term Care

Posted on by Astrid

It’s been exactly six weeks since I got approved for long-term care, so that we could finally start finding me a supported housing facility. Things are moving slowly but steadily. Today, let me share how we’re doing.

Immediately after we heard I was approved for long-term care funding, my support coordinator contacted the care consultant for my current care agency. She made sure to get the paperwork in order so that, while we’re waiting for supported housing, I can retain my current support. After all, community support through the local authority was immediately stopped. My support coordinator also contacted the care consultant for the living facility in Raalte, which is with my current care agency too.

When it turned out the process with that living facility would be slow-moving, I proposed to contact the two blindness agencies to explore the possibility of my living there. One of them responded immediately with an appointment for an intake interview. This is, unfortunately, the one with the facilities in the far north and south and west of the country. Of course, we are talking the Netherlands, not America. However, my husband isn’t happy to travel up to two hours each week to visit me. We agreed on a maximum distance of one hour. This agency has nothing within an hour’s driving distance. We did however request that they help us by recommending accommodations a future living facility could make for my blindness. They will come by to observe me at day activities next week.

The other blindness agency has my file, but they haven’t yet scheduled an appointment to meet me.

I went to have a look at the facility in Raalte last week. It was great. The staff/client ratio is 1:6 to even at times 1:4 during the day and there is an awake night staff. They also have tons of sensory supplies, including a sensory room, rocking lounger and a bathroom with a tub. I will hear more about whether the psychologist and physician for this facility find me a good fit soon.

Then today I heard about another facility. It is with a countrywide Christian care agency. It is in the city of Ede, which is about a 45-minute drive from my current home. The facility primarily serves elderly people with intellectual disabilities. I don’t know whether that would be a problem. It might be, as the other clients are probably a lot less mobile than I am. Clients only have a bedroom to themselves, but I don’t mind. The care consultant would send my file to the psychologist for this facility too and then I may come for a tour.

It all makes me feel a bit confused but overall excited too. I mean, I still feel off applying to live in intensive support living facilities, being that I now live semi-independently. Of course, my husband does all of the housework, but still. It’s hard to believe that people suddenly aren’t rejecting me, saying I misuse care and leaving me to my own resources.

Things I Do at Day Activities

Posted on by Astrid

This is my third attempt at writing a blog post for today. I started writing a random ramble, then started sharing ways to relax. While writing about that, I noticed I was explaining all about the snoezelen® room at day activities. I then wanted to write more about things I do at day activities. So here goes.

Usually, I start the day with a cup of coffee. The staff drink coffee in the central area of the day center before the clients arrive, and since I usually arrive early, they offer me a cup too.

Then, when I go to my group’s room, the other clients arrive and the staff help them unzip their coats. They also read the other clients’ diary, in which their home staff write about them.

I usually do a table-based activity first. This involves sorting tasks, construction play, etc. I particularly enjoy shape-sorting activities.

At 9:30, the second staff for the day comes and we drink coffee. Then, we each go to the bathroom. After that, there are set activities for most mornings. On Monday, I go for a long walk with another group. At my group, the other clients play some games and do other table-based activities. They go for a short walk when the other group returns.

On Tuesday, I go swimming every other week. The day center’s people have the pool to themselves then and most clients have an assigned volunteer or staff to help them. The other week, a volunteer comes to our group and we run some errands.

On Wednesday, we have a cooking activity. For this, another volunteer comes. We generally do some really simple cooking. Since it’s a busy day, the staff really do most of the work. I feel sad that they don’t really involve us much. Of course, watching is cool too.

On Friday, we go to the marketplace. Each of us brings some money and we buy something that everyone likes. Sometimes, it’s fish, while other times it’s a bread roll, fruit or salad.

On each of these activities, the staff can’t take all of us. As such, we take turns going with one staff to do the activity, while the rest do table-based activities with the other staff.

Some people also love the snoezelen® or sensory room. I for one do. The sensory room has a water bed, but also a bubble unit, which is a water-filled unit which makes bubbly noises and has floaty objects in it that you can look at. There are also several tactile boards with all kinds of textures on it that you can explore.

Most people also love listening to music. On Wednesday afternoon, a music therapist comes to our group. I only attended this once, as I normally have the afternoon off on Wednesday, but I love it. The group also owns several tablets, a CD player and a TV to listen to music on or watch videos on.

I currently go to day activities two afternoons: Tuesday and Friday. On Tuesday, we have no set activity for the afternoon. This can get a bit boring, as staff usually spent most of the time writing in people’s diaries and doing administrative tasks. On Friday, I and two other clients go horseback riding with one staff.

At 2:30PM, we have a cup of coffee again, After that, most people hang out some and are getting ready for the bus home, even though we won’t be picked up till four o’clock. On Friday though, we have a dance at another group which everyone from the entire center is invited to.

There are four groups at the day center. My group is for the most severely intellectually disabled people. Another is for the elderly. Then there’s one for people with autism and others who need a lot of structure. This is the group who go for the long walk on Monday. The last group is for relatively capable people. They do kitchen-based tasks like loading the dishwasher. They also do creative activities.

Like I said, I’m in the group for severely intellectually disabled people, even though I’m not intellectually disabled. The reason is I need a lot of support and no pressure to achieve. I can visit other groups if I want to though.

Long-Term Care Assessment

Posted on by Astrid

I’ve been wanting to write much more lately, but somehow, I can’t get myself to actually sit down and write. I remember originally posting twice a day almost everyday when I started this blog, and now I’m barely writing twice a week.

I still need to update you all on the meeting with the long-term care funding person. She wasn’t the physician but the one actually making the decision on funding. The physician may still need to contact my psychiatrist in order to advise this person on funding.

She asked a lot about my level of independence in various situations. Like, she asked whether I can cook or clean the house. I was expecting her to ask about much more basic self-care skills like showering. She did ask about those too. I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or bad that she didn’t go into that much detail about my basic self-care. I mean, those are things I at least try to do myself, even though I fail miserably at them. I thought it should be obvious that I can’t cook or clean the house.

The funding person asked multiple times whether I’d had independence training. I couldn’t go into too much detail about that, but I did make it clear that I got tons of it. I also think I explained that the skills didn’t generalize to a new situation, such as living independently.

The funding person said she may want me to get some type of test for emotional development. There is a questionnaire called SEO-R that I think support staff or others involved with the client fill out to determine at what level a client is emotionally. I googled the descriptions of the different developmental stages. In some respects, I would really be like a 6-month-old, while in others, I’m closer to 7 years. I didn’t recognize myself in the most advanced stage, which corresponds to children age 7 to 12. There is probably a stage for adolescents too, but this scale was originally intended for people with mild intellectual disability, who by definition don’t reach this stage. I know the whole concept of mental or emotional age is ableist, but as long as it’s not used to actually infantilize clients, I think there is some use to it.

The intent of this scale being administered in my case is to maybe qualify me for an intellectual disability care profile. The funding person wasn’t impressed with my IQ anyway. I mean, it was measured as being 154 some twenty years ago, but was measured as at least 35 points lower in 2017 and with a ton of discrepancies. Like, I scored high on calculus, but slightly below average on comprehension. Besides, I didn’t say this, but only the verbal part of the IQ test could be administered because of my blindness. I liked it that this person didn’t see me as some sort of genius.

At the end, my support coordinator tried to explain what we’re going to do with the funding if we get it. She explained about the living facility we visited last week. I got a little unquiet at this point, so the funding person offered to talk to my support coordinator on the phone later. She never did. I don’t know whether that’s a bad thing or not.

I’ve been really stressed out these past few days. I dream almost every night about possible outcomes of this assessment. Like, will I get funding based on blindness or intellectual disability? Or will the funding people decide mental illness is my primary disability and deny me funding because I need treatment for that first? And if I get funding, will I get into the place I visited last week? I hope I will, but I’m not getting my hopes up too high yet.

Now my support coordinator is on vacation and won’t be back till the 27th. I think the funding decision has to be made by then. My support coordinator asked me to text her when I heard about the decision, so that she can bring cake if I get approved. Again, not getting my hopes up.

Starting My Journey Towards (Hopefully) Going Into Long-Term Care

Posted on by Astrid

Last Sunday, my husband asked me whether I had any interesting events this week. I said no, I would just go to day activities and that’s it. Last week, the consultant psychologist on my case called the long-term care funding agency to ask how far they are with processing my application. It’d been sitting with them since Dec 20 and they formally need to finish the process within six to eight weeks. They said it’s on the roll, but that they’d been busy because of the holidays.

Last Thursday, my support coordinator asked whether I wanted to start looking at group homes now while we’re waiting for the funding to hopefully be approved. She had a particular group home in mind which has had an available room for months. I said okay.

She called the group home’s manager and was told I’m welcome to take a tour but to contact the home’s coordinator. Well, to make a long story short, I was invited to the tour yesterday.

This is a home for people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. The manager stressed that the current residents all function at a mental age of six months or so. Now I find the whole concept of mental age confusing, probably because I myself function much higher intellectually than emotionally. I mean, obviously I assumed these people can’t talk, but well. I don’t mind.

I drove by paratransit taxi to the home yesterday. It is in a city about 30 minutes from my home. I was told to ring the doorbell if I could find it and else to wait for my support coordinator to arrive. From the need to ring the doorbell, I assumed it’s a locked home. It is. I had already read up on it though and had read that the home has a fenced yard. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have liked a locked place. Like, there’s one my support coordinator has mentioned too in the city my day activities is in too, but that’s on the third floor of a nursing home building. I’d feel like I was in a prison then.

I asked the home’s coordinator why this is a locked home, since I assumed all residents are in wheelchairs. Turns out some can walk and may elope. So do I when in a meltdown.

We started the tour in one of the two living rooms. It had a lovely sensory atmosphere. The coordinator asked, since I arrived shortly past noon, whether I’d had lunch. I hadn’t, so she offered me a slice of bread. I liked that.

Once my support coordinator arrived, we talked about my care needs. I function emotionally at a really low level, which is why my support coordinator had believed this place might be for me. The home’s coordinator understood and liked the opportunity to get to know me.

In the home, you have your own bedroom. You share the bathroom with one other resident. Since most clients use diapers, not all bathrooms have a toilet, but the one adjacent to the available room does. Then there’s a large sensory bathroom with a tub. I loved it. They also have sensory materials to use in the living room or an individual resident’s room.

I didn’t get to tour the yard, but was told there are lots of swings in it, including a cocoon swing like the one I love at day activities. They also have one they can use indoors in the living room.

As for the rules, there are no strict visiting hours. Family are actively involved in the residents’ life. They also have volunteers who go for walks with the residents almost each evening. Sometimes, volunteers cook for the residents. When they don’t, the residents get readymade meals like the ones I got in the mental institution. Once a week, a music therapist comes to the home. It’s a facility which offers treatment, so you get the opportunity for physical, occupational or speech therapy if needed. There’s also an intellectual disability physician and a psychologist involved.

During the night, a staff sleeps in an upstairs room. All residents’ bedrooms are downstairs and there’s no need to go upstairs to find the night staff. Rather, they use technology to listen for suspicious noises in the bedrooms, but the coordinator did say this could be turned off in my bedroom if I were able to phone the night staff myself.

If I get funding for long-term care, it needs to be tweaked somehow if I want to live at this place, because my funding would be based on blindness and this is an intellectual disability facility. Then, the manager, physician, psychologist and all need to agree that I’m the right fit. This includes a risk assessment. The coordinator says this is in case of things like severe epilepsy, but my husband told me to mention elopement.

Of course, I feel internally conflicted as to whether I want this to work out. I’m excited about the facility itself, but still feel like I shouldn’t need this much care. I’m afraid the funding authority is going to agree here.

Once I’d returned home, my support coordinator called me. She had heard from the funding authority physician. The consultant psychologist had already explained my needs, but she wants to see me anyway. That appt is going to be tomorrow at 10AM. I assume this is to validate I in fact have the needs the application says I do. Then, the physician will write a report for the funding decision-maker, I guess.

My support coordinator is going on vacation on Feb 7 and won’t be back till the 25th. She said though that, if my funding gets approved while she’s on vacation and I want to start the process of applying at this living facility, I can do so with the care consultant and my support worker.

PoCoLo

Tuesday Ramble

Posted on by Astrid

I don’t really know what to feel. Today was, well, chaotic. It started out with me getting up at 7:10AM as usual, still tired as usual. My energy level usually rises during the day, but being on high doses of psychotropics still means I’m at least somewhat tired all the time.

At day activities, everyhing went okay. I did some table-based activities and went for a walk with one of the staff trying to learn the route around the building. Meanwhle, a lot was on my mind. Yesterday, the staff had been telling the new intern how one of the clients acquired his cognitive disability. This was such a sad tale. I mean, yes, it may not be ideal to be born with a severe intellectual disability, but at least then you don’t know better. This man, the staff said, probably doesn’t realize much of what his life was like before his brain injury.

Still, it made me sad. I, after all, do know about my life before my extreme autistic burn-out in 2007. I could reason that, since high school was hard for me too, I should be happy I no longer experience that level of pressure. And I am. But that part of me, the would-be-university-professor, is still there.

After lunch, I went home. I wasn’t even home for ten minutes when we had a massive power outage. I didn’t discover it at first, only noticing my Internet connection had gone. Then, I discovered that my computer was running on battery power, so I went to check the rest of the house to see if we still had power anywhere. That’s hard, being blind with light perception, as I’m not sure I trust my vision enough to check the lights but I tried to anyway., I eventually went to check some other electronic devices throughout the house. Then, I called my mother-in-law and texted my husband. My mother-in-law texted back that she couldn’t find any news about a power outage, but my husband called back to let me know the whole village was out of power. Later, we joked that I had somehow caused the power outage.

My mother-in-law came to pick me up, so that while at my in-laws’ home I could at least do something on the computer. Which reminds me of how dependent on electronics I am, especially when alone. Like, I hardly ever touch my phone while at day activities, but at home, practically the only thing I do involves my computer or phone.

In the evening, my father called me by accident. He never calls me and even when my paternal grandma was dying, all I got was a text message from my mother. As such, I immediately panicked, because why in the world would he suddenly want to call me? As it turned out, it was nothing.

Now I’m supposed to feel good, or at least okay, but I don’t. Oh well. No time for processing, as I’m off to bed in about fifteen minutes.

Some Kind Words Meant the Best Part of My Day

Posted on by Astrid

Boy, am I feeling awful right now. I ate a whole bag of sugar-free candies (a small bag, but still) and now I’m having the worst bowel cramps in the history of this body. A part of me is still not convinced that I should never buy these candies again, as this part believes with their laxative effect, I’ll actually lose weight while indulging into my sweet tooth, so a double win. I have already banned myself from buying candy containing sugar, as that’d mean I’d eat a whole (usually much larger) bag too and I’d have the added drawback of it containing like 1500 calories. My goal is to be healthy though, not skinny and awful-feeling. That same part of me disagrees, but well.

To cheer myself up and to find inspiration to write a post for today, I looked at some question of the day posts on other blogs. On A Writer’s Life, last Monday, the author asked a question that could fulfill both these purposes. They asked about the best part of our day.

I had a pretty boring day today. I didn’t do much that was truly exciting. That is, I exercised on the elliptical for the first day in a while, but that’s while I was already suffering from the aforementioned bowel cramps. At day activities, I did a few things I enjoyed, but nothing that stood out majorly.

However, some kind words from my day activities staff did stand out. Yesterday, I had been taken home by taxi as usual. The drivers know the day activities in this area well as they regularly drive clients there. As such, they know that my group is for pretty severely intellectually disabled people. The driver who drove me home yesterday asked what I, being of at least average intelligence, do at that group. I did go into an explanation, which I later felt maybe I shouldn’t have. I mean, she’s just a driver, not one of my staff.

I also worried that my real staff would soon enoug find out that I’m too good for that group too. So today I asked one of the staff at my group. She said: “Because you can talk so well, people may get that impression, but we know better.” It didn’t sound like it was a blow to my self-esteem at all. She didn’t mean it to highlight my social and emotional difficulties, which are the reason I’m at this group. She just said that they’ve gotten to know me well and we’ve together decided that this is the right froup for me. Phew, was I relieved.

Last Week at Current Day Activities

Posted on by Astrid

Today is a good day so far. I’m slightly less energetic and motivated than I was over the week-end, but I wouldn’t say I’m depressed either. It feels a little strange having started my last week at my curren day activities. Next week, I start at a new place, thankfully with the same care organization.

I started at my current day activities over a year ago fresh out of the mental institution. I didn’t know it back then, but the manager had gotten the impression that it was just an emergency placement, so I wouldn’t be there long-term. It’s a place for people with intellectual disabilities, which I don’t have. As such, I assume part of the reason I was eventually asked to find another place, is that they need my spot for someone who does have an intellectual disability. The staff don’t say so of course. They say it’s better for me to find another place. I hope that my new place will
prove to be better indeed.

The new place is also for people with intellectual disabilities. They are mostly severely intellectually disabled people at the gorup I will be attending, but they are at least partly capable of their own personal care. On the group I go to now, the clients are all profoundly intellectually disabled and need considerable help with their personal care. Two of my fellow clients need one-on-one support a lot of the time.

Why, you may ask, did I end up in this group? Well, I am not intellectually disabled, but the care approach to developmental disabilities suits me much better than the one for mental illness. I started day activities last year at a group for relatively capable people with mild intellectual disabilities. They do industrial activities there. This definitely wasn’t my type of activity. Also, the constant chatter that I couldn’t make sense of, was overloading me. So I often retreated into the sensory room. I prefer sensory activities to industrial-type work anyway. The center psychologist was consulted because my behavior was getting out of hand at the industrial group and she recommended I be transferred to the sensory group, which is the one I attend now.

There, I did well for about six months. Then, my behavior spiraled out of control again when several new clients joined my group and as a result there were lots of changes. After an incident in which I self-harmed, the manager decided I’d need to leave this place. Thankfully, he gave me time to find another place. The new place is with the same care organization but in a different town.

At the new place, the other clients are slightly more independent than at my current place. Also, the staff are more used to dealing with challenging behavior. It is pretty crowded and noisy, but when I’m overloaded, I’m allowed to retreat into the sensory room. I spent a few days at the new place to see if I’d like it and I did. As such, they’re more prepared than my old place. After all, the staff there only got a bit of information about me from my institution psychologist, most of which I reckon was incorrect. After all, said psychologist felt I’m dependent rather than autistic and as a result exaggerate my sensory issues in order to elicit care. Well, I’m not.